3 ms·

The missing piece here is drivers. Anyone who sells servers will make sure there are functional drivers for RHEL. Using a RHEL clone means you can always be s

by gwd 6y ago

The missing piece here is drivers. Anyone who sells servers will make sure there are functional drivers for RHEL. Using a RHEL clone means you can always be sure to find drivers for your servers. Using a RHEL clone as the core of your product means more or less the same thing. Can the same thing be said for Debian?

ryanlol 6y ago
I don’t think this is a real problem that people encounter in 2020 unless they’re using some truly exotic hardware.
- zinekeller 6y ago
  > unless they’re using some truly exotic hardware. We're one of those (who uses, not who manufactures)! But in most cases it is not a question of Linux distribution and more of is it Windows (hopefully not XP) or not :(
c0l0 6y ago
The solution to this problem is either dead simple, or impossible (depending on your specific field of work, I guess): You do not buy or deploy hardware that doesn't have mainline support at the time of your specific Debian release's kernel version (or its backports variant, if need be). $prevjobcompany lives by that unwritten rule for more than two very profitable decades by now, and I recommend anyone considering operating a Linux-based OS to adopt it.
- zinekeller 6y ago
  > You do not buy or deploy hardware that doesn't have mainline support at the time of your specific Debian release's kernel version (or its backports variant, if need be). There are glacial changes, but scientific instruments are often still shy on Debian or even Ubuntu :(
  - bgorman 6y ago
    Do you have the source for these drivers? It probably isn’t too difficult to make them compile for a slightly different kernel
    - zinekeller 6y ago
      Hah, I wish! If it has a source, then it will probably already be on mainline and the issue will be moot. These are at least a bit free-er than some other instruments which rely on Windows (and maybe not even 10 or 64-bit at that).
      - pabs3 6y ago
        If these are Linux kernel drivers then it sounds a bit like they might be GPL violations?
type0 6y ago
> Can the same thing be said for Debian? It can't. Not just drivers, firmware updates for BIOS among other things. Ubuntu is getting there but it isn't considered as seriously by all manufacturers.
- stefanor 6y ago
  > firmware updates for BIOS among other things There's a growing distro-agnostic solution here, LVFS fwupd https://fwupd.org/ https://fwupd.org/

by gwd 6y ago

ryanlol 6y ago

I don’t think this is a real problem that people encounter in 2020 unless they’re using some truly exotic hardware.

zinekeller 6y ago
> unless they’re using some truly exotic hardware. We're one of those (who uses, not who manufactures)! But in most cases it is not a question of Linux distribution and more of is it Windows (hopefully not XP) or not :(

c0l0 6y ago

The solution to this problem is either dead simple, or impossible (depending on your specific field of work, I guess): You do not buy or deploy hardware that doesn't have mainline support at the time of your specific Debian release's kernel version (or its backports variant, if need be). $prevjobcompany lives by that unwritten rule for more than two very profitable decades by now, and I recommend anyone considering operating a Linux-based OS to adopt it.

zinekeller 6y ago
> You do not buy or deploy hardware that doesn't have mainline support at the time of your specific Debian release's kernel version (or its backports variant, if need be). There are glacial changes, but scientific instruments are often still shy on Debian or even Ubuntu :(
- bgorman 6y ago
  Do you have the source for these drivers? It probably isn’t too difficult to make them compile for a slightly different kernel
  - zinekeller 6y ago
    Hah, I wish! If it has a source, then it will probably already be on mainline and the issue will be moot. These are at least a bit free-er than some other instruments which rely on Windows (and maybe not even 10 or 64-bit at that).
    - pabs3 6y ago
      If these are Linux kernel drivers then it sounds a bit like they might be GPL violations?

type0 6y ago

> Can the same thing be said for Debian? It can't. Not just drivers, firmware updates for BIOS among other things. Ubuntu is getting there but it isn't considered as seriously by all manufacturers.

stefanor 6y ago
> firmware updates for BIOS among other things There's a growing distro-agnostic solution here, LVFS fwupd https://fwupd.org/ https://fwupd.org/