Comments on: Where’s the Ubuntu Server Push?

By: Jef Spaleta

Jef Spaleta — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:16:49 +0000

@dca:

I take issue with your characterization of Fedora as more unstable than the RHL releases that preceded it. That sort of comment requires a pretty impressive historical deep dive into Red Hat’s bugzilla system in order to back it up. Are you up for that? I look forward to your detailed analysis.

But if that historical deep dive is too much work and all you really want to do is character assassinate the Fedora distriubtion compared to current distribution peers…I’m more than prepared to point out stability problems in each and every single Ubuntu release (including LTS releases) that are as severe as anything seen in Fedora releases of the same vintage.

-jef

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:53:31 +0000

SouthWind48: We’ll be watching the Ubuntu Server Edition 9.10 launch closely for potential server system news plus cloud momentum…

By: SouthWind48

SouthWind48 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:28:44 +0000

Have you made your resolutions yet? ,

By: dca

dca — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:29:07 +0000

@Diane: Why include Debian & CentOS in the mix? CentOS is RHEL, why would a community based distro look for ISV(s)???? Same w/ Debian, community based distro, they don’t care if you run it on a sewing machine….

Of course RH has a head start (okay, a mile long head start) on the game. It took them years and it unfortunately took them removing RH from being a completely free distro to being a distro that you have to pay for JUST TO GET UPDATES, let alone a ton of extra money to get support for. Now, the community is left with an unusable pile to test & play with (Fedora). Novell saw the writing on the wall and followed suit w/ SUSE…

By: Dave Lane

Dave Lane — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:56:50 +0000

Lucky for most of us Linux experts who developed our expertise almost inadvertently – at university or on the job (or both) – many (most?) businesses – particularly technical companies – don’t hire based on certs. Certainly here in NZ, admittedly a small market, certifications will most likely elicit a blank stare or a chuckle (particularly MSCEs) rather than a job offer…

As for what Schmoe has to say about Ubuntu being less stable than Debian… well, that’s probably a fair comment, however, oddly enough, stability isn’t everything (although, in my experience, an Ubuntu Linux server can be pretty rock solid). In some cases it’s a matter of having a suitably up-to-date hosting environment for certain applications, and in that situation a more tried-and-true Debian stable system won’t cut it. Everything’s a compromise.

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:44:24 +0000

Diane @10: You hit the nail on the head. Unlike the traditional “community” approach of open source, the corporate market requires “certified” applications from business software providers.

Microsoft nailed this model by getting apps certified on Windows NT in order to compete with NetWare and Unix in the 1990s. Red Hat has used a similar model to ensure it has a massive ISV base for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Canonical will need a similar initiative for Ubuntu on corporate servers.

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:28:03 +0000

Where’s Ubuntu servers? Where are the ubuntu server application certifications? Red Hat is the leader and will be the leader for a long time to come simply because it has a huge number of certified applications for its servers. Corporations (especially large and medium size Corporations) want assurances (certifications) that their application mix is certified from top to bottom by the OS/hardware vendors. Red Hat has a huge lead over Novell on certified solutions, so that’s a competitive advantage for Red Hat over Novell. Novell is adding certifications as fast as possible, but Red Hat started first in this area and has outpaced Novell, CentOS, Debian and others. So until Ubuntu can provide a huge number of certified solutions for their hardware, Ubuntu won’t come close in the enterprise server space.

By: Schmoe

Schmoe — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:16:08 +0000

Ok, I’ll just go ahead and say it: it’s not stable enough for servers. If you want a stable ubuntu-like system, use Debian. It was designed for stability. The desktop is Ubuntu’s forte.

By: Dave Lane

Dave Lane — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:27:09 +0000

By the way, I have yet to see a commercial hosting provider who doesn’t offer Ubuntu VMs and other forms of hosting alongside Debian, CentOS, and SuSE. If the hosting market is anything to go by, Ubuntu is already a (perhaps *the*) preferred choice based on my sampling data. Has anyone ever done a comprehensive study? With the lack of sales figures on Ubuntu, it could be far more prevalent than any of the corporates think, and I believe it is.

By: Dave Lane

Dave Lane — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:21:20 +0000

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but we’ve been rolling out Ubuntu servers commercially since Hoary Hedgehog. We’ve been able to leverage our extensive desktop experience (we’re also a developer shop that runs Ubuntu on the desk/thin-client top) as the desktop use cases allow us to develop expertise in some of the same subsystems our servers run. Many open source IT companies in New Zealand seem to be gravitating towards Ubuntu on both the server and the desktop, because a) it’s brilliant for both, and b) it’s clearly going places. The diversity of open source means that the market can pick the winners, not the monopolies.