While I’ve never been “anti-Linux” (I believe it’s one of the best OS’s in the world, particularly for single-purpose servers like webservers, caching, etc)… I’ve never had to personally manage or personally use Linux to any degree. The extent of my Linux knowledge was that “cd” was change directory, “top” showed me what was going on with the machine and “ls” showed the contents of directories.
In the last week, though, I’ve had to become more accustomed than ever, thanks to some issues with the b5media server.
While I’m not exactly a powerhouse, I’ve figured out how to (with help from friends, Google, etc):
- make my way around directories, copy files, view filetypes, edit text files using vi, etc
- work with top and ps and various other tools to figure out what’s going on with a server
- reconfigure apache and mysql, in fairly basic ways, to optimize how they work
- setup a cron job
- kill, maime and otherwise do serious damage to runaway processes
And a variety of other minor tasks. I’m all impressed with myself, obviously. Not sure I enjoy Linux (anymore than I’d enjoy working with DOS again), but then this is all server stuff and I’m not sure how much “server stuff” can actually be fun (though I do love buying and setting up hardware).
October 26th, 2005 at 1:47 pm
I’m proud of you, son.
Now, master awk.
October 26th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
I agree – server stuff sucks no matter what OS you’re running.
It’s the desktop stuff I love in GNU/Linux
October 26th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
If you can swing it, I’d recommend installing Webmin on servers you have to maintain. It’s a web based admin interface. For me, it was a HELL of a lot easier using it to configure Apache than mucking around in httpd.conf. Check it out at Webmin.com.
October 26th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
Scott, we’ve got CPanel on the server, but I still have to mess around with httpd, mysql, etc.
October 26th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Yeah, Webmin has modules for dealing with all of that.
November 4th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
Hey good job!
Linux is good.