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Linux needs more haters
Renegade:
It's about time.
The "holier-than-thou" BS "FOSS or die" "Linux can do no wrong" idiocy that's been around for so long has been such a massive turn-off.
I suppose a certain degree of it was necessary to keep momentum and things moving along, but it's refreshing now to hear some kind of temperment or balance.
Still, I think if you do any web-related programming (client-server) linux must be your home.-urlwolf
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I think you kind of need to be careful when saying things like this. Honestly, I have to flat out disagree. "Must be" was a poor choice of words.
Linux is an excellent OS for a web server, and certainly does a very good job at many things. However, it's not always the right OS for the job.
For Web 2.0 type sites where profits per user can be very low, a free OS and server software can help keep costs down, and Linux is an excellent choice.
For highly profitable sites where the costs of the OS and server software don't matter, Linux loses it's free advantage, and there are much better alternatives depending on what you need.
For 100% uptime, Linux is the wrong choice. That's Solaris with Sun hardware. You can't swap out a mainboard with the server still running with Linux. You can with Solaris. But you'll need to pay highly for well educated people to do it.
When the primary cost is development, then Windows is an excellent choice with ASP.NET.
If you need to run a DNS server, Linux is the wrong choice. So is Windows. BSD is the right one. It's TCP/IP stack is superior and can handle loads that would bring other OSes to their knees.
There are good things and bad things with each OS.
That people are finally bringing out into the open some of the bad things about Linux is good for Linux as it will point out the weaknesses and maybe someday that elusive Linux desktop for the masses may become a reality.
The blog is radical, but then again, perhaps it's exactly that radical take that's need to help balance out the gushing/obsequious praise that we've been subject to so far.
urlwolf:
Thanks renegade for an excellent post.
We run freeBSD on the server; it's not only TCP/IP, it's also mysql performance (20% better than linux according to some benchmarks).
When the primary cost is development, then Windows is an excellent choice with ASP.NET.
--- End quote ---
I have to admit I have never tried ASP.NET, but this statement is surprising. Which start-ups or top-100 sites are running on ASP.NET? In the startup world, development speed is everything. If what you say is true, ASP.NET would be under every startup's hood. I don't think that's the case, more like they tend to use PHP/django/rails.
Still, the fastest framework seems to be seaside (smalltalk). But's that's a left-field choice.
40hz:
For 100% uptime, Linux is the wrong choice. That's Solaris with Sun hardware. You can't swap out a mainboard with the server still running with Linux. You can with Solaris. But you'll need to pay highly for well educated people to do it.
-Renegade (July 26, 2008, 09:23 PM)
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I'm not exactly sure what Sun means when they claim the ability to swap out a mainboard with the server still running. But I suspect it it might be a bit of a marketing ploy - and for a few reasons.
1. Mainboard is a loaded term that can mean anything. It can be a complete server in a blade-type server rack. IBM has trademarked the term "blade" so you would need to call your "blade" something else. (Pizza-slice maybe? "Petal" in the new "Advanced Sunflower Farm"? That one even sounds green!). Anyway, hot-swap backplane systems have been around for years. And Sun didn't invent them. If you pull out a server blade, that server is down even if your site is still up on the rest of your rack.
2. Mainboard does not equal Motherboard. A "mainboard" can can contain just RAM modules, or drive controllers. It does not necessarily hold the CPU or CPUs. If you pull the CPUs, your server is down regardless of whether or not you still have AC running through the chassis. If Sun found a way to run a server without a CPU, they would be awarded the Nobel Prize. Or would be if they weren't smart enough to shake down Intel and AMD for multi-mega to bury their discovery first!
3. Hot-swappping components in a live device (note: many companies have systems that support hot RAM, disk drive, and card swapping) does not require a highly trained person to do it. What it does require is somebody that has been shown how to do it a few times, or a technician that can RTFM. There's nothing complicated about it, but certain steps have to be followed in a specific order to avoid making a mess. Just like making coffee: filter first then add coffee...
Support for high-end devices from boutique vendors doesn't have to be expensive. It just is. I do support for the "big iron." I charge a pretty decent rate. I don't actually need to. But the customer is willing to pay it so I'd be pretty foolish to buck the going rate. And yes, I am "highly trained" but I don't often need to know anywhere near as much as I do to fix a modern server. Most of them diagnose themselves. (i.e. Option Card-01 in Slot-16: hardware failure***) Some of them even make their own service call! Scary...
Now is using Linux for a web server the "wrong" choice if you want 100% uptime? I think that all depends. Linux comes in a lot of flavors. You have to look at the individual distributions. CentOS, RHEL, and SLED can, and have been used for critical deployments. Their service record is excellent. Using CentOS shows you're done your homework. If you're seriously thinking about running your web farm using Sabayon as your distro, then you've probably been out drinking.
Is BSD better? Depends on who you ask - and more importantly, what expertise is available in your area. If you're in sunny California, look no further than the BSD camp. That's what gets used out there anyway. 8) If you're in Redhat country, think different.
Getting 100% uptime is more a matter of strategy and redundancy than anything else. All hardware will fail eventually. So the smart thing to do is think in multiples - get two (or more) servers and set them up in a failover configuration.
It's not hard to do. Got a couple of old laptops floating around? Try this:
Setting Up A High-Availability Load Balancer (With Failover and Session Support) With HAProxy/Heartbeat On Fedora 8
Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>
Last edited 02/21/2008
This document describes how to set up a two-node load balancer in an active/passive configuration with HAProxy and heartbeat on Fedora 8. The load balancer acts between the user and two (or more) Apache web servers that hold the same content. The load balancer passes the requests to the web servers and it also checks their health. If one of them is down, all requests will automatically be redirected to the remaining web server(s). In addition to that, the two load balancer nodes monitor each other using heartbeat. If the master fails, the slave becomes the master - users won't notice any disruption of the service. HAProxy is session-aware - you can use it with any web application that makes use of sessions like forums, shopping carts, etc.
Web link to the full article at:
http://www.howtoforge.com/high-availability-load-balancer-haproxy-heartbeat-fedora8
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Like Gypsy Rose Lee used to say. "It ain't whatcha got - it's how you use it that counts,"
(BTW: I agree with you. BSD is a better choice for a server OS. At least for now. ;))
40hz:
It's about time.
The "holier-than-thou" BS "FOSS or die" "Linux can do no wrong" idiocy that's been around for so long has been such a massive turn-off.
I suppose a certain degree of it was necessary to keep momentum and things moving along, but it's refreshing now to hear some kind of temperment or balance. -Renegade (July 26, 2008, 09:23 PM)
--- End quote ---
You are absolutely right about that. We're all sick of it.
But it's also important not to automatically lump Linux in with the whole GNU-FOSS Church of the Rebirth by Fire as led by the ever righteous High Priest Richard Stallman.
Stallman had a brilliant insight. He was right. And we owe him. Unfortunately, he never seemed to grasp that "the perfect is the enemy of the good." A lot of good things can be accomplished if you don't insist on everything being perfect and selfless. Sometimes very good things can come out of less than noble motivations. Richard Stallman doesn't see it that way.
FOSS and Linux are no longer revolutionary. Today, they're just one more offering in a smorgasbord of usable technologies. Mr. Stallman, and his avatars, don't understand that the revolution is over, the time for shrill rhetoric has passed, and the need for detente has begun.
Most of the Linux crowd believes that and acts accordingly. There's just a few VCIWs that continue to poison the dialog.
So let's raise our glasses to RMS as we walk away. His integrity and motivations were never in question. Just his notion of how to do it.
Too bad he never learned to lighten up.
Renegade:
Thanks renegade for an excellent post.
We run freeBSD on the server; it's not only TCP/IP, it's also mysql performance (20% better than linux according to some benchmarks).
When the primary cost is development, then Windows is an excellent choice with ASP.NET.
--- End quote ---
I have to admit I have never tried ASP.NET, but this statement is surprising. Which start-ups or top-100 sites are running on ASP.NET? In the startup world, development speed is everything. If what you say is true, ASP.NET would be under every startup's hood. I don't think that's the case, more like they tend to use PHP/django/rails.
Still, the fastest framework seems to be seaside (smalltalk). But's that's a left-field choice.
-urlwolf (July 27, 2008, 05:46 AM)
--- End quote ---
The thing with ASP.NET vs. Ruby on Rails (or many others) is that it scales. MySpace runs on ASP.NET. Very large applications/sites can't run on RoR or some others.
For most startups, any cost at all is a cost, so using RoR is an excellent choice. They guys that start it are bootstrapping, so their time is equity that they're sinking into it, whereas the dollars are more efficiently working with more servers and power than if they'd chosen a Windows server. If the business succeeds and you outgrow RoR, great! Rewrite it in something else -- you've already made it there. RoR is a fantastic way to get an application up and running quickly. But it doesn't scale... and the RoR guys don't care.
I've seen more than a few applications that ran many many LAMP stack servers in the far back-end with Windows servers in the front for the web interface. This is a great setup as you get all the storage and goodness basically free, while your smaller front end can undergo quick and easy changes (relatively).
Again, it all depends on your situation. What are the priorities, and how do you best meet them?
For Sun, Solaris has "zones", so you can zone out a board with the server still running, swap the board, then rezone it back. The upshot is that you have the server running the whole time with 0% downtime. THAT is some serious sexy stuff! :)
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