[kwlug-disc] topic request

[unsolicited]

OK, so, to your point, and John's (sorry about the top posts of
everyone in this thread), both will be out there for some time, and 
having some knowledge of both is no bad thing.

Especially since the list is perpetually addressing, and rightly so,
the 'which distro' question, which seems to always initially come down
to "Which are you more comfortable with - apt, or rpm?"

I have no data, but my sense from the askers of such questions is that
not everyone is always choosing a Debian derivative, so CentOS/rpm is
still appropriate.

My guess, to be a 'well rounded Linux individual' in today's multi-use
and multi-purpose environment, you have a Debian derivative on the
desktop, and CentOS on your home server. (And OpenWRT on your gateway,
of course!) Presumably, if only by osmosis, one absorbs both worlds.

Have we ever had a "Building you CentOS Server" presentation?

Or a 'Care & Feeding of Your Linux Box' presentation?

- no, I'm not qualified to present either one. Heck, I'm not entirely
sure what all would go into either one.

Khalid Baheyeldin wrote, On 05/04/2010 8:44 AM:
> I don't think in John's space (server hardware) it would be much noticed,
> because there is still the need to have a distro that the hardware vendor
> supports there specific hardware (e.g. IBM, Dell, HP). So far Canonical has
> not been as successful as RedHat and Novell. Is it a matter of time, or are
> there hurdles? I don't know.
> 
> In my space (usage by web hosts) it is gaining ground though. Examples are
> hosting companies offering it as an option on bare metal hardware (e.g.
> Rimuhosting), or others who offer it on VPS (e.g. SliceHost), and images for
> Amazon AWS abound as well, being bundled in preconfigured applications (e.g.
> Mercury for Drupal).
> 
> On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 12:54 AM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
> 
>> John, is this what you are seeing in the field / your business as well? A
>> move away from RHEL (CentOS)?
>>
>> Will you be packing up all those skills any time soon?
>>
>> Khalid Baheyeldin wrote, On 05/03/2010 10:47 PM:
>>
>>  On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 6:56 PM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
>>>  Khalid Baheyeldin wrote, On 05/03/2010 5:03 PM:
>>>>  On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 4:41 PM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  From the original post, it would be more interesting to compare CentOS
>>>>>
>>>>>> vs.
>>>>>> Kubuntu (Debian), 1/2 night each, in each of these areas.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To put it poorly, in essence, popular desktop maintenance vs. popular
>>>>>> server maintenance.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Why the false dichotomy?
>>>>>
>>>>>  It's not false.
>>>> The sense I have from the list is that in business / servers, CentOS or
>>>> RHEL is more prevalent, while on desktops it is Ubuntu.
>>>>
>>>> Thus, having an understanding of both seems appropriate.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, that is a common perception, and it has historical reasons.
>>>
>>> First, RedHat had commercial support and support for certain hardware
>>> that does not have the same support in Debian (and therefore Ubuntu).
>>> This makes certain server stuff (e.g. RAID controllers).
>>>
>>> Second, there was the "Debian is hard" which was true until a few years
>>> ago.
>>>
>>> Third, RedHat supported proprietary service based thingies that were
>>> common on web hosts (e.g. cPanel, WHM, ...etc.), and support for Debian
>>> was lagging for these.
>>>
>>> However, lately things have swung in favor of Debian, with Ubuntu Server
>>> Edition gaining traction everywhere. One of the reasons is that it is
>>> Debian
>>> with all the APT goodness there is. Another is that it has a vast central
>>> repository with everything in it. And yet another is the familiarity with
>>> the
>>> desktop provides easy switching rather than a different one for each.
>>>
>>> And with virtualization, support for hardware is not that much of an issue
>>> if you are managing VPSs.
>>>
>>> So hopefully more people will see the light and switch to Debian/Ubuntu
>>> on the server.