Re: [slug-chat] first, as in post

[chesty <chesty@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2001 at 10:05:58AM +1100, Jill Rowling wrote:
> We are looking at something like that for work.
> Two products that have been demo'd to us are definitely not free (like you
> are looking at tens K $ ).

We've got a commercial product already. 

We're looking at open source solutions for allot of things, not
to try and save money, but because the open source alternatives are
often better. 

Some things are a no brainer, we want file/print servers for windows clients,
samba, web server, apache, domain name server, bind, dhcp server,
ISC dhcpd, etc. Some things require a bit of research because of
the number of alternatives, but this is sometimes the case with
commercial software as well.

We've been trialing and implementing open source source software for a number of 
years with great success. One trial was to collect data from a serial port, 
put it in to a database and produce reports and graphs via a web interface.

The test machine was a old compact 575 (they make great linux boxes, very
reliable), pentium 75, 32M ram, 200M hard drive. Debian was installed,
(great for tight installs, no junk), postgres, apache, ftpd, gd graphics library,
CGI.pm, etc. Data is continuously being inserted and deleted from the database 24
hours a day. 

The test machines hardware was never upgraded, from the time it 
was installed it went down once because it was moved, and then after 400 odd 
days of uptime it locked up, it wasn't responding to pings, and someone
hit the windows button. I was spewing because it had the highest uptime
in the company by only a few hours, the next highest uptime was a netware
box. 

They say you get back what you give out, and I used remind the netware
admin of the linux box uptime when ever I could, now I have put up
with it from him :)

Eventually the database was moved to a bigger box, but the old compact
is still chugging away capturing data from the serial port, serving
files via ftp and dynamic web pages. The web interface is a bit sad,
but does what people want and the box runs by itself with no maintenance 
required.

Anyway, the place where I work is looking at forming relationships with people/
companies to exchange knowledge and experience with linux and open source
software with some contract work on offer to help us with a few projects.

If you're interested, email me privately and I'll put you in touch with
someone to get more details.

-- 
	chesty