Years ago, I was at my wits end with Windows. I’d usually be able to get what I needed done, but it was usually after lots of pain, tears, frustration, muttering under my breath, uninstalling and reinstalling and then finally oh finally I could scan again. The registry… incompatible dll’s network stack needing to be reset and the first virus I ever got on a computer just by connecting to the internet. These were all things that led me to explore other options.
I bought several cds and decided to try installing these different variations of Linux on spare hardware I had. Mandrake, Red Hat, Debian and I think Sco Linux were all some of that first generation I tried to setup. Of them all Mandrake was the easiest and before long I was fluent. Some things didn’t work, but the things that did, just…. kept working and didn’t seem to stop randomly and need to be removed and reinstalled.
Configuration files were plain text which took me back to the days of DOS that I enjoyed so much. It seemed so transparent and simple. Before long I deployed a file server in house to prepare me for a client deployment. Then there was that long day that I fought with my Windows sound drivers and finally decided I was just going to switch over on the desktop. I really haven’t looked back.
For about 18 years or so I’ve used Linux on the desktop and at the server. Mandrake and Mandriva, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, and several others. At times I’ve needed a Windows VM for things, but within a VM Windows seems so much easier to manage even. We’ve even deployed a few machines with a Windows VM on top of Linux. It’s stable, makes it easy to snapshot and backup/restore Windows and if the hardware dies we don’t have to worry about the new hardware not working with the old OS. (One special purpose XP system that’s hardware died is living on as a virtual machine on a Linux host.)
Over those years I’ve become well versed at backing up, securing, recovering, automating and scripting Linux systems to solve many different kinds of problems. Along the way I’ve worked with Apache, Nginx, Varnish, Mysql, PostgreSQL, Python, Perl, BASH, Postfix, Amavis, Clamav, Samba, BIND, SSH, Docker, VMWare, XEN, KVM, VirtualBox and many many other tools, servers, scripting languages.
I enjoy system design and planning as well as troubleshooting.
Give us a call today to see how we can help you with your Linux servers!
Eastern Tennessee – Tri-Cities Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol, Greeneville, Jonesborough: 423-888-0252
Western North Carolina- Asheville, Arden, Weaverville, Hendersonville, Waynesville, Mars Hill: 828-484-1257