** John Cooper <lug@???> [2007-10-04 11:17]:
> Keith Edmunds wrote:
> > On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:56:44 +0100, sean@??? said:
> >> Now I'm certainly not putting that forward as a good thing or advocating
> >> any position as correct or incorrect really - I'm just thinking aloud
> >
> > You're right, but so's Paul - he said, "I don't really consider Red Hat as
> > a Linux vendor anymore - or at least not for any customer that isn't
> > looking for an enterprise level support agreement". The situation you
> > describe is someone who IS looking for that level of support.
> >
> Red Hat made a business decision to concentrate on large organisations
> or go bust. Purely as a business, they didn't have a choice. So they now
> provide what large corps want which isn't what small companies need.
Indeed, and that is why I don't consider them a Linux vendor anymore,
more of a Unix work-a-like vendor, which is pretty much what you have to
be to be a large scale Linux company I should imagine. That said, the
customer I've been working with that has RHEL installed on the desktop
bought boxed copies with a years subscription, and this is where I feel
they are (or at least were, I've no idea whether they still sell them)
selling products that they shouldn't be since they don't properly
support them (see below).
> > My experience - as someone who makes a living providing Linux consultancy
> > - is that the vast majority of Red Hat customers bought RH because it was
> > a name they'd heard of, not for any other reason. They come unstuck when
> > they want to, for example, implement a VPN connection to the server from a
> > home Windows system. As of RHEL3 (haven't checked since), RH didn't
> > include any VPN software. Of course you can download RPMs for OpenVPN,
> > etc, or you can build from source, but now you're off base as far as RH are
> > concerned. A few of those RH customers have been converted to Debian
> > (cheaper, bigger range of packages, but no enterprise support); others
> > stay with RH plus extras.
> >
> RHEL4 and RHEL5 are excellent servers and have VPN now. Look at the
> number of free distros using CentOS like SME7 which are superb. Debian
> has failed to provide business solutions and it looks like Ubuntu will
> be the first with their new server product. If Linux providers want to
> win more businesses, they will have to look at the experts in selling
> software, M$. At least Linux has the advantage of being a professional
> operating system.
Agreed. Red Hat has concentrated on the business side of things, making
alliances with the big names in IT, whereas Debian has concentrated on
the quality of the software. Red Hat has had to play catch up with
Debian in terms of package administration. I guess that's the difference
in the development models really. There is certainly a middle ground
that takes the best of both worlds and avoids the pitfalls of both (at
least in theory!). I think Ubuntu has, so far, found this place, and
hopefully will stay there.
Initially I was suspicious of Ubuntu and it has taken a while for me to
settle to it. If I was purely a home user I'd still be with Debian since
I'm a techy type. Ubuntu has done well for the non-techy, new Linux
user, and is now making moves in the business arena. Since I am company
based I'm seeing the benefits[1] and am accepting a bit of extra work on
the installation side of things to get a Ubuntu install set up to my
liking.
> > As for RH support, I've had generally poor experiences. Their
> > website is simply awful, and the support ranges from outright wrong
> > answers to competent. I haven't experienced anything with a wow
> > factor, but to be fair I've only used RH support three or four
> > times.
> >
> It isn't that bad and similar to other providers.
I've not had major experience, but about the same as I've had of
Microsoft support. Sadly Microsoft wins hands down on my tiny sample.
I've spoken to Microsoft, who I haven't paid (bar the OS cost) and
spoken to someone who was helpful and (amazingly) told me how to
uninstall IE (which of course you can't do!) and apparently used and
liked Linux. I can't remember off hand what the actual problem was, but
removing IE was part of the solution somehow (in order to reinstall it).
Having spoken to Red Hat support (who had been paid for a years
subscription and support) and been told that since my hardware wasn't on
the certified list (which at the time consisted about 80 models from a
few major vendors) they wouldn't help me, was not impressive. That
should have been made clear at purchase, and if you are selling a boxed
piece of software you should be supporting a wider variety of hardware
than just 80 models (if you're going to just support those, limit
yourself to selling through the vendors of those machines). There were
three issues in this case, one of which came down to the ide-scsi
setting in the lilo boot parameters, and the other was an upgrade to OOo
which seriously broke it (something I've not seen on Debian stable). I
can't remember the last one off hand, it may have been to do with
getting support for the nVidia chipset sorted (not just graphics, but
sound, network, etc. as well).
> > To sum it up, I'd say, "Make an informed decision". RedHat may be
> > right, Debian may be right, XYZ distro may be right, but it's worth
> > understanding the differences before a company invests time and
> > money in one particular distro.
> >
> As we all know, GNU/Linux is a brilliant product and is only let down
> by its marketing and support. These are improving and companies like
> Red Hat spend a lot of time and money on this. SuSE is similar. Ubuntu
> is starting up so will take time to provide the required support.
> Debian, Gentoo etc need specialist support so you need to know there
> is more than one company who can provide it. Other companies are
> selling Linux appliances and they provide "all-in-1" support for these
> and this will suit some companies who don't have Linux skills.
** end quote [John Cooper]
Marketing wise Linux is probably doing better in the big business arena.
I guess this is where the money is, but whereas the value of the cost
savings for small businesses could be much more significant, most seem
happy to stick with Windows because of the perception of ease of use and
'everybody uses it' and 'people are familiar with it'. In practise it
wouldn't be that difficult to pick up on the differences between Windows
and Linux or MS Office and OOo, and ease of use can also equate to ease
of allowing someone who doesn't know what they are doing to do it badly
- as well as making it more difficult for someone who does know what
they are doing to do it well!
[1] Mainly things like support out of the box for nVidia motherboard
chipsets and a well configured desktop for end users. For my desktop I
prefer XFCE and installing Ubuntu and customising is little different
from installing XUbuntu and customising unfortunately.
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