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dabbott 09/09/29 21:40:10 |
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Added: 20090929-interview-patryk-ostc.xml |
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Log: |
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interview with Patryk |
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Revision Changes Path |
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1.1 xml/htdocs/proj/en/pr/20090929-interview-patryk-ostc.xml |
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file : http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo/xml/htdocs/proj/en/pr/20090929-interview-patryk-ostc.xml?rev=1.1&view=markup |
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plain: http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo/xml/htdocs/proj/en/pr/20090929-interview-patryk-ostc.xml?rev=1.1&content-type=text/plain |
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Index: 20090929-interview-patryk-ostc.xml |
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=================================================================== |
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<?xml version='1.0'?> |
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|
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<!DOCTYPE news SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd"> |
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|
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<news gentoo="yes" category="gentoo"> |
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|
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<!-- Enter your name here --> |
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<poster>quantumsummers</poster> |
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|
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<!-- Date to be displayed --> |
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<date>2009-09-29</date> |
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<title>An interview with Patryk Rządziński, head of IT at OSTC Poland.</title> |
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|
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<body> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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Global Financial Derivative trading company, <uri link="http://www.ostc.pl">OSTC |
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Poland</uri>, uses Gentoo Linux in significant sectors of its IT |
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infrastructure. We spoke with long time Gentoo user and head of OSTC Poland's IT |
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department, Patryk Rządziński, to learn more about how and where Gentoo is used. |
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We discovered, as you will read in the full interview, that Gentoo, and more |
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generally open source software, serves well in the commercial world. |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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Hi Patryk, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. |
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Please tell us about yourself and your experiences with Gentoo. |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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My name is Patryk Rządziński, I'm a Gentoo user since about 2003. I'm currently |
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employed as a head of IT in <uri link="http://www.ostc.pl">OSTC Poland</uri>, the first |
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and largest proprietary derivatives trading company in Poland. Despite still |
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being a rather young company, they show vast interest in open source solutions |
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and new technology and that attracted me to it like a bee to honey :-). As I had |
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the opportunity to introduce Gentoo Linux into this company, replacing some |
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Debians and Ubuntus. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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Gentoo was the first Linux distribution I tried, at the beginning for personal |
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use on a desktop system. Switching from windows 2003 to Linux wasn't easy, but |
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all it needed was time. Gentoo is often described as a "hard distro", which lead |
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me to thinking that if I learn it properly, I should have no problems with other |
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popular distributions. Surprisingly, following the handbook got me to a working |
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operating system without any problems, chapeau bas before the authors of all |
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Gentoo documentation! |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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A couple of years later I got the opportunity to try out other distributions at |
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my current employer's office. There were quite some servers with Debian on |
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board, however using them seemed to me like a huge step back, having some |
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glitches I will describe later on. There were also servers based on Ubuntu, |
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however the "Linux with Windows-like problems" term seems to describe them in |
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the best way. Generally I'm still having a couple of Ubuntu servers simply |
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because they run on very old hardware and compiling sources would be plainly a |
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loss of time, while their role is not so significant. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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When did OSTC start using Gentoo? |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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It was a couple of months after I started working in OSTC. Before that I have |
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been using Gentoo on my desktop for about 4 years. Starting early 2008 I have |
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gradually moved various servers to Gentoo in the company. At this point we are |
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using Gentoo unless an ISV requires a specific OS. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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On servers with 3-4 GB of RAM or more, we choose the amd64 arch. On other |
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machines the choice is the regular x86 arch. In some cases we are using the |
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unmasked arches for testing purposes of upcoming releases, before they reach the |
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stable arch. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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Right now we have 22 machines with Gentoo Linux on board serving various |
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purposes, including regular Internet services, VoIP, application servers and |
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even some desktops. Moving services from Debian to Gentoo was a result of many |
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issues I had with the former: |
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</p> |
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|
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<ul> |
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<li> |
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Debian layout organization obscurity: after a longer while I realized some |
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packages have their default configuration files in separate packages! Also, |
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after getting used to work with portage, apt-get seemed just wrong in most ways. |
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Using, managing and modifying ebuilds makes the work clean, fast and very |
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convenient for deploying to other servers and users. |
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</li> |
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<li> |
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Another thing was installing a bit more uncommon package from the tree. It would |
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require finding a specific repository, dealing with dependencies and so on, |
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without too much ability to manage the things in the same time. |
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</li> |
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<li> |
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Then there are changes to the kernel and all that comes with it, finding the |
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sources, getting all that is needed to compile it (compilation must be seen some |
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as heresy, eternally hated by Debian users). This all is done very simply on |
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Gentoo, in a very elegant way |
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</li> |
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<li> |
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Apart from that, running a precompiled distribution (i386) on a modern hardware |
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seems to be throwing money away, as compilation allows for some good fine tuning |
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(not to be mistaken with ricing) and thus using the full potential from our |
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newly bought hardware. Then there are also the USE flags a simple yet sufficient |
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and developer dependent way to manage all the configure switches. Also, when |
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dealing with system installation, they let the admin prepare an environment with |
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possibly the smallest amount of packages and allow tracking their number very |
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easily. |
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</li> |
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<li> |
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Tools like revdep-rebuild, portage replacements like paludis, eix, gentoolkit, |
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genutils, are all very useful packages making a happy admin! |
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</li> |
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<li> |
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Last but not least, community and documentation. I've met very knowledgeable |
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people here with an amazingly in depth knowledge of computer science and the way |
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they deal with the OS, troubleshoot problems. In the contrary, for any issue I |
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had with Ubuntu, the solution given by the community was "did you try |
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rebooting?". |
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</li> |
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</ul> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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Does OSTC use open source software(OSS) in other capacities, what are they? |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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Yes, whenever there is a fine and stable FOSS concurrent solution to a |
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commercial one, we always prefer the FOSS, even if it means less support and |
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more work or workarounds. A perfect example here is voice communication. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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What OSS projects do you use regularly at work? |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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That would be everything our non-IT staff uses, in example Mozilla Firefox, |
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Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org, which are fine replacements for other popular |
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non-FOSS software, having most of the popular protocols implemented much better |
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to be honest (Will Outlook ever implement IMAP properly? :>). |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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Why did OSTC switch from Windows to Linux? |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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The main reason would be cost and efficiency. There is no point in paying for a |
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Windows license if we need to run a single, stable service on a machine we would |
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like to avoid rebooting. Linux in general was the immediate answer. Nevertheless |
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mind you that Gentoo was not the first Linux distribution in OSTC. There was |
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Debian and Ubuntu. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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What have been some of the difficulties you have experienced with Gentoo? |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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There were of course hard times with Gentoo, however most of the time they were |
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unrelated to the distribution itself. For example I had trouble getting asterisk |
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to compile while using a recent kernel, however tracking down bugzilla allowed |
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me to find the recent changes in the kernel, which were causing trouble here and |
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add a couple of sed lines to modify the asterisk sources accordingly. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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If there are a couple of things I am not that fond of in Gentoo, that would be |
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the main tree ebuild releases. For example, a Firefox ebuild released twice in a |
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day points that the first one had something overlooked and the user has to |
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recompile it twice. There were also ebuilds with wrong checksums, or with |
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patches that couldn't apply. It is most probably a matter of quality having to |
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be over quantity, however this is rather insignificant and easily fixed even by |
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home Linux user. The real challenge would be dealing with the social issues |
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between Gentoo developers, which could give Gentoo a more professional look and |
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thus get more support from companies. As a feature request I'd still like a |
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modern Gentoo organized Linux with binary packages, for the sake of utilizing |
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older hardware, however this need will obviously become less important with |
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time. |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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<b> |
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Thanks again for taking the time to discuss your personal and commercial |
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experiences with Gentoo. Do you have any further remarks? |
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</b> |
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</p> |
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|
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<p> |
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To conclude here I'd like to encourage all admins to at least give Gentoo a try, |
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if they value their time, and like their systems neat and nice. I'm personally |
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very satisfied with my systems on Gentoo. |
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</p> |
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|
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</body> |
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</news> |
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