Your deployed linux

[happybunny]

Just curious to know:

1. How you are using linux in a production "customer" site (employer or those you support)
DNS, DHCP, FP?

2. What distro?

3. What hardware vendor?

4. What type of official vendor support you have? HP, Compaq, Dell, redhat?

I am looking for production, SUPPORTED, actual deployments. Redhat 7,8,9 don't count anymore since they are not supported from the vendor.

SUSE 8 does not count on HP hardware, since they dont support it yet.

etc, etc.

Not looking to start a fight, just looking for actual numbers to pitch to MY customer. We insist on vendor support from hardware, to distro to software support. It has been very difficult lining all those up for the right solution.

thanks
happybunny

[JThundley]

Red Hat is supported by Red Hat inc. Fedora is not officially supported by them. By the way, there's an option to create an official poll with a thread.

[happybunny]

Redhat dropped support for 7,8,9 giving it up to Fedora, right? Meaning its not officaily supported, if i'm not mistaken

RH ES 2.1 is not supported, or wont be for much longer as 3 is out. 3 is hardly supported now either in favor of 3 update 1.

Again, to clarify, i am a huge advocate of linux. We have deployed RH 8 for production dns, we have RH ES 3update1 in our lab testing Oracle apps on it. I use my own "production" mp3 server at home and I have once again put Fedora on my primary desktop.

I am curious to know how other have productionalized, WITH SUPPORT, linux.

[XiaoKJ]

a search at linux.org or distrowatch and the like will give you lots...

Actually linux distros that need support are those that are low down the learning curve... if you want a full-fledged type like for servers, you really should consider the freer ones like debian, slack or even GENTOO -- the recommended one for every use.

They are notably stabler and fail suprisingly infrequent and customisable, and are very well troubleshooted. in fact these major distros are one of the best in the field.

Nevertheless there are other distro that are slightly moderated form of these and they provide support, which the majority of the linux community does not need.

Maybe you should hire or learn to use and appreciate linux than seeking support. there are many books out there that can do everyday uses even office use. most of the time in linux is spent in X-windows and there is not much need to learn all the commands so it should be fine.

[happybunny]

I totally agree with you on the different distro's being stable and such, and maybe it is my MS thinking, but we MUST have support from our hardware vendors, and we MUST have support from our application vendors. Right?

In order to monitor and properly maintain the hardware, HP must supply us with drivers and their Insight Management tools. They only support SOME version of RH and SOME version of SUSE.

In order to get support from Oracle, they must bless the distro we use. Oracle doen't list Gentoo, or Slackware, or Debian on their website. They are also quiet specific on kernel versions as well.

Am I wrong to be thinking like this? Is linux and Opensource that different that I don't understand the support model?

I am learning linux and developing my skills for sure, and I am all for linux and what it has to offer, but I doubt my customer would be willing to roll out a distro without a support structure in place from their vendors (in this case HP/Compaq and Oracle).

To re-iterate, I am trying to understand the support structure, and how people use it here, not to bad mouth linux.

To your point of "there are many books out there"...you could honestly go to the CTO of a major corporation and say you could support their infrastucture on linux because you read a book? That is a little harsh on my part, but, is this what the Opensource support options are?

Again, not trying to start a fight. I am RH certified and am very comfortable supporting our already deployed linux. But to go "full" production I am cautious to bring vendor support into the picture as well.

[XiaoKJ]

Whoa you sound like a company technician in deep trouble...

Since you mentioned SuSE? have you tried to get its support?

For redhat, support is always there for versions like ES and more. Redhat had only discarded its free version.

For RH ES and above, you will have to pay a certain amount for the maintainence.

For more info, visit their respective websites like Redhat (http://www.redhat.com) and SuSE (http://www.suse.com) They actually have the options stated.

I congratulate you for your company's migration to linux -- in no time you will have little work to do. For the SuSE website you will have to search around before you will get it, but I already forgot how.

[Hayl]

Originally posted by happybunny
Redhat dropped support for 7,8,9 giving it up to Fedora, right? Meaning its not officaily supported, if i'm not mistaken

RH ES 2.1 is not supported, or wont be for much longer as 3 is out. 3 is hardly supported now either in favor of 3 update 1.

No, that is not entirely true. Fedora == an unsupported / free OS.

Red Hat only supports their enterprise product line now, which is targeted at Corporate use.