I need a bios free linux vs windows server comparison. Any distro or GNU/Linux as a whole vs Windows

Thanks

So long, and thanks for all the....shoes?

What?

bias free sorry not bios

Originally posted by zvez
I need a bias free linux vs windows server comparison. Any distro or GNU/Linux as a whole vs Windows

Thanks

that information is all over the web. windows servers fail in every compairison to linux in everything that a server is important.

more overhead
less stable
more suseptable to all malware
more suseptable to being cracked
less scalable
more downtime
etc... what more do you want.

You're asking in the wrong place to get bias free linux vs windows info

Search the web for studies. Avoid studies by:
Gartner Group
Yankee Group (Laura DiDio)
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute

All three have put out studies that were paid for by MS. And guess who came out on top...

2 places not to look for a lack of bias - a Linux Group and a Windows group. Experts-Exchange is probably a better place. Or you could try telling us what sort of comparison you want: shininess of box? range of keyboards? uptime? downtime? intime-outtime? amount of dust gathered on motherboard?

If you want opinions, narrow it down.

everyone: do not respond to this thread until we get a clarification on the requirement. This thread will be closed if I see anyone offer an opinion before zvez tells what he wants and why he wants it.

Sorry for being brief I need this for many reasons:
1, Trying to change my schools Windows Server to GNU/Linux.
2, To get a REAL comparison not a paid one.
3, To prove to a Microsoft lacky that Microsoft isn't perfect for serving.
4, I don't like Lieing to people so I need a bias free comparison so I can either say he was wrong or I was wrong (hoping it going to be he was wrong).
5, Trying to involve GNU/Linux server in my Internet&Midware class at UNI

I'm looking for Uptime, Downtime due to Viruses or updates, security, management of user load, price of running a server and cost of getting the server.

DARN IT! I just spent 10 minutes typing out a long reply of pros and cons and my login expired. I deleted the cookies, too! Feh. I'm convinced there is a bug in the new software for the site because this is the third time it happened.

Windows is better because....


Hold on, Let me think here


It has backing of one the largest corporations in the world. If it tries hard enough, it might even be able to buy linux. One hardware manufacturer, one software company, one legislature at a time. It is bad enough, that linux is little know on the large consumer desktop market. It gets worse when the only information spread about it becomes negative through ad-campaigns, web marketing. Just enough to keep linux in a dark corner. When actual laws are passed against open source software it gets worse ten-fold. We may yet see the day where a combination of DRM, copyright, and intellectual property laws will make it impossible to run 'unapproved' software. Guess whats not going to get approved.

If Microsoft is smart enough, if Microsoft is dastardly enough, Linux won't survive. All it takes is enough labels,

dangerous, anti-competitive, insecure, unstable

Lets get enough people convinced of that and now let us start using extremes

anarchist, terrorist affiliation, danger to the economy

If a majority of people can use Windows, then a majority of people can believe this. Remember, people would still continue on believing the world is flat, if noone convinced them.


I think its very possible that a software dark age is upon us.

Ahhhhh! The end is near. Save your harddrives, brethren!


Okay....perhaps a slight exaggeration. Nothing crazy like that could ever happen. Microsoft is where it is today becuase it happened to make a great operating system.

Yeah.

Any software comparison, that is worth its salt anyway, must start with a hypothetical situation and show how the various options fit that situation. You must establish a basis of comparison.

There are literally tens of thousands of working servers of both types out there on the Web. Therefore, both systems are unquestionably "legitimate, good choices." But that's not the user's question: the question is, what is right for me, and... most importantly(!)... how do I know? Everyone wants to make good business decisions based on sound reasoning, of course, but "what does that actually look like, in a situation similar to mine?" Good question.

A fair comparison must look at the whole picture, of which the software, the licensing fees and so-on are merely one piece.

i wish there where a bios free distro, cant tell you how much i hate my current bios .... oh, wait, you meant "bias" (do you use dvorak keyboard layout? where the "a" and "o" are right next to eachother?)

.......

your best bet is to just look around, youll find almost no unbiased comparision. But looking at downtime to malware, linux has no real malware for it yet, at least, nothing that can do damage to a properly setup system, sort of a actual person cracking your box. So you can really just skip that, as severs have no need for a GUI or web browser, must malware will be stoped right there, no web browser or dumb user to download it, or for it to download itself. worms on the other hand would be a problem, but theres no real worm threat, yet. In any case, the wort event would be a vulnerability in the way linux handles internet traffic, as this could be used for a DOS attack, or even for a worm to get root privileges. Most vulnerabilities would be found in applications/servers tho. As a server has no need for real applications like web browser, DE's, or anything like that, just worry about servers. Apache is the most used web server. Its used on windows and on unix-like OS's (like linux), it has virually no real attacks against it, wost attackers are script kiddies that only used pre-programed attacks anyways, so they cant break into anything with security. Compared to ms's IIS, wich is used in less places, yet is attacked more often (i dont feel like looking for the figures, i read it tho some time ago)

for stability and uptimes, look at some web site that tracks server uptimes (i forget the site) ... last i saw (a long time ago) windows wasn't even on the top ten list. Note that linux (as i recall) only keeps track of about 400 days before it cant keep track of uptime. But linux has been known to run for years (rare of course, as downtime is required to update the kernel, but it is proof that its possible to keep a linux distro running for quite some time)..... im not sure where windows is on the list, or what the record is for the best windows uptime (but it sure aint one year, i never heard of anyone who kepped a windows server running that long with no downtime)

for speed, eh, that im not sure about. I can tell you that there are quite a few linux patches out there to tweak performance for certain tasks. In the end, with the source codes, you can compile everything for your computer, and have the compiler use special optimizations for some packages. In any case, with windows, you cant go into the source code and change something to make it faster, its true most people wont do that even if they could, but a lot would use patches that do it for them, then hand edit where the patch fail/collide (pretty easy if you do it right).

In any case, go to google and find specifics yourself (im to lazy), but also look on forms for businesses that have looked it over, then see what they did. You hear some say its to expensive (retraining people, hiring new people (cause their windows admins cant admin linux ... i wonder why?).. keep in mind most companies that say that are usually big (thus a "small" impact in the "upgrade" process becomes a big impact that dont want to have)... then theres small companies that say they saved a bundle by switching. In lots of the cases, the companies that did switch only switched the servers, since no users use the servers, they didn't notice a thing, but the costs of licenses reduced to zero for the server, and no real threat of malware (not for a while, but security is also better in linux, so its not likely to every be as big a deal as in windows), and a proven and reliable system thats only rarely known to crash (usually hardware related, or some patch that didn't work right).

so read up and decide for yourself. for me, i use linux on my only home computer, but i like the command line, and know that i need to learn to use something, before i can expect to use it. windows is usually better for lusers at the office (you know the ones, they "know how to use computers", but dont even know what IDE, SCSI, RAM, CPU, or other computer terms mean ... they are the ones that know how to use windows and think thats a computer, and thats what applications should be like. Just let them use windows, and let the servers use linux or bsd whenever possible.

You actually can have a bios free linux if you like.

http://www.linuxbios.org/index.php/Main_Page

Users that complain about bootup time sure would love this. Get enough memory and you can operate your favorite distro purely off of ram. No more noisy and slow harddrive. The only catch is, you can't shutdown or else you'll lose all your data.

The one thing that really won't help you, as you make your evaluation, is the old "Microsoft Equals The Evil Empire" argument. This is an operating system, not a Lord of the Sith!

Microsoft, as it happens, is quite a bit smaller than some divisions of IBM Corporation. But you are quite right: they have created a very good and very successful operating system. I think they do deserve proper credit for that, even though I rarely use their system anymore and feel no particular need for it.

Like I said, if you want a "bias-free" comparison, you need to start by establishing clear criteria for your evaluation. Very often, the choice of operating system is dictated by the choice of applications that you intend to run on it: the application is a tool for making money, and the operating system is a tool for running that application.

Approach the matter this way: "If 'the right system' walked up and hit me in the face .. .. how would I recognize it?" (Answer: because it looks like a penguin. )