Hello all
I currently have a Moodle 1.9.3+ instance running on a Windows 2003 VM. The organization that I work for is transitioning away from Windows to Linux. They pretty much said "We'll do Red Hat, Ubuntu, Solaris, but we will not under any circumstances do Windows anymore." I am happy for the move since my Moodle install has been plagued with Apache memory leaks.
What I would like to know is if anyone has advic hints, gotchas, etc about migrating an install from Windows to Linux. It looks like it will probably be RHEL 5 that will be the new preferred platform. Any thoughts?
Scott Karren
We have Centos 5 VM's working fine ( Centos is RHEL without the "RH" ).
You may find there are a couple of generic issues, such as case sensitivity etc that are common to any transition from Windows to "Unix" based systems.
If you are new to *nix systems then make sure you do some preliminary study on permissions and the various utilities to manage and monitor your server.
If you want the most out of your server then go down the "text mode" rather than the GUI.
Having said that if you're a newbie then set it up with the GUI, but when ready for production, go back to booting in text mode ( yes you can do that in Linux!! ) But make sure you have a good SSH client and are familiar with it's use.
Good luck - you will enjoy the new environment.
kind regards
Gary
Hi
I can't say much about the VM part. Moodle+LAMP will definitely run, no idea how it'll perform. There were couple of discussions in this forum, see for example http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=108096
On "Red Hat, Ubuntu, Solaris", they can't really be put side-by-side since Red Hat and Ubuntu are both Linux. You have to count the diffenet Unixes, like Linux, Solaris, *BSD, HP-UX, etc. (OK strickly Linux is not supposed to call itself Unix-like, let's say Unix is Linux-like [RMS]
As Gary already pointed out Unix world is different from Windows. If you are not used to it already, make provision for a "steep learning curve". Again, nothing wrong about it. From my experience, you won't regret the steep part!
Now this statement form the _management_ "anything but Windows" that really surprises me. Usually the techys cry for Unix the management says we love Windows. How come your management is different?
I can't say much about the VM part. Moodle+LAMP will definitely run, no idea how it'll perform. There were couple of discussions in this forum, see for example http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=108096
On "Red Hat, Ubuntu, Solaris", they can't really be put side-by-side since Red Hat and Ubuntu are both Linux. You have to count the diffenet Unixes, like Linux, Solaris, *BSD, HP-UX, etc. (OK strickly Linux is not supposed to call itself Unix-like, let's say Unix is Linux-like [RMS]
As Gary already pointed out Unix world is different from Windows. If you are not used to it already, make provision for a "steep learning curve". Again, nothing wrong about it. From my experience, you won't regret the steep part!
Now this statement form the _management_ "anything but Windows" that really surprises me. Usually the techys cry for Unix the management says we love Windows. How come your management is different?
All
Thank you for the recommendations and advice recieved both here and through PM. It has been very enlightening. The department that will be helping me support my Moodle instance has decided to go with RHEL so I am in the process of getting a sandbox machine so I can become more familiar with the inner workings of Linux.
As to managements statement "anything but Windows" that comes from the fact that the majority of the leadership are former *nix admins and they are supporting well over 100,000 students, faculty, staff, etc.
Scott Karren
Thank you for the recommendations and advice recieved both here and through PM. It has been very enlightening. The department that will be helping me support my Moodle instance has decided to go with RHEL so I am in the process of getting a sandbox machine so I can become more familiar with the inner workings of Linux.
As to managements statement "anything but Windows" that comes from the fact that the majority of the leadership are former *nix admins and they are supporting well over 100,000 students, faculty, staff, etc.
Scott Karren
Hi
> my Moodle instance has decided to go with RHEL
Yep, for an old-school Unix crowd an enterprise Linux is the wright thing.
> so I can become more familiar with the inner workings of Linux
This is a dilemma. Well packaged distributions tend to be "protective", i.e. the system will be well maintained if you play to their rules, say the configuration system. You'll be reluctant to try out bold things like editing config files.
I too began with Wallnut Creek RH and then quickly moved to Slackware. That was a gem. Slack is the most Unix-like distribution. The point is, you don't have to _stay_ with it. Your production server could be RHEL or Debian or whatever. For learing Slack is the best. Once that is done you can move to LFS http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ if you feel like.
> my Moodle instance has decided to go with RHEL
Yep, for an old-school Unix crowd an enterprise Linux is the wright thing.
> so I can become more familiar with the inner workings of Linux
This is a dilemma. Well packaged distributions tend to be "protective", i.e. the system will be well maintained if you play to their rules, say the configuration system. You'll be reluctant to try out bold things like editing config files.
I too began with Wallnut Creek RH and then quickly moved to Slackware. That was a gem. Slack is the most Unix-like distribution. The point is, you don't have to _stay_ with it. Your production server could be RHEL or Debian or whatever. For learing Slack is the best. Once that is done you can move to LFS http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ if you feel like.