Ubuntu, Kubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Released

[shadowx 0]

A commercially support version of linux, such as those releasef by Novell are industry standard almost in network architecture. We have one windows server here and that is purely here to support the information management software we used which is windows based with a windows backend. There is no reason on earth to choose a windows backend for a server environment. It has no advantages whatsoever.Security: Microsoft has consistently shown they are incapable of proper security. Nuff said. There are no viruses for linux, the permissions system means that when correctly implemented the only possibly way for the system to be compromised is through insecure passwords. Controllability: The mere fact that windows is so difficult to configure (deeply, not changing a background image) makes it useless. With linux you can change EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING so easily. Sure it isnt easy to get the changes to work correctly first time but with knowledge and experience a good technician can get linux to jump through hoops and courtesy. That means that a system can be hacked together (note i say "hacked" to mean put together in a way which is a bodge job or more forceful than just installing a program) to do literally anything in the network. You can hack up a proxy, dhcp, dns, auth servers, storage servers, backup servers, firewalls, everything using linux, there is no need to use windows at all.Stability: How often does linux crash? I have never had a full system crash on me. Blue screens? Never. The one time i have had an unusable system was when i hacked apart my X11 config file (im not sure if you know nix but the X server is the graphical interface, broken config file = no display on screen) however linux detected that it was broken and offered me a basic GUI and easy options to edit the config file and remove my changes manually. Reboot, done. On windows... it would take hours, system resets, copying files, resetting drivers, its just a mess.Speed: Linux is always faster than windows when they are configured to a similar standard (Ie effects, caching, indexing etc...) The fact that linux seems to never leak memory either from the OS or the applications means that over time it doesnt slow down. Windows does.For a server linux is the only choice, it isnt even a choice its more like "oh, im buying a server, what version of linux would i like..."For a front end to users windows has its advantages in the fact that users are dumb. I regularly get calls saying "X program isnt installed", it is, i know it is but i have to go to the room and make a shortcut on the desktop.... That isnt the fault of the OS but it does mean that we are limited to what we can do which is a shame. For a desktop windows can suffice, it isnt perfect but as you said XP is a decent OS and it is my favorite windows OS, win7 is nice but too locked down and too graphical. XP is gritty.But for a server windows just hasnt got anything useful.

[mahesh2k 0]

A commercially support version of linux, such as those releasef by Novell are industry standard almost in network architecture. We have one windows server here and that is purely here to support the information management software we used which is windows based with a windows backend.There is no reason on earth to choose a windows backend for a server environment. It has no advantages whatsoever.

There are TONS of reason of choosing windows server as application server. In fact it is selected by many companies just for that. I'll not argue on network environment because i think that linux/unix over server environment performs better.

 

Security: Microsoft has consistently shown they are incapable of proper security. Nuff said. There are no viruses for linux, the permissions system means that when correctly implemented the only possibly way for the system to be compromised is through insecure passwords.

No viruses ? I disagree. I don't know if my URL's will be stripped from reply if not then see these 4 links.

 

1. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/188

 

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware

 

3. https://www.linux.com/news/note-new-linux-users-no-antivirus-needed

 

4. https://www.linux.com/learn/myth-busting-linux-immune-viruses

 

Numbers are low but that doesn't mean there are no viruses. Almost any popular platform carries viruses as they open SDK for interface with the OS.

 

Controllability: The mere fact that windows is so difficult to configure (deeply, not changing a background image) makes it useless

I don't know what you are trying to customize but i can assure you that OEM installations usually comes with pre-configuration and custom configuration software from single click interface. There are shell scripts just like in linux/unix to get things done. Besides Dell, HP are known for this type of windows configuration software development.

 

Stability: How often does linux crash? I have never had a full system crash on me. Blue screens? Never. The one time i have had an unusable system was when i hacked apart my X11 config file (im not sure if you know nix but the X server is the graphical interface, broken config file = no display on screen) however linux detected that it was broken and offered me a basic GUI and easy options to edit the config file and remove my changes manually. Reboot, done. On windows... it would take hours, system resets, copying files, resetting drivers, its just a mess.

 

Speed: Linux is always faster than windows when they are configured to a similar standard (Ie effects, caching, indexing etc...) The fact that linux seems to never leak memory either from the OS or the applications means that over time it doesnt slow down. Windows does.

Linux with any resource hungry window manager (gnome/kde)or effect manger like compiz easily gets crashed. You can do a lot with X11 but you are comparing linux with full blown graphics and whistles in modern operating system so X11 is not good excuse against AERO installed system or Aqua installed OSX.

 

Speed ? yes. linux is faster in booting but when it comes to window management and application processing it makes no difference in comparison to other OS.

 

For a server linux is the only choice, it isnt even a choice its more like "oh, im buying a server, what version of linux would i like..."

For a front end to users windows has its advantages in the fact that users are dumb. I regularly get calls saying "X program isnt installed", it is, i know it is but i have to go to the room and make a shortcut on the desktop.... That isnt the fault of the OS but it does mean that we are limited to what we can do which is a shame. For a desktop windows can suffice, it isnt perfect but as you said XP is a decent OS and it is my favorite windows OS, win7 is nice but too locked down and too graphical. XP is gritty.

But for a server windows just hasnt got anything useful.

If you're in hosting business like opaque then you know how this distro choice issue makes difference. there are some buggy and less maintained or overly tamed distros like gentoo, ubuntu and red hat. this is the reason people prefer CentOS/Suse etc for VPS and dedicated server setup. Simplymepis changed it's kernel 5 times from gentoo, ubuntu, debian stable and 2 more, so you can see that it is constantly under change and people if want to get things done don't want to go through changes of apps/kernel or license all the time. This release of X distro dropped this Y software and in next release something else in repository. There are license issues with codecs, commercial apps in repository etc. You need to understand that people use software to get things done and not to join some carnival to constantly put them into learning phase with each distro release. You may call windows users dumb but computer softwares are for making things easy and faster - it's all about getting things done at the end of day. Nobody wants to spend time hacking linux just to get little work done in 1 hour or so. You know the issue of Open source licensing can cause -especially after reading about google vs oracle and oracle vs document foundation fork. No wonder in few months OO will be replaced by libreoffice if oracle didn't revoked it's restriction on OO community. Put one commercial feet in open source world and some license rips you off. Unlike commercial softwares Open source community based softwares are unstable with things like license, freedom and persistence,support, ease of use.