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Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

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Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#41

Post by astrodust »

CWIZO wrote: post #21
dazzawazza wrote: post #10

If rails causes a kernel panic then this is really a bug in the kernel. No user land app should ever do this. Why not try to scale on *BSD or Windows all of whom have different kernel and scale just fine? $100,000 and no one said "hey what about running it on "?

I'm as bewildered as all of you. But let's give them the benefit of doubt, he probably just forgot to mention that they tried other OSes. I mean, who wouldn't?

Did they try other kernel versions? Other Ruby VMs? This is a terribly weak excuse. It's like quitting your job because you can't get the printer driver working.

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#42

Post by facorreia »

rlpb wrote: post #11

Canonical provide commercial support for Ubuntu, don't they? For "$100k of investment on sysadmin services/infrastructure alone", did they ask Canonical for support?

Actually they spent like $20k in what I assume was the salary of their sysadmin:

https://twitter.com/amyhoy/status/271128780058267649

The rest was infrastructure costs ($40k) and porting from Rails 3 to 2.

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#43

Post by whalesalad »

What??? How is this even remotely possible?

I call BS. It's either a smoke screen for some other issue, or their app was built back asswards. Either way, this post and the circumstances are indicative that Amy and/or the Charm leadership has no idea what they are doing.

And they were not even launched? Beta or something? The comment about opening to the general public implies that they weren't getting that much usage. These days it's hard to build something with a modern framework and decent hardware that does not at least work for a closed-beta period. Add 100k to the mix and honestly what the hell.

Amy/Tom run Freckle and do some other cool shit so why are they dropping the ball on this? It's like getting a paper cut on your finger and going home for the day because it's just too much to bear. Cry me a fucking river.

Why does this keep happening?! People are throwing cash into the dumbest shit these days.

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#45

Post by bibinou »

electic wrote: post #32

We run a lot of webservers, our own hardware, on Ubuntu and we do not have this issue at all. Rails doesn't cause Kernel panics. It sounds like they have a bad install or honestly, just don't know what their are doing. Probably a bad idea to advertise you can't keep a simple webserver up. Probably won't get funded ever.

>Probably won't get funded ever. that's a product from Amy Hoy[1]. I doubt they'll ever would want to get funded.

http://unicornfree.com/about/

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#46

Post by cheald »

Wow, this is unprofessional.

Lots and lots of people run Rails apps on Ubuntu. Many more run them on non-Ubuntu distros. There is not an epidemic of "welp, Rails magically crashes the kernel, time to pack up and go home", and citing that as the reason to close down after spending over $100k on infrastructure smells really, really funny.

"A poor workman blames his tools."

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#48

Post by drbawb »

electic wrote: post #32

We run a lot of webservers, our own hardware, on Ubuntu and we do not have this issue at all. Rails doesn't cause Kernel panics. It sounds like they have a bad install or honestly, just don't know what their are doing. Probably a bad idea to advertise you can't keep a simple webserver up. Probably won't get funded ever.

Exactly. I'd sooner attribute kernel panics to faulty hardware or a corrupt install than a problem with Rails. (Sure, running a web-server might _exacerbate_ the problem, simply by exercising the hardware -- but it's unfair to attribute that to a problem with Rails/Ubuntu/"mystery.")

The fact that they could not achieve break-even/speed-gains on Rails 3 tells me the application was likely a less-than-stellar codebase to begin with.

I'd agree, if you can't get a Rails application running after investing $100,000 [minimum] in it, it's probably wise not to advertise that fact.

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#49

Post by jbigelow76 »

electic wrote: post #32

We run a lot of webservers, our own hardware, on Ubuntu and we do not have this issue at all. Rails doesn't cause Kernel panics. It sounds like they have a bad install or honestly, just don't know what their are doing. Probably a bad idea to advertise you can't keep a simple webserver up. Probably won't get funded ever.

  >Probably won't get funded ever.
Amy Hoy is in the same bootstrapper camp that DHH and Jason Fried are in. Regardless of the situation, I imagine "won't get funded ever" is ranks pretty close to the top of her "don't give a shit list".

Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu

#50

Post by cheald »

cpeterso wrote: post #12
facorreia wrote: post #6

Does this make sense? They don't mention trying to get support from Engine Yard on hosting their app on Rails without kernel panics, or trying a managed solution such as Heroku, or trying other OSs other than Ubuntu such as CentOS or something from Joyent. Just trying with the best possible syadmin they could hire and "Rails Core members". Anyway, kudos for not submitting their users to a service they're not confiden…

I'm curious what kind of "massive performance slowdowns" they encountered with Rails 3 that could "not be identified".

Me too, because it sounds an awful lot like someone doesn't know how to use ruby-prof.
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