“Yes I’m a Linux nut, but it’s also no surprise that I’m a huge fan of Mac OS X, it’s what I use on a daily basis and is what I’m using right now to write this. Well I was recently tasked with the duty of moving our servers at work over to OS X Server two of which are Linux servers. This was the first time I’d ever used OS X Server so I thought it would be a good idea to share my experiences, some good, some bad.” Read the rest of the review at ReactiveLinux.
MacOSX Server in the Hands of a Linux Geek
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I think he is lucky to have a small office, low maintenance to do and not many users. In the real world, you can’t go like that and “just change servers” on the fly without a plan (and a plan B in case your first one don’t work). It seems obvious to me that the guy didn’t planned how to do the changes properly siince he was “testing in production” (eeeack!). As for OS/X being a server, someone as to check on the impact prior to replaced anything. And when those impacts have all been sorted out, you guessed it, you make a plan.
i have been sitting here thinking if Mac is the way to go…
but i dont want to change the things that i have on my desktop as i have a very good computer and i have a good config… but from what i hear Mac has been making some very good progress… i like the idea of a graphical envirment…. i like that alot… much easier…
but then i look at lindows… now there is something that i would like to have very much… Linux And windows progs with out windows… (only if he could get it all working)
which do you think is better…
Matt Thomas, OSX is working NOW, and delivers for desktop unix. Games, MSOffice, Adobe apps, etc. + X11 and your unix software. From what I hear lindows is moving along but is nowhere near OSX.
He apparantly haven’t done his homework correctly before “upgrading” to the Apple Servers.
There aren’t any problems running sendmail (or anything else), majordomo or any other unix software.
I guess he probably forgot to install the developer tools with gcc and so on.
And fink (fink.sourceforge.net) is great and should have him up n running everything he needs in short time.
man… I want an computer running OSX
When will OS X support Hebrew ??
I really like Linux. I run Libranet thats been mixed with woody upgrades. However if I can ever get enough money together I an going to buy a Mac. I am tired of the mess that is a pc. The other day my win2000 computer told me that I don’t have a modem anymore. ??? What I said looking over at my external modem, Its stting right there all plugged in and powered up. No said win2000 you don’t have a modem. SO I spent 2 yes 2 hours working to get a standard 100$ high quality external modem to work. It takes like 30 seconds under Linux to get this modem working. Well anyway win2000 is now generous enough to let me use my modem however it won’t let me mute the speaker. Same machine under Linux and I get really bad performance out of my radeon video card. I had a G450 from matrox but X simply would not work with it. Under win2000 the ATI drivers suck as well. Running ms flight sim I get like 15 fps. Can’t seem to get it to go any faster.
I could go on but I won’t. I just can’t take it anymore. Linux is fun to tinker and learn, but its almost impossible to get anywhere. Linux has many more years of work to go.
Windows well I could give a four letter oration about what I really think of windows.
Bill you get no more money from me.
My frustration pucker level is redlined.
I hate having to mess with my bios to get usb to work.
I hate having to reboot and then reboot again to install software.
Arrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg ggggggg
Okay primal screem does release stress.
Any one want to comment?
Am I right?
Well, I just got myself a shiny new 933mhz G4. I love it. I work as a Tecnician & SysAdmin in a predominately Linux environment. But to me, OS X is THE best end-user media-oriented *nix around. You have availablity of all the *nix tools, plus an awesome GUI. Yeah, I wish they’d get more aggressive with certain harware issues, but I have no major complaints. The new machines FLY. I miss BeOS of course, but hey, life moves on….
I miss BeOS too but now that I have a Dual 1 ghz G4, I don’t miss it as much!
Any one want to comment?
hehe, my machine now says I have two modems under win2k, and always defaults to the imagenary one… so I feel your pain.
Mlk, would dearly love to buy a Mac… Still only £2500 off
!!! Dual 1 GHz G4?
man… your lucky…
I want a G4…
“Mlk, would dearly love to buy a Mac… Still only £2500 off
”
I’m only… $1,299 off. Or $799 to $999 off if i settle for a G3 imac. but right now, if it runs OSX i wouldn’t care. I can’t stand Windows anymore… mabye XP would be better, but I doubt it would be much better. BeOS and AtheOS are cool, but they don’t have what I need to completely get away from Windows. The mac pretty much does…
To Kevin:
you said “I can’t stand Windows anymoree… maybe XP would be better…”
Windows XP is the reason why I’m switching to MacOSX. In terms of GUI interface, they’re very similar. XP looks like a Fisher Price toy, not gonna work for me. OSX on the other hand looks “space age”. Other than looks, my plan is to switch to anything BUT a Windows OS.
I need a laptop next. I also need to “feel” like I’m upgrading, and the G3 based laptop does not stand up to my x86 desktop (nor would a $799 G3 iMac), a TiBook will.
It’s great that Mac have the cheep iMacs & iBooks, and if I was just after a new desktop for my g/f then I’d get one. I NEED a powerfull all-round machine.
mlk
The best thing about the Mac isn’t the appearance, but the fact that the applications behave the same.
Well…at least if you stick to Carbon apps |-
How does he get a job as a techie? Number one, moving and migrating a whole network (big or small) takes extreme and careful planning. Even then, some unexpected things might still bite you in the ass. What he should have done was to setup a test environment to see what kind of problems he would have to overcome BEFORE trying to migrate his whole network over.
If you notice, the network was working fine with linux as the servers. IMHO, I would have converted all the servers to linux and kept the MACs as the prefer desktops. Now, his boss is pissed off and he’s back to where he started. Honestly, it would have been cheaper,in my opinion, to convert all the servers to linux. Since he’s a linux nut, he shouldn’t have too much trouble configuring linux as XXX servers.
Oh well, live and learn…
kevin “I can’t stand Windows anymoree… maybe XP would be better…”
arg!!! i no like xp. xp bad!!!
i can’t stand WindowsXP. It sucks for games, and disconnects my internet while i’m playing the games i manage to install. some of my programs like djcpp don’t work. and the interface hasn’t got any better. also it didn’t get any easier, actually i find alot of the ease-of-use things to be more in the way. i remember when i installed it and logged in i looked at it and said “uh… that’s it?”. so that’s why i’m moving to linux again (which i do have experience in).
my two cents
hehe, my machine now says I have two modems under win2k, and always defaults to the imagenary one… so I feel your pain.
————
Might wanna try booting into safe mode and deleting any repeated/unnecessary items in Device Manager there.
Yeah geuss what what ? I have the same problem and deleting the imaginary repeated items in the device manager just makes the real device stop working all together.
Yo check out the info on how to fix yo Hebrew set up for OSX 10.1.2,
I’m not Israely so can’t check it out myself.
http://homepage.mac.com/gabidanon/cleanbidi.html
yes this guy was an idiot, but your solution of moving everything to Linux just because is kind of silly.
(although that guys boss sounds even sillier.)
In a Mac environment OSX server is a great solution for serving because it is UNIX and therefore the advantages that LINUX might have over this Apple Product are very very minimal (still more developpers)
the Advantages he gets from using Xserver on the other hand a great because he can make a really tight network using products that are meant to work together.
In the end thought I’m an advocate of mixed networks because they ARE more secure as they offer protection in being non uniform.
you know like in farming, if you only grow one kind of crop and a bug invasion occurs, then you loose everything, whereas if you grow 2 different crops at least one of them will survive the bug.
You know what I’m saying.
now if there is a drought….
Yeah, it didn’t look like the guy did any prior research. A simple glance at the Apple support discussion area would have shown that AMS is a piece.
I’ve got OS X Server here at home. It’s nice like a Cobalt box is nice, you can click and drool if that’s your thing. It’s also a pain like a Cobalt box is a pain, if you want to treat it like a semi-regular *NIX box, be prepared for some structure goofiness, and it’s a little non-standard in terms of a platform, so expect certain ports to be a generation or 2 behind (SNORT, for example, is at 1.7 last I checked) if you don’t want to do the port yourself.
All in all it’s just like a new platform. Some “cool” some “why did they do that”. I’m not sure why this guy moved off of Linux, but OS X is an alternative -if not a more expensive one.
Farming and computing…interesting analogy
There are several reasons for moving all his servers to linux. To begin with, the idiot only had to migrate 5 servers …only 5 servers. Two of his servers were already running linux so he wouldn’t need to mess with them. How hard would it be to migrate 3 more servers?
1. Cost: For the cost of one OS X server, he could build two or more servers using linux
2. Convience: Two servers already running linux…3 more to go
3. Experience: he seems to have more experience with linux than with OS X…he should go with what he knows best
4. I could go on and on…
As for security, it is a matter of perspective. I could just as easily hack into a network running all linux or a network running in a mix mode environment. It all depends on how securely the network is configured.