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Novell

Novell Doubts Microsoft Latest "Linux Facts" 401

Posted by CmdrTaco from the oh-no-you-di'int dept.
Robert writes "Microsoft Corp's "Get the Facts" campaign comparing Windows with Linux continues to prove controversial, with Novell Inc describing the latest set of facts offered up by Microsoft as "misdirection." The latest report offered up by Microsoft as evidence that Windows is a better bet than Linux is a white paper from Security Innovation Inc that compares maintenance, patch application, and system failures related to a migration from Windows Server 2000 to 2003, and Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 to SLES 9. The report found that there were more system failures experienced by Linux systems administrators, and that more patches needed to be applied to the Linux systems, while more time was required to complete the Linux migration."
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Novell Doubts Microsoft Latest "Linux Facts" More

Novell Doubts Microsoft Latest "Linux Facts"

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  • More migration news (Score:5, Funny)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:25AM (#14089474) Journal
    Windows : migrate or die
    *nix : oh, I've not touched that server for 3 years, bulletproof, see : 1 year uptime

    • Re:More migration news (Score:4, Informative)

      by endemoniada ( 744727 ) <nathaniel@endemP ... minus physicist> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:32AM (#14089503) Homepage
      The funniest thing I see, is that they actually compare Windows "one patch fits all" to Linux vast number of programs and software, each managing their own updates. OF COURSE Linux demands more updates, there's simply more software to patch!

      • Re:More migration news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by compass46 ( 259596 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:57AM (#14089683)
        OF COURSE Linux demands more updates, there's simply more software to patch!

        And that's not a good thing. It means you spend more time patching Linux boxes than Windows boxes. I admin Linux (CentOS) machines at work and I keep an eye on the Windows ones. I spend more time reviewing and patching my machines than I believe the Windows admins have to. The shear bloat of modern Linux distros makes them a big hassle with fairly regular updates.

        • Re:More migration news (Score:4, Insightful)

          by cortana ( 588495 ) <sam@NoSPaM.robots.org.uk> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @09:01AM (#14089706) Homepage
          Hmm... what's wrong with "don't install stuff you don't want to support?"
          • Hmmm... what's wrong with "His users might need lots of software?"
        • Running Ubuntu myself, I can honestly say that it is NOT bloated. I get the most basic software, everything I need for a desktop computer. Open Office, Firefox and Thunderbird, it's all there.

          And as far as patching goes, naturally you'll need more patches on a desktop computer, since they're running a whole other set of software.

          If you're running a server, you already know to shut everything not being used off. And after doing that, there's rarely that much need to update anything at all. Sure, sometime

          • One reason Linux has more patches is because the patches are targeted, that means a patch for MySQL does not patch other packages, in windows a patch isn't well targeted and frequently patch multiple programs, installing a service pack is like changing the whole OS.
            Another reason is linux packages are more receptive to plugging security vulnerabilities and are able to do so faster because the code is better organized; Vista is being delayed because they are finally refactoring the spaghetti mess that window
        • As the other guy said, don't isntall stuff you don't want to support. Also, I would like to point out that you shouldn't complain that things are being patched. With Microsoft you get what you get. That doesn't mean that everything that should get patched does. I don't think that Microsoft has some super secret coding model that makes them actually have less bugs. If there are less patches, then there are more things that are broken. Think about how long it's taken to get Transparent PNGs working in I
        • Ummm... I take it you leave your Windows apps unpatched then?
        • I use arch [archlinux.org] Linux and just
          su; pacman --sync --refresh; pacman --sync --sysupgrade
          it just auto-magicaly works integrity is taken care of, dependencies are taken care, file conflicts are taken care of. Configuration isn't point and click like SuSE, but if you were ambitious the program is GPLed so it could be used in any distro with modification.

        • Re:More migration news (Score:5, Insightful)

          by doomicon ( 5310 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @10:20AM (#14090451) Homepage Journal
          I would suggest rethinking your update strategy. I support 21 Linux servers where I work, all my updates are automagic.

          I have a couple of test servers that receive updates first (via scheduled cron job, totally hands off). If everything goes ok, the production servers follow suit (again totally hands off). If something doesn't seem quite right on the test servers, I disable the automagic update job on the production boxes with one command. All jobs are logged, and I recieve emails on status. After a year have never had a problem, never had to disable any scheduled jobs.

          As far as "bloat", again rethink your deployment strategy. I use Kickstart for all new deployments, while in my opinion not as flexiable as jumpstart, but it's a great tool. I have configurations for specific server types (Oracle, Tomcat Server, etc.). When I do a new deployment, I just pop in a CD, type linux ks=http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx./kickstart/.cfg and walk away. No bloat, just installs what is necessary for the specific servertype, it's pretty easy.

          peaCe
          doomicon

    • > *nix : oh, I've not touched that server for 3 years, bulletproof, see : 1 year uptime

      If your server only has 1 year uptime after 3 years of bulletproof operation, you might want to check the bulletproofing or the real-time clock on the machine.
      • Or, the local power plant does what it's expected to do. As you're not going to have enough UPS power to last for more than few hours, your server is not going to be up for that long. Even if you invested heavily in heavy-duty power supply, your ISP will go down as well so that investment is usually pointless.

        In civilised countries, an uptime of 3 years may be doable with standard UPSes, but certainly not in Poland and the likes.
        • Where do you live? I live in ottawa, and I don't recall having too many blackouts. I remember the giant blackout that lasted for days, and maybe 1 other black out in the last 6 years. There's small ones, maybe lasting 15 seconds, that your UPS should be able to handle. But I think the only one that lasted longer than a minute was that huge one that affected a big chunk of North America.
        • The local power plant can do whatever it wants. If necessary, my generator will turn on to supply long-term power, days if necessary. And my ISP is similiarly configured, so I don't expect them to go offline either. And supposing that something happens that knocks power to the server itself, at least I can count on my Solaris boxen to all reliably come back up on their own when power is restored.
    • Yeah this is so true. Windows servers usually have to be upgraded every few years or you risk losing access to bug and security fixes. With Linux you always have updates to the security fixes, no matter how old you system is. I don't really see why you would migrate from SUSE 8 to SUSE 9 rather than just update a few key packages you happen to be using. For a web server, update Apache, maybe MySQL or PostgreSQL, and probably the kernel, if there are big changes that actually affect you. No reason to go
    • The report found that there were more system failures experienced by Linux

      I know when I think of Linux, I think of all the reboots, system halts and failures, and when I think of Windows I think of long-term servers that just run and run and run, even dry-walled over [techweb.com] ... but hey, that's probably just 'cause I read the Executive Summary.

    • Windows : migrate or die
      *nix : oh, I've not touched that server for 3 years, bulletproof, see : 1 year uptime

      The "Linux" that Novell sells comes with forced upgrades, too. After five to seven years (depending how early you adopt a new release), it's over and you have to upgrade.

      The nice thing about free software is that you don't have to play by the rules set by vendors. Obviously, Novell can't really push that point.
    • The problem with Microsoft's reasoning is that there isn't usually any good reason to upgrade a Unixish system unless you need better hardware support. Sometimes there are new features available, but you can usually get these without needing to upgrade your kernel and OS userland. For instance, at my old job, we were running Solaris 7 on a couple of servers. We had no need to upgrade to Solaris 8 or 9. We upgraded sendmail and bind on one of them, but that's the nice thing about Unix. It's very modular and

  • i read it! (Score:4, Informative)

    by raffe ( 28595 ) * on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:28AM (#14089481) Journal
    I know! I just read [slashdot.org] about it!
    You can even ask the author [slashdot.org] about it!

  • Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spikestabber ( 644578 ) <spike@@@spykes...net> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:28AM (#14089483) Homepage
    So windows comes with no applications that need patching, and look of all the security patches required for JUST the OS! Linux on the other hand comes with hundreds of applications not related to the OS. You get a complete server in a box with all the tools needed, mysql, php, etc. THESE ARE WHAT NEED PATCHES IN MOST CASES! Microsoft provides you nothing with windows.
    • You get IIS.

      No, I didn't say you wanted it, but you do get it.

    • Re:Rubbish (Score:2, Informative)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 )
      Microsoft provides you nothing with windows

      This would be insightful if things like this [microsoft.com] weren't in the shrink-wrap from Microsoft. You know, the OS, a complete web server, mail platform, fax handling, SQL server, firewalling, collaboration suite, and remote access/routing tools all in a single install. Most small businesses that do set up MS-based server solutions go exactly this route and save themselves a lot of trouble and money. And yes, you can pretty much secure and patch all of it with a couple of
      • Darn... I looked really hard, but I could not find the price of that software in the page... anyone?
        • Approx. 650$ through Dell with a server. However, SBS is a royal pain in the ass, and I wish I'd never touched it. If you want to have two servers, you have to install W2k3 standard on your SBS server and buy a copy of Exchange and all the other software it comes with. SBS must contain all the catalogs, and must be a domain controller. You cannot have a trust with another domain.

          So all that money you "saved" with SBS gets thrown in the crapper when you aren't a small small-business anymore. You have to
        • Dell's price with their servers is:

          Microsoft Small Business Server Basic - $500
          with Microsoft Computers you need a CAL for every user or computer:
          Client Access License for Small Bus. Server - $90 each

          Red Hat Linux ES 4 with 1 year subscription $350
          Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 with 1 year subscription $269

          So for a 50-user network you are looking at about $5000 with MS Small Bus. Server compared with the prices above for a GNU/Linux Server (or you can simply download your own favorite Distro and use that).

    • The general vs the specific case. (Score:5, Informative)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @09:30AM (#14089939)
      In general, you are correct.

      In the specific case of this specific "study", the criteria were such that the SuSE sysadmins were required to download and install code from the mysql site and back-port patches from SLES 9 to their SLES 8 systems, themselves.

      Without being allocated the time to correctly test those systems.

      Meanwhile, no non-Microsoft patches were installed on the Windows boxes.

      It isn't the number of patches, it is the patches themselves. I can apply a hundred patches (or more) to my Ubuntu box quickly and easily. And because 99.9% of them do not require a system reboot, I can easily test them.

      This "study" was setup so that SuSE would fail. That's all there is to it.
    • Linux on the other hand comes with hundreds of applications not related to the OS.

      Why are all these applications cluttering the filesystem anyway, considering they are not needed?

  • Apples and Pears (Score:5, Insightful)

    by endemoniada ( 744727 ) <nathaniel@endemP ... minus physicist> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:29AM (#14089486) Homepage
    Come on now, people. Don't we all know not to trust simple advertising?

    We all know Microsoft ain't gonna say anything bad about their product, so why even bother?

    I'm sure Windows has it's uses, but you simply can't compare a system like Windows to a system like SLES they way that they do. They're vastly different systems, built with different things in mind.

    Apples and pears, my friends. Apples and pears...

    • ``Come on now, people. Don't we all know not to trust simple advertising?''

      Maybe we do know better than that. Still, I think even advertising shouldn't be a blanket license for lies and deception. If the advertisement presents provably incorrect information, I say sue the advertiser.
      • Yeah... Well, the thing is that they never flatout lie. They bend the truth to work FOR them, while fraining from breaking it alltogether.

        We can't sue them, because the way they see it, it's true. It's just that we all know that it's not the whole truth, and we know it's not really like that.

        In a perfect world, no one would lie. In said world, there would only be monopolized companies, since only one single company could claim to be "The Best" without lying :)

    • Re:Apples and Pears (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:42AM (#14089581) Homepage Journal
      ``Come on now, people. Don't we all know not to trust simple advertising?''

      Of course, this is not presented as an advertisement. Some study performed outside Microsoft found Windows to be superior. It's not Microsoft saying this, it's some independent group! Surely, you can trust those? _You_ may know that this group wasn't so independent after all, but how many people are going to read the findings and decide that Linux is all smoke and mirrors?

  • .exe files (Score:5, Funny)

    by jlebrech ( 810586 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:29AM (#14089487) Homepage
    microsoft has better .exe files that linux.

  • And don't forget... (Score:5, Funny)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:31AM (#14089501)
    MSCEs dress better than *nix sysadmins, too!

  • Well... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:33AM (#14089519)
    Microsoft just doesn't understand that one's Linux distro doesn't need to be on the cutting edge to be functional. Case and point:

    Windows 98 (latest patches) running Apache = Big security risk.
    Red Hat 5 (latest patches) running Apache = Solid

    • Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by plj ( 673710 )
      Red Hat 5 (latest patches) running Apache = Solid

      Um. Unless you have a huge staff backporting things in-house, where are you going to get those latest patches for that?

      • Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)

        by wormbin ( 537051 )

        The parent should be modded up.

        I'm not aware of any distributions as old as redhat 5 that are still being patched. Connecting a redhat 5 system to the internet would be a huge security risk. Sure, you could patch it yourself but that is a lot more work that upgrading.

        Redhat 7.3 is still being patched by fedoralegacy [fedoralegacy.org]. Maybe there is an old version of debian that is still being patched?

      • Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by einhverfr ( 238914 )
        Iirc, the 2.2 kernel is still being occasionally patched (does RH5 work with Linux 2.2?), so if you take that, follow security email lists, and are willing to compile your own software, it should be fine.

        Might not be supported by Red Hat, and might slowly drift away from a Red Hat source base, but it isn't that hard to do (or even automate provided you are willing to download each source package once).

        Some of my customers are still maintaining RH 7.3, RH 8, and RH 9 systems.

  • Security Innovation Inc (Score:4, Informative)

    by glengineer ( 697939 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:33AM (#14089520)
    Security Innovation Inc - aren't they owned or at least funded by Microsoft? Move along please ... nothing new to see here .....

  • From the article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beq ( 458372 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:34AM (#14089525)
    "The study compared the experiences of three expert administrators on each side, a number that Security Innovation itself admitted was "too small to provide conclusive statistical comparisons."

    Conclusive statistical comparisons?!?!? How about any statistical comparisons? Why, I could find 3 "expert" linux administrators who'd say just about anything I wanted them to say. Anecdotes do not evidence make, but they do strike that folksy note so beloved of advertisers.

  • Microsoft = poo (Score:5, Informative)

    by nkntr ( 583297 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:36AM (#14089541)
    I run a Samba 3 / OpenLDAP network that spans fifty branches in twelve states, and I am here to tell you that once we got rid of Microsoft, our (systems) support problems went through the floor. The Microsoft clients still suck just as bad, though. By the way, all of our routers are Linux based (Freeswan, netfilter/IP2Route, Snort), as well, and for wireless we run Sveasoft's Linux based software on Linksys (Cisco) Wrt54gs's and Wap54g's. I could not be more happy (or late night phone-call free).
    • The other poster is correct.

      Even though that has been done, it hasn't been done that much :) Samba deployment, although impressive, is not all that well known about on the enterprise level.

      You might consider consulting with your company to release some kind of study on the migration. It's good publicity for your company, and a big resume builder for you.

      It always helps with your references when the people you interview with have already ready your research :)

      • Re:Microsoft = poo (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nkntr ( 583297 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @11:37AM (#14091516)
        I would love to know what I should post to show what we have done. I wrote the majority of the code, and it works so well, and deploys in minutes (I have a BDC generation script that will take a blank computer and create a working LDAP enabled BDC and join it to the Samba Domain in less than 15 minutes.)

        We use Via EPIA Eden chipset motherboards with dual nics (the Router uses the dual nics, and I also use it on the file servers for hardware consistency). The motherboard only pulls 10 watts of power.

        Our company has 9000 employees on payroll, but only 600 actual computer users. Everyone in the company logs into a SAMBA domain. We have done some really, great things with SAMBA deployment, and router deployment. I have a script that generates a router as well (just generates ipsec.conf, ipsec.secrets, rules, policies, and init in the shorewall directory, dhcpd.conf, ipcfg_eth0, ipcfg_eth1, and network in the sysconfig directory, it generates). I can demonstrate everything that I have done and written, and *ahem* never signed an intellectual property agreement of any kind with my employer.

        In other words, I own it all, and would love to give it back to the open source community, as I think it would make SAMBA a seriously competitive alternative to Microsoft. windows file servers

        I use GoSA as a web based interface to all users and group memberships of the users. EVERYONE should check out GoSA who intendes on using SAMBA over a large group of users (if implementing with LDAP).

        https://gosa.gonicus.de/ [gonicus.de]

        The coolest thing is the auto login script generation -- you simply add a user to a group in gosa, and it automatically (if you are logging on to that server) create you a login script based on group membership. I will try to paste up the script that calls the scripts that generates (ran from a rootpreexec in smb.conf)

        I cannot post, throws a lameness filter, so I cant paste code... oh well.

        anyway, if I get a decent response from this, and it seems appropriate, I would be glad to demonstrate some things/code. I am just too busy holding this company together as head/only sysadmin/level 3 support guy.

        • Re:Microsoft = poo (Score:3, Informative)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )
          I can demonstrate everything that I have done and written, and *ahem* never signed an intellectual property agreement of any kind with my employer.

          In other words, I own it all, and would love to give it back to the open source community, as I think it would make SAMBA a seriously competitive alternative to Microsoft. windows file servers

          Not to rain on your parade, but you might want to check the local laws about that. Your time on their salary using their equipment to solve their business needs usually mean

  • Dear Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RootsLINUX ( 854452 ) <rootslinux@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:37AM (#14089554) Homepage
    I am sick and tired of your shady and misinformed "studies". Instead of trying to convince people that you have a better operating system, why don't you get off your lazy ass and MAKE A BETTER OPERATING SYSTEM!? I swear to god, my image of this company has been reduced to a 5 year old girl kicking and screaming because another girl in her class has a bigger lollipop. [/rant]
    • "my image of this company has been reduced to a 5 year old girl"

      Your image needs to grow up.
  • I doubt it too

  • 'Get the Facts' campaign confused with voicemail (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:40AM (#14089574)
    Microsoft Corp's "Get the Facts" campaign appears to have been confused with a voicemail to instruct certain employees that a fax has arrived on their fax machines. It is not clear how this happened, but Microsoft will be releasing a correction on the second Tuesday of the month.
  • I am very impressed by MS' strategy here. As an IT professional, I've never been crazy about working under the same roof as sales & marketing people. I think this move shows that MS corporate is being sensitive to their developers by relocating the Mar/Comm function to the offices of Security Innovation, Inc. If they want to be coy and call it 3rd party research, well- that's just semantics.

  • Statistics are fun. (Score:5, Funny)

    by SlashAmpersand ( 918025 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:46AM (#14089606)
    In a non-blinded, non-randomized, anecdotal study, one user (who is a certified Microsoft Shill) found that installing Windows XP Home Edition on a non-networked computer was easier than installing Fedora Core 4 and setting it up as a server using Samba and configuring it to act as a firewall. "We found that in 100% of the cases, Microsoft products came out ahead. Looking at our experience here, why would somebody want to use anything else?" Wow. I think I'm going to go wipe my server and jump right on the Microsoft bandwagon!

    • Re:Statistics are fun. (Score:5, Funny)

      by psbrogna ( 611644 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:52AM (#14089645)
      Actual details of the study indicate that buying a retail PC with Windows on it is easier than buying a PC, uninstalling Windows & installing Linux. While not conclusively established, it was also noted that non-networked Windows PC represent an approximate equivalent security risk to a networked Linux box.

  • Duh! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cooper_007 ( 688308 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:46AM (#14089608)
    Microsoft-funded research concluded Windows was better than Novell's Linux.
    Novell says Microsoft is wrong.

    What part of this is exactly news?
    If you go to Microsoft's Get The Facts website, you pretty much know you'll be bombarded with Windows-praising propaganda anyways. Or did you honestly expect them to just stand there and say "We suck at these workloads, and would prefer you to run $NON_MS_OS instead"?

  • Here are my facts... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AccUser ( 191555 ) <mhg@t a o se.co.uk> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:50AM (#14089638) Homepage
    As an 'expert' system administrator (albeit unpaid) I have four servers. One is running Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, one is running Microsoft Window Server 2003, one is running Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (Server), and the other is running Apple OS X Server (10.4).

    I can tell you now that when I first started my company, although I was a major advocate of Linux, I soon found that I did not have the time to maintain a then Gentoo [gentoo.org] or custom LFS [linuxfromscratch.org] distribution, Debian [debian.org] was far too heavy to pick up, and Slackware [slackware.org] felt a little dated. So I took a look at Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, liked what I saw, and bought a Dell PowerEdge 400SC [dell.co.uk] with an OEM install.

    At first Small Business Server was a breath of fresh air. It was easy to maintain, with a full complement of features, having been bundled with Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and Window Sharepoint Services. I actually enjoyed - yes, enjoyed - using it.

    Until backup stated to fail. Until my tape drive disappeared. Until the sharepoint website database got corrupted. Until exchange monitoring failed. Until the POP connector started to thrash the CPU. Until the Windows Update website failed to check for updates.

    These things happened. I'm not saying that they wouldn't happed with another system, but that is not the point, since they happened to me, and that caused me grief, and time, and money to resolve. I ended up trying to build a new system based on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, since I already had Microsoft specific data (files and tables), but this proved even more difficult to maintain.

    I struggled for eighteen months, and then decided to build an Ubuntu 5.10 server. I use Ubuntu on one of my laptop, and had gently learnt the apt- way, and liked it. I set up a server with similar features to the Small Business Server, using Postfix [postfix.org], MySQL [mysql.org], and Plone [plone.org], and even went some ways to transferring my sharepoint data. It works. It hasn't failed yet.

    I bet the guys who took part in the survey only set up a server, installed some applications, and patched it. I bet they didn't try running a business for 18-months, just to see what it was really like.

    I must say that we recently purchased an Apple PowerMac, and were so impressed we are now looking at completely switching, hence the OS X Server. It is a dream to install and configure, but we are going to run it for several months until we are satisfied that it can do the job.

    • Re:Here are my facts... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Vo0k ( 760020 )
      This is the basic problem with Microsoft products. As long as you follow the protocol, everything goes smoothly. But try straying a step away, making a single thing YOUR WAY or just let it happen to be (willingly or not) and you're left out in the cold. Add a button to your GUI in Visual Something, please, here you are, with all the neat code snipplets just ready for you to edit. But decide it should be something different then, delete it, the button vanishes but the code contains several pieces of dead fun
    • Don't get too high with OS X Server - it has very huge problems with configuration app trustability. My Server Admin 2#$%^#^% my server configuration each time I launch it. It is not yet there - however, they could get there eventually.

      And Debian is answer for all your prayers. No, it is not too heavy, Ubuntu is based on it.
    • Why would anyone try to use Gentoo or LFS for production server use is completely beyond me. That's as wrong as trying to use Windows 98 on a production server (although Gentoo/LFS and Windows 98 don't share many characteristics, I was merely pointing out that the writer picked a clearly wrong tool for the job, to represent "Linux".)

      RHEL, SLES or Debian Stable are the distributions I know of which have a change process geared to a corporate (or SMB) server environment. How someone could choose Gentoo as a r


  • Does Novell have horses in this race?

    What team colors are they wearing?

  • There's only one group to trust (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) * <wgrother@optonline . n et> on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @08:56AM (#14089675) Journal

    Yes, that's right, if you want unbiased reporting on the facts and a strict comparison done under rigorous conditions, then the only place to turn is Consumer Reports [consumerreports.org]. Unfortunately a peek at their site shows nothing about comparing Linux to Windows. Anyone for a letter-writing campaign?

    • While I agree that Consumer Reports does a good job of making objective analyses of different products on the market, their focus is on consumer goods, like microwaves and air conditioners, not corporate infastructure like server operating systems.

  • *INX Has One Advantage Over Windows.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @09:04AM (#14089729)
    .... Sony Rootkits Won't Run.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @09:09AM (#14089760)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Windows: Is self-destruction deliberate? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @09:11AM (#14089772) Homepage
    In my opinion, anyone considering Microsoft operating sytems should consider this: Self-destruction is a "feature". [slashdot.org]
  • ...I have to say that I am glad to see that the truth eventually prevails. I've been hearing my employees whining "linux this" and "linux that" for the past six year. But they never have anything to back themselves up when they are faced with a challenge. Just because Linux is the buzzword of the decade doesn't make it a viable business technology. Anytime the dirty L word ever comes up in meetings I smash it down the the heel of my boot by instantly asking the person who uttered it the following questi

  • Balance glasshoppah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by csoto ( 220540 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @09:44AM (#14090062)
    I don't understand the arguments in these comments. We run more Linux AND Windows servers than ever before. Both platforms are more solid and more useful than ever (RHL9, RHEL3/4 and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise). Microsoft's policies and treatment of its customers isn't great. The Linux distro vendors do much better, IMO. But, Windows Server is actually quite useful today. This being said, it's far easier to do many network-related things on Linux (open source application servers, primarily), and Microsoft licensing costs keep creeping up, so we tend to do it in Linux first. But if there's an application we need that runs on Windows, I'm not afraid. We know how to skin that puppy, too.

  • this has kind of always been true... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @10:17AM (#14090411) Journal
    In general, whenever you're doing a task with a GUI, and you're within the intended solution space of those tools, they will be faster. And easier. And probably less buggy... because at least in theory, the GUI tool will configure things correctly every time. (actual practice, of course, differs somewhat. :) )

    An initial implementation of virtually ANYTHING in Linux/Unix has always taken longer than Windows. Getting off the ground in Unix is slow, because you're often writing your own tools to do what you need.

    However, because those tools are written in, usually, fairly simple code, using simple and extremely robust utilities in novel combinations, they don't break much. And if your admins are good, your tools will be far more extensible than anything you could buy off the shelf, because they'll match your solution space almost precisely. Microsoft has to write stuff that's good for everyone, so their tools will rarely be a perfect match to your specific problem.

    It's interesting that we're even having the discussion... it used to be completely taken for granted that Linux was way, WAY harder. The upfront cost was tremendous in comparison, but then your maintenance cost was very low.

    Now Microsoft has to go out of its way to point this out. That is an ENORMOUS shift, a sea change. Microsoft wouldn't bother pointing this out if everyone already knew it. This implies that many administrators are finding the tools (GUI and otherwise) in Linux to be perfectly functional for what they need, and they're able to get things built fast enough that their bosses aren't pissed off.

    It's probably a mix of free software getting better and administrators getting more skilled. Both are very good news.

    <rant>Now if we could just get a stable kernel to put all of this cool infrastructure on..... </rant>

  • Perception is Reality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2005 @12:41PM (#14092213) Homepage Journal
    Yes, much like you have to reboot your computer from time to time, we're going to reboot our computer from time to time to make sure it doesn't happen again. - this is the last sentence found in this story [drudgereport.com]. As you can see it is now a popular attitude - computers need to be rebooted time to time. Did this perception came out of GNU/Linux world? No. Not even Macs. It came from the MS/Windows world and I am not going to disagree with it. MS builds these so called OSs that create this perception in the peoples' minds. People don't even understand that computers/software built right do not need to be rebooted at all. Ever.

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