Yeah, pretty much everything you said there except for the Debian part....who the hell runs Debian? Nothing big (Oracle, SAP, Websphere, etc) supports it, and there is nobody to hold accountable when things go wrong except for the admin (the people who write the checks really like to have that...and if you have customers that rely on your systems they will like that more). It is a better place to start than something like Ubuntu or SuSE, but most people use RHEL and CentOS.

I started using Linux in high school with Slackware 3.0, and continued on using it as a desktop through college. After graduating during a recession with a degree in computer engineering, I couldn't find anybody willing to hire somebody with 0 experience. I ended up working as an office assitant doing mostly data entry for about a year at a local government office. Eventually there was a job opening for somebody who knows Linux in the IT department. Being in the government sector, they were rather prejudiced towards government employees, paid crap, and had a 15 page application that took a couple hours to fill out. I was also able to see who the hiring manager was, so I would stop by and bug him whenever I had documents to deliver to the office where IT was based. Eventually, about 6 or 7 months after I first applied I got the job. Fortunately for me, there was nobody who really knew enterprise Linux working there, so I was able to get in.

On another path were a couple more guys in IT who ended up becoming Linux admins. One started out in desktop support and another started out on the helpdesk. The guy in desktop support worked in the same office as the (two) Linux admins, so we got to know him pretty well. He had used Linux a lot at home, ran it on his desktop at work, but mostly he was smart and capable of learning new things well as needed. 100 servers later and during a re-org, the powers that be were finally convinced that we needed another Linux admin, so we volunteered that guy. The helpdesk guy was another similar story. He worked far removed from us in the call center, but we still talked to them when calls came in and would stop by and visit every once inawhile. He would call from time to time just with his own questions about Linux, and would usually not ask the same question twice. When he did forward on a helpdesk call, he was one of the few people working there who did the basic troubleshooting they were supposed to do like pinging servers, checking credentials, user account lockouts, etc. If we got a ticket from him, then it was usually because something was really wrong or he didn't have the access rights needed for the fix. When one of the (now three) admins left, we told our boss that we wanted that guy to work with us.

So, you can bug the hiring manager so that he recognizes you and be one of the only people working someplace who can spell linux, or you can get a crap IT job, get to know the *nix admins well, ask them the right questions, and have a track record of knowing how to think logically and do some complex problem solving.

Mainframe pricing is generally out of reach for most people who don't already have a mainframe. My zVM environment is ridiculously over-provisioned at the moment, so I can't really say what works well and what doesn't on it, but the largest bottleneck seems to be CPU cycles and certainly not I/O. That is kind of the opposite what you usually see on x86 VMs. It looks like databases will run pretty well here, and if the application runs on the mainframe or within zVM as well, then you get a free 6gbit network to use...I haven't been able to saturate that yet.

Wow...somebody drank the Cisco blade Kool-Aid. What is your opinion of them?

That is why I bought a Grand Seiko and a pair of Koronya shoes. I figure with these two nailed, I can go just about anywhere in bermuda shorts and a white t-shirt.

For #3, my hands aren't really on the wheel. At that point you're steering with the rear wheels and throttle as much as anything and the steering wheel inputs are mostly a suggestion.

There is an "updates only" version, it is $350 / yr for a 2 socket server. Until about a year ago, this was the basic subscription that included web/email support.

Of the top 5 cameras on flickr, 4 of them are DSLRs, and the top "camera" is the iPhone.

Could you elaborate on that? The federal income tax rate for $100k is 28%. So, just using federal income tax, how do you get that down to 17%? I don't make anywhere in the area of $100k, generally see about 75% - 77% of my paycheck in my pocket, and still have to pay about $2k at the end of the year.

I am probably a right-leaning moderate in Europe, so adjusted to the prejudices of the US, I responded with far left.

The place where I used to work (local government) did that. For the most part, the people who had the skills to get jobs elsewhere went and did just that. The employer of course does not care at all, and probably doesn't even realize what they did.

why are you virtualizing something with more than 8 cpus and 256G ram? Maybe I missed a memo somewhere, but that sure sounds like something you're going to want to run on its own hardware

Or it is a function of activity level, diet, genetics, environment, and culture. We just aren't really sure what that function looks like. Has there been *any* widely accepted "this is why people are fat" kinds of science that has not been refuted by another "this is why people are fat" kinds of science? It isn't simple, and there is not a magic remedy. It is certainly possible to decrease weight by controlling carbs, but that is not the only way, and it is certainly widely possible to lose weight and be healthy without being in ketosis. Look at societies where the staple food is carbs. How are they not fatter than we are if carbs are what makes you fat?

Support is only one reason to go RHEL over CentOS, and only a minor one IMO. Sometimes it makes sense to go CentOS, sometimes it makes sense to go RHEL, and sometimes it makes sense to run both. CentOS is really good and may be all that you need. I wouldn't hesitate to run it over RHEL in smaller shops.

So, here is why you would want to pay for RedHat instead of CentOS
- You really need the support. If you don't have deep linux knowledge, this might be for you. I have contacted Red Hat support about 5 or 6 times in the past 5 years. It was only really necessary once or twice and the other times were more like "I'm trying to get X to do Y. Am I wasting my time because it just doens't work that way?" kinds of questions.

- You need the big company on a sheet of paper. If you're running software like Oracle or Websphere and their support offerings are dependent on an "approved platform".

- Your customers. Are your customers and the customers you would like to have swayed by your infrastructure running on Red Hat? If they can turn around and bleed you, then do you want to be the one wholly responsible? CentOS has very little responsibility to you as a customer, however Red Hat does.

- Who do you trust? Last I knew, the CentOS project is actually really small. There are a few key players who hold the keys to the kingdom, and the project is dependent on them. If the CentOS project decided to turn around and evaporate tomorrow, or start throwing backdoors into everything, then they will lose credibility and respect from the community. Red Hat has $millions and future $billions on the line. Their continued success is more than just a personal matter to their CEO and board.

- ...which leads to, who is going to be around tomorrow. See above, CentOS isn't a huge team (which may have changed by now).

- Testing. Red Hat has the resources to test extensively. CentOS does not, but they also don't really need to test to the same extent since Red Hat has already done it.

- You own a lot of Red Hat stock. This mostly only applies if you're the CIO or a VP.

Microsoft's failed bid for yahoo was the beginning of the....not going anywhere...for the company. Look at their share price from that time. The day that they announced a bid for yahoo, the stock accelerated a decline from which it has only marginally recovered. Right now, MSFT trades at the same levels it has for the past decade. Since 2002, the only time it has traded about $30/share regularly was right before the attempt to buy yahoo. The market knew it was a horrible decision, but Balmer did not.