At 03:11 PM 5/2/00 -0400, Dennis Boone wrote:

 >We run qmail to keep up with the volume.  We use the Debian
distribution of Linux, installed through >the network.  This is not
necessarily the easiest one to install.  Maintenance is
striaghtforward, >though, and should be pretty obvious if you have
unix background.  Upgrades are trivially easy.  The >Debian team is
good about getting security fixes up quickly.

This is something I have been wrestling with -- sendmail or qmail.
Sendmail is highly esoteric from a non-programmer's point of view,
and I would most likely need to hire someone smart enough to
configure it correctly (Security!). What are the benefits of using
qmail in its place? (security?)

Also, we will be going to GNU/Debian.

 >LISTSERV on Linux has been very stable for us.<

Ah... that's what I want to hear!

 >L-Soft used to recommend platforms with journalling file systems
(specifically AIX) to help avoid problems with damaged files in
system crashes and flaky customer backups.  Since LISTSERV tends to
have lots of files open, and since it caches files in RAM, it's
fairly easy to understand how problems could occur in crashes.  We
migrated to Linux from AIX, which has JFS.  Linux did not until
recently, and I believe all of the options are still alpha or early
beta. We're not using them yet.<

We will be performing daily cron backups to tape. You've brought up
some interesting points about JFS (which I know nothing about !
Great -- more stuff to learn). I think we'll wait on JFS then.....
;-)

 >Ask L-Soft about the fee for converting your license.  I was a
little surprised at the price we were charged.  I don't know what
determines this.<

Yeah, I was getting our president prepared for this. It's a little
tough when you have to explain things like this to a
business-minded individual....

a) we need to transition to Linux
Him: Why? Isn't NT working already?

b) we need to pay a fee to convert our license with L-Soft
Him: (see above) *look of bewilderment*

 >If you have unix background, carefully choose mainstream, quality
hardware, and keep your software straightforward, you should find a
Linux platform to be very stable and reliable.  Converting a
production service to an unfamiliar platform, though, is something
you should think through very carefully.<

Thanks very much for your time! I'll keep you up to date on our
progress.

My best,
Adam