http://www.osnews.com/story/8626/What_to_select_for_Servers_Windows_2003_or_UNIX_ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:16:32 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? :-( Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just a stupid comparison.

UNIX is "limited" to FreeBSD.

Compare Windows 2003 with RHEL or SuSE Professional.

How does osnews permit to publish such a "paper" ? Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ... on your budget.

I've worked for non-profit companies that were eligible 65-75% discounts on Microsoft server software. They were told they'd get 20% discounts on Solaris, direct from Sun.

Guess which they chose.

Is Solaris better? Likely. But it all depends on your budget. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You clearly have spent too much time with Windows. The ports _IS_ a tech support mechanism and FreeBSD's response time to security vulnerabilities far excels Microsoft's, despite you having to pay for it. Your definitions were arbitrarily limited in order to bias this comparison towards Windows. I hope you don't write papers like this; I'd fail your ass.

And OSNews, do you read this stuff before publishing? Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Proof read please. Very superficial comparison. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This review is like comparing apples and oranges. First which Linux distribution was used? There are some distros that are not meant to build servers, I would be looking at SuSE or RedHat. If money was an issue I would look at White Box Enterprise Linux (RedHat without the price).

How do you compare Active Directory to NO DIRECTORY SERVICE (NIS, NIS+, LDAP (through OpenLDAP))? Alejandro mentions NIS in regards to Desktop Control, this can be done on *NIX without using a Directory Service. You might have to dig through a few books to do it, but it can be done (and has been done).

Performance with no discussion of RAID, not even a disk mirror? What about fault tolerance, a requirement for a "professional server". And how was the performance measured if there was no benchmark tool used?

Alejandro's findings might be right based on his equipment, but the article is way too light on details for my taste. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry...but FreeBSD is not a comparison to real Unix.


Come back to me when you compare Windows 2003 to AIX, HPUX, and/or Solaris.

And then we can talk here about the Windows 2003 box sitting in a steaming pile of goo after the comparison is made. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? FAV quote:

"Windows has more holes than other operating systems because most of the hackers attacks windows more that other OSes."

WTF? Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What the hell compelled you to post this? Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I could comment on a topic like this... but the article just sucks. Technically wrong, very poor. More technical articles please! Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Windows has more holes than other operating systems because most of the hackers attacks windows more that other OSes."

you can contest this with one example. apache.

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html

now who has more security whole? apache or IIS. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Usually I am in favor of publishing as many articles as possible... but this one should've been edited quite a bit-- not for it's content (one can't edit opinions) but for the awful grammer/spelling errors... Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hm, isn't there an embargo on all things Cuban in the U.S.? ;-)

All answers to tech questions begin with "It depends...". It's commonplace that your choice is limited to Windows or MacOS X, if you don't have an admin at hand, regardless how small your budget is, because a lot of people can learn to administer a Windows system fairly easily from a Dummies book, but this isn't the case for UNIX systems. I doubt that someone can learn UNIX administration easily without the command line, even when using YaST on SuSE Linux, SAM on HP-UX or the new Admin thingie on Solaris.

I don't think that such people are good admins or that there do a really good job at it with all the security to think about. But you won't get anywhere with UNIX, when your job is being an accountant first and admin second. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why in the world would you post this awful article? Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Besides the apples and oranges factor.
You made a rather bad attempt at an objective review, it is obvious that you are a windows fan with very little real world FreeBSD experience.
How can OSNews post this crap? - obviously english isn't this persons first language is all I'm gonna say. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This artical is garbage, i agree. the aurthor said windows vs UNix. then goes on to compare freeBSD to win2k3? then, marks down on some marks for ese of use for no wizard or no gui tools? ... what?....

The *nix camp.. has many different kinds of flavors, each with different strengths and weakness's. i would rather have my updates scriptable and commandline only in windows sheesh how cool would that be....

and most Corperations don't really look into the OS so much as what it can do for them... for exmaple:

boss: we need new print servers....
admin... looks into it...
admin: here are our choices..,... (admnin) pitchs win and 8nix soltions

boss: let try a *nix based applince and a win solution then well pick one.

admin ok

then in the end they will pick the one that works for them, at my place of work we are replacing all windows print servers with Linux based print applinces. which work much better and can be restored faster if they crashed or hardware failures.


and Unix has alot of directory services aka Active directory... NDS, ldap etc even redhat now has the old netscape stuff that supports polices for nix.

sheesh

-Nex6 Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dude, read the quote again.

"Windows has more holes than other operating systems because most of the hackers attacks windows more that other OSes."

LMAO! So the reason Windows is so poorly written is because its attacked more. What kind of f***ed up logic is that Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? They use only FreeBSD yet say Linux as well?

Linux, Suse Eterprise, or RHEL vs Win2k3 in an honest test I would love to see.

Also he complains you have to manually edit configuration files on *nix, while wit windows you get pretty graphics. The main reason you need wizards with windows is to edit the registry, which he complains about at the end.

Why doesn't anyone ever point out that unless you plan on breaking your EULA for win2k3, your only allowed so many connections at a time. With MSFT you have a per user licensing. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have to add my LOL to the list of reviews for this nonsensical "comparison." Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Do you realy belive tht *BSD is hard to update man you just load the article with alot of crap, very bad very !
I can update a *BSD system Free,Net,Open far better and i mean the hole system not just only patches to update the holes in your windows thingie. I can just only say that the *BSD flavors are the most updateable OSes out there just cvs,cvsup and make build :-))). Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What a total waste of electrons and readers' time. I cannot believe a serious e-zine could post such a poorly researched, useless, incompetent review. Go hide yourself in a corner, morons! Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree this article has it's flaws, and his work could have been better assembled, and for all we know he could be doing his best. However, I agree that there could be a better article, so why not write one.

I'll be the first to say that I am in no way experienced with HPUX, Solaris or any other Directory Services other than Active Directory. I am not a big fan of Windows, but it is the major technology right now in many enterprise environements.

All I'm saying is that I would love to see some alternate technologies at work, and an informative article desribing objectively the pros and cons of various server sytems. I would be the first to write it if I knew what I was talking about. So, instead of bitching, write that article, and give the guy a little credit for trying. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article really represents a Windows fan. No technical expertise ... only looking for "easy" administration tools Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article is clearly way off the mark, and the author has virtually no experience with FreeBSD.

For example, where on earth do you get the idea that FreeBSD will require "constant changes" and "upgrades every week"? This is pure crap. It will sit in the back room and do its job reliably without anyone ever having to touch it. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Who screens these articles @ OSnews.com?

A few points...

1) This article has no intelligent or correct content.
2) The contributor has no idea what he is commenting on.
3) This sends a message that OSnews.com does not truly understand the technical community in which they are involved.

Please, OSnews.com, let's help spread intelligent, balanced information regarding such topics.

Part of the problem, not the solution on this one. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think this is a bad article and was poorly written. I also think the explanation about FreeBSD Ports is sorely wrong, at least with the statement that ALL software must be updated, and I'm totally lost with the statement about Yahoo! Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Let us also keep in mind that Windows has the best Technical Support, and when being discovered a flaw they corrects it quickly."

Um... "Windows has the best Technical Support?" I've never heard this claim before; any supporting evidence beyond the author's experience?

"Windows costs money... so it has the best technical support in the world."

That's a non-sequitur. Plenty of products which cost money have poor tech support. Repeating an assertion doesn't make it true.

http://pcworld.about.com/news/Sep282001id63806.htm and http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1247220,00.asp contain some quite pertinent comments about Microsoft security. Microsoft has sometimes sat on security problems for over a year. Their resulting patches have sometimes required patches of their own.

Microsoft does not have a history of correcting flaws quickly.

Re: Easy deployment - who manually installs every os using the usual installer on a large network? That's an issue for individual users or small networks.

Re: Easy administration - Windows lets people get services running more easily, but it then can take significantly more work to lock them down to any level of security whatsoever. I frankly don't care how easy the wizard is if it means I need to run IIS; obviously, opinions will vary, but I think running IIS is irresponsible.

"- FreeBSD: This OS has the problem that has other UNIX OSes. There is not Integrability. It has a lot of tools and a lot of applications but there is a mess. There is not Version Control (Each tool controls it's version separately) and there is a lot of version of the same thing. Of course the network administrator can make a line of software and can force clients to use it, but there is a "Easy" tool that do that Automatically?"

Can anyone even make sense of this? There's version control, in the form of CVS, but that's relatively obviously not what the author is talking about. He seems to at least sometimes mean 'version' to mean 'competing software packages.'

Modular design is good for security.
"We must declare too that Windows 2003 own many prizes of Security and there are official sites that declares that Windows is the most secure operating system in the world. I respect that. So if you have another opinion you can remit to these official sites of security."

Does that even merit a reply? I can find web sites claiming any number of atrocious things; not to mention the purely outrageous, such as UFOs. If I find the "official site of the green aliens", must I believe it? If I create a prize for "most orange fingernails" and award it to SuSE, should anyone actually take it seriously?

Windows has some strengths, but security is -not- among them. Claiming that Windows is the most secure operating system in the world is about as ridiculous as seriously holding that the world is flat.

System maintence: Sure, Windows Update is easy. FreeBSD, and to an even greater extent, some distributions of linux, are even easier to keep up to date. There is a big caveat in this, however; you are absolutely crazy if you blindly update a whole network or mission-critical servers with no testing.

"But in Windows the registry is a mystery.... don't you think?"
Not to mention fragile and non-modular. You can copy your sshd config files from /etc to every computer on your network; try doing that with a subset of the registry.

"DLL Hell: Problem that appears on Windows and UNIX. Suppose that you have an application that use a specific version of a shared library and you install other program that needs to use a newer version of the same library. If you upgrade the library to the newer version maybe your old program doesn run. What do you do?. This is the DLL Hell problem."

No, it doesn't. Technically, unix doesn't even have DLLs - it has things such as shared libraries [.so]. Good package management takes care of this. Unix ways of dealing with libraries, allowing multiple versions to be installed and having symlinks, really makes this problem much less bad.

"We could configure (programmatically of course) the Kernel to only do the functions that we need, and we eliminate that functions that doesn't interest us."

The author complains about the lack of wizards, yet also thinks that re-programming the kernel is an option for him or most users? This seems a touch inconsistant. If he means the kernel config, I'd pause before calling that programmatically, and it certainly doesn't eliminate every function you don't use.


"Amount of Services and commercial Applications ...
This is the hard reality, there are more companies that build hardware for Windows rather than build it for UNIXes."

What on earth does this have to do with servers? Unix has implementations of servers for pretty much everything commonly used - there's apache, and several mail servers, and ftp servers...
The heading has nothing to do with hardware.
I furthermore entirely fail to see the point of the number of commercial apps for a _SERVER_, nor why the apps being commercial is the important thing. There are plenty of free apps for things like monitoring logs. This point would be justified in a desktop review, complaining about the lack of commercial games; for a server, which needs to have a minimal number of programs installed, it seems ludicrous.

"We could say that from UNIX to Windows software can be ported too, but, WINE (Tool to port from Windows) runs stable running a windows Program? mmm... i don't think so."

Wine is primarily an emulator, not a porting tool. Yes, Wine is stable. The problem is that it just doesn't run most apps. Name one person who seriously needs to run an IIS log analyzer on a FreeBSD server, and this might become relevant.

The author has some relevant points, such as that it may be easier to get started on running servers with Windows. This is, unfortunately, totally outweighed by the huge amount of absolutely false information presented. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > Please, OSnews.com, let's help spread intelligent, balanced information regarding such topics.

You are VERY welcome to write something better. We will publish it. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Was this posted just because it seems guaranteed to cause a flamewar ? It's no shame for either the editor or the author to reject an article if it needs work, this one certainly does. Especially wen writing for a site with the amount of knowledgable readers osnews has (and ignore the trolls) Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "FreeBSD: Has SSH and the best command tools but that's all... why there is not any wizard?"

Crappy comparative. Sure, wizards are nice, but in the same way freebsd don't have wizards, windows 2003 has _too_many_ of them. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? They are groups of people in the world that defend free versions of OS (Operating Systems) like Linux and FreeBSD and hate Windows. But those that love Windows and Microsoft also exist and they hate the free software.

This is a funny statement I highly doubt its that cut and dry. I like both platforms my self i just don't like the ideology that is attached to OSS. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I skimmed this and found more than two spelling/major grammar errors.
Not only does this have no method, but it also has no real logic behind it. It's basically pointing out the obvious.

Not necessarily wrong, just not newsworthy. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Steve,

You have written one too many articles while doing the sweaty monkey dance. First the Linux "Facts", and now this. You are fired!

Bill Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > "Please, OSnews.com, let's help spread intelligent, balanced information regarding such topics."

You are VERY welcome to write something better. We will publish it.

Even though that line wasn't directed towards me, I still wish to reply: it's not that the article's content is bad-- as I said, opinions are opinions-- it's just that this article needed editing concerning formatting and spelling. It's no direct attack towards the author-- he is, just like me, not a native English speaker-- it's an advice. This article would've looked so much better if a native English speaker reviewed and edited it, working together with the author. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? this article is just such a joke... Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I am a native english speaker.. my written grammer sux sometimes.... //** to much of a geek and notpaying attention in english **//



-Nex6 Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? a lot of the things he complains about for FreeBSD can be done rather easily on Linux, and I very much doubt that FreeBSD is any worse in that respect.

*disclaimer* I am not windows expert by a long shot, I can install XP and secure it. I have never used it in large deployments.

1. Easy Deployment on a Network (Clients)

This probably takes more knowhow than a windows wizard. But there is NOTHING that prevents you from doing network installs using a bootcd. If you wish to customize your installation you could use perl to change any file in /etc as you see fit.

Windows - Wins on ease of use (assuming what he says is true).
FreeBSD/Linux - Wins on flexibility

Which do you prefer? take your pick.

2. Easy administration.

The author mentions SSH and then complains about a lack of wizards. I ask what do we need a wizard for? all configuration is done by text files, simple and fast if you use ssh. I agree that a point-and-click wizard is a lot simpler for an amatuer. But I would not recommend any unix flavor as a server for a non-pro.

Once more, simplicity vs. transparency and flexibility.

3. Easy Adaptation to Changes

I will refrain from commenting since I do not understand Active Directory, and it is unclear to me what the author wishes to accomplish.

4.Easy Client-Server Integration and Flexibility

Once again I feel my lack of windows technologies. The only thing I know of is Exchange. My expirience with Exchange has been horrible and I would prefer ANY unix MTA as an alternative, even sendmail.
As for groupware functions Kroupware might be a good option.

5. Easy administration of LAN Networks

I suppose that under Unix you would use PAM and LDAP to do something similar to active directory, but I can only speculate.

6. Consumption of Resources

I agree with him there Window Server 2003 can eat every ressource you can throw at it. So can FreeBSD given the right conditions. But out of the box FreeBSD consumes less thank Win2K3 server

7. Best performance (OS) in the same Hardware

Windows has strong spots, FreeBSD has strong spots, 'nuff said

8. Cost of Licenses

Nothing beats free if you have the proper personnel to handle FreeBSD and other Unix variants. But technical unix people don't come cheap. Whereas MSCE's are a dime a dozen these days. It might just cost more to use FreeBSD in the long run, I leave the decision whether it is worth it up to the informed reader.

9. Secure system

In FreeBSD we trust, at least the track record proves that Windows is full of holes. There has been security problems in BSD, but at least there is full disclosure and you can evaluate the problem first hand. With MS you pray and wait for the update.

FreeBSD wins hands down because of the flexibility..

This is my personal opinion, feel free to post comments and replys. and of course correct me if I have said something wrong.

Michael Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? just to name one:
Active directory vs ldap....

the 90% of figures are utterly wrong. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? First of all, the article is terrible. Without disrespecting Mr. Castillo, this looks like a turn in paper for a bad class of operating systems.

Mr Castillo, have you _EVER_ administered servers? Admins don´t use wizards for most of their jobs... and admins don´t like to reset the whole server everytime they do an update.

And have you ever called MS for support? they give you basic support, when you have REAL problems you have to pay and that is not cheap at all. How can you say they have the best support in the world "because it is paid"?

Mr Castillo needs more training before being able to have an article published on such a world known news site. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This "research" article is crap! Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Wow ... this article was really, really bad. Did anyone else get the feeling that this guy was a long time Microsoft user that just happened to screw around with FreeBSD on the side?

Of course he is going to see Microsoft as "easier" because he's far more familiar with it. Also - this article is supposed to be about comparing two Operating Systems for use in a professional/server environment? I want a qualified administrator doing a job like that, not someone who picks whichever Operating System is "easier" to install.

If you're not interested enough in your profession to see beyond GUI wizards and mouse clicks, it's time to find a new freaking job. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm speechless. This is the least professional review I've seen since the last time Microsoft had one of their stoolies publish one.

FreeBSD is a pain in the ass to admin. Why choose it? cvsup/ports compares to apt like a hernia compares to a backrub. Why choose this?

LDAP? Heard of it?

Webmin doesn't compare to anything in Windows? WTF?

BSD/Linux can't boot or install off the network?!??!

Where does one even really begin to dig into all the things wrong here. And performance of Windows gets a 0? Cripes, it's got to be worth a 3, it's not THAT slow.

My brain is hurting. Must go read a useful article. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Really, this article is so bad, it should be pulled.

Nobody can learn anything from this article, almost every point made in it is flawed, incomplete or simply wrong to its core.

Please, for the children. And my sanity. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'll try to be as concise as possible here.

-------------------------------------------

Eugina:

"You are VERY welcome to write something better. We will publish it"

Thank you for the invitation, but I am wondering if you have missed my point.

To be clear... I strongly believe in the freedom of OSnews.com to publish whatever content it wishes as I believe in the freedom of it's readers to express their opinions on such content.

I also believe that those who do not understand the above simple rule will be lost in defensive/offensive unproductive arguments.

Given the above, I was under the impression that OSnews.com took it's position seriously and was dedicated to delivering articles of value to it's readers.

My point is this...

I do not run OSnews.com, you do. So, if you wish to have your readers respect and attention, do the homework and publish relative, intelligent articles.

-------------------------------------------

James Fryman:

"I would be the first to write it if I knew what I was talking about. So, instead of bitching, write that article, and give the guy a little credit for trying."

It's not "bitching" it's individual opinion.

As far as "credit for trying"... no.

Next year, after Billions more are lost due to exploits, write a letter to Bill G and tell him "thanks for trying".

Sooner or later, people will realize that this new age of technology needs to be handled in a very serious and careful manner. This must include education. The article in question does nothing to educate. It only spreads miss-information.

-------------------------------------------

Thom Holwerda:

You missed the point completely.

It's not about spelling errors and grammar. It's about the lack of factual intelligent information. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm gonna have to chime in too. That's got to be one of the least professional articles I've seen - sorry to the author, but it's the truth. There's nothing but opinion backing up all of those numbers.

To take a few examples:
System Maintenance. 5 to Windows? You LIKE having to reboot the entire server to install updates, and having to do it constantly?

And 3 to Windows for security makes me question what exactly would get 2, 1 or 0? It's the most exploited OS available - therefore it should be at the bottom of the scale. Of course there are official sites saying how secure it is - that's called advertising! Those of us not employed by MS are meant to be able to see through such things.

Amount of services and commercial applications: Not generally that crucial a factor on a server - you generally have everything you need unless you're after something pretty esoteric.

Anyway that's enough.... I suppose I sound pretty irritated. Mostly your article sounded strongly Microsoft-biased - it seems to have played very much to their strengths (Active Directory etc) and glossed over the weaknesses (security & patches). Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Active Directory is not a strength. In the flame of business IT, it's been vilified and hated as much as many other technologies ever have. It doesn't scale all that well, is full of security holes, incompatible with the rest of the world, bangs bazillions of useless packets off every edge device on the network and generally annoys the hell out of anyone clueful.

There are so many reason AD and its general usefulness don't match the tone of the article, it's hard to know where to begin. LDAP isn't much, if any, better, but at least it is a standard and the author chose not to even use it...

How much worse could the article BE? Misinformation, grammar and spelling problems, complete lack of credibility in any testing method disclosure, obvious bias, poor choices of use, lack of *nix knowledge... it's just... oh god, my head is pounding just thinking about it. Even microsoft has studies that are better than this, and that's scraping the bottom of the credibility barrel. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You're an editor. Saying "oh, if you write a better article we'll print it" misses the point entirely. One of the basic jobs of an editor is quality control; you're supposed to print good articles. If the choice is to print garbage or to print nothing, the correct decision is to print nothing. Anything else only hurts your reputation as a source of high quality and reliable articles. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Although I wholeheartedly agree that the article sucks - especially the funny test with 15000 files - he could use xcopy in cmd.exe and everything would go smoothly.
But what i can't get, is why people attacking windows all the time? I browsed the comments - "one could easily administrate Windows after "for dummies" book" - hey, is it a joke? How people compare AD to LDAP? It's a bullshit, AD is LDAP, you should compare AD to IPlanet or e-directory or OpenLDAP, ok?
Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like osnews become something like teenage chat - "man, U use M$ - this sux, I'm da man - I know Linux" - I'd suggest to ask people who are RHCE or something like that to write about Linux and MCSE for MS stuff. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? lol.

Simply, lol. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? in unix you have to manually edit files! Crap, in windows I have to manually click everywhere, it's complicated too! I guess I'll stick with pen, paper, and secretaries... Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Of course it is going to be Unix! What kind of idiot would use Windows on the server, it is still the same bug ridden virus infected hairball of an OS! Windows should be relegated entirely to PC's as this is as far is this OS can go -- there is absolutely no place on the server for Windows in any form or function. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just a small point (that haha has also got on to). AD is a LDAP implementation by MS.

The easiest way for a *nix admin to think of AD is NIS+LDAP. Simple. Once you understand that, AD is no mystery. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is the worst article I've ever read. How did this get posted? This sounds like it was written by someone who has used each as a toy OS for a few days and thinks they're suddenly an expert. Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The author WORK FOR MICROSOFT! No, I'm not guessing, I know him. This article is part of the Microsoft's FUD campaign Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? aletc1@NOSPAM.msn.com

haha
goos one Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's gotten to the point where I'm just not going to bother reading the useless comments on this site any more. I'm tired of the flame war of Linux vs. Microsoft. And having people rip apart articles because some authors aren't english majors. Yes I've post articles here so I should know so what's like.

And I absolutly agree with Eugena, instead of just complaining up and down and acting like a bunch of kids. Why don't you all write something. If you have a point, write an article and backup your views up. There are more important things in life than Linux vs. Microsoft vs proper english.


Just use the right tool for the right job. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is really disturbing. Is it really necessary that most (if not all) comments be negative? If someone says the article is bad (in whatever aspect), do you have to say it again over and over? Give the writer a break! Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Here is a snip from a bsd presentation concerning performance:

PS: Linux guys where pretty much floored that FreeBSD 5.3 can route 1Mpps and they can't do much more than 100kpps. ;-) Yes, way to go!

http://people.freebsd.org/~andre/FreeBSD-5.3-Networking.pdf

I wonder how many windows could do? And he says there's not a big difference between windows and FreeBSD under Fast and Secure communications (TCP/IP)

Then he gives a 5/4 rating under Amount of Services and free Applications? I'm sorry, but having over 10,000 programs at my finger tips in the ports system and the os shiping with most of the services you will need only a server a conf file away? I don't see how you could legally give a 5/4 rating. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What a total waste of my time. Get some quality control OSNEWS! This "paper" is so badly written and has so many fundamental flaws that I am not going to bother addressing any of the points made.

And no I am not just flaming it because of its bias towards windows. Whatever the conclusions made this "paper" was simply BS! I use windows for some serious work that I have not switched to a unix based OS yet, namely 3ds max and photoshop etc. For everything else I use debian. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't much care for the way the article begins -- there are MS-lovers who hate open-source software and *nix lovers who hate Microsoft and that's the way the world is? WTF? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Could osnews put up a type of peer review page? I would help the authers out when I have some free time. It would be better than posting stuff and having 50 flames about bad english skills. What does everyone think about this idea? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This paper is crap. This guys does not know what he is talking about and he presents no facts - just opinions. I can't believe osnews let's this idiot publish on their site. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't know why people are so foccused on author's english skills - I'm not a native english speaker too and still think that this article is crap, because of contents, not the form. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? windoze server is the worst OS out there Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Windows is crap. ADS is nice to some extent but SAMBA3 LDAP Kerberos solution is better.
-Nx Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? AD is a LDAP copy (LDAP was first) and is only rudimentarily compatible with LDAP. Same with Microsoft's Kerberos implementation.

As usual, it's embrace, extend, exterminate at Microsoft. There was no need for AD and its competitors were better than AD before AD was released. Novell's product in particular scaled much better and its implementation was far superior... though it also never really realized its full potential because... you may have guessed it... Microsoft brought out AD but more importantly, in essence, locked Novell's product out of their OS.

Lesson learned: don't trust Microsoft unless it involves their ability to make more money and protect their monopoly. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? what the hell did i just read. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, looking at the novell's marketshare in the enterprise computing, it's very hard to believe that they got better solution
Anyway, just go to dice.com or monster.com and try to search jobs for sysadmins - 4 out 5 is for windows admins. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm sorry but I don't think its right for people to talk about someone else like this. The author has at least tried which is much more than most people have done. Even if his english isn't that great so what. I bet most people's spanish isn't half as good as his english. Even though I am 14 and have been outraged by this article all I can say is oh well he needs to learn more. But 60 comments on crap like "This 'research' article is crap!" is 5 more than enough. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hey, I respect his english skills and i speak no spanish at all (though I speak russian, hopefully fluent , but, hey, the article is crap and most of the comments too (including mine) Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok for starters updateting windows is not easier. Try debian. Type this "apt-get update; apt-ger upgrade", And BAM Whole system is updated with latest security and updates. Want to install something "apt-get insall mp3player" Bam it downloads it and install it with latest version and all the required files for it. Want to search files or programs apt-cache search game | grep 3dshooter.
Bam you got a list off all 3d shooting games to install.

Ok now as far drivers and installs, I can take suse 9.1 Put the dvd in and with in 20 minutes I got a full install with full sound support, Full video card support, Even my wireless optical mouse. And to top it off all my drivers were there I did not have to download extra drivers or even do a windows update. 20 minute install I didn't have to tell suse to config nothing!. Same computer with winxp I have to wait bout 38 minutes. I have to download seperate sound card drivers, And I have to run a windows update right away. Oh yeah networking set up instantly on suse and debian.

Now as far as your Directory services lets not forget novel and old unix had this STUFF WAY BEFORE MICROSOFT. And there are plenty of FREE versions of this stuff for linux out there that are just as good if not better.

Also lets not forget How easy it is to track stuff down on *nix and close unwanted ports. Usualy one or 2 commands. Some services ports in windows you can never officaly close you can firewall em though .

All in all nice article but please do some more research next time. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This isn't just a bad article with bad english. Actually I could care less what language it was written in.

It's a bad article. Actually, it's worse than that. It's an embarrassingly horrible, useless, misinforming, nasty article that, if you handed it in to a university professor, would probably end your hopes to ever get a degree of any sort in computing sciences.

It's that bad. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Since English is a second language for some posters, that should not be the point of debate.

And I absolutly agree with Eugena, instead of just complaining up and down and acting like a bunch of kids. Why don't you all write something.

Actually, most of complain comes to the fact that the author did not do an accurate comparison without doing a research thus the credibility of the article is completed annihilated. For a website like OSNews, this kind of article is unacceptable and non-professional. Editor should know about that. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? O.K. - I agree that YAST is nice, though suse 9.1 has poor acpi support and doesn't work well with my HP laptop - actually it doesn't starts the fan, so that it overheats and hangs during installation, definately I could use apm, but hey, windows works just better (for me).
And about directory services - why would anyone care who was the first to invent and develop some kind of Directory service? I live now, not in 1990, so, what's the point? O.K. - Novell had bindery years before AD, but who cares?
And regarding the "FREE" versions - I tried to implement Samba 3/OpenLDAP early this year - it took about a month to get it working, still it had some problems with replication and didn't have a third of all the features you get with AD - so, I'd suggest you to try it, then count how many hours you spent on it, including browsing all kind of forums and so on - because there's no (well, almost) documentation/guides/best practices whitepapers, then multiply on your hourly rate and then tell me, what would be cheaper - buy Win Srv with CALs or implement OpenLDAP with Samba.
Also, if you really going to do that, you'll encounter all kind of problems with non-existent back-up solutions (or will buy streamer to use Amanda) and also you'll produce tons of custom scripts and so on, so when you'll get another job, the new admin will curse you, believe me Thu, 21 Oct 2004 02:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have readed much much crap here. I realized that there are a lot of defensors of UNIX. But look... we must be IMPARTIAL! and the reality is this:

1 - WINDOWS is EASY... an nonexpert can do anything!
2 - UNIX is complex... you need to pass a lot of courses (If you want to be good)

This is my point: Elections!

FIRST

There are a lot of free tools on INTERNET that replaces all the functionality of Windows... ok, but how many people knows how to use it?

SECOND

FreeBSD is a GREAT Operating System! I use it and i love it too... and i know how to deal with it! I can do anything with it, that is real too... but the point is
How many people in the World can handle it? How many people in the world can administer a PURE UNIX Network?
There are more people that knows how to administer Windows than other Operatings Systems.

THIRD

DLL HELL: They are no DLLs on UNIX but are Libraries (.so) and has the same problem of a DLL. If you dont belive that i could put here some examples of incopatibilities of Server Programs on UNIX.

FOURTH

I do not speak english as well as you want... so what???

LAST

You are the greatest UNIX Network Administrator... FINE deal with UNIX, but if you arent?

And you dear blamer, i think that you must write an Article explaining why you choose UNIX and wich tools you use. Do not say more "This article is shit" "UNIX is Best" "Active Directory is shit"... Justify with FACTS Why you has sayed that! Thu, 21 Oct 2004 02:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Then use a distro that is intended for ease of use. There are definately distros that would find themselves in the same kind of ease of use category as windows.

The main problem with the article is that the author made broad generalizations of unix as a whole based on a single sample. If it had been one true unix, one BSD, and one Linux distro, I think many of us would have far fewer problems.

Instead the author took one example and made generalizations about a large category of operating systems, without even testing two of the categories at all.

As a lot of people have also rightly suggested, if you're going to compare Windows 2003 to anything and are interested primarily in ease of configuration, why not test Suse, or Red Hat.

I personally prefer Slack, but I wouldn't recomend it for someone looking for Windows style ease of use (I think Slack has another type of ease of use), and it was unethical to choose a single OS to test, when there are options that are more fitting your criteria. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 02:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dear Alejandro, you're wrong, because Windows isn't "easy", well,as well as Unix - to set -up and maintain a Network Operating System, one should be competent and that's the problem - many people think that if they use XP at home then they're experts in Windows - no, they're not. The same thing goes to many newborn Linux fans "wow, I've just compiled a new kernel with cool patches in my DIY distro".
And one more point - although I like FreeBSD, it's still not an enterprise Unix - you should compare Windows 2003 to Solaris, RHEL or SLES - simply because there's no (at least not officially supported) enterprise software for FreeBSD or generic Linux distro - if you try to call to Oracle support and tell them that you have problems with their DBMS installed, say Slackware, they'll tell you to go and !@#$ yourself. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 02:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "2 - UNIX is complex... you need to pass a lot of courses (If you want to be good)"

I haven't taken a single course on UNIX. I taught myself. And here I am, someone who has done UNIX network administration and has even written books on UNIX.

You exagerate how hard it is to learn UNIX. It's not that hard. Learn how to use the man command, maybe buy a book, and you are on your way. All it takes is practice like anything else. It does not require taking classes or courses. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 18:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "The main problem with the article is that the author made broad generalizations of unix as a whole based on a single sample."

My mistake was that i do not specify what i was comparing!

Look, I have tested (not for this article) Suse 8.1 and SOLARIS. And i have been testing Redhat Since 6.0 (I mean 8.0, 9.0, Fedora)... and i saw a copy of RHEL.
I dit not include SOLARIS or SunSE or RHEL because i made a comparision between Windows 2003 and a *FREE* UNIX OS (FreeBSD 5.1 and Linux RedHat 9.0).
Why i have said UNIX. Because there are many many distributions but the basis (For instance the kernel in linux distros) are the same or similar. There are many many package dristribution systems but the problems persists. For instance in my Suse 8.1 Box i have installed an application manually without YAST and YAST doesnt recognize that i have updated a shared library so when i installed other application with YAST it installed and older copy of that library and my fisrt program doesnt work any more. How do you explain that? With RPMS on RedHat happend the same. The problem persists or not?

SOLARIS! Oh its a great OS! I should make a comparison between Solaris and Windows in the Future!

We have Debian and Slackware to on the linux distros too, but i do not compare it with Windows.

I only compare Windows vs FreeBSD and generic Free LINUX Distro. Look that i cant compare all the linux distros, because they are a lot.

Everyday people create new OSes for instance Dragonfly (based on BSD) and many others... i think that the UNIX community should not do this... i think that they must do a "Special UNIX" integrating all the great things of all the operating systems in the world. They must learn about the mistakes and the advantages of other OS. Windows is a "famous" OS because his integration. UNIX is "great" because his freedom.
Do you think that a UNIX distro will replace Windows? I dont think so because are too much UNIX distros and eachone has advantages and disadvantages. So make a OS with all the advantages and think on Technologies to make standard things like driver manager, package manager, and so.
If i have a driver for RedHad Linux i cant use it for FreeBSD or another distro... why you dont do a generic driver manager????? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 18:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? He sayd: "I haven't taken a single course on UNIX. I taught myself. And here I am, someone who has done UNIX network administration and has even written books on UNIX. (...)You exagerate how hard it is to learn UNIX"

Hey! You are wise! But there are a lot of people that arent! of course you can learn anythyg alone... look... i learned C by himself when i was 12. But... all the people can do this? You must answer that.

Things are dificult and are easy... its depend on you! But what is more easy learn Windows or Learn Unix? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 18:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Both the article and the comments following it show a severe lack of knowledge and experience on both *nix like OS'es and Windows OS'es.

I'm a Windows admin by day, and I think I know at least something about it (unlike most commenters and the writer of the article). Albeit my value as a reliable source of opinion is questionable since I'm just a measely trench worker, not a highhorse MCSE. It's hard to even start to enumerate all the misconceptions about e.g. AD (comparing it to a simple LDAP is missing the point of AD entirely. Go read some whitepapers, young padwan. It's best compared to e.g. Novell's eDirectory(former NDS)/ZENWorks) and Windows deployment over the network (it's anything but trivial to do *right*). Furthermore, Microsoft support is amazing, as long as you're willing to pay for premier support...which any self respecting Windows outfit should invest in. If an admin relies on wizards to keep his Windows network up and running, I feel his pain and can only offer some serious painkillers for the headaches he must have. Without a working knowledge of registry, cmd prompt, netsh, filesystems and a truckload of logic, common sense and a feel for computer systems and software, your value as Windows admin is limited in any reasonably sized, moderately complicated computing environment. And when it happens to be heterogenous too, you're pretty much fux0red.

With respect to the non-windows side of things...*sigh*. It's very sad that most of the comments and articles seem to come from either total newbies who managed to just gotten gentoo compiled on the overkill P4 from their parents, from "experts" still in college, etc. And this is not only the case on OSNews, I'm sad to say. It's so hard these days to find a resource where people who know what they're talking about write enjoyable articles which go beyond the installer and software choice of the distribution du jour. I guess those people are simply too busy doing their job or something.

If I could write worth a damn, maybe I could keep Eugenia to he promise. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Alejandro,

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Windows is easy to administer. That shows to me that you fell for Microsoft's impressive marketing machine bigtime.

Windows is not simple to administer. It may *look* simple, but that perceived simplicity is going to come back and bite you in the ass when things go seriously wrong. NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 are complex to very complex products. Compared to those OS'es, Linux and FreeBSD shine in simplicity. Every evening (and night) it amazes me how much less time it takes to do an administration/reconfiguring/installation task on e.g. my debian system, not in the least because unix like systems are conceptually much easier to understand (actually *having* a concept to understand is a big plus).

Oh well, I guess the biggest point to make is that system administration is actually a skill, and not something you're an instant expert of when you get gentoo installed the first time without errors. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It may have been a mistake but it is wrong to make the generalization that you make in the article. If you had simply referenced FreeBSD (since thats the only OS you actually test and rate) instead of tossing in the rest, I'd have fewer problems. I'd probably even have had a problem if you had tested RedHat and had reffered to it as Linux, since while it is a linux distro, it is not itself Linux.

Its also very important to remember that FreeBSD is not UNIX (while it is a unix, yes there is a difference). Neither for that matter are any of the Linux based OSes UNIX (they're unix clones). The reason why there is no universal driver system is that typically the drivers are included in the OS, and liscencing and architecture differences between them limit sharing. Also, you can get RedHat, Suse, or really any linux or bsd, for free. The only difference between it and the version you pay for would be support. If RPMs have you down, then use debian, gentoo, slackware, or something else that takes a different approach. All these distros are also well suited to server use.

To answer your question of what is more easy to learn, Windows or Unix, I'm going to have to say Unix. Its well documented, if you want a GUI there are ones available that are far easier to learn than windows, including GUIs designed specifically for dealing with systems intended for a single use, and unlike windows, if you want to, you can 'take a look under the hood'. Something that is very difficult to do with windows. (having used 'nix for years, I'm probably biased, especially since I regularly face windows machines that are owned by people who do not know how to use it or maintain it.)

I also haven't taken any unix specific courses, although I did work with Linux and BSD systems in school. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Hey! You are wise! But there are a lot of people that arent! of course you can learn anythyg alone... look... i learned C by himself when i was 12. But... all the people can do this? You must answer that."

If someone cannot learn UNIX by using the man command and reading a book, then chances are, that person simply isn't cut out to be IT material. Their skills would probably be better used somewhere else.

You seem to be under the impression that Windows Server and Windows network administration is a lot easier than UNIX administration simply because using Windows on the desktop is so easy. That is simply not the case.

Have you taken a look at the study guides for MCSE certification? The knowledge required to pass those exams is NOT trivial. Anytime you start getting into managing networks and servers and clients that connect to those servers, the complexity level goes up by several orders of magnitude.

So basically, if someone cannot learn UNIX administration from a book and from the man command, they probably aren't going to be much more successful at learning Windows network administration. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I just wanted to say that I'm wholeheartedly agree with everything Fred wrote.
Maybe he could write an article? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think that the problem here is the focus.

Ofcourse my dear Fred that windows is not easy and you cannot administer a network based on wizards, you must use command tools and registry edition and needs to understand network concepts and follow a logic but lets analyze something: Windows is (for people that i know) more simply to understand and simply to learn (I made a poll about it) because has a lot of documentation (Ofcourse there are obscure parts). Lets explain this with an example. I have Exchange Server and i want that a group of users can only send emails to .org domains. I create a connector filtering .org domains and i set some users to use this filter. Gess what, this doesnt work... why? Because you must access to the registry, must configure the routing engine service and must add a DWORD key to allow this. With a wizard you cannot do this... but... why i know this? Because i have Technet, MSDN, and a lot of WhitePapers that describes how to do something like that... so... its easy or not?

Lets talk about UNIX. I have Postfix and i want to install RAV Antivirus... I have no Wizard and i have no configuration script but its easy because we can edit in the /etc folder the Postfix configuration file and with five lines we can create a filter to do this, and RAV has examples of how to do this.

Conclusion! UNIX is Easy as Windows... so what we are discussing?

Focus! There are a lot of people that belive Windows is more Easy than UNIX and other that Belive UNIX is more simple than Windows, but there are more people that embraces Windows than UNIX... Why?

Why windows is more "Famous"? Marketing Staff? Why there are more Jobs for Windows Admins than for UNIX?

Look, there are a lot of Corps that uses UNIX... but there are too a lot of ones that uses Windows.

There are a lot of friends of mine that admins Windows Networks and uses Wizards and rely on Microsoft Security Updates and Microsoft Security Concepts... because they dont manage Important Networks and they work is only to maintain Internal E-Mail Services and Comunications between Workstations.
I have other friends that his work is to maintain a Web Hosting Service with culstered servers and a High Security, Backup Copies and a serie of things that requieres a good network administrator that uses command line tools, edit the registry and make a lot of manual configurations to maintain servers always up and always secure.

So the point is... all is relative to the needs of the corp and the Importance of the Data that they handle.
We will not use a supernetwork with superservers and superconfigurations to only provide communications between Workstations in a LAN not connected to Internet.

So you must decide what you will do, how Important is and what do you want to Spent. That is the focus that im talking about.
You can use the Wizard of Windows and you will have a "normal" or "semisecure" network but maybe you dont need more than it!
You can use a UNIX distro to make an ISP Infrastructure (Notice that an ISP Infrastructure is difficult to handle because you must need Extreme Security, Data Backup, Fast Communications, etc). We must use "manual" configuration because this infrastructure cannot be done with Wizards.

The point is this: UNIX is better that Windows using Command-Lines tools, and manual configurations because UNIX is a native command tools OS (Remenber MINIX). But Windows has a lot of Wizards.

Using the Wizard or Not is your desicion. But you must know the posibilities that you will have to make a choice.

A professional network administrator must not use a Wizard? This could be right (And for me is cool because i Hate Wizards) but what happend if you are not intrested on that? What if you are not intrested on make text file configurations?

There are people that hates textfiles. They must go hell? Think about it... Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article was pulled for its ineptitude and now it's back?

Good. I'm going to repost what I posted last night right before the article was pulled out from underneath me. Here goes:

---- cut here

So basically if you're a windows guy and you choose windows because you're not a unix guy, that makes unix bad? You spend a month working on samba + openldap because you're a clueless newb at it and that's *nix' fault?

AD isn't simple either. Anyone who thinks that AD and its security/etc. models is easy to deploy hasn't done it. If you have done it and you find it easy, it's because you have spent a lot of time and/or schooling on it. And again, how is *nix' way wrong when the fact is, your training is not in *nix? MCSEs pull out their hair over it to get certified!

A competent admin can set up a Samba/LDAP server in a morning. I've not only done it, I've done it plenty of times. If you want to short-track the process, buy John Terpstra's Samba By Example and save yourself a lot of time. If you *TRY METHODICALLY* and you *USE RESOURCES*, you can do just about anything under *nix.

Basically what we're looking at here is an article by a clueless newbie which says "*nix doesn't make as good a Windows as Windows." Well, no kidding.

This article is indefensible. It's bad. It's worse than bad. It's a big suck on a sour lemon. It's a noseful of snot, a dirty hair on a cheap gas-station burrito.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid this article is. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. Trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. It emits more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me.

In my books, if you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. Think this is a flame? Think again, this is really how I feel.

---- cut here Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? For me... study guides for MCSE certification was great and easy to learn. I cant pass any because i have no money to do it!

You must understand something: you must divide between Secific OS Administration and Network Administration.

Network Administration: This is independant of the OS that you will use because you must know how protocols work and how the data is moving across the network. A simple example: SMTP. You must know the RFCs, the HELO, MAIL FROM, RCPT TO, DATA, etc and you must know how SMTP communications are made i mean using MX DNS etc. The way that the OS implements an SMTP server is the other part: OS Administration. First you must have an idea of how LDAP, SMTP, DHCP, IPSec, SMB, Firewalls, Switchs, Routers (and so) works and then you must learn how to handle that communication with the OS that you want to use.

Learn Windows or Learn UNIX... that is not the same that learn Network Staff.

First you must know how to Administer a Network (theorical).
Second, you must learn the specifications of each OS.

For me and for other people that knows 1, is more easy to learn Windows than UNIX.

What can i say. maybe you saw more easy UNIX... and maybe other people see more easy Windows.

I think than a GUI is more simple than a PROMPT. Dont you think? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "So basically if you're a windows guy and you choose windows because you're not a unix guy, that makes unix bad? You spend a month working on samba + openldap because you're a clueless newb at it and that's *nix' fault?"

FIRST

I am not a Windows Guy... i am an OS Guy... because i dont say that Windows is Better than UNIX and i dont say too taht UNIX is Better than Windows... it is your interpretation. I can say more than that... i use Windows and i use FreeBSD for instance. Integration is the key man... use Windows or UNIX if you know how to use it. I like FreeBSD, and i use it as a Firewall/Gateway/Communication Server... and gess what... i use Windows Server to control Windows XP Workstations. FreeBSD+Windows.. do you belive this?

SECOND

I am not a newbie, i am not a certified expert too but nobody on this list (exept Frend and other guy nicknamed Simba) refers to a real example against my personal opinion.
Are you sure that SAMBA+OpenLDAP can control a Windows XP Box better that Windows Server? Dont say stupid things man. XP is a client created to match 100% with 2003 Server.
I never will say that a Windows Server can control a SuSe Box better a SuSe Server... Iam not crazy you know?
So dont say anything stupid ok?

THIRD

Active Directory can be as complex as you want to make it. its depend on you not on the software.

FOURTH

You must create a big hole on the floor... what do you want to use? Your hands or a machine?
You can create that hole with your hand... but its slowly... a machine is better than your hand because is more faster.

Some work on UNIX results more slow than on Windows... and some work on Windows results more slow than on UNIX... so what do you use?

LAST

Each OS in the World has a great feature better than others. I dont say that UNIXes dont has any great Feature. UNIX has very important thigs and i prefer for some scenarios a UNIX distro, and i prefer Windows for others.

So, dont say more crap man, say something with sense Dont afirm anything that i didnt say ok?

I must be crazy if i say that UNIX is better than Windows... So if you analyze my article a little more, you will arrives to this conclusion: "Nothing is better than. You must choose what you need and what you know how to manage" Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you've ever done that, you would know that sometimes a prompt is a lot easier than a GUI. Not to mention that I'm sure a lot of people would argue that some command line tasks (like installing software) are easier, or as easy as their gui equivilents. Not to mention writing shell scripts to automate tasks is essential for a server.

I don't see how that matters though in a 'nix vs. windows debate though, as both have GUI tools to configure relevent settings, and both have command lines available. The fact that a system running windows has to have a GUI is in my opinion, a major mark against it for use as a dedicated server. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is actually starting to turn into an interesting thread.

Alejandro,

I actually started writing a lenghty post in response to yours, but then I realized that aside from a few little differences in opinion I agree with a lot of what you've been trying to say. Be careful in using polls though. It is at best a questionable method to gather "facts". Unless you're a experienced in statistics and the fine secrets of market research, a random poll doesn't prove much more than that the people who filled it in lean in majority towards a certain choice. The variables "people" and "choice" are the stingers here. I dare to question the results of the whole poll already, simply due to the fact it's limited to "people you know". You get my drift?

I'll try to respond to a few points in your post, please bear with me.

"Conclusion! UNIX is Easy as Windows... so what we are discussing?"

Good point. I think we basically agree that given an adequate administrator (team) it doesn't really matter which OS is used to implement the computing infrastructure.

"Why windows is more "Famous"? Marketing Staff? Why there are more Jobs for Windows Admins than for UNIX?"

Lets see. Most strategic platform choices are made by corporate managers. Managers tend to base those choices on something, and for the sake of argument I'll keep those down to two resources:
1) By their experience, i.e. what they *think* they know about computing. This stuff is usually based on the notion that because Microsoft says so, a server running Windows 2003 Server is almost the same as their home desktop running Windows XP Home. This is where those classic oneliners like "Why do you need a million bucks project to upgrade Windows 2000 to Windows 2003? I upgrade through Windows Update all the time!". Just because said manager barely scratches the surface of the complexity of the underlying OS, he thinks everything is just as easy. And don't tell me it's bullshit, everyone who has been working in the trenches for a few years knows this is true. Especially in heterogenous environments, those measely Windows based frontend systems are highly underestimated in both complexity and most of all, importance.
2) Marketing. Nuff' said. MS's is very good. You see Microsoft in ads, in TV shows, in newspapers, you hear it on the radio. You name it, Microsoft's name is plastered all over it. That makes managers feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You know the famous phrase "noone ever got fired for buying IBM"? Well, that goes double for Microsoft.

The above points already indicate why there are more jobs for Windows administrators. Windows is everywhere. It's much wider spread than anything on the market, so of course there will be more people looking after all that stuff. Add to that the {fact,opinion} that non-windows systems need less attention, and thus less administration staff and there's your reason why there are more Windows administrators around than Unix. Oh, and it doesn't help either that the managers mention in 1) above have their equivalents in the administrator world too: You know them, the people who because they know how to click on a button think they can administer enterprise networks.

"So the point is... all is relative to the needs of the corp and the Importance of the Data that they handle.
We will not use a supernetwork with superservers and superconfigurations to only provide communications between Workstations in a LAN not connected to Internet."

This mindset is so terribly wrong, I should bash you over the head with a bat for even mentioning it. See below, too.

"You can use a UNIX distro to make an ISP Infrastructure (Notice that an ISP Infrastructure is difficult to handle because you must need Extreme Security, Data Backup, Fast Communications, etc). We must use "manual" configuration because this infrastructure cannot be done with Wizards.

The point is this: UNIX is better that Windows using Command-Lines tools, and manual configurations because UNIX is a native command tools OS (Remenber MINIX). But Windows has a lot of Wizards"

Hmm, the above makes me wonder about what you know, or think you know about UNIX. Aside from being factually wrong in details, it doesn't really make much sense either.
Lets do some nitpicking first:
- UNIX distros don't exist.
- UNIX isn't based on MINIX, nor does it use the commandline tools from it. But I assume you didn't actually mean this that way.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that if something isn't connected to the internet, it's not worth the effort to secure or facilititate with quality computing resources. Wrong. Very wrong. Actually, most really important data, which needs the most high grade, expensive and complicated computing facilities to keep it safe and most of all, available when it's needed probably isn't even accesible from any external network at all.

"A professional network administrator must not use a Wizard? This could be right (And for me is cool because i Hate Wizards) but what happend if you are not intrested on that? What if you are not intrested on make text file configurations?

There are people that hates textfiles. They must go hell? Think about it..."

A decent administrator shouldn't have to care less about whether a wizard does the job or that he needs to edit a textfile or whatnot. All he needs to care about is to get the job done.

So I guess what it boils down to is the question of what makes a good administrator. One which can handle anything you throw at him, or one which is hellbent on the "ease of management" sugar sprinkled on certain products to pretend things are less complicated than they really are.

Which would you prefer to have working for you?

Shit, lengthy post afterall. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 22:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Network Administration: This is independant of the OS that you will use because you must know how protocols work and how the data is moving across the network. A simple example: SMTP. You must know the RFCs, the HELO, MAIL FROM, RCPT TO, DATA, etc and you must know how SMTP communications are made i mean using MX DNS etc.

The way that the OS implements an SMTP server is the other part: OS Administration. First you must have an idea of how LDAP, SMTP, DHCP, IPSec, SMB, Firewalls, Switchs, Routers (and so) works and then you must learn how to handle that communication with the OS that you want to use."

First of all, I don't believe in the such a strict distinction between the two fields. If you want to polarize things like this, then IMO network administration only needs to care about getting a packet from point A to point B. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else you mention, all that RFC stuff, SMTP details etc is the domain of the service administrator. And you disagree with yourself too, as firewalls, routers and switches are very much the domain of network administrators in your polarized world. Server administrators shouldn't need to care *how* a packet gets from A to B, as long as it gets there and processed appropriately by the receiving service. That is their responsibility, not whether or not some firewall happens to be in the way or not.

In reality, things aren't that polarized, and that is a good thing too. Network administrators, server administrators, service administrators...who cares. In practice all of the above know at least a little, a lot or are experts in eachother's areas too, making communication and troubleshooting a lot easier and efficient. An administrator is an administrator in my book, an good one will be at home in either field you mention.

That aside from the fact that I have no idea why it is important at all in the discussion at hand. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 22:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dear Fred,

I am glad to read your articles because you post strong reasons with sense. I appreciate that i appreciate that you follow this debate.

I think that many people doesnt uderstand that i say because languaje barrier. In Spanish i say something and later i translate it to English, maybe here is the problem.

"Good point. I think we basically agree that given an adequate administrator (team) it doesn't really matter which OS is used to implement the computing infrastructure. "

This is a great reason and i should include this on my article. I tried to say that but it seems that i could not get it.

I agreed with you on the second idea but... I dont think that microsoft is so Wonder because TV and ADS. If you look "Silicon Valley" Film you notice that Microsoft started from ground 0 and grows stoling technologies from Xerox and Apple. I think that Microsoft its Microsoft because they know what the people needs and when to satisfy his necesities. maybe it is the worst company, but people belive on it and follows him... thats why Microsoft is so multimillonary.

You sayed about my idea "This mindset is so terribly wrong, I should bash you over the head with a bat for even mentioning it. See below, too."

My idea is a hard to belive idea and maybe doesnt have sense, but there are scenarios where security doesnt care. For instance There are INTERNET Cafes that have "Dynamically OSes" (Maybe this is a bad definition but, catch my idea). I mean every time that a workstation starts it begin with a Clean copy of the OS allocated on the Server. So if the client is infected by a Virus, or it uninstalls something or erase something or disconfigure something when you shutdown and start again nothing of that remains "alive". Do you hack the server? I dont care i have a copy of the OS too... i change the disks and woala... the problem disappears. So, what is the administrators Wokr? Changing disks and reset servers.

Dont Bite me ok? Of course there are INTERNET Cafes, that have very best Network admins and have a great configuration and have a lot of service like Info Tracking, Intrusion Detection, Virus Handling, etc.

So, do you understand my point?
A professional network administrator is always usefull. But there are scenarios that is not necesary.

"UNIX distros don't exist.
UNIX isn't based on MINIX, nor does it use the commandline tools from it"

This is a conceptual thing. I called UNIX to UNIX-Like Operating System. And ofcourse UNIX is not MINIX... i should remember that everyone on the OS world knows the history of UNIX, MINIX, BSDi, Windows, Linux and when i ttalked about MINIX i simply make a reference to resolve a problem based on command line tools... So, Do you know why MINIX was invented?

When i say UNIX distros i was saying UNIX-LIKE Operating System Distributions.

"A decent administrator shouldn't have to care less about whether a wizard does the job or that he needs to edit a textfile or whatnot. All he needs to care about is to get the job done."

I agreed with You! And thats a real thing.

"So I guess what it boils down to is the question of what makes a good administrator. One which can handle anything you throw at him, or one which is hellbent on the "ease of management" sugar sprinkled on certain products to pretend things are less complicated than they really are.

Which would you prefer to have working for you?"

That one that i can pay for!

Remember that if you are MSCE or UNIX Professional you will not work for low money. And any guy that doesnt have any certification maybe do the job for less money.

So, i have a proposition to you Fred!

Why we dont rewrite this article and make a new article handling this mistmaching. You agreed with me on some things and have other opinions. Perfect! Why we dont refine this article? Maybe we can do a better work: we have the ideas and you have the language. Think about it. Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article is pure agony. Your responses are so unconvincing I can't begin to retort.

So I'm just bowing out. Ignorance is bliss. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 01:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't believe the flames were about bad English - at least, mine wasn't. Disregarding the quality of the language, the quality of the article itself is complete trash. It contains no useful material whatsoever; as previous posters have pointed out it appears to have been written by someone with no experience of actually using *either* system seriously in a production environment. Or if someone actually *did* hire this guy to run their network, they'll be going bankrupt shortly. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 01:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "there are a lot of people who aren't (wise)"

yes. yes, there are. and this is why everyone in the entire world is not a sysadmin. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 02:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? just read the first line and see UNIX = freeBSD/Linux me stoppped right away
the OS classification, do it b4 heading the comparison mate Fri, 22 Oct 2004 02:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hey kids go to do the homework on your house ok? and study a little more.

before you can say that something is shit you must know what is it about...

Hey man, Do you know what Windows Server is? Do you know what beneficts and features it has? Do you know what a UNIX-Like OS is? Do you know really somethig serios about this?

Dont say bullshits ok? I think that you are a newbie that knows two or three commands of a UNIX-Like OS and you think you are great! I think too that you dont know anything about Windows and are saying nonsenses because you dont really test a Windows System because you hate Microsoft or something like that. I will tellyou something. To discuss you must know what you are talking about. And i will teach you something: You must say: "This is false because with this Technology i can do this work better because it has..." and you must put objetive things. For instance> In this debate i could not read any post that explain: This is better than Active Directory because its have ... feature that works better and ..." So up to now, for me Active Directory is a great Thing. And for those newbies that think that OpenLDAP could be compared with Active Directory i will say: "Go Study man!"

So, please dont post shit and do something really good. ok?

If you want to debate first study Windows and at least a distro of and UNIX-Like OS. ok? And then we could talk. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 03:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is a fragment of my article, and i will analyze this:

"Here we will demonstrate that none of the two groups is right because Windows and UNIX (Linux, FreeBSD) have advantages and disadvantages. The best solution is one that adapts to the necessities and each client's scenario"

1 - When i said "UNIX (Linux, FreeBSD)" i was saying that i have choosed two UNIX Like OS to determinate my objetive: One FreeBSD and Second a Linux-Based OS (I have selected Red Hat). Why this choice? Because FreeBSD is an OS that many people and many companies use (We could make examples). Why RedHat? because is the os that many people use too... Why not SuSe or SOLARIS? Well, that was not my election... i could test it in the future.

2 - I have said "The best solution is one that adapts to the necessities and each client's scenario" i never said that UNIX Like OS or Windows are better.

So if you want to post something you must have this in mind! Fri, 22 Oct 2004 03:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I would add "Debugging error messages"
Linux 4 | Windows 0.

Why 4? Because U get core dumped & no more information.
Why 0? Because U get "Error xx90210xx". And there is no way fo r me to find it's cause. & cure it for that matter.

I would disagree with support. It's hard to find good help from windows community. U can mainly contact windows support line, but the local support lines are not good enough.
I get better help from Linux community. For example Gentoo forum, which I would say is the best community I've ever seen. (Thank You!). Fri, 22 Oct 2004 06:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I would add "Debugging error messages"
Linux 4 | Windows 0.

Why 4? Because U get core dumped & no more information.
Why 0? Because U get "Error xx90210xx". And there is no way fo r me to find it's cause. & cure it for that matter."

That posting also suffers from bad research. I know, a Unix-like system throws the system core onto the hardware which you manually must debug afterwards.

Windows is actually also quite configurable when it comes to the topic "debugging error messages." Did you ever try browsing the eventlog of a Windows server installation? I don't know about you Linux zealots, but sometimes it's too hard to stand your idealistic FUD.

Please be realistic. Yes, this article suffers from many errors and a pointless idea of rating system environment features with a number from zero to five. A more detailed map of comparison terms and reasons would be useful.

I encourage OSNews to be more critical to article postings. When lacking good stuff, quantity is not the answer. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? OSnews.com = pulling article = re-publishing article = lame = I'm gone and so should anyone intelligent!

Alejandro Tamayo = no clue, defensive and busted.

Everyone in this thread = 98% the intelligent people have spoken and 2% clueless.

thus...

OSnews.com + Alejandro Tamayo = why waste your time with a half baked website that publishes 1st grade FUD like this?

da truth Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? At least in his mind... Even if he is intelligent (which could still be possible after all I've read), he should *really* *really!* learn some humility. It's normal to get a high from knowing things and that you eventually start thinking everybody else is stupid, but please _try_ to keep this to yourself and don't humiliate youself publically... The truth is that I have read good things from him as well as from the other posters, so don't say they are morons, because this only reflects on yourself. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 08:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm not bored enough to read all the comments, but I read the first few and they seemed quite negative. Personally I love FreeBSD and hate Windows (as you would soon find out if you visited my site), but I'm not going to say this article is in anyway biased towards Windows.

When you mentioned that Yahoo still uses FreeBSD 4.x, you may not of realised that 5.3 is a current release, whereas some 4.x releases are stable (and still actively under development, with features from 5.x added once they are tested enough).

I disagree that Windows is actually any easier to use than FreeBSD or other Unices, but I believe it is just different - an experienced Windows user may be able to use GUI programmes like explorer quite efficiently to do their work, but someone with as much Unix experience can get things done much faster using the shell.

I'm not sure where you got the opinion that Microsoft will fix bugs in Windows any faster than the FreeBSD/Linux/Unix comunity will fix bugs in the OS to which they are devoted. Firstly (especially with Linux), there will be more people actively developing/fixing open source software, whereas Microsoft (or a more commercial Unix company like Sun) will likely not have as many people with access to the source to help locate (which is often the hardest part) and fix the bug. I'm not so sure about Linux (I'm not too fond of it and havent used it much), but for at least my personal FreeBSD use, I have never encountered a bug that was actually a problem (and thats in a current release, not stable), whereas I always hear about "explorer crashes when i click things too fast" and there are entire sites dedicated to listing the major security holes in Windows.

I agree with the last part - if you aren't an IT company and just want a server for your website, use Windows , but if your company has the staff to properly maintain a Unix system to it's full potential, or you need to get the very most (in terms of power, speed, security, reliability, etc.) out of your server, then by all means use a Unix type OS like *BSD or Linux.

I don't believe that if Unix systems were more popular, that they would have the same amount of succesful virii or uncovered security holes - quite simply because more people view the source code and that the system is designed for servers (well at least when compared to Windows, which was designed as a GUI for DOS and has remained quite similar even after it's seperation from DOS).

"First which Linux distribution was used?" Fri, 22 Oct 2004 08:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That guy must google around for "symbols"
By the way, I love any OS - as long as I'm getting paid for administrating it, for now I'm in love with Windows, what would it be tomorrow? Who knows? But I don't give a sh@t, I'm an OS whore Fri, 22 Oct 2004 12:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There should be comparison of true Unix systems like Solaris, IRIX, AIX, Tru64 HP-UX, etc. vs Windows 2003.

Not some Linux or *BSD. We should not compare free versions of Unix systems vs Windows as they are not in the same boat.

Overall writer of this article has no tehnical knowledge. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 12:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article provides a view of a mid level IT person evaluating 2 OS'es about which he seemingly knows quite a bit.

Quite a bit being perhaps a lot less then some responding.
But this doesn't matter, there are loads of people evaluating these options with equal skill levels and many more with even less understanding of the Unix / *BSD side of things. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > Hey man, Do you know what Windows Server is?

Yes. Least secure operating system ever. Easy enough to get yourself way over your head and in trouble.

>Dont say bullshits ok? I think that you are a newbie that
>knows two or three commands of a UNIX-Like OS and you >think you are great!

I admin 17 *nix servers including some Sun servers. I have a local Debian mirror. I own three companeis, two of which are over 10 years old and one which received two business of the year awards and a top-200 IT companies in Canada award this year. I'm aggressively rolling out a wireless Internet network at the moment. I have 31 employees, all but 6 of which are some sort of technician.

My company was the first company in the world to roll out a major installation of Javastations for education. Unfortunately, Sun dropped the ball. Then buried it.

So, clueless newb? You're so far off the mark it's breathtaking, much like your article.

>anything about Windows and are saying nonsenses because
>you dont really test a Windows System because you hate
>Microsoft or something like that.

You pegged me there. I hate Microsoft. They're the cause of much pain and suffering in the marketplace. Actually I hate pretty much any convicted criminal, which is one of the nicer things I've called microsoft lately.

I sell a lot of microsoft stuff still (I may hate them, but I'm practical in business), and that irks me too. I'm doing what I can to sell less every day.

> I will tellyou something.

Oh please do, since every point you have made so far is so clear. You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn - from inside the barn.

>To discuss you must know what you are talking about.

Exactly. Which is why your article should be pulled.

>And i will teach you something:

You are. You're teaching me about ego vs. knowledge. They seem to be in inverse proportion to each other, in your case.

>and ..." So up to now, for me Active Directory is a great
>Thing.

Bully for you. But a couple of computers with a wire between them do not a network make. Let me know when you deploy 30,000 machines with WAN links. Then we'll talk.

>And for those newbies that think that OpenLDAP could be
>compared with Active Directory i will say: "Go Study
>man!"

AD is an LDAP copy. It has links into Netbios and a broken, shite DNS implementation. AD is essentially a bad copy of LDAP + Samba + (broken) DynDNS + (broken) Pam. You're so clueless it hurts. You probably think the SMB protocol was a Microsoft invention too.

>If you want to debate first study Windows and at least a
>distro of and UNIX-Like OS. ok? And then we could talk.

I don't think we can. Because, frankly, I've written you off as a useless tit not worth any more of my time. And I've decided that I won't be recommending OSNews to anyone. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "So, i have a proposition to you Fred!

Why we dont rewrite this article and make a new article handling this mistmaching. You agreed with me on some things and have other opinions. Perfect! Why we dont refine this article? Maybe we can do a better work: we have the ideas and you have the language. Think about it."

Thought about it, but thanks but no thanks.

I lack time and motivation to bother myself with writing comparison articles between *nix and Win*. I've written various stuff about various subjects, and I don't think I'm any good at it at all. Not to mention that I'm a person with an amazing short attention span.

I'm the wrong person to coauthor something with. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? First, sorry for my poor english... second: religion out of here... please!

It's quite clear that your talking from two different points of you... Alejandro deals mostly with enterprise desktop management, while Shaman seems to deal with back-end only services for external clients. (seems :-)
It's quite clear that Miscrosoft has a strong technical lead over unix in enterprise clients-server deployments... it's not only my idea (and maybe Alejandro's one) but it's what most of it research groups think... and i think you're not gonna tell Gartner is endorsed by MS!
Integration between server and clients is what other companies are missing and that's why other companies failed where MS succeded... take Novell: NDS has (had..) some tech advantages over AD (eg. multivalued attributes replication.. note for ldap lovers!) but WHO cares about that when AD can control all the aspects of the workstations behavior?
Example... with a 10 lines script i can make hardware inventory of thousands of MS workstation passing through WMI... how would you do that in any UNIX environment? WMI is years old and is still the most accessible and complete WBEM implementation out here.
Still another example... with a few mouse clicks i can enforse the use of ipsec transport and certificate authentication from/to any socket on any number of windows pcs... can you explain how to do this on unix?
Please don't tell me passing configuration files through dfs... you can find many bad experiences out there, just google a little.

Integration is what MS always searched, while unix shines for modularity (does that word exist?? :-)
All the unix family operating systems (linux first) are marvellous four their flexibility, but they lack of integration when we talk of enterprise networks... and they're quite useless when talking about edm.

Take an example: openldap is good (even if it's not at AD or NDS level), but there is a big lack of integration with the applications that can make use of it. (that's why is mainly used as a structured data repository or as an authentication server...)
Example: how can you tell to the 800 Mozillas running in your middle size business that they have to disable javascript on a site you specify (just an example... so please don't begin telling that your grandmother with mozilla...:-)

Enterprise desktops software (os+office automation) has been one of the most lucrative fields in the whole it and MS has made a big strategic goal betting on infrastructure services like the directory service.
AD is a great piece of software and has been choosen by some of the largest multinational companies around the world (take siemens) to manage tens of thousands of pcs and server... so if MS did something good i don't see any reason to shoot at it.

Do you hate any kind of corporation and love the academic world? Can you explain why at M.I.T. they have a big active directory deployment?
They invented Kerberos and they're using Windows! That's non-sense.

Things like "AD is essentially a bad copy of LDAP + Samba + (broken) DynDNS + (broken) Pam" demonstrate this is just a big religious flame and not an honest technical thread.
(ldap server in AD is technically very near NDS... and faster in reads by different acls inheritance; dns is very good and got full srv records before bind... than it uses ad replication thats light years better than zone transfers to replicate; authentication is very good too due to a kerberos implementation than not only has not been affected by recent bugs found in mit's one, but ms extended it to use tcp and that has even been RFC!)

Than i have to admit there are a LOT of bad choices MS did and a LOT of pain it caused to thousands of users.
MS always runs to make their systems powerful, putting in second place what many users consider at the absolute first place: RELIABILITY.
The run for gaining market shares has filled MS products with many bugs during the past years and made MS very hated.
For example take windows95-98-me: they've been first of all a way to get programmers used to win32 and the normal users able to deal with the interface... and they were ridicolous as operating systems.
That's very bad from customers perspective (before windows 2000 i neved left my Amiga as a desktop platform... hope you understand i don't have Bill on my side telling what to write) but has shown to be a quite perfect market move.

In general i think we should always separate the different aspects of our discussion, than take a sum.
You can tell you hate microsoft for the way it treats market, you can tell you don't like the technical choices microsoft takes... but the duuble statement "i hate microsoft - its products are pure shit" is not believable any more, given that microsoft makes thousands of products and that they are so complex it's not possible to know them all.

Given that, i think that comparing two operating systems is much more difficult than writing a 2 pages article... but i agree on many important things Alejandro pointed out and i suggest many people around here to take a trip (if they have the opportunity) around big enterprises IT infrastructures to understand what are Microsoft's technical achievements. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "The security is Relative. Windows has more holes than other operating systems because most of the hackers attacks windows more that other OSes. But perfectly, undiscovered holes of security can still exist in UNIX."

Ok Windows has the history of being maintained by poorly educated programmers M$ got for cheap. How can holes be undiscovered in an Open Source OS?! Fri, 22 Oct 2004 17:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Excellent comments, Sergio! But, I'm afraid, most of the "M$-haters" won't listen, they'll tell [quote] Windows has the history of being maintained by poorly educated programmers M$ got for cheap [/quote]
:( Fri, 22 Oct 2004 18:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The original Windows branch was a shell on top of DOS, sure. Current versions of Windows are based on the NT branch, which was written as a 32-bit windowed graphical operating system from the ground up, it's not "based on DOS" in any way. The command prompt in NT-series OSes doesn't have anything like a "real version of DOS" under it, it's a cleanly-written terminal made to mimic a DOS environment. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 18:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Theres a much better comparison of Windows Server to Linux (some things in it will likely be more widely applicapble to any unix) at the Register. It deals mainly with security, and various myths relating to the OSes, including several repeated in the article.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_li... Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It's not much better, it's much more biased, only this time in favour of Linux - but check out who's the author Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There is a reliance on numbers, and evidence instead of merely stating personal opinion as fact with arbitrary ratings, in fact, no ratings are given at all. It also doesn't paint the usual biased view of linux you'll get from zealots. (that being that linux is a bug free, exploit free, happy land, full of magic gnomes)

I guess I don't see any extreme bias in the article, just a slight linux bias. Then again I myself am biased on this matter. But thats mainly bitterness from supporting win98/me machines. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_li...
This debunks several claims that Microsoft has been making.

And yes, Sergio, Gartner is not-infrequently accused of being a Microsoft shill.
http://www.google.ch/search?hl=de&q=gartner+shill&btnG=Goog... Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What?! Details?! Numbers?! Did you, guys, read the authors (Petreley) bio?! It's just the same as "Get the facts", only reversed!
Anyway, what I can't get at all, is why people can't understand the fact that Linux as an enterprise OS is just the same as Windows - why? O.K. It's just a money making machine for RedHat, IBM and Novell (and some smaller companies), although all those companies telling the tales about open-sourceness and freedom and anything else, they're just trying to sell their products or consulting services or hardware - and they have to compete with very strong player - Microsoft, which is just the same, only with different product. Isn't it obvious? All of them use Linux or whatever not because it's good or bad or secure or anything else - they just sell what they can.
So it's funny how all of us are trying to win in these stupid holy wars, actually most of us use all that to make money too - because we're admins/developers and so on. Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A very poor article, I knew rehathat, suse, solaris, and apache guys where wrong?!!! jajaj they should change to m$ !!! jeje !!!!!! Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, although I respect Alejandro attempt to make a paper, certainly I can't say I agree with it for a lot of reasons:
* It shows no methodology. Which tools where used to make any benchmarking? ¿How were the tests made? There was no answer to those questions, and that for me brings this paper crdibility down to 0. If you're doing a head to head, show some methodology, describe the environment used to make those test!
* It's biased towards windows. I don't think it's intended, but more a question of lack of knowledge, the basic example is the AD stuff, but other stuff is the lack of citation of other papers that repeteadly have suported the superiority of Unix over Windows. If you're doing a serious head to head, please chek other papers, you might learn a thing or two.
* Has very poor argumentation: Saying that linux is more secure just because Windows suffers most attacks is at minimun, an unsuported argumentation.
* Puntuation is overall arbitrarily asigned, why a 4 to Linux for it's core dump -ok, you can get tons of info from a coredump- and a 0 to Windows? I don't like windows at all, but it's clearly arbitrary.
I read it twice before writing this, and I don't care about your spelling as long as does not interfere with correct understanding of it. Just one more thing, don't react as agressively to critics, Try to learn, many people here have tons of real world experience -myself 13 years as system administrator on Windows/Linux/Ultrix......- and you can't despise your opinions with harsh comments, that only weakens your position and makes you appear as young, and unexperienced. Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In this discussion group are people that knows what they are talking about and see the facts not his preferences. I respect that you love UNIX, but see what is real.

Shaman, you could be a great IT with 30,000 Machines, but you are acting as a Newbie like others that have said stupid comments. This article is poor and it is shit? Could it be... but you dont said Why. You must say the reasons of your opinion and they must be strong reasons. So dont bother me saying that its stupid because it is, ok?

Second, I dont want to say that there are stupid people, but people that says:

"OSnews.com = pulling article = re-publishing article = lame = I'm gone and so should anyone intelligent!
Alejandro Tamayo = no clue, defensive and busted. "

If they are not stupids they act as stupid.

They are good comments on this post but there are others that smell like shit.

And talking back about the Article. I agreed with Zak Fenton, Mischa Kroon and Sergio. There are a lot of people here that hates Microsoft, and because that reason only they dont eval Windows, and only knows what the people says: "Its bad, unsecure, it cost a lot..... and so" and dont want to recognize the good things that Windows has.

And talking with you again Shaman, I have never worked with a Wireless network, but i have been working with Wide Enterprise Networks and i have been working with Windows to do it... and when you work on a Company with headquarters and branches Windows could be usefull. A employer on this Company can login on any of the branches and can get his perfil his documents his emails and can do the same work like if they were on his machine. Do you know what i mean? This could be done with Exchange Server and Windows Enterprise Edition.
So i dont saying that with a UNIX OS i cant do this, i am saying that Windows is created to do this work and works pretty good.
"I done something like this with FreeBSD+QMail (Im talking about e-mail only) but i had to modify QMail to acts as a POP3 Gateway on multiple servers... (I think that Yahoo! Uses something like this)"

And talking about FreeBSD... many people says that it is not an Enterprise OS and it is not as strong that others... but Yahoo! is strong.... and is in FreeBSD 4.x. And if we talk about sites, there are a lot... for instance www.hotmail.com in a begining it was over FreeBSD... later it was on Windows... so what is so wrong about Windows or FreeBSD at all? Sat, 23 Oct 2004 01:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? erm, what does Petreley's "bio" have to do with the fact that his article has a solid foundation in statistical evidence which he links to in its entirety? Sat, 23 Oct 2004 01:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dear Windlord,

I will answer your questions:

1 - About the metodology: My intention was not to face two great os that i love. My intention was to test on my hard whats goin on with this two os. When big companies make a benchmark they uses the best hard of the market or that one that is certified to that OS. I test these OS on a common hard without certifications. I use bechmark programs from Internet (I will mention some) and i use some scripts created by myself. And to make a qualification i merge Bechmark+People Experience+My Experience+Logical Results by the enviroment (Errors or things that happend during the test)
For each feature i implement it based on my experience and based too on articles on INTERNET. Why Internet? Because everyday teams or companies creates new software. For instance when i was evaluating "Easy administration of LAN Networks" first i made test based on my experience and made a initial conclusion... and later i seeked on INTERNET if there where another way and seeked how other people do the job... and then make a final conclusion. When i was testing "Best performance (OS) in the same Hardware" i used HTTPERF that is a program to create LOAD on a Web Server availble here ftp://ftp.hpl.hp.com/pub/httperf/, i use too a C++ program that moves alloc and disalloc memore (Compiled with gcc and VisualC++) and use the System Monitor of each OS to see the numbers. When i was talking about "Secure system" i make a poll, i use my own experience and i read some important security whitepapers. When i was talking about: "Driver and Hardware Support" i selected a random of devices, older devices and newest, i try to found drivers for each os and i try the devices that i have. For instance Windows won the USB contest. USB Support was weaken on the other OS. And so.
If you want more details about a specific point i cant post it... Just ask if you want ok?

2 - * It's biased towards windows: I really dont think so but i respect your opinion. First i said:
"Here we will demonstrate that none of the two groups is right because Windows and UNIX (Linux, FreeBSD) have advantages and disadvantages. The best solution is one that adapts to the necessities and each client's scenario"
(and when i said UNIX(Linux, FreeBSD) i tried to say UNIX Like OS like Linux (RedHat) and FreeBSD)
Also, it could be true that i write more about Windows Technologies, because i think that there are a lot of people that knows a lot of other technologies used in UNIX os and really doesnt know Windows Technologies, so i tried to introduce this technologies to create a debate about it. And if you look the comments i have been right, there are a lot of people that Hates Windows.

3 - * "Has very poor argumentation: Saying that linux is more secure just because Windows suffers most attacks is at minimun, an unsuported argumentation. " Its my opinion because i dont count how many errors Windows has and if they are less o r more than other OS. There are a lot of "Windows Security Updates" that Microsoft address that i dont have in mid. For instance Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, DirectX etc, because in a Server we dont use any of this technologies. What are the real errors of Windows? RPC Buffer Overflows, "Red Code Virus", IIS Problems, etc... and if we analyze it... these are not errors to, because if you have a good Firewall you could have the error but... the problem doesnt exists. IIS is a security problem? Ok, use ISA Server Firewall to filter communications or install Apache acting as a Gateway. IIS have .NET, ASP, ASPX, CGI, and many technologies that are good... so you can create a Front-End with Apache and the problem dissapears dont you think? And look, an OS has thousand of thousands of C++ code pages. Do you think that any man could review all the pages to keep the system secure? This is a polemic theme too, so i will not opine on this.

4 - "Puntuation is overall arbitrarily asigned" Could it be, but is the punctuation that i belive. Really, who has the absolutely truth? Commercial bechmarks? I dont thing so because if we look commercial and official sites, Windows was the Best OS and the more secure on the World on 2003 so, on who do you belive?.

I tried to make an intresting article that people can read and can debate. I think that i realize that because a lot of people said his opinion about my article.... the majority biased towards UNIX and two or three towards Windows. My conclusion not was what is best my conclusion was "none, The best is that one you can handle"

5 - "don't react as agressively to critics, Try to learn, many people here have tons of real world experience" I accepts critics because i can learn of it... but there are people that say words without any base based on his preferences and if we analyze that there are a lot of comments that said "This is shit because it is Shit". Do you think that i can learn from it?
Your critic was good man, and your comment was wise that people that said "Shit, Crap, etc" must learn of you.

"and you can't despise your opinions with harsh comments, that only weakens your position and makes you appear as young, and unexperienced. " It could be right, i will be more flexible about that people.

Anyone wants any other detail? Just Ask ok? Sat, 23 Oct 2004 02:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well Alejandro,

1st: It's a start, your metodology is questionable, but at least it's a start -one can't draw general conclusions from personal experience, I for one, despise microsoft because in my experience there's nothing in Windows that can't be done with *Nix, with less cost and higher reliability-

2nd. Your answer still proves my point that you didn't make a concscious choice of elements to bias the article toward windows, but there's a bias, when talking about windows tecnolopgies and not its *Nix counterparts.

3th. If you're expressing an opinion please, say so, don't write it as fact or as a conclusion from your study. It's not a good policy to mix one own opinion with facts in a paper.
I admit that you can dismiss SOME of the vulnerabilities attached to desktop features, but what I don't admit, nor anyone seriously can, it's that you dismiss most problems with IIS, they exist, and they're the cause of many sucessful attacs in the real world. No system can be made absolutely secure as long as you have open services, but you can't hide the security issues -that even Gartner Group admits and thus, makes it's advice to use apache instead of IIS http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-6033_16-4206453.html - inherent to Windows. Also as you say many of the application you siad, are desktop features, barely used on a server environment, but due to the tight integration and direct access to the kernel space they've is a security issue to be considered seriously. If Windows used a real microkernel approach, instead of having nearly all services making inroads into kernel space to gain speed, it won't be as insecure.
Ok, not a single person can maintain by only himself the security of all the code that makes an OS, but that's not the case: Microsoft has a team of programers on it, Linux has it, *Bsd has it, etc... I think this is a bit pointless. If you were reffering to the fact that not a single person can maintain a server trhough proper patching, I disagree, though I admit that maybe, *Nix may have a higher learning curve for admins, but once you have a certain level, you're able to maintain several servers at once.

4th. When I said your punctuation was arbitratily asigned, I meant that looks you've not used any uniform criteria to assign it, at the end it looks capricious and biased.

5th. Understand this: many people are tired of papers prone to flamewar due to be biased, poorly structured, lacking knowledge, and tired enough not to argument their opinion. Don't restart to use your experience as an authority argument, because some of those people can certainly have tons of experience on the subject.

At the end, one must use whatever OS his employer has decided to use, or it's OS of preference if he has the possibility as long as it dosn't affect the wellfare of the company he works for. Sat, 23 Oct 2004 08:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? at root:
#rm -fr /home/eugenia
#rm -fr /home/osnews
haha never get junks Sat, 23 Oct 2004 12:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Technical Support 2 5
Windows costs money... so it has the best technical support in the world. We could notice Windows Update, TechNet, MSDN, etc."

Linux distributions come with support. Official, 3rd party, etc. Just like with the Windows OEM world.

"Windows supports all kind of hardware because all hardware makers build drivers for it."

Linux supports more hardware than Windows. Far more architectures to start with.

"System Maintenance 2 5"

How the **** this is so sick. You have to run Windows Update which is MSIE. You need to have MSIE on your system. Broken software and ridiculous that its mandatory. On say Debian you only have to issue apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and you're secure. Same for other Linux distributions. Frontends? Exist, no problem. Automate it? Sure, try cron-apt and do the disco every 4 AM or so. FreeBSD is IMO harder but still flexible. Really, look into this. Tue, 26 Oct 2004 06:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments