School’s Out
Well, School’s finally out. I passed all of my classes (thankfully), and now I start preparation for the summer when I’m at camp. In scouts, I recently gained the rank of Life, which is one step beneath Eagle, so in about six months, I should be an Eagle scout.
For now, let’s discuss Windows Vs. Linux Server operating systems. First off, the goal of a server operating system is to share resources. It could be files, printers, even websites. All of that runs off of some server that runs some operating system on it. First off, Windows Server 2003 has a few distinct advantages over Linux. (For those of you who don’t know what Linux is, I’ll explain in a lot of detail over the next couple of days.) For the first advantage that
- Windows has mostly a graphical user interface. All that means is that you get the pretty icons that can be clicked on. Linux, has mostly a command line (remember DOS???), and that does most of the tasks, though there are some Graphical options out there.
- Windows has WINS. WINS is basically for those old NetBIOS computers (pre windows 98) that are still on the network being used. WINS allows those old computers to “talk” to the other, more modern systems on your network.
- Windows also has Active Directory. Active Directory is a nice tool that is used to keep track of all of the computers and users on the network. It can manage those users and computers from a central location, so that you don’t have to go to each individual machine. Linux has an alternative, but it is very clunky, and not good for scalability
Linux has some advantages over Windows Servers:
- It has all the server software pre-installed, just waiting to be started including Apache Web Server, MySQL databases, PHP for dynamic web pages, CUPS (print server), DHCP (assigns each computer on the network an IP automatically), DNS (allows you to find a computer by it’s hostname), and a few more
- Remote administration. I can log into a linux server with much more ease remotely than I can with a windows server, and with it being command line, it is great for dial-up
- Firewall. Sure, windows has a firewall, but it’s not nearly as good as it could be. The linux firewall, by default allows outgoing traffic, but not incoming, unlike windows which blocks all except for the internet browsing, DNS, and a few other things.
- Stability. Linux is a much more stable environment than a windows server. I can have a linux server have twice as much more uptime than windows, and it doesn’t get bogged down, so you don’t have to reinstall the OS as often.
- Price. Linux is free. Instead of paying 300$ (I don’t know the exact cost) for windows, you can DOWNLOAD linux for free. I us SuSE which is done by Novell, and it basically holds your hand during the install. Very easy to use and great for a first timer.
So, I might seem a little Biased towards linux, but with the cost, ease of setup and administration, the only thing that I would ever use a Windows based server for is Active Directory and WINS.