On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:03:20 -0600 Daniel Taylor <dante at argle.org> wrote: > I thought I had read it. I've used most of those as well as some > others. Simple things like code portablility. How many "special" > options you need to even compile packages with GCC on each platform. > Varied libraries, wierd options to common utilities like 'ps' it's a > real mixed bag when you deal with commercial Unix. > Generally, my experience has been that overall, on most boxes that I've dealt with, most commands are very similar. Yes, there's minor variances, but overall the "core" of them are very similar. The only exceptions would be older versions of the OS' have commands lacking in more recent versions. > At least with Linux you know you don't have half of your admin > executables in /etc, some in /bin, some in /usr/ucb/bin, some stuff > off in /opt/*/bin/, and who knows where else stuff got installed. > Generally, no. But, OTOH, there are various config files scattered around on the different platforms in very different locations with Linux. Same holds true with the UNIXes, but doesn't seem to be as varied to me. > Yeah, you have different package managers, but they are of a kind. > There isn't a general admin interface as good as smit yet, but a > couple are making progress in that direction. KDE and Gnome are > starting to narrow in on a decent UI, though I wish both of them would > cut down the memory intensive eyecandy on the default installs. > > If you are "old school" you go with fvwm or something else lean and > familiar, and it is there. All the core command line utils are > available for every distro, and THE LIBRARIES ARE ALWAYS THE SAME! > YAY! > Don't use Gnome or KDE. Heck, I can't stand CDE on the UNIXes either. I'm a fvwm2 user myself. Can't stand the bloat that so many desktop environments are using now... > AIX has smit, smit is awesome. All else is forgiven. > Smit/Smitty sucks. Granted is has more functionality than most other admin tools out there compared to Admintool (Solaris), Sysman/diskconfig (Tru64), SAM (HP-UX). But, it really does suck. The one tool that I have to say I like most is diskconfig from Tru64, but even then it has it's limitations. I'm a relatively new admin (meaning about 2 years of experience), but I prefer "old school" and wanting to know the command line interface to each administrative function. Just in case you can't get the admintools to work properly, and IMO, most times it's faster at the command line. Thus, the reason why I prefer Slack for my distro of choice. Sure, you can strip Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake down to a minimal system. But, it's far more work for that, IMO, than it is to install a base system and build up to what you want. > "Some of the base packages" Like pretty much every useful command-line > utility, _all_ the core libraries, X11 and the classic window > managers, ghostview, an available selection of daemons (with different > default selections), samba, and the kernel providing common nfs and > firewalling service. Show me two commercial Unixes that have as much > in common and I'll shut my mouth about it. The major distros have even > settled pretty nicely on the structure of /etc, though there are still > SysV vs BSD camps on init. > File locations aside, most of the big UNIXes "generally" come with most of what you've listed with recent versions. If it's not there, install it. Same with Linux on installation. Solaris, Tru64, and HP-UX all use the init commands. Last time I worked on an AIX box, you still have to put an entry in inetd.conf. Although, I will admit to being primarily an admin for HP-UX and Tru64. It's been a little while since I've seriously worked on a Solaris box, and quite a while on and AIX box. If Linux is so standardized, why is it that programs that are written for Linux are generally written for Red Hat, SuSe or Debian? If it works on one, it should work on all of them without a lot of dicking around and configuring the distro to get it to work. If it ever truly does. > Because Linux isn't encumbered with the BSD license, I think this is > _one_ shakedown of Linux companies. I think that it will continue to > cycle with new companies coming in to the fray as old ones mature, > die, or get acquired. RedHat is pretty mature, and they have found > their niche. > I'll agree, and that's basically what was saying. The UNIXes went thru a number of shakedowns over the years. I don't see Linux being any different. > > Linux is the kernel. That is all what Linux is. A distro is far > > more than just packages on it's base install. It's where they place > > things, tools they use for administration, etc. > > > The core admin tools are the same. I expect that as new generations of > admin tools come out they will mature and become standard. > Are they? Maybe vi/emacs and editing of files (if they exist) are the same. But does linuxconf exist on my Slack system? No. Does netconfig exist on a Red Hat system? Not the last time I checked (been a while admittedly). Hell, even the way to setup static routes (not soft, but hard set static routes) varies greatly on the different Linux distros. Aside from putting the route add command into rc.local or the various init scripts, you're all over the filesystem on each platform. That is IF they have files that are read on init. Red Hat has you putting it into a file that doesn't exist on other platforms, others tell you to put the route add command into rc.local. IMO, something like that should be standardized. Granted the commercial UNIXes have their different ways of doing it in terms of file locations, but so far my experience has been that it's always been a text file generally under the /etc tree. Yes, there's always the argument that you can "customize" your box to how you want it. But, I'm talking standard defaults of the system on install. Not to offend anyone here on the list, but in a corporate world most times you don't have the luxuries to customize the systems to how YOU OR I want them. They (meaning corporate world) want as default of a system as possible so that as admins come and go, it's generic enough for the replacement admins to figure out wihtout spending a lot of time learning. The admin can always be replaced, the boxes when put into a production environment can't be taken offline and rebuilt/changed/whatever to accomodate the preference of the admin who just came in. -- Shawn "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear." -Mark Twain Ne Obliviscaris -- "Forget Not" _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list