Why advocating Linux can be an up hill battle...

[Dan Jenkins]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, at 3:10pm, hewitt_tech at attbi.com wrote:
  

One of my clients is running an all windows shop. He does this because his
primary application, QuickBooks, is Windows based and because the
QuickBooks folks require a Windows server to host their application in a
networked environment.
    

  Yes.  Intuit explicitly requires this.  They will not provide support if
the QuickBooks data files are kept on anything but an MS-Windows server.  
If they find out you are using a Linux server, they will not provide
support.  This despite the fact that it does not require any server-side
software; it only uses shared data files.

  QuickBooks isn't very stable software to begin with; it has enough trouble
in an all-MS environment.  Even then, corruptions, inconsistencies, and
other problems with the data files are common.  I have been told that it
conflicts badly with the locking behavior present in some versions of Samba
or a distribution thereof.

  If you're going to try it anyway, be sure you turn off oplocks, and turn
on strict locking.  And pray.
  

Dan Jenkins wrote:
We've been running QuickBooks in various versions on Linux servers since 
1995. We've experienced no
problems with QuickBooks, let alone any attributable to use of a Linux 
server. Actually, I just read the
Intuit requirements, they state a MS Windows 95/98(peer-to-peer) 
network, MS Windows NT/2000/XP, or
Novell Netware recommended. They do state (back in 1998) that while they 
don't support QuickBooks if setup
on a Mango Medley or Linux network, they do offer suggestions on how to 
make it work. We have less
than a dozen clients using QuickBooks (about 40 stations total), so our 
experience could be atypical.
All of our clients use Linux servers. None has ever experienced a 
problem. I've done it both with & without
oplocks. I agree that oplocks can be an issue for a number of 
applications. I've had to disable oplocks on a
Windows 2000 server for an application. So it isn't a Linux problem, per se.

 From my dealings with Intuit tech support (only one time in 8 years 
admittedly), they provided support on
QuickBooks which was hosted on a Linux server. They could not answer 
questions about the Linux server.
I didn't expect them to. In my experience, most of the times a company 
says they do not support Linux (or
Novell or X), they just mean they can't answer questions about that 
platform. In my opinion, half the time
Intuit (or anyone) gets a tech support call, it is not about an Intuit 
product. It's about why the printer isn't
working, why the network has a problem, why the Internet is down, why 
the books don't balance. None
of which are directly related to their product. To be able to handle 
those peripheral calls, they can only
support a limited (and, admittedly, widely used) environment. I would 
not expect Intuit to try to resolve
a printing problem under Linux, whereas they might try that under 
Windows. I have one client who runs
QuickBooks under the Windows emulation on a Mac. Intuit provided support 
for application questions
to her. They tried, but were unable to help her with a printing problem 
to an AppleTalk printer. 

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH --- 603-624-7272
*** Technical Support Excellence for over a Quarter Century