[PLUG] For The SysAdmin Gurus

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 15 Aug 2006, Wil Cooley wrote:

> The difference is that you don't do it often enough to have gotten sick
> of doing the manual stuff over and over again and realized that
> sometimes you should trade off control for certain worries.

Wil,

   I don't use Slackware for control, but for stability 'way back from the
bleeding edge.

> That encapsulates my opinion of Slackware pretty well--but it's not just
> Slackware, I used to worry and fiddle with an installation to keep the
> size down as small as possible, to tweak and tune and fiddle bits here and
> there. Nowadays, I could mostly care less.

   I've not been a twiddler and tweaker, but a learner. When I learned enough
to know how to do the things I wanted, I simplified my network and settled
back to use the system as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Other
than security upgrades to the system, and certain security or bug fixes to
the applications I use daily, I don't futz with the system until I get a new
distribution set in the mail. It takes me perhaps an hour to upgrade all
three hosts here, and I'm done with system administration other than
checking the log summaries mailed to me each morning and changing the backup
tapes on Friday and Monday.

> I'd rather work within the constraints of the system and focus my time
> where I get either the least work down with the most accomplishment, or
> the most fun.  I mean, if doing stuff manually is your thing, and you've
> got the time, then by all means, love yourself all over it.  But it
> doesn't sound like you do.

   I don't know why you think I do things manually. The Slackware package
tools (installpkg, upgradepkg, removepkg) make distribution and application
upgrades much less of a hassle than I had with Red Hat.

> I've only ever downloaded Firefox from mozilla.org for Windows
> installations; for Linux installations, I used the included binary (or one
> from an established 3rd party), built for my particular system.  The
> problem that people complain about with Linux systems is the diversity of
> environments; with a huge application like Firefox that depends so deeply
> on many parts of the system, it's particularly bad.

   Well, the problem also occurs with packages created specifically for
Slackware. The same package won't properly print on the one box, but will on
another. What that has to do with the distribution I don't know.

   I know full well that you've a ton of experience. When three systems are
running the same distribution and the same versions of everything, but one
has a problem with one application that is not a problem on the other hosts,
I fail to see how it's the result of my choice of a linux distribution.
However, ...

Rich

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Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
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