Linux Anyone?

Chuck(G) · Post by **Chuck(G)** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:18 am

I use NetBSD and FreeBSD on several boxes around here. They tend to be very stable--and NetBSD will run on almost anything.

I've got RedHat on the mail server, but I haven't updated or changed it in about 4 years. New distros are getting bloated, which wasn't the point of Linux originally.

http://www.netbsd.org
http://www.freebsd.org

I had a customer with a pile of old QIC02 tapes. The Linux driver (which hasn't been updated for several years and left in a very buggy and incomplete state) died immediately. The NetBSD just worked without so much as a peep. That sold me on NetBSD.

<img src="http://www.netbsd.org/images/NetBSD-smaller.png"><img src="http://www.freebsd.org/layout/images/beastie.png">

TubaTodd · Post by **TubaTodd** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:15 pm

I'm a Slackware man! Slackware is GREAT....IF...you know what you're doing with Linux. Ubuntu seems to be the most popular these days for those looking for a user friendly desktop oriented distro.

WoodSheddin · Post by **WoodSheddin** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:03 am

TubeNet is powered by Linux. But I have also worked with Solaris, Irix, BSD's of some flavors, OSX, and some others. I am most at ease on Linux, but am a fan of Solaris also.

Although I much prefer the stableness of UNIX over Microsoft Windows, there are just too many applications I need that aren't always available on Linux. So for a desktop I use Windows. For server stuff hands down UNIX. Windows NT does not even come close to the versatility and robustness.

SplatterTone · Post by **SplatterTone** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:03 pm

XP professional at the house. No complaints about it. But about the only two things I use a computer for at the house are web browser and Finale 2006.

I've been testing a couple of RedHat EL 4 on Dell 2850 at work running Oracle 10.2. So far it looks solid. The up2date utility (kind of like Windows Update) has worked without a problem so far. I've done backup with cpio to tape; blow the OS away; repartition the disks (0+1 RAID set); and restore the backup. Worked OK ... other than requiring a little bit of fiddling with the journaling file system (ext3) stuff. I decided the journaling wasn't worth the hassle, so changed it all to ext2. The Oracle data file system needs to be non-journaling anyway for maximum I/O speed.

The majority of our Oracle boxes at work are AIX and old legacy Alpha/Tru64.

Unix has a lot of built-in utilities the make scripting easy and powerful. You can Unix-ize Windows, but not much point in it that I can see for running a database.

pg · Post by pg » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:29 pm

Two of my favorite quotes regarding Linux/Unix are:

"Linux is only free if your time has no value"

and

" . . . I'd rather run Unix than Windows or MacOS any day, because Unix sucks less."

Both attributed to Jamie Zawinski and accurate, IMHO.

--paul;

TubaTodd · Post by **TubaTodd** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 3:07 pm

I will second the recommendation for Ubuntu. I recently installed Ubuntu on my new Toshiba laptop and it was unbelieveably easy to setup and configure. It's not perfect (don't have my 5-in-1 reader working yet) but Ubuntu has been AMAZING!