[thelist] sanctifying GNU software(was misspelled as 'Re: [thelist] sactifying GNU software' and it really bugged me)

spinhead evolt at spinhead.com
Tue Oct 30 19:55:09 CST 2001


We've got Red Hat Linux 6.2 and 7.0 on 15 or 20 boxes, Solaris 8 (I think)
on three or four. All part of our NT network (file sharing on a Network
Appliance.) These guys have complete access to their own machines just short
of logging on as root. They regularly compile and install their own stuff.
Most of them could work as *nix admins if they wanted to; they'd just rather
design chips.

We have a cooperative atmosphere. We're not looking to lock anyone out of
anything. If we say, "Please let us see this and do that before you install
that software" they'll thank us for caring and ask how they can help. They
just really don't have time to do a lot of testing, or wait on us (much) to
do it.

I'm much less afraid of GNU stuff on *nix boxes than I am upgrading to the
latest version of MS Office, so the point here isn't that I think anyone's
going to break anything; it's primarly a due diligence thing, in case
something DOES break.

Thanks guys.

spinhead


----- Original Message -----
From: "Garrett Coakley" <garrett at polytechnic.co.uk>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: [thelist] sactifying GNU software


> On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 13:42:45 -0800, "spinhead" <evolt at spinhead.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> > Is there a common-sense way for an admin with (severely) limited *nix
> > knowledge to choose/sanctify software if they can't do it from
> > personal knowledge/experience?
>
>
> Installing software on *nix is vastly different than doing it on win32
> platforms. You don't tend to get the library incompatabilities that the
> win32 platform suffers from (not trying to start a platform war here,
> just my experience). Which may be the answer you're looking for.
>
> What sort of *nix platform are we talking about here? What sort of
> software? Will the users have CLI access? If not, then I can't see how
> they would install software in the first place (without going through
> you first) unless they fancied compiling from source (dan... you ever
> tried to install rpm's/deb's as a user?)
>
> If you can give us some more info then we'll see you right *:)
>
> G.
>
> --
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