Re: [TCLUG:13660] Tradeoff between Linux vs Solaris (et.al.)

["Eric M. Hopper" <hopper@omnifarious.mn.org>]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2000 at 01:51:00PM -0600, George Swan wrote:
> I recently asked for and got this opinion about linux from a web service
> for businesses provider.
> 
>> Linux is fine as a "cheap" non mission-critical server OS. It is very
>> efficient compared to NT. In business it's a tradeoff between having
>> enough techno-geeks around to ensure they are running or paying for
>> the Solaris (et. al.) OS.
> 
> I don't have the experience to evaluate the last sentence and could
> easily be led to believe it's true.  I'm curious if anyone would
> disagree with it and why?

	My experiences with Solaris lead to a belief that it's somewhat
more bloated than Linux, and has a few bad SVR4 decisions hanging
around, but is otherwise solid.

	My experience with Linux has led me to believe that it's just as
solid as Solaris, has more, cheaper options, and is easier to make do
weird things.  As to _requiring_ more administration overall...  I'm not
so sure about that.

	The nature of Linux encourages people to do more odd things with
it, and doing odd things takes administration time.  Both the lack of
inexpensive options, and the corporate environment into which Solaris is
usually put, make 'playing around' less likely.

	Keep in mind that my experiences with Solaris are a few (about
3) years old now.

	From an overall solidity standpoint...

	I've never seen a Solaris box crash.

	My Linux box has crashed a few times.  Once was because it hung
on NFS, and couldn't even be properly shutdown, so I had to flip the
switch.  Another was some mysterious crash that I suspect was related to
X, but I'm not sure.  Another time was because the X server had some
problem that caused it to exit shortly after restarting, and 'init' kept
restarting it, which kept me from ever getting to a root console and
fixing it, so I had to shut down since I didn't have another computer
handy to telnet in with.

	My sense is that Linux boxes are just as stable, and the main
reason mine has crashed is because I was doing odd things to it.  I've
never had it spontaneously crash.  People don't fiddle around with X
server settings lots under Solaris because there's not much to
accomplish by doing so.  The NFS problem would probably have happened to
Solaris as well.

	I also get the sense that you can do more to a Linux box without
rebooting.  For example, I installed the /dev/3dfx driver without ever
rebooting my box.  I also installed the /dev/gart driver without
rebooting my box.  When I got DSL, I reconfigured my entire networking
setup without rebooting.  I did anyway, but that was just to make sure
it would stay the way it was supposed to if I did.  :-)

Have fun (if at all possible),
-- 
Its name is Public Opinion.  It is held in reverence. It settles everything.
Some think it is the voice of God.  Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet
broke a chain or freed a human soul.     ---Mark Twain
-- Eric Hopper (hopper@omnifarious.mn.org  http://omnifarious.mn.org/~hopper) --

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