Isen Kusima wrote:
You made the right choice. SuSE Linux rules, and will only get better. I started with Slackware in '95, and made Linux my primary operating system when I switched to SuSE in '98. I have never been happier with an operating system (not to mention the $thousands it has saved the company I work for).
Could you tell more stories about this. I want to know the acceptance of Linux in the company.
I brought Linux into our company in '97 or '98, when we upgraded a NetWare server, leaving an unused one for me to play with. I was quickly able to show that it could connect to NetWare, OS/2, Windows, and our AS/400 and share files and services with all. Although management did not immediately see the potential, I kept experimenting in my spare time. In early '99, the company was preparing to move to a new corporate headquarters and warehouse complex, and I was assigned to rewrite the interface between our domestic factory and the new warehouse. Not wanting to trust it to a Microsoft operating system while at the same time wanting to make it available to Windows users, I chose to write the application in Java, with the machines on the factory floor running Linux. The factory manager and people in the office there run Windows, and access the same Java programs from the same Linux file server (Linux users with NFS, and Windows users with Samba). The production information is stored in a Postgres database on a Linux server, and transferred to the warehouse AS/400 at shipment time using the IBM AS/400 Toolbox for Java. In addition, we have a number of barcode labeling and other utility programs written in Java which run mainly on Linux (e.g. on the warehouse floor). Java development is done using NetBeans (netbeans.org), which runs equally well on Windows and Linux, giving our developers the choice of which operating system to use. As time went on, more people learned to use Linux, so I don't have to do everything any more. Since then, we have salesman order entry site on a big Compaq SMP box running Apache and Tomcat, another running SuSE mail server, and the original Postgres and file servers have been combined on a slightly smaller Compaq that also hosts an intranet. The only crashes we have ever seen were from a) catastrophic disk failure and b) incorrect network driver installed. Current uptimes are 159 days for the web server, and 111 days for the file server (had a kernel upgrade last summer). I believe the old Postgres server's uptime was about a year when it was replaced. (I don't have permission to the mail server.) So you can imagine the cost savings: I ordered the factory and warehouse PCs from a company that would install without Windows, Postgres free, Apache free, Tomcat free, Samba free, NetBeans free, SuSE mail server very reasonable. There is still a bit of an issue because not all of our sysadmins have followed through and learned as much Linux as they should have done, but the cost savings were so obvious they couldn't have been ignored (compare MS SQL Server license costs to Postgres, for example). In other words, like in many shops, it started with a small server in the corner of the machine room, and expanded from there as it proved itself. The big selling point has been that because of the use of Java and other open protocols, it hasn't been an "either-or" decision. We like SuSE :) -- ======================================================= Glenn Holmer (gholmer@ameritech.net) ------------------------------------------------------- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. (In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.) ------------------------------------------------------- -H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", 1926 =======================================================