[Gllug] Ubuntu and me - suggestions requested (polite ones please)

[C. Cooke]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 10:39:52AM +0000, Peter Corlett wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 09:05:55PM +0000, Jose Luis Martinez wrote:
> [...]
> > Ubuntu has still to build a reputation in the server arena, I personally
> > have not seen a big installation relying on Ubuntu. Plenty of Red Hat,
> > SuSe, Debian and even CentOS.
> 
> Ubuntu probably won't gain much traction in the server arena because Debian
> already exists and Ubuntu doesn't really bring anything new to the party.

Ubuntu brings a release schedule, a guaranteed support lifetime and
paid-for technical support.

All of these are reasons I've heard (and personally been given) as
reasons why Debian can't be put to serious server-side use. In
particular, the lack of paid-for *contractual* support will prevent most
large companies even thinking about using Debian.

Ubuntu is at present my best hope for a commercial-ready Debian-derived
server distro. I've pushed smaller companies into installing Debian, but
every larger company I've ever worked for has insisted on RHEL for its
most important systems; Centos for the rest, due to compatibility.  

> > I imagine the point of the server version is to eventually be competitive
> > on this arena, at the moment it seems that the server version may not be
> > ready for prime time. It took Red Hat ages to get there,
> 
> I'm not all that convinced Red Hat has got there yet. All of the Red Hat
> boxes I've been asked to do stuff with have turned out to be a complete
> mess. And let's not talk about their cocking things up with stuff like gcc
> 2.96 and that specially-pessimised Perl 5.8.8.

Yes, which is all part of the reason I'd like *not* to be bound to
RedHat based systems for the rest of my working life. However, what RH
do *well* is play in the corporate world. They provide the stable
backing that reassures non-techies. They provide the agreements and
contracts that allow Linux to pass due diligence. (And let's not forget
the amount of investment they put into open source projects; vastly more
than Ubuntu does (which does, of course, match their vastly higher
revenue!))

> > so it is unsurprising if Ubunut is experiencing initial problems after a
> > very successful desktop assault.
> 
> It should understand its strengths and concentrate on the desktop.
> 

If we'd followed that advice, Linux would never have made it onto the
desktop in the first place!

-- 
d=(1 0 6 0 1 0 5 5 41 5 3 12 4 5 15 1 4 -2 5 5 0 5 4 24 3 5 27 1 3 -2 1 3 6)
a=0;while :;do ((v=(c=a)+3));((x=d[d[a]]-d[d[a+1]]));d[d[a]]=$x;((a=d[d[a]]\
<0?${d[a+2]}:v));case $a in -1)read d[d[c]];a=$v;;-2)echo ${d[d[c+1]]};a=$v\
;;0)exit;;esac;done 2>&- # Charles Cooke, Sysadmin.  
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