Novell: Why we don't need a third Linux distro
novell.com
novell.com
o CentOS - which is pretty bog standard for large web environments that are RPM Based that need to, for whatever reason, stay close to the RHEL platform.
o RHEL - For anybody who needs RedHat Support, or needs to be able to tell Oracle (or other enterprise vendor) they are running on a supported platform. Or they are just PHBs that need the comfort of deploying "Supported" environments.
o Ubuntu - This is a bit of an outlier, but we have a number of Debian Snobs who have a preference for the apt/dpkg/deb way of doing things, and Ubuntu, particularly LTS, seems to have some mindshare here.
Nobody mentioned Suse, though this is in Silicon Valley, and I get the sense that Novell doesn't have as much presence here.
In any event, another good reason for running RHEL is when there' a legal requirement that you can't use "freeware". Mostly the place I'm at develops on CentOS and then pays Red Hat for what we ship simply because then we'll have paid someone for what we ship.
We found that stability to be on par with CentOS, with the primary advantage of Ubuntu being that we have more up to date packages in the main distribution.
We have a number of people running Ubuntu on their workstations which was another benefit of "unifying" the underlying platforms.
BTW, yes apt is awesome
[1] With the exception of Germany, where SUSE Enterprise appears to be most popular.
I guess only the big old customers stick with SuSE. I don't know a single person anymore using SuSE…
I've recently helped to install a new server farm for a media company. We've choosen Ubuntu 10.04 LTS + chef (opscode) + REE + kvm.
(I assume we're not talking desktops here.)
Debian is great for one or two machines, but based on my experience with it I can't imagine using it for 10,000 boxes
As for requiring a very specific configuration, most of the time that is only in one corner of the machine. I would even hazard that if you have strict requirements for every facet of the machine that differ from the defaults (and this machine is not handling super-sensitive information, super-high performance jobs, or publicly accessible) then you are doing it wrong.
I find that debians support cycle for stable is troublesome for long lived servers, as the support lifetime is unknown, other than it's a year past the release date of the next stable version. That means that the minimum lifetime before needing to recheck everything for stability is one year plus however long until they release a new stable.
In contrast, ubuntu is at 5yr support for their longterm releases, with a known 2 year cycle in-between. Which means that even if you install in the worst possible time in the cycle, a new install will be supported for three years.
I really like those extra two years of security updates.
(edit for iPad text entry)
A better blog post: Oracle just screwed your J2EE ecosystem, hope you don't deploy their version of linux for even deeper vendor lock-in there too.
# apt-get install oracle-xe
48% of deployments are Ubuntu
24% of deployments are Debian
16% of deployments are CentOS
4.3% of deployments are Fedora
3.1% of deployments are GentooI can't figure out what they are trying to get at with this article. I can't help but feeling that they sound a little desperate.
The way Ubuntu is growing, RedHat had probably better start worrying about the same ...
I mean, sure, it adds to 95%- but who's to say Novell isn't only 3% by itself?
They lost a lot afterwards/in the last years, but I'd still say that they are relevant (mind you - without running Suse here.. I'm running a distribution that didn't get mentioned here and has no commercial support..):
- The OpenSuse BuildService [1] is really awesome. Think Ubuntu PPAs, just without the limitation of being for a single distribution/release. It's basically a build system that serves everyone and is still actively improved day by day. Want to build packages for Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora? It can do it for you..
- If you have looked at Suse Studio [2] once, live, you'll agree that this is an awesome product for a lot of deployments. Think "Let me create my linux based appliance with a few clicks using a nice interface".
- Novell still funds a lot of desktop stuff. Granted, RedHat is probably bigger. But if you think "Gnome" you probably see right away that they are both deeply involved and actively moving the platform forward.
- Suse improved zypper (the yum/apt-get/aptitude alternative) by _huge_ amounts concerning speed and usability and it is now for all intents and purposes at least equivalent to the competitors
- Remember the outcry of the open source community after Novell made the agreement with Microsoft regarding the patent protection (fail to find the correct words, you probably know what I mean) for .Net technology: If you are afraid of the risk there, you'll be a customer of Novell I guess.
I agree that RedHat is probably the bigger one (and the "we gained 5% claim is therefor maybe misleading), but - pulling numbers from ... nowhere.. I'd rather put them at 30 (Novell) vs 60 (Redhat) % of the market.