Do you depend on your computer for your living? If so, I'm sure you've thought long and hard about which hardware and software to use. I'd like to explain why I use generic "white boxes" running open source software. These give me a platform I rely on for 100% availability. They also provide a low-cost solution with excellent security and privacy.
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Member since:2012-06-22
Yes it is plug and play for a basic setup and the same is true for Windows Server and FreeBSD. Want CPANEL? It's only supported in CENT/RHEL. Sure you can probably get it working in Debian but then all it takes is a single module break down the line to make you wish you stayed in the norm. LAMP software is more dependent on CENT/RHEL than it was 5 years ago. The LAMP world is not some hippie software exchange; it's filled with commercial companies and developers that have limited resources and can't afford to test in every distro.
That doesn't fly in the business world. You don't stake your reputation on unsupported software.
Edited 2012-11-25 18:25 UTC
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2011-01-28
ze_jerkface,
"LAMP software is more dependent on CENT/RHEL than it was 5 years ago."
I have to disagree, I personally haven't had a single problem working on lamp projects across multiple distros (PHP's own version specific breakages aside). Is there actually something specific that's been giving you trouble? If so, maybe we can help? If not, then what exactly is your evidence that LAMP is dependent upon RH/CENT?
"The LAMP world is not some hippie software exchange;"
If we take "P" to stand for PHP, it might be a bit hippie actually 
"it's filled with commercial companies and developers that have limited resources and can't afford to test in every distro."
So what? It doesn't contradict what's been said. Just because a LAMP package isn't supported on X doesn't mean it can't run on X. I've been routinely developing LAMP software on my ubuntu desktop and deploying it to various servers including CENT/Debian for years and not once has that caused a problem. There was once even a mac server.
I swear that I did not know this before today, but my own shared web hosting provider is running Debian. It's never even mattered enough for me to check before. It has little impact on what I do.
Of course, these distros have different approaches to administration and installing packages. But I'd hope that anyone who chooses to use distro X is familiar with how to manage X packages. If that's too much to ask, then you are really setting the bar low.
Edit:
"That doesn't fly in the business world. You don't stake your reputation on unsupported software."
Well, alot of independent developers (particularly web developers) have a job precisely because the open source code clients want to use is *unsupported* and they want *us* to support it. Not to overstate it, but I hope we can agree there's a bit of truth to this?
Edited 2012-11-26 04:46 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
"The key takeaway we've reached (after two less than 24 hours playing with the iOS 7 Beta release) is this - every App must consider even basic updates to its UI to survive in a post-iOS 6 world." Great. Telling developers to update their entire application - user interface and behaviour alike - to target a look and behaviour that isn't final yet. Seems like potential for a lot of wasted work here."Overall the app is really basic, and designed for on the go editing. Microsoft says it's not planning to create an iPad version, noting that tablet users can utilize the Office Web Apps instead. We'd like to see some additional options for editing, including more clear options for text formatting and the ability to insert and change images, but it's a solid attempt for something you're only really going to use for editing in emergencies." A resounding meh can be heard from all over the world."Today, most people are using modern browsers that support the majority of the latest web technologies. Better yet, the usage of legacy browsers is declining significantly and newer browsers stay up to date automatically, which means the leading edge has become mainstream. Given these factors we've decided to retire Chrome Frame, and will cease support and updates for the product in January 2014." Eh.
Member since:
2011-01-28
ze_jerkface,
"Well you don't know much about LAMP development then. What developers would like to use and what they build against for business reasons are two entirely different things. CENT/RHEL is the standard for web servers and going outside it increases the conflict risk. That means higher support costs."
I think Soulbender would already agree with your complaints about PHP, as do I. But you are exaggerating the difficulty of using alternate linux distros for the server. It's practically plug and play no matter which distro you use. Also, I haven't had much trouble replacing apache with alternates like lighttp either, just because it's not officially supported doesn't mean it doesn't work.
I'm not saying we should step outside of "supported" installations willy nilly, but if there is a good reason to then it's certainly feasible.