Windows, Unix, or Linux?
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I agree with Syzop...
It depends... I use windows for a desktop...
I use FreeBSD for development and for hosting.
Linux isn't as bad as i always make it out to be. But FreeBSD, is very simplistic in a complicated way. (If that makes sense) Taking something like the port system for example. i'm sure i'm not the only one who hates the RPMs in fedora and redhat! maybe i am... but make install required works just find for me...
I'm rambling on... so i'll shut up
It depends... I use windows for a desktop...
I use FreeBSD for development and for hosting.
Linux isn't as bad as i always make it out to be. But FreeBSD, is very simplistic in a complicated way. (If that makes sense) Taking something like the port system for example. i'm sure i'm not the only one who hates the RPMs in fedora and redhat! maybe i am... but make install required works just find for me...
I'm rambling on... so i'll shut up
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As a (wannabe) hardcore gamer, I'm pretty much forced into running Windows, as my games won't play on Linux.
I do think that Linux is a nice operating system to run a server on. It seems to me to be that much more stable for that sort of thing, plus you've got some nice tools as well (I'm thinking of cron here). Windows wins hands down when it comes to user friendliness - I find it much easier to change things graphically than to open up a configuration file (I can never remember where all the various Linux configuration files are stored).
It also depends on which Linux distribution we're talking about, I suppose. I've tried several distributions over my time - I quite liked SuSE, and I'm keen to give Gentoo a try. Just don't touch RedHat whatever you do...
Put in a nutshell, Windows is better for end-users and desktop applications, Linux is better for servers (although I've never had major hassles running UnrealIRCd and IRC Services on my Windows box). Which seems to be the opinion of most people that's posted in this thread.
As for UNIX - well, I gave FreeBSD a try once. Uninstalled it after a few hours fighting with it. 'Nuff said.
I do think that Linux is a nice operating system to run a server on. It seems to me to be that much more stable for that sort of thing, plus you've got some nice tools as well (I'm thinking of cron here). Windows wins hands down when it comes to user friendliness - I find it much easier to change things graphically than to open up a configuration file (I can never remember where all the various Linux configuration files are stored).
It also depends on which Linux distribution we're talking about, I suppose. I've tried several distributions over my time - I quite liked SuSE, and I'm keen to give Gentoo a try. Just don't touch RedHat whatever you do...
Put in a nutshell, Windows is better for end-users and desktop applications, Linux is better for servers (although I've never had major hassles running UnrealIRCd and IRC Services on my Windows box). Which seems to be the opinion of most people that's posted in this thread.
As for UNIX - well, I gave FreeBSD a try once. Uninstalled it after a few hours fighting with it. 'Nuff said.
Also, if you are a bit familiar/good with *NIX, with simple bash scripting and all the standard *NIX/GNU tools you can do many things so much quicker and easier than windows.. the power of (combining) tools like sort, uniq, grep, awk, sed, and many many more, etc ;).
Granted, this is not something the average windows user will ever learn, but when you are a "power user" on *NIX, things are so much better than windows.
Now you could say "but if you are a power user on windows too" but that is not so true... *NIX (or Linux -- I'm mostly familiar with that) has a much more open attitude and powerful default tools. To get the same on windows you need to download many things, and even then you cannot get at the level of "tracability" and power of *NIX ;).
Granted, this is not something the average windows user will ever learn, but when you are a "power user" on *NIX, things are so much better than windows.
Now you could say "but if you are a power user on windows too" but that is not so true... *NIX (or Linux -- I'm mostly familiar with that) has a much more open attitude and powerful default tools. To get the same on windows you need to download many things, and even then you cannot get at the level of "tracability" and power of *NIX ;).
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Somehow I don't think the last (security) patch requiring a reboot (for real) was 307+ days ago... :PStealth wrote:Windows servers aren't bad at all. Of 2 Windos servers I have had, they didn't crash, and they always had high uptime. The only reason my servers go down is power-related problems. Currently my Windows server has been up 307 days. My Linux server has been up 87 days, and that is only because the UPS was unintentionally shut off...
Really it's right up there with people who run 2.4 (or worse - 2.2) linux kernels for >300+ days straight. Except all you really lack are security patches for the kernel itself and that's about it - as opposed to Windows forcing a reboot down your throat for something stupid like an IE patch (insert rant about idiocy of integrating a (buggy) browser into the OS here).Syzop wrote:Somehow I don't think the last (security) patch requiring a reboot (for real) was 307+ days ago... :P
*nod*
(I actually didn't mean the IE bugfixes but..)
I agree about the weird integration and tendency to reboot... Like if you patch any kind of core component (not kernel, but - say - netbios stuff, cifs, rpc, etc) you just HAVE to reboot.. While on Linux you just do /etc/init.d/samba restart or the same for any other service... Everything is back in 2 seconds ;p. Like you said, for Linux you really only have to reboot only for kernel (or hardware) upgrades.
That said, many issues in the kernel that are fixed on *NIX are local and not remote (I would say about 90% is local, while windows often does not even fix such issues or only after years).. If you decide not to reboot for a local vulnerability I can understand (ptrace race conditions, and such).. If you don't upgrade to fix a remote vulnerability, I don't understand.. unless there's a good workaround of course [and no, then I don't mean MS workarounds like 'firewall untrusted networks' ;)].
(I actually didn't mean the IE bugfixes but..)
I agree about the weird integration and tendency to reboot... Like if you patch any kind of core component (not kernel, but - say - netbios stuff, cifs, rpc, etc) you just HAVE to reboot.. While on Linux you just do /etc/init.d/samba restart or the same for any other service... Everything is back in 2 seconds ;p. Like you said, for Linux you really only have to reboot only for kernel (or hardware) upgrades.
That said, many issues in the kernel that are fixed on *NIX are local and not remote (I would say about 90% is local, while windows often does not even fix such issues or only after years).. If you decide not to reboot for a local vulnerability I can understand (ptrace race conditions, and such).. If you don't upgrade to fix a remote vulnerability, I don't understand.. unless there's a good workaround of course [and no, then I don't mean MS workarounds like 'firewall untrusted networks' ;)].
Unix for me.
And to be exact; Solaris 10. Its been almost a year now that I moved some of my Linux (Debian) servers to Solaris because I'm slowly growing a little unhappy with the way the whole development cycle is going. Especially the move from 2 kernel branches (stable/unstable) to one have made me seriously question the impact for my servers.
The problem which I faced with Debian (Potato, the previous stable release) was that it eventually became so old that I had to install packages on my own because I needed certain functionality. Eventually I moved to "testing" and performed updates on a very sporadic basis (only when I knew to have enough time to fix things should an update break anything).
And all of those worries are now a thing of the past. I'm paying a small fee ($120/yr) in order to make sure to be receiving every available update and having full access to all available information on their support site, but this also means that if certain new developments are released (ZFS comes to mind) it will eventually find its way to my server as well. Without the need to do anything fancy like perform a distribution upgrade.
The problem which I faced with Debian (Potato, the previous stable release) was that it eventually became so old that I had to install packages on my own because I needed certain functionality. Eventually I moved to "testing" and performed updates on a very sporadic basis (only when I knew to have enough time to fix things should an update break anything).
And all of those worries are now a thing of the past. I'm paying a small fee ($120/yr) in order to make sure to be receiving every available update and having full access to all available information on their support site, but this also means that if certain new developments are released (ZFS comes to mind) it will eventually find its way to my server as well. Without the need to do anything fancy like perform a distribution upgrade.
With kind regards, Peter
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