[vishnu]

Microsoft has an official Docker MSSQL image built on top of Ubuntu.
I don't mind too much paying for software. But nothing like monthly payments or online activation. Or telemetry.

A friend of mine visited a computer museum in Poland a few weeks ago, and I wrote him while he was there to suggest a name change:
"Museum of computers that did what we told them to do"

If I need to use Expensive Commercial Software I just do it at work, where we have licenses for pretty much everything.

If I need one of my computers to do something it can't, I just write the code myself. Learn C and C++ and it will see you through life...

[Shiunbird]

I am talking exactly about my work. =)

We are 10. The two programmers are basically geniuses (I am always mind-blown by what they put together over the years), but also full into the Microsoft ecosystem. Like, C#, .NET, Azure, etc..

Our customers must provide the MSSQL license if they are running on premises. In the cloud, we have been using Azure SQL.

For my own use, I have a MariaDB cluster with Galera.

[johnnym]

Slackware 15.0 + UEFI - Secure boot plus ((or maybe minus) the Integral from negative infinity to positive infinity of the Constellation Orion) equals just shoot me I'm in Slackware hell. If it wasn't for the last 30 years of the only distro I've ever used (Slackware) I'd jump ship to Ubuntu, which is an African word for "Slackware is too hard for me."

No vishnu, noooo, please don't jump ship, now that I ported Slackware current to ia64...  

What's the matter with secure boot on a Pentum Pro machine anyhow? Or are you also about to switch machines? 

---

I am now exploring some other BSDs just to see what's going on there.

Have a look at OpenBSD. It has the "advantage" that you can get familiar with their CLI on your SGI machines or even use your SGI machines as servers. Though I don't know if the CLI experience is anything different to FreeBSD.

[vishnu]

So after dicking around with the UEFI installation, for days, with no result, I just gave up and installed Slackware in traditional (non-UEFI) mode, and it's working great.

[johnnym]

So after dicking around with the UEFI installation, for days, with no result, I just gave up and installed Slackware in traditional (non-UEFI) mode, and it's working great.

You're still using your PPro machine, right? What bootloader do you use for it now? LILO or GRUB?

[vishnu]

You're still using your PPro machine, right? What bootloader do you use for it now? LILO or GRUB?

Yes, my PPro machine is my combination firewall (using IPTables) and it runs my website, it boots from LILO using a config file I wrote myself.

That machine never fails to amaze me, it's been up almost full time since January 1997, it only goes offline when I take it apart and blow the dust out with my compressor, or if I need to replace the power supply, which I've had to do numerous times.

[johnnym]

You're still using your PPro machine, right? What bootloader do you use for it now? LILO or GRUB?

Yes, my PPro machine is my combination firewall (using IPTables) and it runs my website, it boots from LILO using a config file I wrote myself.

That machine never fails to amaze me, it's been up almost full time since January 1997, it only goes offline when I take it apart and blow the dust out with my compressor, or if I need to replace the power supply, which I've had to do numerous times.

Nice! Love that durability. My PPro systems will hopefully also last that long!

Hey, if you ever feel the need to replace that system (e.g. due to missing spare parts), I can recommend you a great little machine: I'm unsure if Fujitsu computers are a thing in the US, but I recently upgraded my Esprimo E420 with a D3221-A12 systemboard (also from Fujitsu and it has to be this exact board to stay silent during operation), 32 GiB of unbuffered RAM and a Xeon E3 1271v3 (4 cores, 8 threads, no graphics).

That resulting system is quite capable and my DL380 G7 with 2 x 12 thread 6 core Xeon X5690s is not even twice as fast as this one for Linux kernel compilation and gets quite loud when loaded. The Esprimo E420 is very silent instead - unless you forget to connect the CPU fan for a while and after not believing how quiet that machine is, hastely open the case and reconnect it, then it's loud for a short amount of time and it smells a little . Highlight: It idles at 6 W (!) only (w/2 SSDs installed).

But the best thing for me is, that systemboard allows for console via the serial port, so no glass console needed after configuring the serial console. I believe it also supports IPMI or some Intel special sh*t for remote control but I didn't test this yet. I control it by applying power via a controllable outlet and powering it down from the OS.