On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:35:14 +1000 (EST), Res wrote > On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Christofer C. Bell wrote: > > > And that's not even the kicker -- the kicker is that the alternative he's > > using is *Slackware*. An even less appropriate product for the role in which > > he's using it. > > how do you conclude that ? we have never had a problem with slackware > servers, they have been as stable as the old RH ones. A variety of reasons (some of which Fedora also suffers from): 1. No 3rd party support to speak of 2. No ISV support at all 3. No centralized distributed patch management solution (for on-site) 4. No distributed server management 5. Relatively small user community (limiting community support options) You're talking about running the software in a data center where you allude to selling services to customers that run on these machines. I feel that Slackware is an inappropriate choice for that role. I started with Slackware back in 1994 (version 2.0, I believe) and I think it's a pretty cool distribution. You wouldn't catch me installing it in a data center for external customer use (or indeed for internal customer use). Perhaps there have been some recent strides in how Slackware can be managed. Does the software support the use of both source and binary packages with an integrated build system and support the signing of packages so you can be assured you're getting trustworthy packages? Is there dependency checking built into the package management system? Granted, your organization may not require these things and that may make Slackware a more attractive choice for you. As a rule of thumb, though (meaning "in the general case") it's not a distribution I'd consider fit for a service provider running a Linux shop. To be fair, I'd have similar concerns about Fedora, just not as great a concern. Honestly, if you're going to sell services to outside customers in a revenue generating venture, I'd think a commerically supported distribution like SuSE Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux would be more appropriate. Of course, your milage can and probably does vary. -- Chris "Build a man a fire and he will be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life." -- Unknown
