Re: debate over Linux and Solaris

At Plymouth State, we've been using FreeBSD as our primary OS for nearly
four years and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. We
haven't run into any real bugs like Linux users seem to encounter, but
it has most of the advantages of Linux that Dan mentioned. We run it on
a number of machines from an old 486DX100 to PIII's. Most of our
workload is set on a Dell PowerEdge dual PII 400MHz system with 1 GB of
RAM and nearly 150 GB of attached RAID and other internal disk storage.
We'll soon be getting a second with dual P4s and more memory, RAID, etc.
These and other systems run Apache, MySQL, PHP, LDM, McIDAS, GEMPAK, and
WXP. 

I have some machines that I haven't rebooted for years, unless it's been
to upgrade the OS. OS upgrades within the same level usually take less
than 20 minutes. Full level upgrades take about an hour or so and are
usually very uneventful. 

For what it's worth, I'll take FreeBSD anyday, especially after I hear
about all the problems of others on this mail list.

                                Jim
--
James P. Koermer             E-Mail: koermer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Professor of Meteorology     Office Phone: (603)535-2574
Natural Science Department   Office Fax: (603)535-2723
Plymouth State College       WWW: http://vortex.plymouth.edu/
Plymouth, NH 03264



Gilbert Sebenste wrote:
> 
> WOW. Dan, can you send that to Wired or PC Magazine or something as an
> editorial? My goodness, I'm reading this saying, 'yes, yes, YES!'.
> 
> I couldn't agree with any of this more. When I used Solaris several years
> ago, we didn't have the 8GB partition problem. But, OTOH, yes, Linux
> bugfixes can be frustrating; but on the other hand, I have never had a
> problem with my website. I do agree Linux is slower than Solaris---hands
> down by 10%+. But then again, it can still do so much more than a Solaris
> box...and much more cheaply. And as Dan said, trying to find help? Unless
> you're a Solaris guru, good luck. I saw that first hand with our old
> Geography dept. admin. Things haven't improved, and that's not good for
> the future of Solaris and related products. I can still say while Linux
> may not be the greatest OS in the world (dunno what is, don't care)...the
> most important thing is that it is very good, and still improving, in
> general. I do wish they would stop piling on add-ons that you don't
> need...but I think that options will also come to pass in future
> versions. 3rd party software? Give me Redhat for everything weather and a
> Windows box to type up my forecast on an Excel spreadsheet.
> 
> I think we can we all agree, though, that Solaris and Linux toast Windows
> 95-98-2000 out of the water! Let's see THAT OS handle a 4 channel
> NOAAport feed! :-)
> 
> Anyway, we'll find out tonight how stable Anne's patches are to the LDM,
> but from what I can gather, the thing that was making my machine crash is
> no longer interfering with my machine. But, until a good patch can be
> released, don't upgrade to RedHat 7.1 yet. BTW, McIDAS under 7.1 works
> fine, except my ADDE server suddenly stopped working from those people
> trying to get data from me. I think it's back up again...will check.
> 
> *******************************************************************************
> Gilbert Sebenste                                                     ********
> Internet: gilbert@xxxxxxx    (My opinions only!)                     ******
> Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University                      ****
> E-mail: sebenste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                                 ***
> web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu                                      **
> Work phone: 815-753-5492                                                *
> *******************************************************************************

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