I am a student at Capella University trying to attain my BS in IT Networking. I am just beginning my education in the field. I have a couple of questions if anyone has time to throw some answers at me it would be greatly appreciated. It has been very challenging trying to get through the differing info out there, I’ve tried just about everything but there is no easy to comprehend explanations I have found. How well does Linux do with network security? How well do they install? How user-friendly are they? How easy are they to learn how to use? Any comparisons to say Microsoft 2005 Server Express Edition, Mac OS X Server or UNIX, IBM’s OS/2, Netware. Thanks for any help anyone is willing to give me!

All answers to your questions are relative.

No operating system is 100% secure. It's only as secure as what it's used for, how it's setup, and maintained. Even if the operating system is secured to it's fullest potential there's always the physical security to be concerned with.

i can't really compare linux with other systems, as i don't know much about them, specially in the network security topic. But i know the guys working on OpenBSD are known to be gurus in that domain, i'd recommend you contact them (may be with more precise questions, though)

Microsoft has a bunch of studies and case histories comparing Linux and Windows.....

Thanks for the input. That is pretty much what I understand pertaining to security, but I think they are saying when all is done properly, how do the different systems stack up against each other? Is it that much more difficult to get to the point of correct installation with a linux as opposed to any of the other network systems? Thanks for the help, this is a 10 week course crammed into 5 weeks.

Depends on the distro you choose, on the packages install ... it's
all about choice, and some choose to be responsible and through,
others choose to be lazy and spoon-fed. There's no generic answer,
and that's that. The statistics you find on the web are not
necessarily representative, because e.g. an exploit due to poor
programming in OpenSource projects will commonly be counted once
per occurrence, whereas M$ will refer to it as 1 fault, even if
it's in the code base a 100 times. In general the response times
in fixing vulnerabilities in OpenSource projects is much faster
than it is in a commercial environment.
You better google quick, then ;}



Cheers,
Tink

[QUOTE=KrahnacK;2990822]i can't really compare linux with other systems, as i don't know much about them, specially in the network security topic. But i know the guys working on OpenBSD are known to be gurus in that domain, i'd recommend you contact them (may be with more precise questions, though)[/QUOTYeah I know, all I've been involved with is Windows so I'm a bit limited, admittedly in my experience with different NOS. But what I see is most all make our first judgements on what we are comfortable or familiar with, at least I do often.Thanks for the reply, Keith.

That's what I hope I'm doing by going to school so my lazy as can get a structured curriculum to make me research. I agree that statistics don't amount to much sometimes, but I'm hoping to get a general feeling and maybe a little better sense of things in the IT field (with a broad perspective straight off the bat. I was in construction for a long time then the massage therapy business, so this is another change in direction for me. Thanks for the response Keith .:-^)'

Here, hear, sure ain't been standing still for any one I know in the last couple. Thanks, Keith. :-)