Oracle today dished out a rude awakening to the Linux users it hopes to support over the long-haul. Its MetaLink support site crashed.

"Oracle Metalink (support website) has been virtually unusable all day," wrote in one Reg reader.

And, sure enough, a trip over to Oracle's site reveals the following message: "Urgent: Potential Performance and Login Problems - Please note that due to heaver than normal activity during peak hours, you may experience performance and login related issues. This is a temporary situation that we are working to resolve." The site took ages to load as of 9 a.m. on the West Coast.

A number of you have wondered how well Oracle can handle the Linux support burden. In particular, many of wondered whether a company that's slow to hand out security patches can keep up with the Linux update rat race.

Today's support site showing doesn't bode well for Oracle's attempt to steal customers from Red Hat. You may pay half as much for Oracle support, but what kind of victory is that if you get half the service?

Of course, Red Hat has suffered through a recent cock-up of its own. Its download site for Fedora Core 6 crashed (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/25/fedora_stops_the_download_madness/) leaving plenty of users stranded.

Seems like the options for Linux users these days are running pretty thin.®

Related stories

Oracle signs Symantec to ULN (18 July 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/18/oracle_uln_symantec/
Red Hat to pack punch on Oracle clustering? (15 March 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/15/red_hat_rhel_oracle/
Analyst reverses stance on Red Hat threat (14 February 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/14/red_hat_oracle_sun_support_linux/
Oracle turns the screws in Red Hat switcheroo (23 January 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/23/oracle_red_hat_management/
Software's unfinished business for 2007 (27 December 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/27/2006_review_year_ahead/
'Big one' coming for Oracle database users? (29 November 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/29/oracle_database_security/
Server vendors show Red Hat that Oracle is boss (31 October 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/31/oracle_server_linux/
Red Hat promises to keep charging customers double (27 October 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/redhat_forks_oracle/
Verisign scraps padlocks and Larry storms into Linux (27 October 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/week_summary_27_sept/
Ellison's venomous tongue devastates Red Hat shares (26 October 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/26/redhat_oracle_fall/
Ellison muscles in on Red Hat support biz (25 October 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/25/oracle_red_hat_support/
Larry Ellison's Linux nears release – pundit (16 October 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/16/linux_oracle_ellison/