DIY Carrier Grade Linux with Debian 75
An anonymous reader writes "Carrier Grade Linux, once the domain of big-bucks Bells and commercial software vendors, just became more attainable for universities, companies running high-availability web services, and average Linux hackers interested in learning what goes into the world's most reliable, maintainable, and available systems. The Debian project, backed by HP, has launched the Debian-Carrier Grade Linux subproject, and registered Debian-CGL with version 2.02 of the CGL spec. LinuxDevices has created a simplified version of the registration form that lets you see which Debian packages to apt-get, and which packages you'll have to download and compile out side of Debian, in order to get your own Carrier Grade Linux setup."
carrier-grade linux (Score:4, Funny)
Carrier grade? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:1)
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, they are edible, and have been on the menu for a long time. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/antarctica2/ask/new/Peng uins_as_food_for_humans.txt [nasa.gov] The flavour is ok - sort of halfway between dolphin and bald eagle.
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:2)
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:1)
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:4, Funny)
Even if we get this capability in linux, it'll be ridiculed for being years behind Windows [gcn.com]. (That's one of about 1.4 million online pages about this incident.)
It's sorta like the constant chant that linux "isn't ready for the desktop" because it doesn't treat its users as horribly as Windows does. Similarly, linux can't be considered "battlefield ready" until it can duplicate the disasters that the military has come to expect from their software.
Re:Carrier grade? (Score:1)
I had no idea what carrier grade means (Score:5, Informative)
Carrier Grade Linux' is a set of specifications which detail standards of availability, scalability, manageability, and service response characteristics which must be met in order for Linux to be considered "carrier-grade" (i.e. ready for use within the telecommunications industry). The term is particularly applicable as telecom converges technically with data networks and commercial off-the-shelf commoditized components such as blade servers.
Re:I had no idea what carrier grade means (Score:1)
Re:I had no idea what carrier grade means (Score:4, Funny)
I do wonder how long it'll be before Carrier [carrier.com] sends them a C&D letter.
Re:Ubuntu (Score:1)
I guess you didn't get the joke.
For those of you who don't know... (Score:5, Funny)
Wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
Carrier-grade services require that a telco provide dialtone, routing, completion, and ring within certain time limits a certain percentage of the time. In all my years of dealing with telcos, I've only missed a dialtone twice. I've gotten failed routing far more often, but still well within 99.999% of the time. My data circuits, on the other hand, have failed often.
Re:Wikipedia (Score:2)
Think of it this way (Score:1)
Re:Think of it this way (Score:2)
"Lucky seven, come on lucky seven!"
Re:Wikipedia (Score:1)
Re:Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
Telcos feel they need 99.999% uptime from their equipment in order to provide you with a much lower level of service - typically 99.9% for a T1 or an analog voice line, occasionally 99.99% for a set of redundant circuits.
Our current carrier is at approximately 24 hours of downtime per quarter-year.
That's roughly 99%. If this is a T1, you should be able to do ten times
Telecom carrier? (Score:3, Interesting)
Telecom carriers are Long Distance providers, and Ma-Bell providers around the globe. They are the ones that provide power into your home for your phone service as well as the service itself. They are the ones that do switching entirely on closed circuts.
Carrier grade is usually coined as 5-9's (9.9999%) which is friggin amazing. It's what the systems are designed for, and they usually pull it off.
-M
Re:Telecom carrier? (Score:2)
Yeah. Amazing they're still in business.
Re:Telecom carrier? (Score:2)
Re:Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if we measure this in a way comparable to the way that phone companies measure uptime, it'll mean measuring the time that the OS responds to pings. A machine that is a total zombie, with no processes making any progress, will be considered "up" if you can ping it from a nearby machine.
After all, we are all familiar with phone systems that give a d
not even close (Score:1)
But note that telcos usually only offer service with an SLA to customers paying through the nose.
Re:Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)
Could that be simply because OSX and Mac OS (versions 9 and below,) do *NOT* show the seconds that pass by? *points to his default-install 72-D version iBook running OSX 10.2.8 and his Powerbook 190c running Mac-OS 8*
Debian Is Top Dog (Score:4, Insightful)
I just wish all these projects (i.e. ubuntu) that base off of debian would give them more credit.
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:5, Insightful)
How?
From About Ubuntu [ubuntu.com]:
It's right there in the first sentence... Perhaps you want a large blinking banner at the top of ubuntu.com?
A large number of the Ubuntu devs are (wait for it...) Debian devs, too. Ubuntu regularly contributes back to Debian. I'm sure there are political squabbles, but to say that Ubuntu doesn't give credit to Debian is nonsense.
Bleh.
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:1, Troll)
There were a number of distributions about 4 years ago, many of which have 'folded' by now that would initially claim "FooLinux based on Debian".
Ok great.
But then they'd go on to say "FooLinux's innovative package system called Foomaptic-get" which was a symlink to apt-get or aptitude, and it was pointed at FooLinux's mirror of Debian unstable, everything renamed. Stuff like that.
So I don't have other examples or sources, which makes my point appear weak and theref
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:3, Insightful)
That is your opinion. There is no one size fits all.
Some people want a simple, easy to install Linux.
Some people want the latest and greatest Linux
Some people want the most stable Linux that will provide the most up time.
There are many projects that show what Linux should be like. Some projects are useless or redundant but if that makes there developers happy so be i
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
Slackware showed us what, that Linux shouldn't have package management? And Debian has showed us what, that packages should be old and outdated?
I've moved to Ubuntu, like most of the rest of the world, but it doesn't make me believe that Debian is the ultimate Linux, or that it does everything better than everyone else.
Formerly I used Gentoo. Maybe you only
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
This is not a drawback. Rethink this. It has a stable branch for a reason; if you don't like that aspect, then testing is for you.
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
2) Debian STABLE is old as dirt. Debian testing or unstable is the cutting edge. But iff you want zero-day software, you can always compile it yourself from source.
3) About the video resolution- If it won't auto-detect what you want, can you not just adjust
And yes, I understand that not every linux is for everyone.
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
2) Stable doesn't have to mean ancient. Debian is well behind the curve of stable released versions. They're behind because they're testing their customizations. IMO they need either more package maintainers (I know, hard to come by) or less customization. Then again, this is why I don't use Debian, and I have that choice - but this is a seriously common complaint.
3) Actually, I've been trying to do this, but the configuration is somewhat strange (mode clocks
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
I like 'unstable' distros - the latest and greatest, thats why I use ~x86. But on a server, I'm glad that I can use mysql4.1, php4.3, etc without having to upgrade, play around with updated config file formats, workaround new bugs, etc - thats why I use debian sarge on the webserver at work (I run FreeBSD 6.1 on my home server). The right tool for the right job.
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
Even though I recognize your nick, your comments make it sound like Ubuntu is the new $fanboy_linux_distro. For awhile it was Mandrake, then Gentoo, then Knoppix, now Ubuntu?
I'm having a hard time keeping up, sorry.
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:2)
I've been running FreeBSD for the last three or four years so i haven't stayed up on all this
Oh, and don't forget the RedHat/Mandrake-->OSX Fanboy jump
Re:Debian Is Top Dog (Score:1)
You are just showing your ignorance. Debian Stable has older packages than Ubuntu but they're also better tested and less buggy. Then there are Debian Unstable and Testing that both have newer packages than Ubuntu.
And both Debian Stable and Testing get security updates for ALL th
Personally, I prefer tomorrow's version (Score:2)
Personally, I perfer IE6 six VI. Of course, it's not due out until tomorrow.
(Note: This is only meant as a lame joke. I use Firefox.)
CARRIER HAS ARRIVED (Score:2, Funny)
Re:CARRIER HAS ARRIVED (Score:1)
Submerge submarine...
mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:And now a word from our sponsors... (Score:1)
Destroyer Class Linux (Score:1)
Carrier-grade Windows? (Score:3, Informative)
And, sure enough: from Google, "carrier grade Linux" - 114000 hits, "carrier grade Windows" - 17 hits (but still, not 0). The top Windows hit is from 1998: "a Microsoft white paper available at SUPERCOMM '98 will discuss carrier-grade Windows NT Server-based systems." Well, at least they talked about it, you gotta give them credit for that. Haven't heard much about it since, though.
Re:Carrier-grade Windows? (Score:2)
Re:Carrier-grade Windows? (Score:2)
Show me standard pc hardware that is five 9s before you start worrying about Microsoft.
NO CARRIER (Score:2)
Do we need this ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like a good idea at first but if you have 5-30 minutes downtime per year
that means one very quick kernel patch per year . If you are really concerned
about uptime applying patches in a timely fashion is just as important as
hardening the system to start with.
Obviously starting with solid proven code should mean less patches are needed
but nobody is perfect and what about new functionality ?
That kind of uptime is IMHO more a function of your hosting environment and the
hardware you choose , this is going t
Re:Do we need this ? (Score:2)
Re:Do we need this ? (Score:2)
Re:Do we need this ? (Score:1)
Genuinely curious
Bragging Rights (Score:1)
Co$t? (Score:2)
Carrier grade doesnt count scheduled downtime. (Score:4, Informative)
for the most part I would be its the hardware (Score:1)
Re:for the most part I would be its the hardware (Score:1)
Re:for the most part I would be its the hardware (Score:1)
Why Carrier Grade Linux is Important (Score:1)
Finally, A linux subject that the slashdot crowd is silent about. Since it references debian the ubuntu comments were inevitable.
In reality this goes far beyond a debian discussion and is actually great news for the business of linux. In general Carrier Grade OS's is a way of saying that the OS used for certain carrier/telecom applications must follow a certain set of rules and standards.
This is important because carrier grade linux has to support a ridiculous feature set in order to achieve guarantee