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Old 02-20-2008, 06:15 AM
+Alan Hicks+
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Sob story on upgrading to new ver. of Slackware

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In alt.os.linux.slackware, Al. C dared to utter,
> Really. How many of you are still running 8 trough 9.1? Anyone?


Until I consolidated some servers around a few weeks back to reduce the
ammount of machines doing varius tasks I still had a 9.1 server. Until
my previous server died and required a re-install (yes, I had backups
of the data) it was running 9.0. Currently my company's mail and web
services are on a 10.0 machine. I see no reason to upgrade. In fact, of
all the Slackware boxen I ahve out there, only one is running 10.1
right now. I've many customers still running 10.0, most are still
running 9.1, and a few run 9.0 (in a two-node failover heartbeat
cluster to boot!) and I've no plans to upgrade them. I keep an eye on
security fixes and make sure the machines are properly hardened before
going into place as I rarely ever look at them after they're installed
at my client's site. It never ceases to amaze me how the more time you
spend up front doing things right on a server the less time you ever
have to spend on it again. The vast majority of my support work is on
broken clients. Server problems are almost always old, failing
hardware.

> As an aside, this is why mega-corporations like the ERP paradigm which is a
> fancy acronym where ALL your applications are by one vendor and integrated
> together.... as SAP does, and which is why Oracle wanted Peoplesoft. You
> don't have a hodge-podge of 3rd party applications and it makes upgrading
> easier as it's all "managed" by the vendor. I'm not pitching or endorsing the
> ERP approach, but it does have a lot of proponents out there in mega-corp
> land.


I can see why that's tempting, but to me that's really a recipe for
disaster and violates all common sense. When you hand over control of
your infrastructure to some third party; you're taking a very big risk.
Handing the keys to your business's network to some one else is, IMO, a
bad move if you can afford to do the work in house. In house people
know you, know exactly what you need, are generally easier to get in
touch with or strong-arm into doing what you want, and are easily
replaced just by phasing out bad workers and phasing in new (hopefully
good) workers.

> Still, I really would like to run 10.1. But I don't know why :-)


My advice, if 9.1 is doing all you need it to do; don't worry about the
upgrade.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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