My business runs on Ubuntu/Rails just fine. Maybe if they were a bit more familiar with Linux they would have done better, or at least have saved some money figuring out what went wrong: https://twitter.com/amyhoy/statuses/189072763590418432
That link was really insightful. The fact is that there are tens of thousands of servers running Rails on Ubuntu without any issues. Sounds to me they would rather blame Ubuntu than their inability to fix the issue. Later edit: to elaborate that last point. I'm not saying Ubuntu is not at fault, but rather that problem solving goes with the territory. Given the wide array of alternatives, this was not the sort of thi…
Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
71–80 of 109 posts
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is normal for Ubuntu kernels from experience. They are shitty. Various server releases have given us hell. They're fudging them somehow. We moved to debian after numerous problems and have had no issues since.
Yeah, when I see people running Ubuntu for their production servers I always assume it's developers with minimal system admin experience who just want to use the same distro for their server as their desktop. I've got nothing against Ubuntu, and have even used it to convert a few windows users over, but if you're going to run a production server then install Debian on it.
I have been using Debian since 1996, and became a package maintainer in 1997, a position I held for nearly a decade until I began to not have enough time for it. While continuing to think that Debian is a first-rate effort, I got tired of certain aspects of it, and moved to Ubuntu, lock stock and barrel. I actually like to have my desktop system marching in sync with my server, so that the packages are pretty much exactly the same. And you know what? Ubuntu works pretty well on the server, and comes out with nice regular releases, allowing me to decide, and gauge, time-wise, when to upgrade. Certainly, like everything else, it has its defects, but by and large, I've had good luck with it, as both a desktop and server distribution.
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#73If 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 pretty sure a lot of people are running Linux and the world's largest websites...
Just saying.
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#74Wow, 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."
"A poor workman blames his tools." . . . but even a master carpenter can't build a house out of rotten wood. Of course, to me, rotten wood is OSX and Windows (why anyone would build servers on those instead of one of the BSDs or Linux, I'll never know; to me, development is also incredibly painful on Windows and OSX), but Ubuntu is not without issues. The rallying cry of "usability first!" is all well and good, until…
Lots of people successfully run Rails on Ubuntu in production. I don't think it's fair to cry "rotten wood" here, unless the Rails ecosystem is flush with amazing systems wizards who can work around crippling flaws in the OS to run their software.
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a customer support / issue tracking service.
This type of service has been written many times before without kernel panics. I didn't get to see Charm before they shut down, so I have no idea what they were doing. Could anyone speak towards how their experience was unique enough to cause kernel panics?
Anyone outside of the company would just be guessing. If anyone inside of the company could answer that question, they wouldn't be shutting down.
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#76charmhq.com's current landing page does not render correctly in Firefix. The Charm logo is positioned off screen in Firefox, but centered on the screen in Chrome.
The Firefox layout issue is because Firefox's HTML "quirks mode" is less quirky than WebKit's. With a proper DOCTYPE to disable quirks mode, Chrome will render the page like Firefox.
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
"A poor workman blames his tools." . . . but even a master carpenter can't build a house out of rotten wood. Of course, to me, rotten wood is OSX and Windows (why anyone would build servers on those instead of one of the BSDs or Linux, I'll never know; to me, development is also incredibly painful on Windows and OSX), but Ubuntu is not without issues. The rallying cry of "usability first!" is all well and good, until…
Lots of people successfully run Rails on Ubuntu in production. I don't think it's fair to cry "rotten wood" here, unless the Rails ecosystem is flush with amazing systems wizards who can work around crippling flaws in the OS to run their software.
I don't think it's fair to cry "rotten wood" here, unless the Rails ecosystem is flush with amazing systems wizards who can work around crippling flaws in the OS to run their software.
Agreed; however, if they were having problems with Ubuntu (or indeed Linux in general), why didn't they try something else? That's the quick and easy way to see if it's really the platform or your application that's the problem (quick tip from my own userland developer experience: it's almost always not the platform; the times I've had Linux crash on me I could always trace to one of three things: 1) flaky hardware, 2) binary drivers, or 3) I was mucking about in kernel space ;)
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
That link was really insightful. The fact is that there are tens of thousands of servers running Rails on Ubuntu without any issues. Sounds to me they would rather blame Ubuntu than their inability to fix the issue. Later edit: to elaborate that last point. I'm not saying Ubuntu is not at fault, but rather that problem solving goes with the territory. Given the wide array of alternatives, this was not the sort of thi…
https://twitter.com/amyhoy/status/94166175247908864 Ouch.
Wow. Hmm, how can I put this politely? As a desktop Linux user, I don't feel particularly left out in being ineligible for the hiring pool for a company that wouldn't let me use Linux. Maybe they scared away all the competent Linux admins with their negativity towards Linux?
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#79We 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".
Sure. But it also means a lot of people who are looking at her future projects will pause and think twice.
Re: Charm shutting down because of unfixable kernel panics with Rails on Ubuntu
#80What??? 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…
It's always nice to hear from people who are informed on the facts of the situation, who analyze things calmly and rationally and consider all the individuals involved. Thank you for participating.
BTW — you got all the facts wrong. Just in case that wasn't clear. And nobody was asking for your sympathy.