[wellylug] Linux satisfied customers required

[Gerald Roehrbein]

Hello,


in the past I've planed for a large German ISP (we call it the large
magenta colored company) a lot of Linux based WebSites for a large
computer center with roundabout 2000 servers. Most of the servers are
based upon Solaris and SUN hardware. Most of the Linux systems we have
installed uses SuSE Linux.

I've played a lot with different Linux distros like SuSE, Caldera (I
started with Caldera in the beginning of the nineties ), RedHat (I've
just only one year commercial experience with RHEL) and Debian.

My favorite distribution is SuSE. Why?
The major benefit of SuSE is that it is very easy to handle.
Installation, reconfiguration, setup of new hardware is just very well
done by the SuSE developers. This is not patriotism!  Today SuSE is part
of Novell. It's really the best Linux distribution I've seen. 

RedHat is an excellent alternative  but for example you can use the
wonderful disk druid only during installation. Changing configuration is
just not as easy as compared with SuSE. 

Using the official kernel source from kernel.org  and building your own
kernel is not same as using SuSE. SuSE is following the standard. All
pathes are just as described in the official documentation. If using
RedHat you have to search a lot if you want to build your own kernel.


Another point I've figured out is the management of software in the
different runlevels. In a Solaris or SuSE environment a user have to add
a start or kill script in the rc directory of the runlevel and it works!
If using RedHat a user have to use "chkconfig" to install a start or
kill script. In my opinion RedHat is really a proprietary Linux. Very
special.

These are only two examples to show that RedHat is just something we
call proprietary software. 

Nevertheless both distributions are professional distributions.

If RedHat is too expensive there are some RedHat compatible distros:
CentOS, ClarkConnect, Scientific Linux, White Box Linux, LBA and a lot
of others.


Debian is a distribution with a large number of installations in UK
(from the German perspective). The advantage is the price. Since it is
based upon UNITED LINUX (like SuSE) it's just a very good replacement
for SuSE or RedHat. We do not use it in commercial environments because
the support do not have Novell or RedHat quality. But nevertheless it's
just a very good distro with almost any useful software at it's CD's.

Since roundabout one year in all German IT newspapers I find UBUNTU
DVD's. UBUNTU look very well. I've no experience with UBUNTU in
commercial environments. In this list are a lot of KUBUNTU discussions
probably the KUBUNTI users can talk about their experience.

A lot of ideas. For short: Use a distribution which meets most of the
well known standards.

If you want to be happy with Linux my recommendation is SuSE Linux. If I
remember correctly Novell offered the first useful and affordable Linux
distribution called Caldera. 

The famous founder of Novell, Ray Noorda, died two weeks ago. Just a
remarkable man. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Noorda ). 

I drove in December 2005  from Auckland to Wellington via state highway
one. If I remember correctly I've seen between Auckland and Hamilton a
large Red White painted Novell dealer nearby an industrial area.  I know
this is far away from Wellington but for me just a few hundred
kilometers is just in the neighborhood. ;-)

So I know there are successful Novell and SuSE dealers at New Zealand.
Giving an advice to use SuSE seems not to be a bad statement for someone
asking "How to become lucky with Linux?". 

SuSE is just professional, commercial stuff. Sounds like advertising for
Novell. Hope the sysop will not ban me for this statement.

Your government seems to like Open Source too (I've just googled for
Novell and NZ).  So there must be a lot more Novell dealers at NZ. 
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/27/0041247
(I've not read everything published there.)

Okay Novell is just commercial stuff like M$. But a business man should
have working computers. Using a cheap solution can be very expensive. 

In my opinion a business man want to work at it's business and I think
he won't like to become a computer expert. Computers (especially for a
small business) must run and do their job. Silent and good for a long
period of time. 

Linus Thorvalds gave an advice in his documentation of the  kernel
sources:
If you have a running Linux just keep it running don't change it. Don't
make a kernel upgrade unless you need new functions. 

Don't install new software just for fun. If you can work with the stuff
you already have to remember:

Never change a running system!

This is one benefit of Linux. You are not under pressure always to
install and buy the newest stuff. 



kind regards
Gerald







Am Dienstag, den 17.10.2006, 12:41 +1300 schrieb Tony Wills: 
> Anyone got a list of local small business type (or local government or non 
> profit) organisations who use Linux and might be willing to discuss their 
> experiences etc of Linux with a small organisation who have never before 
> heard of Linux and are liable to 'play it safe' and go for something that 
> they've actually heard of?
> 
> (This is a Linux vs M$ SMS type thing)
> 
> Tony.
> 
> PS I found a nice corporate Windows vs Open Source document for them 
> http://www.guardiandigital.com/pfiles/GuardianDigital_Linux_vs_Windows.pdf
> 
>