dealing with a dedicated server's "custom" linux?

[Christopher Browne]

On 8/1/05, Aaron Vegh <aaronvegh-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
> I want to manage this thing myself but I don't want to break something
> that inadvertently relies on this custom brand of Linux. Does anyone
> know about this version of Linux, what makes it custom, and what I can
> do to get around it?
> 
> And please, no suggestions that I move to another provider. I
> sympathize, but I'm in the midst of a 12 month contract. That won't
> help me right now.


It seems to me that you're between a rock and a hard place.

The provider is providing an incredibly ancient version of Red Hat Linux, 
and the fact that they then customized it essentially makes it nigh unto 
unmaintainable.

You are quite likely to be best off treating the money spent on the present 
contract as a "sunk cost" which means that it can and should be IGNORED for 
decisionmaking purposes.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost>"Economists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist>argue
that, if you are
rational <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality>, you will not take sunk 
costs into account when making decisions."

in contrast...

Many people have strong misgivings about "wasting" resources. This is called 
"loss aversion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion>". Many people, 
for example, would feel obligated to go to the movie despite not really 
wanting to, because doing otherwise would be wasting the ticket price; they 
feel they passed the point of no
return<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_no_return>.
This is sometimes called the sunk cost fallacy. Economists would label this 
behavior "irrational": It is inefficient because it misallocates resources 
by depending on information that is irrelevant to the business decision 
being made.

The Better Answer for you is likely to purchase services from another 
provider that can provide you a system that isn't based on an unmaintainable 
4-year-old version of a distribution, but which is rather using something at 
least 3 years newer. That would likely be much cheaper than fighting with an 
unmaintainable system at the current service provider.

If your boss has some sort of "loss aversion" and regards the sunk cost in 
some irrational manner, then I guess they are prepared to have you spend 
arbitrary amounts of your time fighting with RHAT 7.2, and maybe you should 
consider looking for another boss...
-- 
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him
absolutely no good." -- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
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