Wikimedia Ubuntu migration FAQ
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There's been some recent news coverage about Wikimedia's ongoing migration of servers to Ubuntu Linux. While much of the coverage is fairly straightforward and fact-based, there are some common questions and misconceptions I've seen in comments.
- Was this in response to (insert recent event)?
- No. We started standardizing on Ubuntu in 2006, and have been migrating various subsystems over time.
- Why did you stop using Red Hat Enterprise Linux!?!?
- We never used Red Hat Enterprise Linux -- we originally had an ad-hoc mix of old Red Hat 9 and Fedora 2, 3, and 4 systems, which we were interested in replacing with a more standardized infrastructure to simplify our internal server setup and administration.
- Why not stick with Fedora?
- We like the predictable release schedule and the idea of infrastructure packages being up to date, but...
- Security updates cut off very quickly for stable systems, so we didn't like leaving old installations in place, but...
- New releases feel too bleeding edge, so we didn't like upgrading existing installations either.
- To top it off, while RPM isn't too awful, yum is slow and annoying as a package manager and we just don't like it.
- Do you know fedora apt-get and fedora smart ?
- Yes, we used it back in the day and it was still a bit awkward.
- Why not Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS?
- The insanely slow release cycle is a bit of a turn-off; we need to make sure we have our RAID drivers and reasonably up-to-date LAMP and image-rerendering infrastructure software.
- As with Fedora, yum as the package manager is a big turn-off.
- It also seems silly to go with something where we'd have to play distro-clone games when using it without a support contract. (Hey, at least it's not IceWeasel!)
- Why not Debian?
- Many of our admins had more of a Debian background and preferred its file layout, but...
- Debian has an unpredictable and insanely slow release cycle for stable, while being too shifty and bleeding-edge on testing/unstable.
- But with RHEL/CentOS/Debian couldn't you just install package backports for updated software you need?
- We could, and we do so on Ubuntu when we need to use patched, customized, or newer versions than are available. But it's nice to not have to backport a hundred library dependencies to get an updated librsvg renderer.
- Why not (insert any other distro here)?
- Sorry, your favorite distro wasn't cool enough to even get seriously mentioned for consideration.
- Why Ubuntu in particular?
- It's got the things we like about Fedora (predictable release schedule with reasonably up to date infrastructure packages) with a longer security update schedule, plus the things we like about Debian (nicer package manager and general Debian-style file layout which some of our admins prefer).
- But why is Ubuntu so earth-shatteringly good that this is news?
- In many ways, it was more important that we standardized on something than that we standardized on Ubuntu specifically. But as stated above, there are definitely things we like about it!
- Was the availability of commercial support an important factor?
- Commercial support availability was not a significant factor.
- Longer security update availability was a factor -- the long-term support releases were just being announced around the time we chose to standardize on Ubuntu.
- Note that even the non-LTS releases get security updates longer than Fedora (18 vs 12 months, which is significant in the context of a 6-month release cycle).
- Do you have a support contract with Canonical? Do you pay for it?
- Canonical has recently provided us with a support contract free of charge because they think we're cool. We have not actually used it so far; these sorts of support contracts are usually more symbolic than practical for us, since we tend to escalate issues directly to engineers as is. ;)
- Wikimedia must be a big rich corporation with your fancy website; you should pay Canonical to support Open Source instead of freeloading!
- We're actually a small non-profit that relies on donations to operate. A large part of what we do is Free/Open Source software development, including our own MediaWiki and improvements to Squid and other software we use.
- Ubuntu is a desktop distro, isn't it stupid to put it on a server?
- Ubuntu is based on Debian, which according to rumor is a great server distro. We find it works pretty well in a server configuration.
- I had a bad experience with Ubuntu two years ago, which proves it is terrible and you are idiots for using it.
- When I was six, another kid kicked a soccer ball right into my nose during a game, and I cried all the way home. It would, however, be a logical fallacy for me to conclude from this that soccer is a terrible game which no one should play.
- Wanting both frequent updates and stability/support is just wishing for a pony!
- Well, we're riding our ponies to the tune of several billion page views per month. Where's your pony? Oh, you didn't get one?
- Aren't many of these things subjective preferences? I would make a different choice for my site!
- Yep! Your soft preferences and hard requirements may differ, and we don't mind if you use something different.