briwood
January 23rd, 2010, 03:09 AM
Hello,
I've been asked to submit a document to the the technical powers that be at) the (educational institution that I work at) stating why they should let me install Ubuntu as opposed to their standard Red Hat Enterprise offering. I'm using these Ubuntu VMs to run a Drupal hosting service.
Please let me know if you have any edits, additions, or comments about accuracy:
# In the Drupal community there is wide adoption of Ubuntu and Debian. Scripts and utilities provided by this community are easily leveraged if we use Ubuntu.
# We favor apt over rpm for package mangement. We depend on the ability to control upgrades of discrete packages with the "pin" feature. We are also using the Python "smart" library to apply security upgrades.
# We will be using Aegir (http://groups.drupal.org/aegir-hosting-system) which is moving towards a packaging system based on Apt (Debian/Ubuntu) and not RPM (RedHat/CentOS).
# RedHat does not have a great history of keeping their php packages up to date. In the past RedHat users have had to resort to non-offical 3rd part RPM repositories to get the latest version of PHP.
# RedHat/CentOS packaged PHP suffered from a timezone bug in 2008-9. Manual package installs were required to fix this. Since I am not allowed to even *browse* the RHN as a non licensed user, I can't determine if this has been resolved.
# Ubuntu doesn't maintain separate os versions the way RedHat does. You can get everything for free.
# Canonical's commerical support offerings are strong. We have been using their Landscape service for OS upgrades and we are very happy with it.
# Because it is free community support for Ubuntu is incredibly strong. Lots of friendly help available. We believe that RedHat cannot compete in terms of community.
# We use Ubuntu “Long Term Support” releases, with a commitment by Canonical to maintain security releases for 5 years on designated versions
# We feel Ubuntu has a superior upgrade path when a version reaches end-of-life
# Ubuntu offers a great balance between cutting-edge versions of new software, with a commitment to stability.
I've been asked to submit a document to the the technical powers that be at) the (educational institution that I work at) stating why they should let me install Ubuntu as opposed to their standard Red Hat Enterprise offering. I'm using these Ubuntu VMs to run a Drupal hosting service.
Please let me know if you have any edits, additions, or comments about accuracy:
# In the Drupal community there is wide adoption of Ubuntu and Debian. Scripts and utilities provided by this community are easily leveraged if we use Ubuntu.
# We favor apt over rpm for package mangement. We depend on the ability to control upgrades of discrete packages with the "pin" feature. We are also using the Python "smart" library to apply security upgrades.
# We will be using Aegir (http://groups.drupal.org/aegir-hosting-system) which is moving towards a packaging system based on Apt (Debian/Ubuntu) and not RPM (RedHat/CentOS).
# RedHat does not have a great history of keeping their php packages up to date. In the past RedHat users have had to resort to non-offical 3rd part RPM repositories to get the latest version of PHP.
# RedHat/CentOS packaged PHP suffered from a timezone bug in 2008-9. Manual package installs were required to fix this. Since I am not allowed to even *browse* the RHN as a non licensed user, I can't determine if this has been resolved.
# Ubuntu doesn't maintain separate os versions the way RedHat does. You can get everything for free.
# Canonical's commerical support offerings are strong. We have been using their Landscape service for OS upgrades and we are very happy with it.
# Because it is free community support for Ubuntu is incredibly strong. Lots of friendly help available. We believe that RedHat cannot compete in terms of community.
# We use Ubuntu “Long Term Support” releases, with a commitment by Canonical to maintain security releases for 5 years on designated versions
# We feel Ubuntu has a superior upgrade path when a version reaches end-of-life
# Ubuntu offers a great balance between cutting-edge versions of new software, with a commitment to stability.