What does linux do better?? (or worse)

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Okay, time for all you Linux profis to shine. I would like to ask you to list the advantages, features and disadvantages of using a Linux server over a Windows 2003 server. Also, to stop this thread turning into another anti MS rant I would like to ask you to do the same for Windows Server 2003 over Linux.

The features should be supported in at least the major distros of Linux. Things that would be valid for example would be VPN, mail server, document security and so on.

Anyone up for it??

 

i been working with debian for a bout 5 months now on and off but the areas im hoping to get good in are mail servers (postfix) web servers and file servers.

The thing for me i like about linux's servers is that they are free. This can be a very good thing - just look at this:



and thats the 'legal' version!

debian what i use is very stable as the packages in it are tested alot. No spyware is another plus. There is talk the new samba will emulate domain controllers for post nt4 domains - and samba makes good file servers with no licence requirements for CALS!

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Sparky, your comments (at the end) are exactly what I'm not looking for. Zimbo, it's great that Linux is free but this isn't really about the cost factor. What I'm looking for is more of a feature comparison.

e.g. Windows server has active directory. What has linux that is comparable.

Windows
​

• Encrypting File System
• Shadow Copies for Shared Folders
• Remote OS Installation
• Internet Information Services 6.0
• Active Directory
• Virtual Private Network Support
• DFS
• etc

Linux

• ?
• ?
• ?

Of course it's not limited to just these ones. Comparisons for applications like exchange and sharepoint services are also welcome.

Thanks for anyones time.

 

The link below is about the closest I could find on short notice that might fit your needs.

Comparison Link

 

Thanks Trip. It's sort of what I'm after only a little more up to date any advanced features would be nice.

 

the 2.6 kernel sparky is very good with drivers. and alot of the main companies that build servers also have drivers for linux ready available.

 

Personally I think Linux is good in the right hands but for me the biggest difference is ease of use. Microsoft's biggest trumping card is Active Directory and how it all interacts well together. Also it has the widest choice of applications and support from 3rd parties. What lets Linux down for me is that it's a pain in the arse to do the simplest things like install software. Ok it could well be me being stupid but why can't you just double click on the install icon in linux to get an application to install, why do you need to mess around with command lines???

 

What does Linux and OSS do better?

Bind--it runs the internet. All of the root domain name servers run Bind.

Databases--MySQL and Postgresql are two OSS RDBMSs that have excellent clustering solutions that can be created at reasonable prices. Postgresql also allows the developers to write their stored procedures in languages other than SQL.

Linux does clustering very well at a very reasonable price. Several of the top 10 of the fastest computers in the world are Linux clusters built on commodity hardware.

There are some excellent solutions out there for massively parallel computing that do not require the applications to be written so that they are parallel aware.

RedHat has a very nice clustering solution, and you pay only for support, as that's what you pay for when you purchase a RedHat system.

Linux is a much better learning tool for someone who really wants to understand computers than Windows could ever possibly be. No student can see the guts of a Windows machine. The entire Linux OS and its installed software are open to the student to modify and experiment with at will. Nothing Windows offers along these lines can even come close to comparing with what Linux offers.

The bash shell is far superior to the cmd shell or DOS shell. It's far more powerful and has much greater flexibility.

The *nix philosopy of building tools so that one tool does one job well and can be used in combinations with other tools has created a very simple, but very powerful way to accomplish work, with a single line of code in a bash script that many times would take a programmer a 1000 lines of code to accomplish.

Having Open Source code has proven over and over again in many projects to be far more responsive to client needs. Read the Postgresql forums. People talk there about problems they have and overnight someone else develops the patch or the code they need to fill their need over night. No proprietary software vendor of a project the size of the Postgres project can match this.

Open source, and specifically Linux has show the ability to patch vulnerabilities far more quickly, and far more reliably, than the proprietary software vendors. Especially the proprietary OS vendors.

Linux does embedded devices very well. Many of the devices that you would never expect to be Linux devices, in fact are. TIVO, the new wireless Nextel toy so that NASCAR fans can watch the race on the small screen and listen to radio communications between the drivers and their teams during the race. These are just two of many embedded Linux devices. In fact, irc, the amount of money being spent on R&D on embedded Linux devices is something like 6 or 7 times the amount spent on any other embedded OS.

The rate of development and innovation in Linux and OSS far surpasses that of Windows. In the last year and half the growth of Linux has been tremendous. With the new 2.6.16 kernel Linux is going to have modules for many of the wireless devices. Linux is already plug on play on most NIC's. The Open Office project has come very close to catching MS Office in less than 6 years.

I run Sid, the development release of Debian on my desktop machine. The rate of development is phenomenal. I upgrade my system at least twice a week, and many weeks I will upgrade between 200 and 400 files. A slow week will have 50 - 100 files upgraded that week. And you know what? Even though there is that much development going on I don't have a system that crashes, or software. I have a stable machine. That speaks to the quality of the developers in the Debian distribution.

The only time you ever have to reboot a Linux system is when you modify the kernel. It seems you have to reboot Windows every time you turn around. I find this to be extremely frustrating when working on Windows machines. Install a driver, reboot. Make a configuration change, reboot.

Linux now, with the 2.6 kernel, has the native ability to read both NTFS and FAT file systems. Windows cannot natively read Linux partitions.

You can transparently to the user, remotely mount most of your Linux desktop partitions. That means you can keep all the configuration files, libraries, and executables away from the desktop where they can be versioned and all your desktop systems be upgraded with a single task. Or, you can keep them on the desktop hardrive and still version them. Many large companies who run Linux desktops do this. It's far more cost effective and faster than any Windows upgrades.

You can remotely roll out most Linux OS's and configure them at the same time. Debian has what is called FAI: Fully Automated Installation.

I can use native Windows drivers for wireless devices and NIC's using ndiswrapper. It's a farily simple, and relatively painless process to use. But, as I said above, this is becoming less necessary all the time. If the hardware manufacturers would cooperate it wouldn't be necessary at all.

Both nVidia and ATI are both now releasing very good Linux drivers for the newer products. Also, sound management is much much improved wth the 2.6 kernel. I have yet to run across a sound card that ALSA (the Linux sound driver project) hasn't been able to run. The native sound control mechanisms with ALSA are far better than what Windows has built into it. I can regulate bass, treble, PCM volume, master volume, and some surround sound capabilites with native Linux sound driver on most sound cards.

USB support is excellent. I've used USB headsets with Linux that Debian recognized when I plugged them in for which I had to find and download the Windows drivers.

When I configure my network settings in Debian they stay configured when I change NIC's. I don't have to reconfigure the new NIC and reboot a couple of times to change NIC's. It's plug and play, and go.

Well, I suppose this is at least a start of how Linux beats Windows, and this doesn't even begin to mention the security benefits of Linux. With native Linux tools such as Bastille and SELinux it's possible to create some very secure machines.

 

and nug finally got his answer! Nice one freddy!

 

Thanks freddy, much appreciated.

 

nug i was just waiting for him to post that... BTW you have played with linux havent you? i mean out of curiosity... right?

 

zimbo, I spent so many hours last week installing the latest versions of suse, ubuntu and fedora core that it's not funny. Would you believe that I couldn't make one of them connect to the internet. I had a serious intention of putting linux on a box and keeping it there, but if none of the OS's are going to help me then I'll put windows on it. Windows might not be perfect, but it works.

 

thats the biggest mistake you made in learning linux. I agree its different but that why its special.. its not WINDOWS! When you learning linux you need to have an atitude of i will get it to work. Yeah every distro has the network interfaces in different places but if you really want to connect to the net you WILL find out that place. If there is a will there is way!

If you looking to play again.. pop fedora in and leave it there.. then buy one of the bible books (Fedora 5 bible is out) im using the debian version and its fantastic book... give it another bash nug and shout and we will work the internet problem out!

 

linux works too! wait till you get that rush when you finally open CF from mozilla within your linux machine! its crazy!

 

Post your problems either here or on the LT site. You'll get help. The way Linux does things sometimes is foreign to Windows techs. That doesn't mean that things don't work, just that as a Windows tech you're approaching the problem from a Windows perspective, not a Linux perspective.

It's like what Fortch said on the Ping Fortch thread I started. He isn't used to working on Hondas so he doesn't know specifics, but with his overall skills he can recognize symptoms. It's the same with moving from Windows to Linux. You can recognize symptoms, but need help with specifics. All the networking concepts are the same, the specifics in configuration are just different.

 

Nug,

Are we talking wired or wireless connection(s)?
The first thing Kubuntu does (or one of them) during text based setup is look for a DHCP server.

Simon