[geeks] Needed: A good sparc workstation

[Nadine Miller]

On Mar 8, 2009, at 11:56 AM, gsm at mendelson.com wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 08, 2009 at 11:16:59AM -0700, Nadine Miller wrote:
>>
>> If you cannot administer it over a serial console, it's not a  
>> server.   Anyone who does 100% percent remote administration is  
>> going to say the  same thing.  Typing is far less cumbersome and  
>> annoying then having to  bust out the mouse for tasks.  Mice cause  
>> RSI, and mousing actions  cannot be saved into a text file so the  
>> next time you have to do  something 3-6 mo down the road and you  
>> can't remember wtf it was you  did, you can just peek into your  
>> cheat sheet file.
>
> I hope this was sarcasm. I've known people who had surgery for RSI  
> back
> when it was called "carpal tunnel syndrome", from typing. It takes far
> less actions and clicks to load the software update tool, than it does
> to type aptitude. And surprisingly (to me) it works.

No, it was not sarcasm.  I have RSI from using the mouse.  I do not  
have problems as a result of typing.

It takes far less painful action for me to type 'apt-get upgrade' than  
to fiddle with the mouse starting a GUI and trying to figure out what  
I need/don't need.

>> As for Geoff and his issues with LTS, I'm using that *desktop*  
>> distro  with Macs and Samsung printers and have only had to do one  
>> thing  special, other than extracting the PPD out of the old  
>> Samsung Apple  installer.
>
> No, it had to do with support of the USB port, or the printer on the  
> USB
> port, or some stupidity in cups. Foolishly I thought it was a problem
> with CUPS 1.2 or later and the 2.4 kernel I was running, it turns out
> that no matter what I did, CUPS would find the printer and never  
> print to
> it. I tried the unpack the PPD trick, I tried the Samsung drivers, I  
> tried
> everything that everyone else documented as working.
> When I was done, the only thing that actually worked was to go back to
> CUPS 1.1.9 and stick with it.

I am not using a network printer, either.  I was able to get my  
"unsupported" Samsung working using the PPD trick--I've done that for  
a lot of other printers that are supposedly unsupported as well under  
*NIX, like the Konica Bizhub we have at work.  That PPD came out of  
the Mac OS 9 install bundle.

>> I had to compile Netatalk by hand because the "stock" *buntu build  
>> does not enable ssl and OS X doesn't like that.  It's a simple  
>> matter to mark that package so that it doesn't get upgraded.
>
> Yes, but upgraded from what? It wasn't going to upgrade my RH 7.2  
> system,
> no matter how many fixes, patches and new versions I applied by  
> hand, I had
> to do a fresh install.

Apt/dpkg has a very straightforward system for marking packages so  
that nothing in the package mgmt system will touch it.

echo "netatalk hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

Building netatalk to work with OS X is a common enough task that  
googling should give you at close to a half-dozen step-by-step guides  
on doing it--including putting the package hold on.

>> IME, "apt get update" and "apt get upgrade" work just fine in  
>> *buntu.   There is zero you need to do with Synaptic and that ilk  
>> to maintain your system.  The only thing I've noted that is more of  
>> an annoyance than a problem, is that the stupid "reboot your  
>> system" notification is too dumb to realize you initiated the  
>> reboot from the command line.  But then, while I call my home file  
>> server a file server, it's really a workstation that's being forced  
>> into the role of server so I expect these types of oddities.  If  
>> you *only* want a server, why even bother with *buntu?  Install  
>> Debian and be done with it.
>
> IMHO they suck. If you are not careful, you can end up installing  
> hundreds
> of packages and uninstalling one or two critical ones, lost in a  
> storm of
> text flying by, and not always do you get a prompt. I've had to do  
> all sorts
> of things to get packages to install, including copy the name from the
> error message and build an install command by hand and a lot of other
> stuff to get it to work.
> YUM was much better, I wonder if it works with Ubuntu?

I'll mark this down as a bias in favor of the "known", since I find  
the exact opposite.  Having worked with both RPM based systems and deb- 
based systems, I'll take the deb-based system any day of the week.  I  
have never had to fight with dependencies in apt, nor have I had to  
compile from source to fix broken packages the way I have on other  
distros, aside from this single instance of having to do so to get ssl- 
enabled netatalk.  I have been using *buntu as my primary Linux  
workstation, fileserver, and LAMP test box for almost 4 years now.

>> I find it ironic that Geoff, the guy that seems happy to beat up  
>> on  everyone for their choices of over-powered, excessive machines  
>> is now  stating that GUIs are better.
>
> No, what I said was that it was much easier to admin Ubuntu using a  
> GUI, it
> was set up with that in mind. The tools are there, they work and I  
> can easily
> remote into the machine, so why not use them? Do you have something  
> against
> doing things the easy way?

You're being self-contradictory.  If you liked your previous version  
of Linux so well and were happy with it, why switch to *buntu and then  
claim that the server tools don't work and it can only be "easily"  
administered with the GUI?  That's damning with faint praise.

>> I'll also point out that most commodity  x86 hardware (save perhaps  
>> your network card if it is an oddball brand) will run Solaris 10  
>> x86, so I'm not sure why he thinks costly special hardware is  
>> necessary.
>
> Never said that either. In case you have been asleep the last 4  
> years, I'm
> out of work and on disability, buying anything costs too much. The  
> only
> reason I have this laptop is that my family and friends chipped in and
> bought it as a 55th birthday present, with the hope that I can use it
> to get out and become able to work again.
>
> I find it ironic, to use your words, that with all the money troubles,
> failed businesses, etc you've had, you expect that everyone can go out
> and buy a new computer every time they need to upgrade software.

I didn't say buy a new computer, I said no specialized hardware was  
necessary.  I know plenty of people who have installed Solaris on low- 
end laptops.  Did you even bother to try it or look in the HCL?

> Unfortunately, I think that not only am I not uniqiue being broke,  
> there
> may be a lot more of us here than you think.
>
> I'm not going to name names, as it is irrelevant, but you often see
> people on this list selling last year's hardware to finance buying  
> this
> year's. So I think that the number of people on this list who can  
> afford to go out and buy a new PC to get more disk space are pretty  
> rare.

You are making a lot of assumptions about my situation.  Pillorying me  
because I know how to sell my skill set and get a job, even in a  
declining economy, doesn't paint a very nice picture of your  
attitude.  I have referred a number of folks on this list to jobs,  
just as I have been referred by folks on this list to jobs.  Only you  
can sell yourself and get beyond an interview--getting a foot in the  
door is just that.

>> I think this is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.  Windows was  
>> not  originally designed to be used @ the CLI only.  Recall that X,  
>> gnome,  etc. are all *add ons* for *NIX.
>
> That was, like Linus Torvald's posting about linux being X86 only, a  
> long
> time ago. Gnome and KDE did not come about until well after Linux  
> (my first
> linux system ca 1995 did not have them and AFAIK they did not  
> exist), but
> my first UNIX system (Esix 3.2 ca 1990) came with X windows.
> The first time I used an AIX system (1992) it already had was at the  
> point
> where you could had to use the GUI tool, although some of it was  
> available
> in curses mode on a text terminal.

Just because X comes with Solaris doesn't mean I have to install it or  
use it.  Solaris works just fine without it.  That said, I am forced  
to install X on Solaris servers to support Oracle's installers, which  
nevertheless do not actually *use* X for installation.  It's stupid,  
regardless of whether it's required or not--X *is* an add-on and  
should not be required for the functioning of server software.  Any  
excess software is a security risk and wastes time when it comes to  
applying patches.

I'll also say, IME, in an enterprise environment, the insistence of an  
administrator on the necessity of reliance on a GUI is inversely  
proportional to their understanding of the underlying system they are  
working on.  My dba acknowledges that Oracle requires X, but he'd be a  
hell of a lot happier if it didn't.  You should hear my tools guy rail  
against the failure of Zabbix (monitoring & trending system) to  
provide a scriptable administrative interface for configuring hosts  
into the damned thing.

=Nadine=