Re: [PLUG] Lab recommendations

[Keith via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On 5/10/21 9:04 PM, JP Vossen via plug wrote:
> First, Ron, you didn't mention specs on your "lab PC" but I'm 
> surprised no one has mentioned running just a hypervisor, if you've 
> got the resources.  Then it doesn't MATTER what else you use, just 
> create a new VM for it.
>
> I use the free license for VMware ESXi, because that's what we use a 
> LOT of at work and it's just easier, but ProxMox (covered in a 
> recent-ish talk) would work just fine and there are other solutions.  
> Anything except Hyper-V! :-)
THIS,  like +10 on this... even if you have a box with 8Gb you can could 
play with one or 2 VM's.  With 16Gb or more you can build out some 
complex environments (when I first started working with LizardFS, I did 
it in virtualization with 4 VMs).  You can even do a lab network which 
is completely isolated so you can play with multi-system / multi-service 
environments without causing issues on your real net.  I'mma KVM/QEMU 
guy but VirtualBox on Linux isn't too bad and it runs on the 3 major 
systems so its good if you want to give someone a VM.  The qemu-img 
program can convert between all and use (to some degree) most common VM 
files too so on Linux there is not reason not to start with a qcow2 
file.  The snapshotting and ability to clone systems is a feature too 
useful not have at the ready.  I never initially build and test systems 
on bare mental anymore.

I'm not a fan of VMware but I know a lot of people do like that and I 
suspect the OP would be able to get help here with that.  I would also 
second the "Anything except Hyper-V" point.  :)

> On 5/10/21 2:21 PM, brent timothy saner via plug wrote:
> > https://www.oracle.com/linux/
> > (lol. If you hate yourself, I guess.)
>
> Yes!  +1m.  Except...  OK, I hate both Oracle the company and Oracle 
> the DB (but that's OT here), but we are forced to use Oracle 
> Enterprise Linux (OEL or EL) almost exclusively for Linux nodes at 
> work.  As Brent said they do weird and unnatural things to 
> it--but--most of that cruft is in the UEK, which is supposedly the 
> "Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel" but which is actually the "Unusable 
> Enterprise Kernel."  UEK breaks lots of things, but in really subtle 
> ways.  I can't count the number of mysterious bugs and problems we've 
> solved by dumping UEK and booting the RHCK (Red Hat Compatible 
> Kernel).  (Then we spend some time cursing the guy (who is gone) who 
> originally said to deploy using UEK.)  Oracle is free to use (so far, 
> but for a long time now, since they get most of the work done for free 
> by Red Hat), mature, and as long as you avoid UEK like COVID, and use 
> the RHCK it (sigh) more-or-less works.  I really hate to say all that 
> because I personally can't stand them, but...it's true.
JP, its awesome when you do these jabs (about Oracle and their DB in 
this case) so I don't have too :D

--
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Keith C. Perry, MS E.E.
Managing Member, DAO Technologies LLC
(O) +1.215.525.4165 x2033
(M) +1.215.432.5167
www.daotechnologies.com

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