Hello

ilde · Newbie Joined: Jan 02, 2010 Posts: 2

I have been using Debian GNU/Linux for some seven years. Two of them I was dual-booting until OpenOffice.org got stable enough that I didn't need to resource to Windows anymore.

I have successfully installed quite a few servers and workstations but I still consider myself a newbie. I try to learn something new anytime I can.

While I personaly don't use Windows and associated crapware, I enjoy decrapifying my friends' and customers' boxes by removing MS trial versions and "freebies" like .NET framework, MS Sync framework, MSSql and Visual Basic distributables (I wonder why would any regular user ever need these things which M$ quietly installs on users' boxes through updates. Maybe M$ uses them for their own unveiled purposes, who knows) and lately, Silverlight and Mesenger Live which, by the way, is a pest for most corporations. All these things have a toll in excess of 1GB of disk space. Other things I usually remove are Acrobat reader with its ~90MB size, Norton/McAfee wannabe "protections", and every make of adware (btw, I'm writing this from a just decrapified box!!!).

I advocate Linux mainly on the merits of stability and control. That's why I have settled with the stable versions of Debian. Most of the times it means I won't have the latest versions of kernel, OpenOffice.org, Firefox (hey, I don't even have the original name, as it is called Iceweasel instead!!!), but I really trust Debian's developers efforts and commitment in creating the best distro.

Cheers.

jimmo · Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 8:34 am Post subject:

Hello ilde!

Welcome to the Linux Tutorial. Most people simple accept the trash that comes pre-installed on their Windows machines without considering if it is any good or if they really need it. I think you hit it on the head with "stability and control". I recently read a post somewhere from a guy you countered complaints against Windows 7 because it is "pretty stable". I expect my operating system to be *completely* stable, especially when I am paying for it.

Be care with words like "best", particularly in the Linux universe. For example, if there is a distribution out there that has one feature that I do not want to do without, then that one is the "best" (for me).

regards,

jimmo

ilde · Newbie Joined: Jan 02, 2010 Posts: 2

Hi jimmo!

Some years ago, when I offered my services to a new customer, the guy in charge of their Windows servers proudly announced that after upgrading to Windows Server 2003 he had finally got such a stable system that he no longer needed to reboot it everyday but instead, just once a week!!!.

Mainly out of curiosity, they let me install a Linux server, and to that effect they gave me the most poorly equipped machine they could find (Intel Celeron 450MHz, with 128 MB RAM). I didn't object to that, and I only requested a new hard disk for it, which they agreed to buy.

I installed Samba on top of Debian in order to share files and printers.

They could not believe it when a girl with the IT team reported that it had not been necessary to reboot the Linux server in more than three months.

Shortly after that, they asked me to put the Linux box in charge of controlling the Internet traffic (in such a way that they could grant or deny on-the-fly access to the Internet on a per user basis) and of periodically backing-up the data on some important Windows boxes.

As of today, the box is still in use. And now they understand what does the term "stability" really means.

Regards.

jimmo · Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:34 pm Post subject:

In the early '90s I worked in SCO tech support (when it was still a software company). There was a bug in X-Windows that required you to start X-Windows every 247 days. Not the whole machine, just X-Windows. There was some counter that wasn't large enough and overflowed after 247 days. The important thing is that even then you could actually run an SCO system for 247 days without having to reboot. I think the record in support while I was there was about 18 months, but I knew people who had production machines running much longer.

People who come from a Unix background are used to being able to run machines that long. People who come from a Windows background get all excited when you run the machine a whole month without having to reboot.