Your thoughts on Linux

[KillZone45]

Shoot me a message anytime with questions.

What is the best way to get to be familiar with the Linux OS? I wouldn't mind being proficient enough to be a sysadmin.

[bigmike82]

"Don't make me laugh, there's a reason you don't see Windows running on any system in the top 500 list."

Care to retract that? There's actually 5. Yeah, it's 1%, but it pretty much shoots the point that Windows can't run on super computers out of the water.

[nick]

Oh, and MySpace has been running on .NET (with only some legacy ColdFusion code) for a while now, ever since they went through one of their "infrastructure revolutions" 2 or 3 years ago. They're about to go through another one, by the way, they've outgrown their infrastructure again, and they need more of it to start making money on something other than PPC.

[nick]

Myspace is written in CFM, so let's not even go there...

As for SQL, ever wonder why people pick Oracle over MS? Ever read how Post can run as fast as Oracle?

As for efficient queries... Maybe you're used to clicking through your queries, but usually if there's an issue with overhead of a query it's from a badly written sql query.

Umm, I don't "click through" my queries. Let's not try to dismiss a point by denigrating the person who makes it I've been optimizing queries for well over a decade. One of the ways I've been doing it was through running them as stored procedures. That's something that took a while to find its way to MySQL.

As for Oracle, I used to like it a lot (especially pre-SQL 2005), if not their business practices. I actually started using it before MS SQL (especially since it was POS pre-2000, and 200 was only passable). However, MS SQL's comparative quality went seriously up with 2005, and Oracle's hasn't improved all that much. A lot of big companies still use it (and will continue using it, for many reasons, not all of which have to do with performance), but many that wouldn't even look towards MS SQL before are now adopting it.

[nick]

I like the reaction I get when I prove them wrong.

Well, that's just silly

[locosway]

Myspace is written in CFM, so let's not even go there...

As for SQL, ever wonder why people pick Oracle over MS? Ever read how Post can run as fast as Oracle?

As for efficient queries... Maybe you're used to clicking through your queries, but usually if there's an issue with overhead of a query it's from a badly written sql query.

[nick]

I agree, best tool for the job. I just hate it when people say "Well, you can only do that on Windows", when clearly that's not true.

Besides, any serious network or mission critical server I've worked on has been Linux/Unix. Never once have I seen a server that absolutely could not be down running Windows.

I have. They're usually clustered though.

I've seen both Linux/UNIX and Windows servers go down, as well as stay up for a long time. It's all a matter of how you configure them, what applications you run on them, and how heavily they're used.

For example. I've run high performance (as in hundreds of thousands to millions messages per hour) mailers on both Windows 2003 and RedHat 5.something. Both worked fine, once the quirks were worked out (and most of the quirks were with the application to begin with).

[nick]

Most servers run some variety of Unix, Windows is in the minority here.

I'm sure you have something to base it on. This hasn't been my experience though, and I've worked with probably about 150-170 different mid-to-large size companies in quite a few industries in the last 5-6 years.

Windows server farm? Don't make me laugh, there's a reason you don't see Windows running on any system in the top 500 list.

http://www.top500.org/list/2010/06/100

Well, you're being a zealot here As for the major sites running on Windows, there's always Myspace.

I won't even bother to comment on the "you don't see Windows running on any system in the top 500 list".

And then there's MySQL and PostgreSQL, both of which can easily replace MS SQL and perform much faster. There is also no shortage of IT staff who know how to implement these.

http://www.mysql.com/?bydis_dis_index=1

http://www.postgresql.org/

No, they can't, and they don't. I work with both on a daily basis (some of the systems in my company use them), and they're a PITA to integrate with (the drivers for them aren't readily available, and those that are available aren't the best performers), and have quite a few quirks that a mature software package shouldn't have. The reason we use them is cost, or rather, the vendors for some of the systems picked them because of the cost reasons.

The featureset of both MySQL and PostgreSQL is quite poor compared to MS SQL 2005, much less 2008. Some of the things that were standard in MS SQL 7 were only implemented in MySQL about 3 years ago, and weren't implemented in PostgreSQL at all.

The downside of MS SQL 2005/2008 is the high initial hardware requirements (MySQL and PostgreSQL have much lower entry-level hardware requirements). However, with the same more advanced hardware setup, MS SQL 2005/2008 outperforms both MySQL and PostgreSQL, both due to a better engine design, a better implementation of SQL (basically, it allows you to query data in a way that's less resource-heavy, which options don't yet exist in MySQl or PostgreSQL), and the implementation of stored procedures, which took MySQl a while to add to its engine, and they're still not as optimizable there.

Out of the two, I'd pick MySQL, it's more mature than PostgreSQL (and I'm frankly tired of the limitations of PostgreSQL. I often have to write a few lines of code where a simple statement could be used in MS SQL).

....

[locosway]

I like the reaction I get when I prove them wrong.

Same here, unfortunately I'm moving out of Linux Admin stuff. Going back to school.

[JDay]

I agree, best tool for the job. I just hate it when people say "Well, you can only do that on Windows", when clearly that's not true.

I like the reaction I get when I prove them wrong.

[locosway]

I agree, best tool for the job. I just hate it when people say "Well, you can only do that on Windows", when clearly that's not true.

Besides, any serious network or mission critical server I've worked on has been Linux/Unix. Never once have I seen a server that absolutely could not be down running Windows.

[nick]

80% of systems run Windows? Not quite...

I've worked in web hosting for 5 years, and to be honest, there's rarely ever a Windows machine anywhere.

As for corporate, yeah, there's a lot of Windows, but there's also a lot of Linux now as well. File servers, print servers, and anything else that doesn't require in depth knowledge of Linux has popped up.

I was throwing numbers to illustrate a point, not to give accurate statistics. I hope you're not claiming Linux to be more common than Windows yet

Web hosting, I've seen enough of both. Linux has its strong sides there, as does Windows. Some of the companies I worked with ran their sites on Windows, some on Linux/UNIX, some on both (those last ones were always a PITA ).

Most of the companies I've worked with also had at least a few Linux/UNIX boxes, just like you indicated, even the all/mostly Microsoft shops.

Like I said, one chooses the best tool for the job.

On my laptop I run Windows 7 with FreeBSD 8, Solaris 2009.06 (yes, it's a new laptop ), Windows 2008 R2, and Windows 2003 R2 VMs.

[HUTCH 7.62]

What the hell in Linux? you guys are Nerds

[JDay]

To add to that, what's more of a standard, something that's used by 20% of the systems, or by 80%?

Most servers run some variety of Unix, Windows is in the minority here.

Because many companies, Microsoft included, have most features most companies want out-of-the-box, and because you don't want that farm to be a personal fiefdom of an irreplaceable IT guy, that with all the often unnecessary customizations he's introduced (which cause issues if you remove them though).

Windows server farm? Don't make me laugh, there's a reason you don't see Windows running on any system in the top 500 list.

http://www.top500.org/list/2010/06/100

A client of mine got itself talked into a custom database engine (yeah, a custom database engine). There were few enough people who knew how to program it to begin with, fewer still working for this company. The makes of the said database engine went out of business, and my client was at the mercy of two people for whom it was a side job (they had regular jobs, as well, and those took precedence). It took quite an effort (and some padding of my savings account, as well as those of a few other people) to move them to MS SQL 2005. For which there're plenty of support people, DBAs, etc., not to mention Microsoft itself

And then there's MySQL and PostgreSQL, both of which can easily replace MS SQL and perform much faster. There is also no shortage of IT staff who know how to implement these.

http://www.mysql.com/?bydis_dis_index=1

http://www.postgresql.org/

[nick]

Then there's the commercial Linux distributions such as Redhat that have professional support packages.

Yup, and that's why RedHat's gaining ground.