> Okay, so I have decided to run Listserv on a Linux machine. I am
 > excited to do this, but I have only intermediate-level experience
 > with the LinuxOS. I have never installed it on a server, either.
 >
 > Now I don't want to get in too deep here, and the last thing I can
 > risk is costing our company money in the transition from NT to Linux.

We've run our LISTSERV service on a Linux machine for nearly a year.
We have about two hundred lists, some essentially inactive, about
90,000 subscribers across the lists with a few lists of 2000 or
more subscribers, 250 postings per day, and over 400,000 delivery
attempts per day.  We're not in the category of C-NET, but we have
fairly significant load.

The hardware is a Dell PowerEdge 2300 (dual P-II/450) with 512 MB
RAM, and as much of the I/O as possible on a three-disk striping
arrangement.

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.

LISTSERV on Linux has been very stable for us.

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.

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.

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.

Dennis Boone
H-Net