For filePro and overall strength which is best, SUSE or RedHat?

[Fairlight]

With neither thought nor caution, Lerebours, Jose blurted:
> Need to make a decision on OS for, potentially, deploying
> filePro.  I have played with both RedHat and SUSE and 
> found SUSE to work pretty well and it was very easy to
> install.

I've been -far- less than impressed with RHEL 3.  I've also not been
impressed with their lack of support.  You place a call, get a ticket
opened, and it ends up being sucked into a black hole someplace, never
again to appear.  I think one out of five issues was actually
handled--ever--in the last year with one client.

As far as software stability, SuSE all the way.  RH managed to make perl
able to segfault--that doesn't say much, as it's never supposed to do
that.  Ever.  (And a fresh stock compile of the main source on the same
platform works fine and does -not- segv.  And they just keep ignoring it.)
I've seen at least three bad kernels come to RHEL 3 as well.  Don't get me
started on their RPM design.

Comparatively. SuSE's stuff is well-written and solid.  I personally
haven't needed SuSE support because, well...they've made very few mistakes.
I've been working with 9.0 for a decent amount of time now (about a year, a
little more).  Aside from a few glitches in their rpm's that refuse to
freshen a few files (easily fixed, and it's only happened twice), I've not
had any real problems that didn't deal with FrontPage extensions, which are
just plain problematic on -any- platform--although it was worse on SuSE.
However, I kept my notes on -exactly- how to bludgeon it into submission.

> If this gets the green light, I am looking at 600 users
> throughout Central and South America (just the tip of the
> ice).

Across how many servers?

> I am intending on mirroring my filePro files in MySQL to
> provide ODBC visibility.  I am not sure if I should run
> MySQL on same server as filePro or on a different server.

Irrelevant, if you have the mysql client on the fP system.  That's what 
-h hostname is for.  :)  Take your pick.  

> I am planning on using PHP or Perl (or both) to push data
> from filePro to MySQL.  Of course, if I can import 
> directly from MySQL and have scheduled tasks that will be
> even better, hence, I have never used MySQL.

Why are you going to use PHP (gack) -or- perl?  That's an added level of
obfuscation that's simply not needed.  Use raw file I/O functions to write
a MySQL script file that will manipulate your data, and simply SYSTEM off
the mysql client to have the data updated.  It'll take a little vigilance
if you're doing UPDATEs as well as INSERTs, since you'll want to keep track
of whether or not you've ever created the record in MySQL in the first
place--just so you know which command and syntax to use for a record.  You
could make a case for perl or PHP if you wanted to query the remote end
first and do it with the lowest overhead, but given proper design of the fP
end, this should be unnecessary.  If it's push-only, you should be fine
without any other language programming for a middle layer.

> As per hardware, I am planning on getting an HP 380 server.
> This is where the choice of OS really becomes a factor. 
> Which of these OSes will work best and will have better
> probability to include all that is needed to get an HP
> server up and running with minimum fuss?

I'm the wrong person to ask about hardware these days.  I can tell you that
even if you went with the Really Expensive Supported Version from SuSE,
it'll likely be cheaper than the equivalent RH.

Personally, I'd just get SuSE Professional and go with that, but I do my
own admin work.

> Support availability is an issue I need to take into 
> consideration.  I would like your input on this.  If you

Whose support?  Vendor or third-party?  If vendor, well...I have no
experience with SuSE's support.  Never needed it.  I've got lousy
experience with RH's support, on a product whose quality has dived since
they started reaming people for said support.  IMHO, RH support isn't worth
the cost of the box, much less what you actually pay for it.  Also look
into what kind of support you get at what prices.  Then figure what you
might need, what you can get for those prices, and weigh it against
third-party support on an as-needed basis.

Third party...some people specialise, but almost any decent tech should be
able to hop between the two fairly readily.  I do it all the time.

I don't hesitate recommending SuSE 9.x.  I have grave reservations about
RHEL, and will until they get with it and start releasing something that's
at -least- as solid as RH 7.[23] were.  They started diving at 8.0.

mark->
-- 
          *****   Fairlight Consulting's Software Solutions   *****
OneGate Universal CGI Gateway:                  http://onegate.fairlite.com/
FairPay PayPal Integration Kit:                 http://fairpay.fairlite.com/
RawQuery B2B HTTP[S] Client & CGI Debugger:     http://rawquery.fairlite.com/
Lightmail Mail Sending Agent:                   http://lightmail.fairlite.com/