[wplug] Survey questions - Mac hardware/OS X/Linux??

[Bill Moran]

John Harrold <jmh17 at pitt.edu> wrote:

> I think you should differentiate the people "using Linux" from people who
> are experimenting and people who use Linux to perform work. People who are
> experimenting probably don't want to invest a lot of money and will
> probably use "cheap" hardware. It's sad really because Linux cannot
> overcome "cheap" hardware any better than windows can. By running Linux on
> "cheap" hardware it might give you the idea that Linux is "cheap" because
> its crashing a lot. However, people who run their businesses off of Linux
> are more likely to spend money on solid hardware --- otherwise IBM wouldn't
> be selling these nice servers running Linux. 

Just to share a lesson we've learned:

When experimenting, cheap hardware seems appealing, but it sucks.

We've given up on used hardware as test machines.  We've migrated 100%
to useing VMWare for testing and experimentation.  With used hardware,
if the hardware is flakey, you can't be sure if your experiment is
going wrong or if it's the hardware.  With VMWare, no question.
VMWare is also much easier to do experiments on, as it's much easier
to do things like change the amount of RAM, or add a HDD.

While VMWare may not be the correct solution for everyone, I don't
think used hardware is the correct solution for _anyone_.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com