Where to find good/cheap tech support

[ChrisC]

I guess we are going with RedHat on this server. I would have preferred 
FreeBSD :(

This was just meant to be a little question on where to get help that fits 
our budget, nothing more.

For those that like to poke and hit.... I'm just a little employee doing 
what I can with what I'm given.



At 4/26/2005 01:31 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org wrote:
> >    You seem to be making assumptions and are looking into this
> > to deeply
> >    my friend. But thanks for the feedback anyway :)    -
> >    The $150 was only an arbitrary number thats common in the field. I
> >    could have chosen another number. It would not have mattered, the
> >    question would have been the same.
>
>That is baloney, when you titled the post good/CHEAP, quite obviously the
>number matters greatly.
>
> >    -
> >    The SCSI adapter is an Adaptec Ultra320 built into a $3000+ 1U web
> >    server and not a common inexpensive controller. Since it works fine
> >    for both RedHat and Windows we are probably going to go with
> >    another OS on this server other than FreeBSD.
>
>Um, that would be Windows, right? That is, your going to drop an
>additional
>$1200 on Windows OS and licensing for it just because you don't want to
>drop $150 into an hour of support?
>
>If that isn't true then why are you even listing Windows here?  Windows
>isn't
>a UNIX OS, and has no relevance to anything.  Is it because your thinking
>that if you tell us Windows runs on this server that we are all going to
>be
>real impressed?  Aren't you forgetting a lot of us already run 1U
>webservers
>fine with FreeBSD with no problems?
>
>The fact RedHat runs on this is significant since the FreeBSD and RedHat
>Adaptec driver have a common ancestor.
>
> >    Why arm wrestle the
> >    situation when no one seems to know the solution to our issue.    -
>
>Simple, because the OS is free.  If you want to save the money on
>licensing
>fees then you spend your time arm wrestling problems when they come up.
>
>If you own a car and you want to save a lot of money on mechanics fees
>then
>you learn how to fix it, buy a lot of tools, and do the work yourself.
>Why
>is this any different with operating systems?
>
> >    And I am in a VERY small company that could barely pay for what we
> >    just purchased. We where lucky to get what we did and the idea of
> >    having a duplicate is wishful thinking and not realistic, so thats
> >    a risk we will have to take until we can afford better solutions.
>
>In short, you overreached yourself.  So let me ask you, why should
>customers
>use you when your competition has actually spent the money for backup
>servers?
>
>I work for a small company too, lots of people do that is no excuse.  But
>when I have a problem, such a fielding a mailserver, that really ought to
>have a backup server, if I have $3K to spend on it, I don't run out and
>buy a new server.  I instead get creative and perhaps buy 2 used servers
>at $1500, or roll my own clones, or get a leasing company involved, etc.
>
>I don't shortchange my customers because I'm not willing to gamble with
>their livelihoods.  Sure, I may not be out there saying to them that I
>have a brand new P4 3Ghz server for them like you are, but I am telling
>them
>that for what they need, a P4 3Ghz server won't be any different than a
>P3 1.5Ghz system, (which it isn't) and that I have redundancies in that
>P3 1.5Ghz network that allow me to guarentee to them that if my server
>blows
>chunks that I will have them back online within 20 minutes.
>
> >    Its not the perfect situation but its the best we can do with what
> >    we have.
>
>No, it isn't.
>
> >    I would love a new house but the cold numbers dictate
> >    what's    really possible right now. -
>
>No, they don't.  You are simply making up justfications for yourself to
>try to sleep better at night.  You don't have the moral leg to stand on
>to
>sell server services to your customers, because when your customers buy
>services from you there is an implied understanding that they are buying
>server services that are done in a professional manner, better than they
>could do them.
>
>And if you aren't selling server services to customers, but instead using
>this server for your own business, the moral issues still remain because
>your customers depend on your product, and if you go offline a week
>because
>your all-the-eggs-in-one-basket solution blew chunks, then your still
>affecting your customers.
>
>I'm sure you can probably go on making excuses, but I'm not interested
>in them.  You said you couldn't afford to have the server down for
>days at a time.  Well, either that was a baldfaced lie and you were
>full of crap, or your abrogating your responsibility to provide solid
>IT services and infrastructure.  Sites that cannot afford to have
>a server down for days at a time MUST have backup servers, it is simple
>as that, and no amount of whining and excuses justify anything different.
>
> >    Now if your interested in the problem, here is the support
> >    issue/question no one seems to have any clue about.....    -
> >    I am attempting to install FreeBSD 5.3 onto a new server, but
> >    during the initial bootup it fails / times out from what I think
> > is it trying
> >    to initialize the SCSI adapter. The server has an Adaptec AIC-7902
> >    dual-channel Ultra320 SCSI controller which the i386 ahd(4)
> > driver has
> >    listed as a supported device.
> >    -
> >    I have been reading and searching this lists archives as well as
> >    the bsdforums.org site for possible solutions, but so far what I
> >    have found has not worked. I have tried disabling/enabling ACPI,
> >    removing all but one SCSI drive and re-checking the adapter
> >    settings comparing them to a different Adaptec controller on
> >    another server running FreeBSD 5.3 which works fine. The servers
> > BIOS and firmware
> > is all up
> >    to date and is mainly running on its default settings.    -
>
>Have you looked at PR  kern/71778  it is still open, is applicable to
>your problem.  You should post followup to it with the same output
>as requested "pciconf -lv".  You should also check out FreeBSD release
>4.11 on this system, as the original creator of that PR did.
>
>Without feedback the developers do not know there is a problem.  The
>Questions mailing list is NOT the place for submitting bugs to
>FreeBSD.  It is rather where people who don't know better get their
>paradigm adjusted to be realistic, or if their too emotionally envolved
>in their
>excus.. paradigm adjusted and cannot take the forced therapy, then they
>get pissed off
>and go away and run Windows or something and sooth their ruffled feathers
>by telling themselves they were right all along.
>
>The fact that someone else has a similar problem with this
>chipset is a much better indicator it's a driver bug than the original
>single post to the PR, and much more likely to get the driver author
>to take a look at it.  If the driver author does not look at it I am
>sorry about that, but I would bet that if you offered him half the amount
>of money as what it would cost to run Windows on this server of yours
>that
>the bug would be fixed quickly.
>
>But of course, you won't do that because you seem to have a moral
>adversion
>to spending money on software or support.  Hardware I guess is OK to
>spend
>money on, with a grudge, I guess.
>
>I wonder how long you would stay in business if all your customers had
>this
>same money spending attitude to your product?
>
>Ted