[ale] Distro Reply

Mon Jan 3 23:07:26 EST 2005

I hope you are writing a book on how you did this, what the challenges
were, what problems you had to overcome, etc. This is EXACTLY the kind
of stuff that becomes more ammo for somewhere else to make the switch to
sanity-based systems. The medical community is in dire straits with
HIPPA on one hand and WinXP on the other. Several of my doctor clients
are still using DOS apps (they _do_ work) because the smaller stuff is
still not HIPPA compliant. The FOSS medical managment software is beta
quality but some of it is very HIPPA savy. It's getting the foot in the
door...

On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 22:28, Jerald Sheets wrote:
> But you have to understand, that to foster widespread acceptance of the
> Linuxes in the enterprise, we must drop our zealotry to a degree.  (I had to
> learn this the hard way, and speak of myself here)
> 
> Something Microsoft has been so good at is embrace and extend.  In the Linux
> world, we still hav IT managers that were educated in the 60's and 70's and
> view Linux as nothing more than a toy.  If instead you approach them with a
> small entry (DNS server, for instance) and provide them all the trappings of
> their paid-for "supported" os, you've won.  
> 
> It doesn't matter that it isn't GNU/Linux.  It doesn't matter that it's
> "Free and Open".  What matters to today's IT manager (decreasingly so) is
> that when Linux admin X gets pissed and leaves, he can call company Y to
> support solution Z.  That's all he cares about.  
> 
> Again, from the ENTERPRISE perspective, we're newcomers to this game with
> something to prove.
> 
> 
> When I was at Our Lady of the Lake hospital, when I arrived in 2001, there
> was *NO* Linux in house.  Not desktop, not server.  When I left, there was
> RH on RS6000/Power PC, a clustered HIPAA compliant patient radiology records
> system writing to Optical disks running on RH AS 3.x. (Which, incidently,
> was used in the first hospital in America going completely filmless in their
> entire radiology farm)  I had 2 DNS servers on IBM 435 machines with over
> 200 days uptime, running on RH 9.x.  The IBM p690 Regatta had a RedHat
> partition onboard, and we had Linux 390 on the mainframe.  Finally, the
> entire UNIX-based Administration team was running in a 100% linux desktop
> environment.  (11 people).
> 
> 
> ALL SERVING HOSPITAL PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTS.
> 
> My key to success in a Linux-hostile environ was to start slow.  The DNS
> servers were first.  We ran them in test for 6 mnths before they'd let me go
> live with them.  When I did, both machines were on IBM maintenance, and were
> running an (at the time) supported Linux system.  I also had hardware flat
> out fail, and had *ZERO* downtime.  This type of event spoke VOLUMES.  Next,
> I upgraded everything to RH AS 3 before I left.  As of today, the Linux
> environments (as *we* would all be aware) have been the most stable,
> zero-maintenance environments in-house.  However, to Joe IT manager, this
> must be proven through time and trial.  You can't just run in and install
> Gentoo and hope it works.
> 
> In my time at the hospital, I can count total downtime (unscheduled) within
> an afternoon's cofee-break time.  We *NEVER* went down without planning, and
> then only once (or less) a year.  At one point, our systems were up more
> than the mainframe (it has to come down for an hour tice a year for
> time-change)
> 
> Why do I say all this?
> 
> While a simple throw-it and forget-it Linux system may be fine for Joe
> shopkeeper, it won't work in the Enterprise.
> 
> 
> Don't take that as a slam.  It isn't.  It's real-world, eterprise (read
> data-ceter) class expereience in mission critical (read patient's records
> and lives) data environments.  If we want to take over the world in the
> Linux arena (read, oust Microsoft) you have to start grassroots and
> enterprise simultaneously, and converge toward Microsoft's territory from
> both ends so their only place to go is the margins...marginalized.
> 
> Thanks for listening.
> 
> Jerald M. Sheets jr.
> Sr. UNIX Systems Administrator
> McKesson, Inc.
> (404) 293-8762
> **********
> >su -
> Password:
> # cat /dev/flood > /dev/earth
> # rdev noah+beasts
> # dd if=noah+beasts of=/dev/earth
> 
> PGP Key: 0x6267F183
> 
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version: 3.12
> GIT d+ s++: a C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E--- W++ N+ o-- K+ w-- 
> O M+ V PS- PE++ Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R* tv- b+ DI++++ D++ 
> G+ e h---- r+++ y++++ 
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jeff
> Hubbs
> Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 9:43 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: RE: [ale] Distro Reply
> 
> I guess what bothers me about the attitude described here (not saying that
> Jerald holds it) is that I had thought that part of the whole point of using
> Linux and FOSS in general is that you *weren't* dependent on a single source
> or *any* source of conditional support - the idea being that you as an IT
> implementor/integrator had inviolate say over how your software behaved.
> This "viable, supported alternative" talk sounds like nothing so much as
> wanting the ball and chain back.
> 
> I *know* what it's like to be stuck in a certain kind of closed-source hell
> where you can't get your app fixed or your peripheral to behave properly for
> love *or* money, and I also know what it's like for paid support reps to
> turn their nose up at you because the way in which you needed to adapt their
> product to your needs was, in their eyes, "unsupported."  There's nothing
> about the OS in question being Linux that keeps implementors out of that
> wasteland.  
> 
> Jeff
> 
> On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 17:26, Jerald Sheets wrote:
> > Again, from a business perspective you'd never sell Debian as a 
> > viable, supported alternative to the pinhead suits.
> > 
> > They're getting better, it's just not considered viable on a 
> > widespread basis yet.
> > 
> > Jerald M. Sheets jr.
> > Sr. UNIX Systems Administrator
> > McKesson, Inc.
> > (404) 293-8762
> > **********
> > >su -
> > Password:
> > # cat /dev/flood > /dev/earth
> > # rdev noah+beasts
> > # dd if=noah+beasts of=/dev/earth
> > 
> > PGP Key: 0x6267F183
> > 
> > -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> > Version: 3.12
> > GIT d+ s++: a C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E--- W++ N+ o-- K+ w-- O M+ V PS- 
> > PE++ Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R* tv- b+ DI++++ D++
> > G+ e h---- r+++ y++++
> > ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of 
> > Raylynn Knight
> > Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 5:12 PM
> > To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> > Subject: Re: [ale] Distro Reply
> > 
> > On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 12:41 -0500, Geoffrey wrote:
> > > John P. Healey wrote:
> > > > Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org> writes:
> > > > 
> > > >>Yeah...  I don't get that either.  The most mature products on the 
> > > >>planet are not an option...
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > He's probably looking to broaden his horizons and explore 
> > > > packaging systems that aren't rpm based.  Also, I fail to see how 
> > > > Debian is any less mature than redhat, mandrake, and fedora.
> > > 
> > > Stable Debian running a 2.2 kernel.  To me, that is not mature, that 
> > > is old.  Personal opinion.
> > > 
> > Stable Debian is 3.0r4 released on 1 January 2005.  Debian supports 
> > many hardware architectures, some of which only have a 2.2 kernel.  
> > Debian 3.0 was originally released 19 July 2002 so the default install 
> > kernel is a 2.2 based kernel, however a 2.4 kernel is optional and 
> > available on
> > x86 hardware at boot time.
> > 
> >  
> > --
> > Raylynn Knight <audilover at speedfactory.net>
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > 
> > --
> > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> > Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 12/30/2004
> >  
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 12/30/2004
>  
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part