System administration is an odd beast. Until you've been in the
trenches, you probably won't understand it. The stereotypical sysadmin
has a reputation for being grumpy. There's a reason.
Change is bad. Change wastes time and money.
Keeping a server updated isn't as easy running "apt-get safe-upgrade" or
"yum update" once in awhile. If something important is changing like SSH
or Apache, the changelog has to be read carefully and fully understood.
Maybe even download the source package and pick apart the change. No
matter what, before the production servers can be updated, the changes
have to be validated in a test environment. Only then can it be rolled
out to production. (You do have dev, test and prod environments right?)
It's no big deal if your dev box gets a little wonky after an upgrade,
you'll just reboot and forget it happened. In an enterprise environment,
on the other hand, reboots cost money. Sometimes lots of money. Multiply
15 minutes of downtime by a department of 50 that requires that
machine's services. Suddenly 15 minutes equals hundreds of dollars. (No,
15 minutes isn't an unreasonable amount of time. We're not talking about
desktop hardware here. I've seen cubicle sized servers that took more
than an hour to reboot.)
Most sysadmins are overworked. Some have hundreds of servers to manage.
Others are tasked with desktop support. Others are expected to do
development. The more time they waste validating updates, the further
behind they get on other projects. (That's why running Fedora on a
server is the height of insanity.)
Upgrading a server from one release to another is not as common as you
think. Most companies never do it. Instead, switching releases coincides
with purchasing new hardware. Many companies run the same release for 3
to 5 years, and maybe even until the hardware fails. ("Upgrades cost
money. Reinstalls cost money. What we've got is working, don't touch
it.")
You might have a system that works for you, but what about when you
leave the company? Someone else is going to have to replace you, and the
stranger your approach to managing servers, the more disruptive and
destructive your behavior. (Sure, if you're perfectly keyed into the
Gentoo universe, it might be possible for _you_ to keep a server stable
with Gentoo, but what about the next poor slob?)
Enterprise computing sucks. It's no fun. But it makes money.
Battle scarred, grey bearded sysadmins know that price isn't everything.
If it were, Windows NT would have replaced Unix a long time ago. True,
some people care about price more than quality, but an experienced
sysadmin earning six figures to keep critical systems running knows that
paying for an enterprise-quality system can be money well spent.
Want to know the real definition of "enterprise"? Check out HP-UX or
AIX some time. Rock solid, but most of you would tear your hair out they
feel so "ancient". Before there was Red Hat, there was Sun. Solaris made
it's name by being more nimble and cutting edge. Of course, put most
Linux users in from of a Solaris box and they'll probably gnaw their own
arm off because it feels so old and different.
RHEL is kinda funny. It's the big boy on the Linux block revenue-wise.
It's fashionable to gripe about RHEL, but the fact is Red Hat must be
doing _something_ right. Most people complain it changes too slowly. But
if you sit down talk to an experienced Unix admin, with his six figure
salary and foot long beard, you'll hear him complaining that RHEL
changes too quickly.
SLES is.. best to pass by quietly. I'll say just two things: (1) Digging
into SLES has made me realize that when someone says something was built
with "german [over-]engineering", that isn't always a form of praise.
(2) Novell buying SUSE was the best thing to happen to SLES, it lead to
a real improvement in the distro.
Debian Stable is okay. It can be a real enterprise distro when used
correctly. Personally, Debian's bureaucracy scares the heck out of me. A
stubborn DD can do a lot of damage. (Anyone remember the asinine way
Debian used to package Ruby?) At the moment, Stable is newer than RHEL,
but that isn't always the case. Once upon a time Stable was known for
being ancient. (For example, I remember being pissed off at how old
Debian's OpenLDAP package was compared to RHEL and SLES.) True, Debian
is doing a better job of releasing on schedule these days. The
disadvantage of more rapid Debian releases is that if you do the math
you'll discover RHEL and SLES have a much longer support period.
Ubuntu LTS is okay. It can be a real enterprise distro when used
correctly. But a lot of people confuse "installable" and "supported".
There's no point arguing "Ubuntu has more packages" when most of those
packages are maintained by volunteers without a guarantee of long term
support for a specific version. That said, if you stick to the supported
packages, and Debian continues to release on schedule, LTS also has a
longer support period than Debian Stable.
In other words, every enterprise distro sucks, but they're still better
than the alternatives.
Fedora, openSUSE and most of Ubuntus are not enterprise distros.
Comparing them to enterprise distros is like comparing RPM and APT or
maple syrup and sauerkraut.
Gentoo is very much not an enterprise distro.
That doesn't mean can't put them on your servers, but if you ask me it
makes as much sense and eating pancakes with sauerkraut.
--
"XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, you aren't
using enough of it." - Chris Maden
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