Re: [OS:N:] K12 and Red Hat

[Colin Mattoon <cjm2 lewiston com>]

On Wed, 5 Mar 2003 17:24:40 -0800 (PST)
David Tisdell <penguintiz yahoo com> wrote:<various concerns about
RedHat support for schools -- which I clipped for brevity>

I'd ask myself this...If I'm running a handful of Linux servers, do
they take so much administrative effort that I really need RedHat's
assistance?

With, or without, RedHat's help, you still have to be the sysadmin. 
My own experience with Linux (private sector, not a school) is that
there really isn't much for an outside support provider to help with.

And, as an IT guy working for a school in the "Year of Our Trashed
Economy, 2003," you don't have a whole lot of money to play with
anyway.

So, pick a distribution you like on the basis of it's technical
features and get it for free by downloading it, or for a few dollars
by buying a cheap book with an unofficial download version on a CD in
the back cover.  Go crazy with what you get for free and don't worry
about supporting the company, because you're working for an
educational institution in a country that isn't funding your work
properly in the first place.

One of the reasons the support model hasn't made a bunch of Linux
companies rich, is that people discover they don't need much support
with an OS as stable as Linux, and once they learn enough about Linux
to deploy it, they can provide their own support.

Just my thoughts, but I take care of a number of Linux servers myself,
and outside support was one of the things I was looking to avoid when
I chose Linux over the proprietary alternatives.

Later,
Colin Mattoon