Convert CentOS 5.6 to RHEL 5.6

[Matty Sarro]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:00 PM, Chi Chan <chichan2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Matty Sarro <msarro at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Oracle linux has been pretty much blacklisted by red hat. That's why a
>> number of changes were done to how red hat pushes out kernel patches;
>> specifically to stymy their efforts.
>
> ( Hmm, now it becomes an Oracle Linux discussion... which is not what
> I originally intended. :-P )
>
> So tell me how Redhat is less evil -- isn't opensource supposed to be
> no vendor lockin? So if Redhat is doing this, then customers are
> locked into RHEL.
>
> A lot of people say that Oracle does not have deep knowledge in Linux,
> as Oracle Linux is just a clone of RHEL -- however, Oracle internally
> uses Oracle Linux for most its software development. I don't think a
> typical environment is much more complex than the ones inside Oracle
> (Oracle Linux is used to develop Oracle Database, Fusion Middleware,
> Oracle Grid Engine, E-Business Suite and other Oracle Applications on
> Oracle Linux -- according to Oracle). Oracle develops its own
> enhancements for Oracle Linux as well, not to mention Oracle's own
> kernel. I don't believe Oracle engineers calling Redhat support for
> technical issues.
>
> And Oracle was able to roll out Oracle Linux 6 a week or 2 after RHEL
> 6 release, while the wait for CentOS 6 was months long.
>
> I know that many people hate Oracle, but simply saying that Oracle
> Linux does not work / not as good / not worth the $ is not fair to
> Oracle (or any others, as we know that Redhat wrote around 10% of the
> patches in the kernel, 90% of the code was developed by IBM, Intel,
> AMD, and even Oracle -- eg. BtrFS, OCFS). Oracle enhances Linux and
> uses Linux for Exadata and ExaLogic.
>
> --Chi
>
>
>
>> Also, having an issue responded
>> to within a week is horrid, especially in an enterprise environment.
>> Usually when I am having an issue, I need a resolution FAST.
>>
>> Don't drink the oracle koolaid. Copy your /home directory and any
>> customized files from /etc to a safe place, and then reinstall RHEL.
>> The support is worth every cent.
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 12:57 PM,  <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote:
>>> Chi Chan wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 10:22 AM,  <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote:
>>>>> It is less evil. And going to Oracle Linux means dealing with Oracle
>>>>> support... or, lack thereof, and utterly uncoordinated support, for very
>>>>> small values of "support".
>>>>>
>>>>> It took me a *month* to get a box fixed, and that included two weeks
>>>>> emailing with an engineer in Chile, and three separate managers "taking
>>>>> ownership" of the issue....
>>>>
>>>> I also know someone who has good experience with Oracle.
>>>>
>>>> Even the free support on the Oracle Forums (at:
>>>> https://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=822 ) is good --
>>>> so far I've posted 3 questions, and 3 of them were answered by the
>>>> Oracle employees within a week.
>>>
>>> Um, right. Meanwhile, this box was under warranty, and had hardware
>>> issues. And when I complained that the engineer in Chile was being pulled
>>> off to respond to other issues, and so sometimes I'd get several emails a
>>> day, other times, I'd email results of tests, and it would take him 2-3
>>> days to get back to me, I got a new engineer... WHO ONLY WORKED NIGHTS.
>>>
>>> As a comparison, I had a similar problem with a Dell box, and there was an
>>> FE out within two weeks, *and* one manager had "taken ownership", *and*
>>> when I had a problem a couple months later with another box, that same
>>> manager contacted me. My manager and co-worker have had similar, though
>>> not quite as extreme, experiences with Oracle, and we have *no* intention
>>> of buying Sun/Oracle ever again.
>>>
>>>         mark
>>>
>>> --
>>> redhat-list mailing list
>>> unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request at redhat.com?subject=unsubscribe
>>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
>>>
>>
>> --
>> redhat-list mailing list
>> unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request at redhat.com?subject=unsubscribe
>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
>
> --
> redhat-list mailing list
> unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request at redhat.com?subject=unsubscribe
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
>

You'd be surprised actually. Oracle itself has admitted to patching
the kernel with certain performance tweaks dedicated exclusively for
their products; however they haven't submitted the changes to the
mainstream kernel development. So, essentially they're taking the
kernel, tweaking it, and not giving back to the community. Now under
GPL, they don't have to release their code, but it still leaves a sour
note in a lot of peoples' mouths. Especially because one of their
touted selling points is that "they clean up red hat's problems."

Not to mention they've only certified the tweaks for Oracle software.
That means they could cause your other mission critical application to
crash every 2 seconds, but so long as your database is running oracle
will give it a stamp of approval.

Also, they have stripped out a number of open source solutions in
order to include their own proprietary solutions (so yes, vendor
lockin). They have removed GFS/GFS2 and replaced it with their
proprietary competitor OCFS2. They have removed redhat cluster suite
and replaced it with the closed source oracle clusterware.

If any these things break, who can help you? Oracle.
If you're using RHEL, anyone who uses RHEL, Cent, or SL can probably help you.
I don't want to turn this into a distro war - Oracle linux is made for
running oracle databases. That's it, and it's very good at doing that.
However pretty much every other case you're going to be better covered
by RHEL or its derivatives.

Also, Oracle/Sun support sucks. Compare experiences with Red Hat to
experiences with Oracle, there is a pretty stark contrast. Red hat was
first and foremost a company to provide support for otherwise free
software. Oracle on the other hand is just a money making machine.

I don't care which one people use really, I use cent and SI for my own
work, and RHEL for production boxes. I still have yet to see a good
reason to use oracle.

-Matty