Location : Malaysia
Date : March 2006
Title : Linux is Unix and Unix is not Linux

After my encounter with OS-less firewall.
Please refer to : http://kerneltrap.org/node/5641

I got another experience with this super System Engineer from local leading opensource company. Ya... they got a lot projects (i mean money) from Novell and they claim to be THE first class Novell Linux (SUSE and some other crap) tech. support. I wonder why Novell wants to out source their support team to third party.

I was working outstation (some out city place) and got a phone call from this Super System Engineer. He told me he got some problem with a program that my company sells.

By the way, there were just some other vendor. Not a reseller nor a customer.

It is a simple binary file written in C. It is a file scanning tool.In order to make the file upgrade the its own database and scan the server on every night. I wrote a shell script, which less than 50 lines to do the scanning and the database updates. Yes, we need to use cronjob to make it "auto scan and auto update" at 1:01am in the morning.

So I asked, "What is the problem with the script ?". He told me .. the script can't work. I say "Fine, what is the problem then?". The Engineer told me "When I run the script manually it work, it manage to update and database and scan the system. The log file output is working too, But when i put in to the crontab, the script does not work." Then he say "Can you get this solve by today". I told him i will try my best.

I try to be patient and try to guide him around with some simple shell scriptting command. When i mention about "echo $?" .. he told me he got no idea what is that. I say "Fine".

Then he ask me .. beside cron job, is there any work around for the script. I told him," The only way to make the scheduler is via UNIX's cron job". He says , "NO ... we're not using UNIX, we are using LINUX".

Then i ask, which distro are you guys using.He remains silent for few seconds and ask me some other questions. When i ask him again .. he told me "We are using LINUX".

I nearly died.

Then ... ealier today .. he sent an email to my boss and whole world (his bosses)that I am a real lame moron. I can't provide any help to them. Maybe they should say I am lame ass linux user.

*******************************************
This is his email to my boss.

I have sent an e-mail on behalf of *MY CUSTOMER* describing the problem to *MY NAME*
last Friday, but I have yet to receive an e-mail reply or phone call from
him despite his verbal promises. As of now, I do not even have any
troubleshooting steps from *MY NAME*, much less a solution. I feel let down by how
*MY NAME* handled this issue. With all due respect, please allocate an engineer who
is not "in a meeting" or "got no internet access" to attend to this issue.

Thank you.
*******************************************

Cheers :P