Zoranix Linux

System Admins

Zoranix is designed and run by professional system administrators. We built it because we wanted a system that was easy to run, transparent, and designed to help the system administrator know the system.

Where we have a choice, we do our best to use shell scripts, simple config files, and generally let you use your unix experience to solve problems, and not make you relearn or unlearn basic skills.

Sometimes keeping things simple required rewriting them from scratch. The init scripts have been rewritten totally from zero. They are system V style scripts, but without the fancy embellishments that impede understanding.

Unix Philosophy

We adhere as closely as possible to the unix philosophy. Sometimes there is a conflict between two principles. Where the principle of least astonishment conflicts with the principle of doing one thing and doing it well, we have chosen to do one thing well. This will cause some surprises to new and experienced admins alike. Some of these surprises are simply the result of accumulated needless complexity in a lot of programs and systems. Nevertheless, we have tried to document where we expect an admin might not immediately guess what's going on.

Minimal Installer

The purpose of an installer is to install the system. While this seems obvious, a lot of installers go to great lengths to also configure the system. We think this is a mistake. The installer should install the software, configure the minimal amount of software necessary to get the system up and running, and get out of your way. Then you can use the normal tools to configure the system.

This may take some getting used to, but it means the admin can use the same tools that will be used later, so there isn't a special toolset to learn that is only used during installs. The admin is going to have to tell the computer what the configuration is, there is no way around that, so we think the admin might as well use the same tools at install time.