On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 09:15:39AM -0700, Henry Sieff wrote: > I work with a lot of systems integrator types - they deliver finished > platforms to run apps we develop on. A lot of familiarity with Solaris and > Centos. One day, a couple of load balancers died and one of them needed a > quick solution so I tossed them my 4.6 cd and sent them a link to man for > relayd. About 20 minutes later, he had his first OpenBSD server. 3 hours > after that, load-balancers. > > The guy said it was the easiest learning curve he'd ever seen - everything > just worked, the man pages were accurate, and there were no gotchas.
I was forever thankful that at one job the network admin responsible for the PIX firewall took the PIX documentation when he left. Without that, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of reading the OpenBSD firewall documentation. > > Linux's popularity as a platform for services has nothing at all to do with > ease of use. I think you need to qualify that last statement with time frame and end goal. Unfortunately, for many of us the end goal is to get a pile of crap, as dictated by management, working well enough that we get another paycheck. Unfortunately, for many of us what management dictates is something they have heard of, has a sales dweeb that provided a good meal or golf game, and has a support contract so the blame can be passed on to those servicing the support contract. There have been periods of time where getting Linux installed and working on the newest cheaptastic hardware has been the easiest. Fortunately, for the first such period I had screwball hardware and had to go with one of the BSDs of the early 90s :-). And there was a period of time when obtaining a BSD was a nastier minefield than obtaining a Linux. And it is still the case that for running some software solutions, it's much easier to get it done on Linux. Fortunately, frequently the best solution is to not run that software :-). -- Chris Dukes
