[Gllug] Hi!

[Hari Sekhon]

Jose Luis Martinez wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Hari Sekhon<hpsekhon at googlemail.com> wrote:
>   
>> David Damerell wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sunday, 5 Jul 2009, Nix wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> It doesn't seem to happen on this list, but I've seen, fairly
>>>> frequently, Debian-obsessed people (never or rarely Debian developers)
>>>> act exactly like that: Debian is perfect, Ubuntu is lower that the
>>>> dogs... this is plainly a silly attitude.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Straw men aside, I think the real attitude here is that Ubuntu have
>>> managed to make a mess of a lot of the things that made Debian good,
>>> and that this means it is not particularly useful. I don't think
>>> that's a particularly silly attitude.
>>>
>>>       
>> If someone were to say that Ubuntu was a Noob's distribution, I wouldn't
>> bothering correcting them for the [0-9]% exception rate.
>>
>> I am warming to Ubuntu a little after years of defiant resistance, but
>> Redhat still rules the roost and I don't see how or why any credible
>> shops would go Ubuntu. It's only little web2.0 startups without
>> significant expertise that are using it from what I can tell of the job
>> market.
>>
>> In my experience ubuntu servers actually have too many non-security
>> updates which is a mistake for a server distro as this causes alerts,
>> and wastes admin time with patching. I'm yet to hear a very experienced
>> and highly skilled person to recommend ubuntu for servers (because they
>> should know better).
>>
>>     
>
> Who is talking about servers?
>
> Ubuntu is in general better known as *desktop oriented* distro that
> just works for non technical users. I can't comment about server
> versions  because it is not what I have found in the field so far, but
> I fail to see why anybody competent enough could not administer an
> Ubuntu server successfully and securely.
>
> I myself use it at home, after having tried Fedora and Mandrake (or
> whatever it is called now) with more pain than glory, and have to say
> that I am quite pleased. I am sure that those distros and some others
> have improved and may be as good or better than Ubuntu, but there is
> an advantage to be the first to market with something that works, and
> apparently Ubuntu has filled that spot, which was sorely needed.
>
> As for servers of any kind, I will not allow automatic updates from
> the net, I don't care who provides them, patches and updates of any
> kind must  go to test servers first, then, after at least a cursory
> evaluation,  one can allow them in the servers that bring the bacon so
> to speak, so the problem you are mentioning is  not exclusive of
> Ubuntu necessarily.
>   
Ubuntu is ok for desktops, but I know Canonical are pushing to get in to 
the more lucrative server space, hence ubuntu servers are on my mind, 
perhaps that seeped out without prompt $> ...

It was a valid point though, ubuntu server edition has non-security 
updates when CentOS/Redhat for example do not, but most of us don't care 
or want non-security updates and it's generally accepted industry best 
practice to not change things without good cause so as to not introduce 
instability into systems.

If you had to go through the process of testing more patches more often 
then you might be keen on a distro that does not patch unnecessarily for 
server systems so as not to consume so much of your time (or have to 
ignore the updates which are flagged on your monitoring systems)

-h

-- 
Hari Sekhon
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harisekhon

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