Conversion to Linux

[Jeffrey Watts]

I appreciate this, but one of the primary jobs of any system administrator
is to make sure the infrastructure can be easily maintained by a successor.
I'm simply not convinced that Gentoo can deliver this.

If there is an SSH vulnerability for example, Red Hat will notify me and I
can test the patch internally.  Via a very simple series of commands I can
deploy this regression tested patch across my network.  While I can imagine
my part of the puzzle being similar in difficulty to Gentoo, I fail to see
how Gentoo could possibly have the resources to internally test and vet the
changes before making them available.  Red Hat can.  Novell can.

Distributions like Gentoo simply aren't tested enough for businesses to rely
on.  I'm sure that there are plenty of anecdotal cases such as yours where a
competent sysadmin was able to make all of it work, and work well.  But most
businesses can't always count on having really good sysadmins, or can't
devote their sysadmin time to maintaining something unique.  There is a
distinct value in having a tried, true, dependable vendor that makes tested,
reliable products.

I'm sorry, but Gentoo is not appropriate for business.  There is almost
nothing about the distribution that is business-friendly - in fact I'd argue
that it is in almost every way the exact opposite of what a business would
want.  That's not a bad thing, Gentoo's a hobbyist OS.  Conversely, I
wouldn't recommend RHEL for home users, as it's not meant for hobbyists or
home desktops.  Yes, RHEL has a webbrowser and can play some games, but that
doesn't mean it's good for grandma.  For the same reason just because Gentoo
can run Apache and PostgreSQL doesn't mean it should be used on a production
server.

Jeffrey.

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 4:50 PM, David Nicol <davidnicol at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> This list does not include "vendor support."  The client for whom I
> made that call takes great
> pride in the depth and breadth of their system administration skills.
>
> I was surprised by my finding, as I am a fan of Debian, but setting up
> and maintaining in-house ebuilds
> happens to take fewer keystrokes than setting up and maintaining
> custom debs, especially when
> it comes to selecting from available updates.
>
> I do not know if the client for whom I made the
> recommendation has followed it or not.  I am curious, I would
> appreciate it if anyone on this
> list who still works there could give me an update on the progress of
> that project.
>



-- 

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
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