I had my 1st linux experience 6 years ago. I worked for a company that was using linux for its file serving, email, database, e-commerce servers, some workstations and for various other tasks.
I was working for a internet toy company, and I started two weeks before Christmas, and of course I was swamped, but our web servers and database didnt crumble from the pressure. The entire system was stable and handle a lot of hits. Linux withstood the test.
Things began to change as the company began to expand, and began hiring more people. They hired a CIO who wanted to switch everything over to NT. He reffered to IT analyst like me as "fucking gear heads."
The company ended up swithching over to NT and then the problems began. The PDC crashed every other day of the week, the exchange server was on the same computer as the PDC, so exchange went to hell when the PDC crashed as it did often.
I noticed increased loging wait, problems getting email and a general reduction in speed when accessing the internet. IMHO things on the IT end went to hell when we downgraded from Linux to NT.
My buddie there had a contest to see what was faster NT or Linux. The NT technician (Wannabe,) used copy from his workstation and my buddie used SSH on his. Needless to say SSH was by far faster.
The company went belly up in 2001, becaused it expanded too fast and made some really shitty business descions. I cashed my options and got the hell out. I know that has nothing to do with the switch from Linux to NT.
I got my first taste of linux there, but I didnt really use it as my default because it wasnt ready to be a Desktop OS, but it is ready now.
Feel free to use this post as a testomonial to what not to do with an IT structure. I learned a lot from that and would never downgrade from a OS like LInux, FreeBsd or other unix like flavors and install XP or any microsoft os to run an enterprise.
Thanks for all the input and advice. I d'ed xbasic and Im going to find some books to get started.
Oh yeah :fu:Microsoft