[Sysadmin] Debian "unsupported by The Planet"

[Mike King]

Theory says that you can bootstrap debian or ububtu remotely. Not that  
I've managed it :)

Mk

On 15 Oct 2008, at 05:08, "David Kaufman" <david at gigawatt.com> wrote:

> Lovely news:
>
> Here's the ticket you've all been getting useless email notices about
> today, regarding the new server (that I'm now beginning to wish I'd  
> never
> ordered):
>
> https://orbit.theplanet.com/nav_support/ticket_view.html?ticket_id=5196436
>
> Pasted here, for those of you who haven't or (can't | (don't (feel
> like|want to|know how to)) log in to read on the planet's support  
> ticketing
> behemoth:
>
>
> === 
> =====================================================================
> David Kaufman - Tuesday October 14th, 2008; 11:05 AM CDT
> This is a request to reload the Operating System on my server. The  
> request
> details are as follows:
>
> Hardware Name : evoltorg (Server)
> Location info : Tile : BB11 (Tile)
>
> Operating System: CentOS Enterprise Linux - 4.x - 32 bit
>
> Comments:
>
> I would like the latest stable Debian O/S (version 4.0r4, aka "etch")
> installed on this server. (A slightly older 4.0x revision etch install
> would be fine too, if that's what you have -- we'll update it  
> ourselves).
>
> Feel free to wipe the drive completely -- there is nothing on this  
> machine
> currently that we want or need.
>
> Please partition the drive with:
>
> 1. a 500 MB swap partition,
> 2. a 100 MB ext3 /boot partition,
> 3. the rest ext3 mounted on /
>
> If possible I'd also like to request a waiver of the $25 O/S reload  
> fee, as
> this is a brand new server I just ordered today, that has never been  
> used.
> Support advised me the fee was normally waived for new servers.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -dave
>
>
> Jason R. - Tuesday October 14th, 2008; 11:12 AM CDT
> Please stand by while we verify the OS reload charges.
>
>
> Jason R. - Tuesday October 14th, 2008; 12:11 PM CDT
> I have confirmed with my supervisor that for us to install Debian  
> "eth"
> there will be a $150 manual install fee and the OS would also be
> unsupported by The Planet. All custom OS install will require a the  
> manual
> install fee. Please let us know how you would like to proceed. Thank  
> you.
>
>
> David Kaufman - Tuesday October 14th, 2008; 6:00 PM CDT
> When I spoke to your tech support department this morning on the  
> phone, I
> was told that Debian *was* a supported operating system.
>
> Our system administrators are asking me: Debian is no longer  
> supported at
> ThePlanet? Since when?
>
> Evolt.org is a non-profit organization of web professionals, and we  
> ordered
> this new server to (eventually) replace our other dedicated server  
> (*not*
> the one related to this ticket) which has been running Debian at  
> ThePlanet
> for almost five years. When we moved our site to your service (it was
> ServerMatrix, back then) Debian came pre-installed on it, and your  
> support
> for Debian was one of the main factors in our decision to choose to  
> host
> here.
>
> Does this mean that the Debian 3 (sarge) operating system on our  
> current,
> main, production server is also "unsupported by The Planet"?
>
> Fortunately, several of our members are system administrators and we  
> have
> never needed, nor asked for, any support in maintaining our server,  
> its
> software, or O/S, but it is a bit alarming to hear that, should we  
> have
> needed any support, you no longer offer it, especially since "Debian
> stable" was a O/S option in the configuration drop-down when I  
> ordered the
> machine, and our sysadmins all highly recommended it.
>
> Now they are also highly recommending Ubuntu Hardy LTS. Is that a  
> supported
> O/S?
>
>
> Jordan H. - Tuesday October 14th, 2008; 6:19 PM CDT
> Debian has not been supported as a new install for a couple of  
> years. We
> still honor support requests for basic support on all legacy debian
> servers. However, new orders do not have have debian support. We can
> install it as a custom OS, but it will incur a $150 charge to  
> install and
> for all future OS reloads. Support will also be very limited to  
> power and
> networking.
>
> The operating systems we currently support are:
> RHEL 4&5
> CentOS 4&5
> FreeBSD 6.3 and 7.0
> Windows 2003 & 2008
>
> Please let us know if you have any further questions.
>
> Jordan Harder
> Supervisor, Data Center Operations
>
> === 
> =====================================================================
>
> Ugh,
>
> Anyone know how to (or if it's even possible to) install Debian over  
> CentOS
> ...remotely?
>
> I'm sure its *possible*, perhaps with ISO files instead of a physical
> CD/DVD in the drive, even fun, but only if it works, of course...
>
> This is a tantalizingly interesting post on their forums about how  
> one guy
> avoids the need to pay for the data center's "remote hands and eyes"
> services, during his debian kernel upgrades:
> http://forums.theplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=79060#entry512926
>
> If not, and I can't talk them out of this ridiculous $150 manual O/S
> install fee, I'm gonna cancel this whole debacle and hope to god I  
> can get
> a refund.
>
> -dave
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> so, are we gonna get this vote on for
> the EvoltSysadmin mascot or what?
>
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