LINUX - Keeping Up
While we like Windows because it is a fully supported OS and is so overwhelmingly dominant in the computer user space, we also like to keep our hands in the Unix/Linux world. We'll post some tips here as we learn them often the hard way.
Currently at the Milagro lab are:
A quad-core white box with hot-plug SATAs running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ubuntu 11.10 and VMWare ESXi server - a free Linux-based virtual machine hosting OS. These boot off different disks, controlled by setting the boot order in the BIOS setup. The box was on clearance from our favorite used computer store for $159 and needed only a DvD reader and floppy drive added. Several spare SATA disks filled it out with storage.
Sun E220R server running Solaris 10 hosting Oracle 11, IBM Websphere MQ and other stuff for testing and support.
Fedora 10 sits on a box in the auto shop and,
SuSE 11 is running under VMWare Server on a Windows machine hosting Joomla and Sugar CRM.
These move around quite a bit as jobs demand.
The past couple of years, Fedora (the free Red Hat Linux variant) has fallen back in favor of Ubuntu, a Debian based distribution which is all free and well developed to present a Win/Mac look and feel for those not handy with the command line. Our experience shows that for hobby and technician use, the hot new versions are fine and offer the latest developments in the X-Windows environment. Most Linux/Unix functions can be accomplished with the graphic interface software, much like in other popular OS installations. Ubuntu 11.10 is the latest desktop version and can be easily installed if your hardware is not out of the mainstream. Finding and installing video drivers can be the most challenging if you have a chipset or card that is a bit "weird". Some drivers must be compiled into the kernel to work properly. If you have trouble, it may be simpler to just buy a card that Ubuntu recognizes at install time.
Free or Not Free?
Bear in mind that all Linux free versions are developed and maintained by volunteers. Most open-source developers and systems specialists are employed somewhere full-time doing enterprise Linux work and use the environment to sharpen skills and contribute to the open source community's offerings. If you are planning to use Fedora or Ubuntu in a production environment (reliability and predictability = money), then seriously consider using a paid-support version of Red Hat (workstation or server) or a version designated to be more stable than the freely-used "hot" version. For Ubuntu, this is currently the 10.04 LTS version. LTS stands for Long Term Support, which means that it will not get as many cool updates and its entire load of software (kernel, desktop environment, drivers) is slower to change. In fact, the kernel will likely be a version behind the latest and very well tested.
Supported versions may cost a little money each or they may be free, but you will benefit from having a more stable system and the possibility of calling in for help when you need it. Forum-based support only goes so far, and the cost to you or your tech employees to search down solutions is significant.
Want Cheap RAID?
Linux can provide software RAID where the kernel does the management of I/O for your disks. This is usually set up at install time and can be tricky to manage. An inadvertent mdadm command can clobber your file systems and leave you staring at a black screen that won't boot up. GUI tools help, but real management tasks often require learning to use command line utilities like mdadm. We think a much better solution is to buy and use a hardware RAID adapter (Adaptec, etc) and let a separate processor on the adapter do that work. It is also much simpler to set up and divorces your Linux OS from having to manage the RAID operations along with doing everything else you want it to do. Again, if you are hobbying it, no problem. If time is money, buy a separate controller.