On Sunday 05 December 2004 12:35 pm, matice@nic.fi wrote:

Hello,

It has been a while since ive been on these mailling lists :) now im back and once again im working with suse linux deploying it production environment.

I am a little bit worried with what possible and actual changes have been implemented on SuSE distribution after the merge with Novell.

at the momment i have a dell server 2300 (256mb/450mhz) that i want to deploy. the issue is i can not deploy before i resolve several questions. this is a an actual test run as i have several other other production servers that i will be installing and deploying soon as well.

As for the general questions, I alike to many others am eager of deploying SuSE 9.2. what worries me is now that novell is releasing SuSE Enterprise 9:

================ Matice, You'll have to first decide what type of environment you plan on using your SuSE in when deciding what SuSE best suits your needs. If you are going to use it in a server farm that will require a high level of personal support, then your best choice may be SLES 9, but if you don't need that level of support, then of course, 9.2 should fit our needs well. -------------

1- is SuSE/Novell going to deprecating the SuSE profesional distribution line? that is will 9.2 be missing installation packages, updates and maintenance alike to what its predecessing versions have experienced? this is a serious question as i will have to explain this to clients and explain the changes and how it affects the opensource position, availabity, flexibility, management and support.

============== If you are using the CDs only to install, then there are going to be some packages missing from the CDs. Over 1600+ packages in fact that are on the DVDs! If you are installing to a server, you might outfit the server with a DVD drive or copy from one of the other machines that has a DVD drive to the server to do a network install to your desires. Go to the SuSE site and investigate a bit about the level of support you get. 9.2 comes with the standard installation support and this mail list. If you want/need more, it will cost you more. SLES 9 comes with a full support package for a limited amount of machines. I forget the length of such support, 6 months, 1 year, not sure, check the SuSE site for more info. As with previous versions, I believe there is a standard 2 year life cycle, after which software update support ends. ------------

2- which do you currently recommend to deploy into production 9.1 or 9.2 and why? is one supported more than the other? is 9.1 more stable than 9.2? will 9.1 be supported along with 9.2?

=============== I don't think there is any question about which version you want, as 9.2 is very polished and well thought out. -----------------

3- i installed 9.2 on a system and was surprised to notice that i couldnt find the TRIPWIRE package in the installation! is this a deprecation of the distribution? forgotten package? or something else? =========== Again, if you installed via the CDs, then you are quite likely not going to find many things you would like or need. 1600+ between the DVD and CDs!

I have two cards that need to be integrated into my current system.

1- American Megatrends Series 428 REV-D1 , this is a SCSI raid card that came with the dell poweredge 2300 system. it would be nice to know how i can install the system using this card so i can have hardware level raid instead of software raid. why so? well software raid is still version 0.9XX and will experience changes in the comming future where currently used commands will not be supported in future kernels, this is a problem as a linux system administrator, i need to be able to work using stable tools and the ability to compile as well. so any ideas on how i can install this card with my poweredge that would be greatly appreciated!

2- since the poweredge system does not have any IDE interfaces, i naturally need to add an IDE pci card. luckily ive got an old one since who knows when that i have not used and would like to install it on this system so i can have some more drive space (with IDE, SCSI drives are expensive) the IDE card is a WINBOND W83769F. so all hints would also be appreciated as well :)

3- the Poweredge 2300 system that i am installing will be used for lightweight multiple web and mail domains. which suse version do you recomend to use at this point and why;9.1 or 9.2?

hoping to get assistfull and quick replies Regards Matice =============== Check SuSE's hardware database for some of your questions, but I don't

=========== I've got a few thoughts on this question/concern, but I'll relinquish the floor to someone more knowledgeable with the SCSI interfaces. I don't think this is/should be a concern though. ---------- think you will find there are problems with your IDE interfaces. And again, I don't think there needs to be a discussion on the version, 9.2 should fit your needs quite well or SLES 9. Depends on what level of support you need from SuSE. regards, Lee

On Sunday 05 December 2004 18:35, matice@nic.fi wrote:

As for the general questions, I alike to many others am eager of deploying SuSE 9.2. what worries me is now that novell is releasing SuSE Enterprise 9:

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Did SLES 8 do anything to the status of SuSE Pro 8.x? The two are different products, with different target markets.

1- is SuSE/Novell going to deprecating the SuSE profesional distribution line?

Not that I've heard of

that is will 9.2 be missing installation packages, updates and maintenance alike to what its predecessing versions have experienced?

Meaning? Security updates are published until the products reaches End Of Life, which so far has meant 2 years from release, or thereabouts. Version upgrades haven't been released for a published version of SuSE for as long as I've been using it. Maintenance, aside from security patches, haven't been available for free except from lists like this. For-pay support is available, to the best of my knowledge, and might even be available after official End Of Life, according to rumours I've heard

this is a serious question as i will have to explain this to clients and explain the changes and how it affects the opensource position, availabity, flexibility, management and support.

Then you really want to get the official answers from SuSE directly. I'm sure they have sales representatives that would be only too glad to answer questions like these. Lists like this will never get you the official answers. If your business relies on it, you want to get as official as possible, don't you. Anything you hear on this list, regardless of who it's from, will count for nothing more than hearsay

2- which do you currently recommend to deploy into production 9.1 or 9.2 and why? is one supported more than the other? is 9.1 more stable than 9.2? will 9.1 be supported along with 9.2?

Depends on what you're going to use it for. Whichever you go with, you don't want to deploy anything without serious local site testing anyway, right? I'm happy with both 9.2 and 9.1

3- i installed 9.2 on a system and was surprised to notice that i couldnt find the TRIPWIRE package in the installation! is this a deprecation of the distribution? forgotten package? or something else?

As was mentioned in another mail, 1621 packages are on the DVD only, not on the CDs. tripwire is one of them