In this article I will analyze the features and costs to select which is the best operating system for servers as well as the services that each one of them brings to us.
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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" ?
... 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.
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?
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.
I could comment on a topic like this... but the article just sucks. Technically wrong, very poor. More technical articles please!
"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.
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.
Why in the world would you post this awful article?
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.
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
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.
I have to add my LOL to the list of reviews for this nonsensical "comparison."
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 :-))).
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!
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.
This article really represents a Windows fan. No technical expertise ... only looking for "easy" administration tools
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.
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.
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!
"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.
> 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.
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)
"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.
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.
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.
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
> "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.
this article is just such a joke...
I am a native english speaker.. my written grammer sux sometimes.... //** to much of a geek and notpaying attention in english **//
-Nex6
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
just to name one:
Active directory vs ldap....
the 90% of figures are utterly wrong.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
The author WORK FOR MICROSOFT! No, I'm not guessing, I know him. This article is part of the Microsoft's FUD campaign
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
windoze server is the worst OS out there
Windows is crap. ADS is nice to some extent but SAMBA3 LDAP Kerberos solution is better.
-Nx
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
"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.
"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?????
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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.
I just wanted to say that I'm wholeheartedly agree with everything Fred wrote.
Maybe he could write an article?
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...
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:
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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.
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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 may