| 00:00.07 | wethrin | Yes. Solaris is still being used |
| 00:00.09 | Cope | hp-ux is still pretty big |
| 00:00.21 | wethrin | Lots |
| 00:00.25 | wethrin | But, then again, look at the number of VMS job ads around |
| 00:00.29 | stephanb | okay now I have a naive political question |
| 00:00.35 | Cope | vote tory |
| 00:00.36 | wethrin | And that's not dying - it's being slowly resurrected |
| 00:00.36 | stephanb | i mean IT politics |
| 00:01.12 | Cope | wethrin: I can't think why |
| 00:01.17 | stephanb | i work for a BIG US company. they have their own in-house developped app using Sun's Java |
| 00:01.21 | wethrin | Cope: Because it's a bloody good system |
| 00:01.50 | armijn | wethrin is weird |
| 00:01.57 | Cope | stephanb: answer: give up; big companies are immovable; nothing you ever suggest will ever be implemented and nothing will change. |
| 00:02.03 | wethrin | armijn: Yes :) |
| 00:02.05 | stephanb | tons of desktops where people spend the day in Word, Explorer and Outlook |
| 00:02.20 | Cope | </cynic> |
| 00:02.29 | stephanb | why dont they use Linux on those desktops |
| 00:02.40 | Cope | because its shit |
| 00:02.52 | stephanb | wouldn't they be so much easier to maintain / deploy than Win2k ? |
| 00:02.58 | wethrin | Cope: It's rock-solid, and has, IIRC, appropriate US military security classifications. While still on a network :) |
| 00:03.13 | wethrin | A well-designed Windows network will be easy to maintain |
| 00:03.17 | Cope | very |
| 00:03.22 | armijn | it depends on the admin |
| 00:03.28 | stephanb | Cope: well why not Solaris desktop then ? |
| 00:03.32 | wethrin | Well, okay. Well-designed and well-adminned :) |
| 00:03.38 | Cope | stephanb: because its shit |
| 00:03.42 | wethrin | I was taking that the admin was the designer |
| 00:03.56 | wethrin | Unix does not make a good desktop for mundane people |
| 00:04.04 | Cope | for big companies, at present, windows is the only viable mass desktop solution |
| 00:04.12 | armijn | I must say that it has improved a lot though |
| 00:04.21 | wethrin | Yes, and some places can use it |
| 00:04.29 | Cope | small companies, yes, you stand a great chance of rolling out a linux based solution |
| 00:04.31 | armijn | but there are still those little annoying things... |
| 00:05.00 | Cope | for huge companies it won't work; they buy massive crm solutions, and have billions of dollars tied up in exchange infrastructure |
| 00:05.13 | stephanb | what is so *good* on windoze for the mass desktop ? |
| 00:05.14 | wethrin | Does SAP run on anything other than Windows? |
| 00:05.37 | Cope | stephanb: nothing; its just a de facto standard; and its easy to find people to admin it, for little money, |
| 00:05.42 | armijn | wethrin: I believe so |
| 00:05.53 | wethrin | Cope: Yes, but for little money, you get what you pay for |
| 00:05.55 | Cope | wethrin: I think we have some clients running SAP on redhat |
| 00:06.18 | wethrin | A really bad network that doesn't have automatic roll-outs |
| 00:06.32 | Cope | stephanb: the biggest problem is the exchange stuff |
| 00:06.52 | stephanb | am I illusioned, by my own personal experience (= buy a new drive, copy the paritions, change fstab+grub.conf, reboot) |
| 00:06.54 | wethrin | Lotus Notes / Domnio :) |
| 00:07.04 | wethrin | *Domino |
| 00:07.10 | stephanb | that linux is soooo much easier to maintain tha windoze ? |
| 00:07.21 | wethrin | stephanb: Why would you do that on a corporate desktop? |
| 00:07.27 | wethrin | You just reinstall the whole thing |
| 00:07.46 | stephanb | and u have the time to waste to reinstall the whole thing |
| 00:07.51 | wethrin | Err, no |
| 00:07.54 | Cope | stephanb: its almost impossible to convince an IT manager / FD that there's an alternative to exchange, that allows easy admin, calendar sharing, etc etc; true groupware |
| 00:07.56 | wethrin | You have it done automatically |
| 00:08.02 | armijn | ximian connector |
| 00:08.10 | armijn | for the desktop |
| 00:08.11 | Cope | yeah I know the theory |
| 00:08.16 | stephanb | and the user just has shut up coz he lost all his settings+ desktop |
| 00:08.19 | wethrin | All you need to do is press the right button when rebooting |
| 00:08.25 | Cope | you'll never get that past the deciders |
| 00:08.31 | stephanb | ok ok |
| 00:08.32 | wethrin | Again, not in a welll-maintained environment |
| 00:08.38 | stephanb | ok ok ok |
| 00:08.39 | wethrin | The settings will be stored on the fileserver |
| 00:08.48 | stephanb | not at my place :-) |
| 00:08.50 | wethrin | Windows has done that for many years |
| 00:09.01 | wethrin | Well, your place isn't managed properly, then :) |
| 00:09.07 | armijn | not at this BIG US company >-) |
| 00:09.11 | Cope | stephanb: simple answer is that for you, or for a small office, linux desktop is certainly an option |
| 00:09.15 | armijn | sell! sell! |
| 00:09.26 | armijn | their IT infrastructure is about to crash! |
| 00:09.34 | wethrin | Heh |
| 00:09.46 | stephanb | but thank you guys for not letting me turn myslef in ridicule in front of those guys |
| 00:09.51 | wethrin | :) |
| 00:09.54 | Cope | stephanb: once the company gets bigger, and you get more managers, who believe microsoft adverts, and are not technical, you start to lose. |
| 00:10.00 | *** join/#gllug eye69 (magnus@ipv6.upcore.net) |
| 00:10.28 | Cope | stephanb: it gets even messier when you get to the stage where the company has invested in an exchange-based enterprise messaging system |
| 00:10.59 | Cope | stephanb: it frustrates me; my company sells as its flagship email solution a rebadged MS exchange solution |
| 00:11.01 | wethrin | Given a couple of weeks, I'm sure almost all of us would be able to set up a properly centrally managed Windows network, that required hardly any at-desk visits for software wibbles |
| 00:11.47 | wethrin | The tools are all there. And provided with a Windows Server product. It's a case of knowing how to use them |
| 00:12.03 | Cope | stephanb: where you can make small inroads is on things like spam filtering; internal departement webservers; wikis etc |
| 00:12.37 | stephanb | well they have render boxes on linux redhat 8 supplied by SGI :-D |
| 00:12.53 | Cope | we're an exchange house, but our main mail relays are postfix/bsd and we use spamassassin/linux |
| 00:13.11 | Cope | (i believe) |
| 00:13.27 | wethrin | Apparently Kolab is pretty good, although it requires the Bynari Connector for Outlook to work with it |
| 00:13.30 | stephanb | nicely silent quad processor stuff, no GUI, the user is on the SGI box. |
| 00:13.50 | armijn | wethrin: ximian connector, that's GPL |
| 00:13.53 | Cope | also, don't be too quick to slag of MS; server 2003 is excellent, and iis 6 is very very good indeed. |
| 00:14.01 | wethrin | armijn: Since when? |
| 00:14.07 | Cope | wethrin: ooh some time |
| 00:14.09 | armijn | wethrin: half a year or so |
| 00:14.13 | wethrin | Cope: Other than security holes? :) |
| 00:14.18 | stephanb | okay, otherwise, has any of u ever played with linphone or gaim-vv ? |
| 00:14.19 | wethrin | Ahh. That would be why I didn't know about it |
| 00:14.26 | Cope | wethrin: which are patched in minutes by a proper organisation |
| 00:14.39 | wethrin | Yes. And weeks by Microsoft :) |
| 00:14.56 | Cope | wethrin: we've not had a single exploit on any windows servers this year |
| 00:15.05 | Cope | wethrin: and two linux exploits |
| 00:15.07 | wethrin | That's pretty good going, then |
| 00:15.14 | Cope | wethrin: no solaris |
| 00:15.32 | wethrin | BSD? |
| 00:15.37 | Cope | admittedly the linux ones were cheapskate clients with no firewall, so more fool them. |
| 00:15.53 | wethrin | What firewall on the Windows box? |
| 00:16.11 | Cope | all our firewalls are checkpoint, sometimes with 2nd tier cisco pix |
| 00:16.16 | wethrin | Ah right |
| 00:16.43 | Cope | i believe checkpoint is basically ipf |
| 00:16.47 | wethrin | Microsoft is making their server products better, but that's because they've finally got some competition in the small-server market |
| 00:16.54 | Cope | wethrin: correct |
| 00:17.37 | wethrin | The NT line itself was never *so* bad itself. However, the addition of swiss-cheese IE and IIS gave it a bad reputation |
| 00:17.42 | Cope | linux is abolutely the way forward for that size client though; as you get all the features and performance of windows, on intel architecture |
| 00:17.52 | wethrin | No. BSD surely! :) |
| 00:17.55 | Cope | ie great value |
| 00:18.00 | Cope | wethrin: yes and no; |
| 00:18.00 | armijn | stephanb: I worked with linphone |
| 00:18.07 | wethrin | Then you get better performance than Windows :) |
| 00:18.24 | Cope | wethrin: bsd is much better performance, but still not as vendor supported, and easy to scale |
| 00:18.30 | stephanb | armijn: does it interoperate with MS Portrait ? |
| 00:18.40 | Cope | wethrin: very hard to sell freebsd to the ceo |
| 00:18.45 | Cope | wethrin: very easy to sell redhat |
| 00:18.57 | wethrin | What do you mean by 'not as easy to scale'? |
| 00:18.58 | armijn | stephanb: what is MS Portrait? what protocol does it use? |
| 00:19.26 | Cope | wethrin: automated installs; package management; upgrades |
| 00:19.28 | stephanb | armijn: its a beta of what is going to replace netmeeting, i thought it used sip |
| 00:19.43 | wethrin | Cope: Easily done with BSDs |
| 00:19.47 | wethrin | Just in a slightly different way |
| 00:20.19 | wethrin | Slop the base system on, and grab packages from your central repository |
| 00:20.20 | armijn | netmeeting..that's h/323, linphone uses SIP |
| 00:20.27 | Cope | wethrin: not really, come on. I am running freebsd for choice on my desktop and my main servers; its no-where near as simple to keep up-to-date as eg debian |
| 00:20.29 | wethrin | cfengine can be your friend, if you're nice to it |
| 00:20.40 | wethrin | Yes, and can you sell Debian to your CEO? :) |
| 00:20.44 | stephanb | armijn: yes yes gnomemeeting <-> netmeeting |
| 00:20.45 | Cope | absolutely not |
| 00:20.50 | armijn | portupgrade! portupgrade! |
| 00:20.53 | wethrin | And with portupgrade it's really quite simple |
| 00:21.13 | stephanb | armijn: if portrait uses sip i thought i could do portrait <-> linphone |
| 00:21.30 | armijn | stephanb: just for voice? |
| 00:21.39 | wethrin | portupgrade with appropriate options gives you the same functionality as the apt way of upgrading |
| 00:21.46 | Cope | wethrin: cool |
| 00:21.50 | Cope | that would be great |
| 00:21.53 | stephanb | armijn: yes just voice. linphone doesnt support webcam |
| 00:21.56 | wethrin | Open and Net are quite easy too - keep one build machine, and roll out the changes |
| 00:22.16 | armijn | stephanb: there are proxies for sip and h/323 so they can interact |
| 00:22.38 | armijn | portupgrade breaks sometimes though |
| 00:22.41 | stephanb | armijn: but don't u get even more lag/delay ? |
| 00:22.46 | wethrin | So can apt :) |
| 00:22.47 | Cope | yeah, I know the idea; but there are reasons why so few people are using *bsd in the enterprise |
| 00:22.54 | armijn | stephanb: probably |
| 00:23.20 | stephanb | armijn: i tried gaim-vv with msn, all i get is <osipmanager.c: 165> port 5060 already listened |
| 00:23.24 | wethrin | Cope: They don't know how to use it properly? Linux is a buzzword? Lots of admins aren't overly clueful? (Present company excepted, of course) |
| 00:23.40 | stephanb | armijn: i havent got anything else running on my box, i don't understand |
| 00:24.03 | stephanb | armijn: i had that with linphone as well (slightly different message) |
| 00:24.04 | Cope | wethrin: I'm not sure what all the reasons are... buzzword is certainly one of them; lack of commercial support and marketing is probably one of the biggest |
| 00:24.22 | wethrin | Yes, but those are silly reasons |
| 00:24.29 | Cope | not in business |
| 00:24.36 | wethrin | Marketing is a very silly reason |
| 00:24.47 | Cope | that's the sad truth; technical purism gets nowhere |
| 00:25.23 | stephanb | yes, reality is messy, just gotta get used to it. |
| 00:25.23 | Cope | our consultants frequently end up selling a 2nd best solution because the ceo trusts microsoft more than linux |
| 00:25.26 | wethrin | Indeed. Which is silly. Because those people with Clue should dictate what goes on |
| 00:25.39 | Cope | much messier than that |
| 00:25.45 | wethrin | Why else employ clueful people? |
| 00:25.50 | Cope | ah! |
| 00:26.03 | Cope | to fix the bad solutions the sales guys recommended |
| 00:26.13 | Cope | I see this every day |
| 00:26.16 | wethrin | Yes, but that's just painful and gives no job satisfaction |
| 00:26.23 | Cope | got it in one |
| 00:26.25 | wethrin | Hitting the salesdroid with a stick is more satisfying |
| 00:27.22 | Cope | you have to ask yourself an intersting question though: take a big company like mine, who want to make money; if unix is 'better' and 'more stable' and 'more secure' than windows, why do we offer the same SLA? |
| 00:27.39 | wethrin | Pressure from Microsoft? |
| 00:27.49 | Cope | no no no |
| 00:27.58 | Cope | microsoft have no say in what sla we offer |
| 00:27.59 | armijn | stephanb: no asterisk running or so? |
| 00:28.02 | wethrin | Make it look like you have the same services across the board? |
| 00:28.12 | Cope | the answer is because the performance is the same |
| 00:28.16 | Cope | in real life |
| 00:28.19 | stephanb | armijn: linux home box |
| 00:28.28 | wethrin | That depends how you treat the box |
| 00:28.45 | Cope | a properly admin'd windows db cluster will be every bit as stable, secure and fast as a linux one |
| 00:29.09 | wethrin | And if you run it on a decent Sun machine, it'll kick serious ass :) |
| 00:29.14 | armijn | stephanb: no luck with netstat? |
| 00:29.23 | stephanb | armijn: never mind, i got gnomemeeting working |
| 00:29.23 | Cope | at the end of the day it makes almost no difference at all; the sales guy makes something up, the client pays the money, and I support it. |
| 00:29.35 | armijn | right |
| 00:29.39 | armijn | bedtime for me |
| 00:29.42 | wethrin | nn armijn |
| 00:29.43 | Cope | wethrin: yeah! some of our unix systems really really go fast |
| 00:29.53 | Cope | but that's really more a case of hardware |
| 00:29.55 | armijn | I want to catch some sleep tonight...was 6am last night |
| 00:30.07 | armijn | I'm off |
| 00:30.09 | armijn | nn |
| 00:30.09 | wethrin | I guess in a DB server the extra overhead of running a pointless GUI isn't really much |
| 00:30.16 | *** part/#gllug armijn (~armijn@losser.labs.cs.uu.nl) |
| 00:30.16 | stephanb | armijn: nite nite |
| 00:30.23 | Cope | 8G of ram and 8 monster cpus is always going to piss all over a pair of dl580g3s |
| 00:30.26 | wethrin | Yes. But systems should be run on appropriate hardware :) |
| 00:30.35 | stephanb | well im off to bed as well |=---| |
| 00:30.39 | wethrin | nn stephanb |
| 00:30.56 | Cope | well this is the difference; for MASSIVE systems, we'll spec solaris; no brainer. |
| 00:30.56 | stephanb | thank u guys for the *enlightening* strategic talk |
| 00:31.00 | wethrin | PCs are horribly designed and have really bad IO bandwidth |
| 00:31.29 | wethrin | Unix also tends to be much easier to admin remotely |
| 00:31.32 | *** part/#gllug stephanb (~stef@80.44.225.216) |
| 00:31.34 | Cope | stephanb: heh; bear in mind I'm a tired old cynic |
| 00:31.36 | Cope | gah |
| 00:31.41 | wethrin | too late :) |
| 00:31.55 | Cope | wethrin: yeah, definitely |
| 00:32.20 | Cope | we do have big windows clients, but they tend to be webservers, perhaps a few small db clusters |
| 00:32.51 | Cope | for the massive sites it'll be solaris / oracle / weblogic kinda stuff |
| 00:32.58 | wethrin | Personally, I wouldn't want to run Windows on an internet-facing machine, specially in a datacentre |
| 00:33.11 | wethrin | Then again, I wouldn't want to trust core servers to PCs |
| 00:33.12 | Cope | Nor I |
| 00:33.23 | wethrin | I've had too many problems with them in the past |
| 00:33.27 | wethrin | (and present) |
| 00:33.51 | Cope | if it were me, I'd be running bsd on not-quite-current sparc kit for low-medium stuff |
| 00:34.13 | wethrin | UltraN? |
| 00:34.30 | Cope | no... netras prolly |
| 00:34.34 | wethrin | I want to get a 1U Sparc box |
| 00:34.37 | Cope | t1 |
| 00:34.45 | wethrin | Yes. Quite nice machines |
| 00:34.49 | Cope | gorgeous |
| 00:34.55 | Cope | perfect webserver |
| 00:35.03 | wethrin | I'd like to replace hades with one |
| 00:35.13 | wethrin | But can't seem to get hold of any cheaply |
| 00:35.27 | Cope | not sure what's cheap |
| 00:35.33 | Cope | ebay seems to have them frequently |
| 00:35.42 | wethrin | I try to avoid ebay |
| 00:35.48 | Cope | why so? |
| 00:36.23 | wethrin | I never really get anything cheaply enough there. And other people always out-bid me |
| 00:36.29 | wethrin | Well, almost always |
| 00:36.30 | Cope | grump |
| 00:36.33 | wethrin | *mutter* snipers |
| 00:37.59 | Cope | it is amazing how far bsd outperforms linux in some cases; my webserver is now really noticeably more responsive than when it run debian |
| 00:38.00 | wethrin | Rightho. I think I'd better go to bed now |
| 00:38.22 | Cope | nice to talk; I miss you :-) |
| 00:47.06 | wethrin | Oops |
| 00:47.14 | wethrin | Again |
| 00:47.26 | wethrin | BSD outperforms Linux on heavily loaded systems |
| 00:48.05 | wethrin | They've tuned their scheduler to perform really well then, at the expense of having it slightly less optimal on lightly-loaded systems (when, arguably, it's not going to make any noticable difference) |
| 00:49.34 | wethrin | Anyway. Sleeptime |
| 00:49.36 | wethrin | nightnight! |