Redhat lost the plot?

From: BearItAll (spam_at_rassler.co.uk)
Date: 10/22/04 

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:23:39 +0100

I'm sat here with seven Redhat servers under my wing. The first one I used
here was a version 7.x, before that it was various other distros. None of
them bad in any way, afterall, linux is linux so if your building a server
any distro that happens to be on the shelf when you walk into PC World will
do. They can all be made to work the same way, the only real difference is
what is loaded for you at install/setup time. (glossing over conf location
problems, because they usually easily solved).

All work fine, most are covered by redhat for updates. At first each time I
added a system I bought a box set, because before the days of subscription
it was almost impossible to explain to Accounts the donation system when
you purformed any updates yourself. 'But Robbie we already have the
servers, why are you asking for more money? And please don't say that word
donation again in front of the ladies.'.

The subscription system worked, at least it did, until part way through a
year (was this two years ago) IT received an email telling us redhat wasn't
playing that game any more, to carry on you have to start from scratch and
pay again, but this time much more.

So I didn't bother except on my main two.

But, now that I'm planning for next year I have to say that Redhat isn't
really viable any more. It is just too expensive.

Any ditro will do the same job, I'm not particularly bothered about nice gui
tools to setup network and samba, because I've always been a commandline
man anyway.

Mandrake is ok, but they pitching their prices high too, not as high as
redhat, but still higher than the distro deserves.

Suse is a pain in the bum as a works server, until you strip it clean (as a
desktop client its possibly the best of the lot). They do a distro
specifically as a server which is probably already strip'ed clean.

Then you gat all of the nice clean distros, same kernels, same gui's, in
fact, the same. Other than the bits that are setup for you when you
install.

I personally don't think that accounts will look favourably on me if I say
to them 'Well, if I go for Redhat, it's the same as Slackware and others
except on the first day when I install it I get a pretty blue box that lets
me type the samba details into it. erm. rather than opening an editor and
doing it myself and only for a price difference of $1000 or so'.

Sorry, just in a mood because my boss is in a mood and now my appo is in a
mood. But it is true that I can't put Redhat in my budget. 

-- 
BearItAll
Martian currently living on planet ZoggleBoggle
Someone kept throwing bits of metal at us, When
I find out who I'll have words with them.

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