Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3100 mails)

[Allen <slackwarewolf@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

First part:

I haven't read EVER reply but this is my opinion.

On Friday 24 March 2006 6:50 am, Steve Graegert wrote:
> On 3/24/06, Matthew Stringer <qube@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Friday 24 March 2006 11:21, Steve Graegert wrote:
> > > Unless your users are responsible for their boxes you'll do much
> > > better with Solaris and/or BSD (choose your flavor).
> > >
> > >       \Steve
> >
> > Should add that we're responsible for the boxes customers don't get root
> > access.
> >
> > However our current platform runs on FreeBSD, but the problem we're
> > having there is that the hardware compatability isn't as good as Linux,
> > this is bargain basement hosting and the servers we're using are
> > essentially desktops, we find that the chipset revisions are constantly
> > changing and frequently find that BSD won't install on a new server that
> > was supposed to be identical to our current stock without manual
> > intervention. Linux suffers with this problem far less which makes
> > deployment costs lower.

Free BSD is wonderful, however as you pointed out Linux whips it's ass on 
hardware support.

> Ok, so your hardware platforms are changing constantly?  This makes
> things different.  With a free Linux distribution you're always at
> risk that support for security updates will end some day.  Usually, it
> should not be that hard to patch server systems manually (assisted by
> some sort of automation).  My recommendation in this case: Debian.
>
> 	\Steve

And mine is Open SUSE and Slackware. Slackware still gets security updates for 
like 9.1 and 10.2 is already released. The support on Slackware is good, it 
has a package manager system similar to BSD (Uses tgz and so on) and as I 
said products released over two years ago still get updates.

I'd honestly have to say Debian may not be best for this. There are just to 
many security updates. As there are in Gentoo.

Here is what I would recommend:

Set up one or two servers, and use Open SUSE on them. From what I've seen with 
you doing manual intervention with BSD, doing a custom install should be 
nothing for you. You should be able to set it up exactly how you want.

Now, after you have it set up, give it a load and see if you like it. You said 
you already know SUSE good so this is a good choice.

If SUSE works out, make it a mix of Slackware and SUSE boxes. That's what I 
have here on my home LAN, all boxes are SUSE and Slackware and some Windows, 
and some FreeBSD.

Also I might point out that you COULD use Enterprise editions. Call up Novell, 
they are nice people, and tell them your situation. Usually they allow you to 
buy ONE copy and install it on multiple servers, you'd just only be able to 
get support on one box is all. This may help you out though if you wanted the 
enterprise version and don't have the budget to pay for it on every server.

If you have any questions or want some details on how my LAN is set up feel 
free to contact me off list.

-Allen