Hello, my name is Darren and I am responsible for the administration and development of Toolsforless.com. We're using several Linux machines to run and develop our site on OSCommerce. Until we hire a developer with linux admin experience, *tag* I'm it. I took an accelerated course last summer to get ramped up with Linux. We've been working with a local programmer who is a highly qualified lamp developer in php. He has been transferring knowledge to me as well. However, I am constantly spinning my wheels with this project or that which is why we are trying to hire a developer full time. Hope to learn a lot here and maybe get some help from time to time. Cheers!

Welcome to LQ We're very helpful here, so feel free to ask your questions - after searching of course

Out of curiosity, bearing in mind that your company has no Linux experts (no offence), what was the rationale behind using Linux?

Cost was the primary motivator. We were last on a software package called SoftCart from Mercantec. It was really meant to be an ISP solution for hosting but the balance between cost and benefits were reasonable for us. However, within 3 years we had outgrown the product and they discontinued support. So we wanted something that we could jump into quickly, develop to our hearts content and not cost an arm and a leg. We had looked at Websphere, Broadvision, and a few others. If we had it to do over again, we would probably Where we ended up was with a firm called Netconcepts that had developed their own implementation of OSCommerce which they call GravityMarket. They were going to meet a list of requirements we had, upgrades to their existing product and they were going to host it. They struggled to do the upgrades and many were left undone. The hosting was unreliable through theplanet.com, either due to a dos attack on another server, or lagging performance.

So, we decided to take the site back in house, where it had been. The main problem as you pointed out is we don't have the infrastructure to move forward. In that regard we have been studying , working with a talented freelancer and are now in the process of hiring.

Very cool - tell your boss that *hint hint* LQ has a jobs forum and, for a minimal fee, he could post his job ads to our quarter of a million or more members

It's good that your company looked at FOSS, it just goes to show that proprietary doesn't always equal best value for money. If the company you hire won't put in the work, you may as well not bother.