From: drew@romeo.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) Subject: Re: Linux and Reliability Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 14:51:44 GMT
In article <CBCyLy.4LB@vti.com> johnw@vti.com (John Wiegley) writes:
>This may be like stepping into the lion's den, but my concerns are real.
>
>I'm going to be starting a project within my religious community (the
>Baha'i Faith) distributing turn-key UUCP WAN servers. The project may
>even extend beyond my target community.
>
>The cheapest solution is to go with an i386, Linux, Smail, and Taylor
>UUPC. Smail and Taylor I'm sold on. Linux and Intel I'm not.
>
>My main question is one of reliability. What have others experienced
>using Linux? pl9-10? What I need is a system that I can plug in
>somewhere (like Africa), and never have to worry about again -- within
>marginal limits. However, kernal panics and unrecoverable errors are
>not acceptable.
I've used Linux since .10, and haven't had a kernel panic not
related to my device driver development in the last year or so.
If you stay away from the TCP/IP code, don't get into the
ALPHA device drivers, and give new releases a one or two
week "cooling off period" for bugs to surface, you'll be
fine.
>
>The UUCP WAN will be handled by a tie-between of Linux and a UUCP client
>package (using Pegasus and UUPC/Extended) that I've been working on for
>about 10 months. The aim of the project is: extreme ease of use, and
>_rock_solid_ reliability.
>What do others think? Is Linux still a few months off from being
>totally dependable?
With no TCP/IP network, and proven device drivers, you'll be
fine. If you need stable TCP/IP networking, wait.
-- Boycott USL/Novell for their absurd anti-BSDI lawsuit. | Condemn Colorado for Amendment Two. | Drew Eckhardt Use Linux, the fast, flexible, and free 386 unix | drew@cs.Colorado.EDU Will administer Unix for food |