Hadron Quark wrote:
> BearItAll <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> [H]omer wrote:
>>
>>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>> Do You Maintain Your OS on a Regular Basis?
>>>
>>> Yes, I maintain my Linux systems every second of every day; at least
>>> that's what the mail in my local root mailbox tells me. If it wasn't for
>>> those messages, I wouldn't even know that anything was being maintained.
>>>
>>
>> I have to admit I am much the same these days. I used to read my logs
>> religiously (on my knees with my bum in the air), but I tend to be very
>> lax now, just look in when they is already a visible hint of trouble.
>>
>
>
> But what maintenance did you do on XP? I used NT, XP and 2000 on and off
> for years in a development capacity and dont recall any "maintenance" -
> they just worked. They had anti-virus SW and active x turned off in
> Outlook and sat behind a router/gateway. Never a problem.
>
It can fairly easily be argued that something like 98% of problems on any
network of UNIX/Linux are predictable, that even includes many hardware
problems. From that in IT you learn to scan the logs and learn the overall
feel of the servers, then any potential problems, how ever small, that
attempt to creep up on you can be sorted out long before they interfere
with your users or reach a critical level.
When we started using Linux as servers many like myself treat them in
exactly the same way as we did our UNIX's, maybe with even more care
because of the newness of the system and the role it was starting to play
in the IT structure.
Then with Linux as a client at home or at work, that maintenance routine
carried on.
As well as being needed for our own peace of mind, it was an important part
of the Linux development. Because many of us, and home users of Linux, were
reporting back with all kinds of gathered information.
What I meant from my post was that I have very much relaxed this idea,
mainly because so few problems were appearing that I suppose I have gotten
complacent, on my clients that is, I still treat the servers to their daily
inspection.
> What maintenance are you talking about!?!?!??!
>
> And dont say "defragging" - My Ubuntu spends more time checking file
> systems at boot than XP *ever* did.
>
Of cause it checks your filesystem. Security and stability are Linux's main
selling points. Your drives use a server capable filesystem, which means
that it can be accessed from many places at the same time. If a distro
comes out that doesn't take proper care in that area it would be slammed
heavily by the users of it, and would be deemed such a poor distro because
of that that I am sure it would disapear very quickly, and rightly so. We
can not afford for Linux to be seen to be weak in the more critical areas
of computing.
Defrag? I've heard the word before but can't quite recall what it means. Is
it that thing that MS Win systems have to do at great length every so
often, would probably have to do more often except that the re-install time
tends to come round more quickly than the defrag time for no other reason
than the drives in general use these days are much larger.
Linux doesn't need to do that. Why? Because our filesystems are much more
intelligent about the way it places files onto the drives. We are talking
many years ahead of MS here, when did ext come out? About 1994 or something
like that.
There are maintenance periods, if you leave your Linux on constantly there
are several areas of maintenance, including some optimizing maintenance.
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