[Bioclusters] Re: how are the Redhat product changes affecting existing and future plans?

[J.W. Bizzaro]

The consumer version of RedHat apparently will become "Fedora":

   http://fedora.redhat.com/

But, Mandrake is also based on RedHat:

   http://www.mandrakesoft.com/

Has anyone used Mandrake for HPC work, or is it really just a 
workstation distro?

Cheers.
Jeff

J.W. Bizzaro wrote:
> (Added Biodevelopers to the thread.)
> 
> There's a discussion about this on Slashdot, including mention of the 
> Fedora project:
> 
>   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/03/1749259
> 
> Cheers.
> Jeff
> 
> Chris Dagdigian wrote:
> 
>>
>> Another item that has been on my mind recently...
>>
>> What are people doing about RedHat deciding to kill off their consumer 
>> product line? Are people going to pay the freight for Redhat 
>> Enterprise Linux or are people just going to use Suse/Debian/Gentoo etc.
>>
>> My needs are pretty simple but I'm having a hard time placing myself 
>> into Redhat's current product plans.
>>
>> I need:
>>
>> 1. A stable OS with a product lifetime of at least 1 year (ideally 2+)
>> 2. Product errata, updates and security patches for full lifespan
>> 3. No OS or product phone/email support or SLA
>>
>> The RHL transition to Fedora Linux is fine but it sounds as if the OS 
>> is going to change very fast (major updates 2-3 times per year). On 
>> the plus side it is still free and the leaders seem committed to fast 
>> errata and security updates. Still I can't see using this on a 
>> production cluster due to the pace of change and the chance that I'd 
>> be left without updates if I froze on a particular Fedora release.
>>
>> I can justify (maybe) the cost for the $125 product (Redhat WS) that 
>> they are pitching towards compute clusters. The update services and 
>> 5-year product lifespan is worth paying for. The big question for me 
>> is what do I have to pay _after_ the initial $125 purchase. I can't 
>> seem to find any info on the Redhat website telling me how much I'll 
>> have to pay  for updates after my intial 1-year RedHat Network service 
>> runs out.
>>
>> This also leaves the question of what RHEL flavor to run on cluster 
>> head nodes, fileservers and database machines. $349 for RH ES could be 
>> justified for a critical node but damn what if I want to run that 
>> stuff on Opteron or Itanium or a node with 4CPUs? The cost for RH AS 
>> (starting at $1400) is not justifiable to me. Putting a 'cheap' RHEL 
>> flavor on a head node and manually compiling/updating/supporting 
>> additional network services built by hand from source or .srpms may be 
>> more of an operational headache than the cost savings justify.
>>
>> I'm torn right now between diving back into Gentoo/Debian or possibly 
>> jumping on the Suse bandwagon given their existing support for Opteron 
>> etc. Novell just bought Suse today so who knows what that is going to do.
>>
>> I'd be interested in knowing how current RHL users are planning the 
>> transition and how future cluster buyers are changing their plans. 
>> Personally I think I'm going to need to stay on top of RHEL for 
>> project that demand it while also maintaining some sort of deep 
>> familiarity with one or more alternatives.
>>
>> -Chris
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bioclusters maillist  -  Bioclusters@bioinformatics.org
>> https://bioinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/bioclusters
> 
> 
> 


-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                                jeff@bioinformatics.org
President, Bioinformatics.Org       http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff
"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we
should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention
of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
                    -- Benjamin Franklin
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