Re: Slightly OT: They're forcing me to install Red Hat
Hi,
On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 01:45:06PM +0200, Tomàs Núñez Lirola wrote:
> Hi
> My boss is forcing me to install Red Hat. I am the sysad, and I personally
> prefer Debian, but it don't seem to be a reason for him. He worries about
> Oracle not giving support to Debian users. But we don't have any Oracle
> server, he worries for the future.
> So, can you give me reasons to convince him to install Debian? I don't know
> Red Hat very well, because I've never felt comfortable with it (but this
> don't seem to be a reason for anyone :( ).
(note: your PGP key doesn't seem to be available from wwwkeys.pgp.net)
I've been successful in such discussions by pointing at lower estimated
support costs.
In my experience, Debian requires the least time to manage and to keep
secure of all Linux distributions, because of its security update
channel that provides backported security patches, which save you from
new upstream versions on production systems, and because of its
conservative release schedule. (Yes, people, for servers that's a win).
Running well known Unix software is also most cost effective on Debian,
because of its immense repository of well-Q&A'd software packages that
provide full dependency tracking, a uniform installation procedure, and
clean de-installation procedures.
In my perception RedHat is mainly three things: a beefed up desktop
system that can become a chaos as quickly as a Windows box if you're not
careful, a large set of valuable but cutting edge kernel and GCC patches
that mainly targetted at so-called 'enterprise machines', and a
certification platform for commercial software vendors.
Note the absense of 'good general purpose *nix server'. That's Debian's
job.
But needless to say, it depends on the task at hand which qualities
matter most.
Cheers,
Emile.
--
E-Advies - Emile van Bergen emile@e-advies.nl
tel. +31 (0)70 3906153 http://www.e-advies.nl
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