Why I’ve finally had it with my Linux server and I’m moving back to Windows

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/why-ive-finally-had-it-with-my-linux-server-and-im-moving-back-to-windows/245

by rbanffy • 15 years ago

13 12 15 years ago

rbanffy• 15 years ago

I found the comments to be very illuminating. I am sure I never got that low when discussing the relative merits of the Apple II compared to the TRS-80 or, later, the MSX standard...

llgrrl_• 15 years ago

> feeling like I had to pass through all four levels of Ninja Warrior and climb to the top of Mount Midoriyama, just to be allowed to launch frickin’ VNC in a GUI or load the backup program I use on all the other machines on my network…

If he was doing remote administration via VNC, he was probably doing it wrong.

Also:

> I know quite well what I’m doing, but not to the level that is apparently required to keep a simple LAMP machine running.

Wat?

pat2man• 15 years ago

The reality is this, if the issues that arise while updating your server are not worth the advantages, don't build your own servers! There are so many hosting providers that deal with all these issues for us. If you have the types of problems this writer has just stop booting up your own servers. The OS you use is irrelevant. You have these issues with any OS.

aidenn0• 15 years ago

This is why I ditched red-hat based distros about 7 years ago.

SageRaven2• 15 years ago

In favor of what? Debian-based? I admin a ton of RHEL servers, I they give me little trouble.

However, I haven't met a flavor of Linux package management that matches the elegance of FreeBSD's ports system. (Yes, I even find portage bothersome in comparison.)

aw9994• 15 years ago

Arch's Pacman system is a beautiful thing if you haven't yet had the pleasure. And if it's not in the official repo or is outdated, the AUR probably has it.

hsghfsdfgrefg• 15 years ago

So this person was using a new operating system he didn't understand, which is great, but doing that on a co-located server where it's hard to do anything when something screws up is not a good idea.

He was compiling all kinds of custom stuff for what he called a "simple LAMP server." He should have just needed to install Apache, MySQL, and PHP, which are all in the package manager. I would not be surprised if his update woes were due to his crazy setup.

SageRaven2• 15 years ago

Maybe I mis-read something, but why was gnome running on a server?

Anyway, I feel the dude's pain. In the other direction, I'm one of those who hasn't used Windows on his home workstation in about 10 years. There are a few Windows-only apps at a new gig of mine that I am required to use, and I rage almost daily to this guy's level about the unusable, unstable garbage I must tolerate to earn a few bucks. I'm so fed up with maintaining the VM for this purpose, that I'm seriously contemplating renting a remote vnc/rdc-accessible Windows desktop just to purge my workstation of the monstrosity.

Lesson learned from this guy's rant? Different strokes for different folks. You couldn't pay me enough to be a dedicated Windows admin. If I can't do the job with an xterm, ssh, and vi, then it isn't worth the hassle for me.

kermitthehermit2• 15 years ago

The first sign that something was amiss for me was the word GNOME in a paragraph which was talking about a SERVER.

I think the quality of any kind of work a person who runs *NIX servers with desktop environments is minimal and I tend to tag such persons as incompetent.

He also sounds like a guy who just gave Linux a shot for 1-2 years and was too incompetent to maintain a server properly.

regularfry• 15 years ago

For reference, the next post says he was running centos 5.6. I'm all-debian server-side, so can't comment further on that part, but it does seem odd to be installing Gnome on a web server.

Serious question: why might you do this? Taking his statement that he knows what he is doing at face value, what is he doing?

kermitthehermit2• 15 years ago

He says that he has tried to run a server with GNOME based on CENTOS and that his updates broke the machine. I didn't have such a problem, but who knows what this guy, who assures us he knows what he speaks of, did?

1. Yes, there are some issues with package management on a lot of distributions. These issues aren't as dramatic as this guy is trying to make them seem.

THE POINT: Linux isn't windows, there are a lot of distributions and I am pretty sure a lot of them can handle a LAMP stack properly.

2. He complains about CENTOS which he used together with GNOME for a LAMP server. Centos isn't quite the "go to" distro when you want everything to just work TM. Yes, it's good enough to be used in a lot of places, but they release updates after redhat has released them and this takes a while; it might also be prone to breaking. (note: I am using Debian and Ubuntu for everything related to LAMP)

THE POINT: Use Debian, Ubuntu, buy RHEL or buy Ubuntu support for enterprise if you want to have some kind of safety net when doing updates.

3. He mentions something broke after an update and GNOME was now broken for him (or something along those lines). I'd get my brain scanned for tumors asap if I got the idea of running X on a production /development web server running in the data center.

THE POINT: The idea of running X and a desktop environment on a server is a sign that you are looking for trouble. Security issues, wasted resources, more processes, more things to update, more things to check and more things which can crash due to some leak / bug / stray process.

4. Going rageish-murdery-suicidal over some issue with a server is a sign you're doing something wrong, with your professional, personal life or both. Maybe a break is required or some more RTFM is needed. If that's not helping, maybe you should try to find another job and stick to it.

THE POINT: Complaining about some problem you most likely have caused makes you look like an idiot, especially if you write an article saying you went back to Megabloat TM Windows.

5. Maintaining a LAMP stack web server isn't complicated when you have a "root server" in a datacenter with a RAID1 / RAID 10 storage array. It's quite probably the most tested part of most linux distributions.

THE POINT: I've helped linux newbies who can use Ubuntu set up their own webservers by themselves and they complained a lot less about any kind of issues. It's not rocket science.

6. He mentioned "software I had to compile from source", but he never says anything specific like: "I had this version of foo-bar-x.y and needed foo-bar-x.y+2 because they fixed this extremely bad exploit, but there was no package for it". Come on, you want to convince people, right? So why not share some pieces of information about the part which might be the most important and, probably, the cause of the alleged failure?

THE POINT: The article is all too vague all around, chasing around the tail.

7. The tone and the splitting of the articles in such a way that there's a "murdery-suicidal" subjective section and a fake objective "after things were done" section makes me think this was something someone paid to have on the web. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to do something like this as they have done far worse things in the past.

THE POINT: Exposing your own failure, real or invented, to try to manipulate people into picking Windows over Linux or some other *NIX for a server makes you look like a total worthless tool.

His credentials mean nothing to me after I've seen what kind of articles fueled by personal incompetence and failure turned into rage - provided that's even true.

If you search for this article, you will find that it's posted across a lot of websites. I also suspect that it's the zealots who work for zdnet or their sponsors at Microsoft.

As of now, zdnet.com and www.zdnet.com are in my hosts file with a well deserved IP: 127.0.0.1. From Monday, this will also be the case for the company I work for (just ~1500 workstations).

darkduck• 15 years ago

It's a bit of a fun...

Why I’ve finally had it with my Linux server and I’m moving back to Windows

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