On 8/29/06, Tito Mari Francis Escaño <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Maybe you can try the Gentoo or Slackware for really stripped down Linux installations. If you're open to trying other free OSes, how about trying out BSDs? Hope this helps.
Mission Critical -- I need it set up fast, and I need it to be administered easily. Slackware is neither and Gentoo just takes too much time to maintain. BSD's seem alright, but convincing a client that the support they will get (even if they want to pay) is nonexistent is just too hard to sell. And programming for a Free/Net/OpenBSD is just plain insane especially if you're looking at using third party libraries (of which not much are ported over to the BSD's). And the BSD kernel design is something left for me to desire -- Linux the kernel is just much better at doing things (and supporting hardware) like scheduling, security, modularity, and userland management. Maybe if there was an "enterprise grade" BSD with all the support infrastructure around it, I might consider it. I for one will use a BSD mainly for the edge network services -- because it's so minimal, and I don't want to touch it and even consider it for the core services/solutions that I/we are developing. They're great especially if you just want to do the network stuff (like DHCP, SMTP, HTTP, etc.) but anything significantly complex like a server you are writing from the ground up using third party libraries for XML parsing, for distributed computing (CORBA/RPC), for device level binding (kernel daemons, monitors, etc.), and maybe 3D graphics rendering (Maya, Blender on the Server, etc.), I won't trust the BSD's yet. I might get an xserve with Mac OSX (Mac), and that might be an excuse to use a BSD (albeit unintentionally), but what I want to get is the support so that the client doesn't get left hanging when things go wrong with the hardware/OS -- because I'd rather be doing something else and not worry about the administration and support of the infrastructure. Besides, their server boxes are way cool and the UI way funky for me to pass up -- but when it's "mission critical", I will use Linux or the enterprise Unixes. Maybe Debian doesn't have the same support infrastructure that RHEL and SuSE have, but the community around it (and the community involved in the development of the whole distribution) serve as the best support facility around. I can even recommend people here in the Philippines (QSR) who can support the Debian based installations for a fee if a client wants it that bad. Thanks for the suggestions. :) -- Dean Michael C. Berris C/C++ Software Architect Orange and Bronze Software Labs http://3w-agility.blogspot.com/ http://cplusplus-soup.blogspot.com/ Mobile: +639287291459 Email: dean [at] orangeandbronze [dot] com _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
