Hey everyone,

I don't often post in this part of the forum but as there has been several threads about Microsoft lately, I thought I could talk about my own server.

This is about Linux vs Windows as far as servers are concerned. Since I'm using computers for server applications, I've been told that Unix/Linux was far better than Windows for this kind of stuff, and until now, I had to take it as a fact as I didn't had the expertise to talk about the subject. Well, times have changed. My server (patchou.com) receives hundreds of thousands of hits every day (yeah, day, where do you think the auto-update requests of Messenger Plus! go? ) and it is currently using Windows Server 2003. So we're talking about real business here, no speculations, just the facts:

I ran Linux on my server for more than a year. I spent a lot of time understanding how things were working in Linux, I found it pretty interesting but the fact remains that I couldn't spend 1 month without a major problem (email server not responding, web server crashing, very slow server, disk full because of 50GB of unmanaged logs, ...). When the server worked, it worked fine, but it has been hacked several times (the last one was fatal, as some of you already know).  Every month where I didn't spend a whole day installing obscure-and-possibily-fatal patches I was told that my server was extremely out of date, opened to the whole world to hack, etc... I never had piece of mind with this system.

Now, I run Windows Server 2003. Three month ago, I spent 1 day configuring it, and... THAT'S IT. I have not touched the configuration even once since then, the server has never been rebooted, updates are downloaded and installed automatically, the mail server is solid as a rock, and don'y have to monitor any part of the server to be sure that all continues to run as smoothly.

That's all I wanted to say . If you plan to reply with reasons why Linux is so better than Windows, you'd better think twice about your arguments. I don't say that there aren't any, just that the facts speak for themselves.

Patchou

i dont know......you re hit counter is Xed out but anyway good job finding out that fact so ill host on windows server 2003 instead of linux when i get good enough at html or when i get some motivation to complete those lessons

ok....

I'm gonna defend my linux server here.... I have experience with both Linux and Windows Servers.

Now..... A Properly setup linux box is more reliable then a Windows 2003 Server.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/hosted?netname=EVRY...8.0,207.44.255.255

Theres a perfect example. Netcraft shows the servers with the top uptime from a given netblock owner. ev1 now has a datacenter dedicated to windows servers, and yet not a single one, including there main website shows in there top 50 servers.

The problem with your old setup was that you were running Ensim. Any controll panel software that limits your ability to update the server, Makes the server unstable and open to attack by default. If you want a properly running linux server. You need to build it from the ground up, using tested Hardware, Build the distro from the base up, and it will be the most reliable server you've ever owned.

My experience with Windows servers is that there fine. They do ok, They tend to crash for no aparent reason. I have a Microsoft SQL server at work, It crashes about once a week requireing a full reboot. We've had professional consultants look at the server and neither my self of the consultants can find anything wrong. All system diagnostics show the server hardware is fine. The server has More power then it could possibly need. IT's a Dual 2.8ghz Xeon, 2gb Ram, 3 72gb Raid Arrays (Raid 0+1), Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with all the updates.

I've had mixed experiences with both. I've had linux servers overheat, I've had windows servers crash for no aparent reason, I've had windows boxes stay up for months, I've had a linux box up and serving a website for 2 years stright, I had a Unix server serving a website for 4 years with NO downtime. The Unix Server was a 16 Processor Mainframe, But still . It had 16 486's when the latest processor was a Pentium 4 2.0ghz. The fastest proc in the mainframe was 50mhz. That was the best server ever! Until we had a power surge and replaced it with a Dual Pentium 3 server.

Servers are a fragile balance of proper software, precession hardware, Complete understanding of the OS and the Software running on it.

Patchou, I respect you opinion that a windows server is better then a linux server, But how often do you have to reboot it for those updates? On another note, I'm sure your much more comfortable with the Windows server as you program a very popular application on it. But Still, I think that if you had spent as much time as I have working with Linux Server you would love them too.

Theres my 2 cents worth.... Actually about $4.50 worth if I was at work.

Well wj, I also respect your opinion about Linux, but I still got to answer in an honest way:

Everytime I'm talking about problems in Linux, it's always my fault. Everyone is talking about problems in Windows, i's always the fault of Microsoft. I'm sorry but for me, a good OS is an OS where you don't need to configure 30 INI files and know a thousand of commands to get things working properly. It'S also an OS that can think by itself, and that's what is cruelly missing in Linux. If I wanted to a server that needed so much assistance, I would simply install MSDOS and reply myself to all the HTTP requests the computer receives. That's really the feeling that Linux gave me over the year. And, as for rebooting, I never rebooted my Windows server once for any update.

When you talk about random crashs, that actually reminds me of my linux box, not the Windows one. I don't say Windows never crashes, I'm just positively sure that it's globaly more stable that Linux for many reasons. I really think that you don't see the big picture when you talking about Linux reliability. You and all the Linux fans admit it: a Linux box has to be extremely well configured to work. Well, that's a big defect if you want my opinion. You can compare this to my GameCube: it certainely never crashes, and the reason is simple: the OS is made for one given hardware. It's the same thing for Linux.. as long as you don't have configured everything depending on your hardware and the need of the current moment, nothing works. That's why you always got to do things in a Linux server: it doesn't adapt itself to the situation. For all those of you who say that "the server is configured exactly how you want it, it's optimised!", I say "bullshit!". What would you say if you had to change the content of several configuration files, in many scattered directories, each time you want to create a new kind of document in Word? what would you say if, after you install Messenger, it didn't work well until you change things in its configuration file to say how many messages you expect each day?

An OS that doesn't do anything for you is just not good. My Windows server can adapt to the situation, reacts accordinly, and that's exactly why I almost forgot the admin password .

What I would like to see next to your famous uptime stats is the time the administrator spent in each server. And anyway, as I said, my server is very busy and it's been running for the past three months non stop already. It doesn't show any sign of fatigue and at last, I don't have the change the number of httpd processes spawn depending of the number of visits I get each week . Tell me, in what way your linux server is better than that? In fact, may I also add that most of the companies who thought about migrating their Windows server to a Linux environnement realised the same thing and backed down for the exact same reasons I'm giving in this message? a linux server is as good as its administrator is. Windows is just great, all alone .

Don't take all this wrong and feel free to post your reply my friend . I just like to have good discussions with good arguments and intelligent people .

Patchou

Oh... and, lol... I checked the url you gave about the stats... do you realize that most of them must get 99% of their visits from this stat site? these sites are completely idle and do nothing all day long! that doesn't convince me very much (and uptime is definitively not the only thing to consider. I can install MS-DOS 6.22 on a test computer if you want, it will run smoothly for the next 20 years (at least )). Even the first version of Windows 95 would have the same statistics in this kind of condition

* Huuf adds also something

I work at a school and had first a linux server, it runs well, but it's very user infriendly to apply group Policys to set several options (disable some options in word, disable functions in wmp), but had to all do it on 1 pc, load the configuration over to 22 other pc's (it's a special school), also when new service packs are released I have to go trough all the workstations and then run the service packs, with Windows Server, I configure it all at one point, I put the power on the pc's and I can sit back and relax. Also with the users, I putted rights to every group so they do whatever they need to do, If I configure it on the main server, and deploy it, it will be on the workstations next time they boot or within x minutes. I didn't find any good tool that could do this on Linux.

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
My server (patchou.com) receives hundreds of thousands of hits every day (yeah, day, where do you think the auto-update requests of Messenger Plus! go? ) and it is currently using Windows Server 2003. So we're talking about real business here, no speculations, just the facts:

I ran Linux on my server for more than a year. I spent a lot of time understanding how things were working in Linux, I found it pretty interesting but the fact remains that I couldn't spend 1 month without a major problem (email server not responding, web server crashing, very slow server, disk full because of 50GB of unmanaged logs, ...). When the server worked, it worked fine, but it has been hacked several times (the last one was fatal, as some of you already know).

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I have to agree patchou, ive setup at home Windows SBS 2003. And its fantastic, i host out website off it and run the email server off it for our familys home addresses. Also we run it as our local server for logins etc, and its solid never had to reboot. And the remote install features are fantastic

I'm gonna just say this. Windows and Linux have two completly differnt target user groups.

Linux on the server is designed to be a High Performance, Secure, Reliable setup. Windows is designed for Plug and Play Opperations though that sacrifices Performance and secuirty. I wont argue reliablity.

I have a lot of experience with Windows Servers and I can say from running a high demand school on some dodgy servers that Windows is simply excellent at what it does, it's stable easy to use. 

Linux is a cool operating system as well.  Although it is frustrating to see it behave in the ways it does from time to time.  The best Linux setup I ever seen was at my college.  We had 30 p1 166MHz in our learning centre loading a basic kernel launching a citrix ICA client and then booting into Windows 2000.  Truth is we tried this in DOS and it just didnt work.  Linux is more powerful from the bottom down.

I've got to say given the choice I prefer Windows the top end is far more advanced and stable.  I dont see security as an issue in this argument as I have a friend who can destroy even the most secure Linux box, and we well have seen what happens with Windows security.

Windows rocks (Making something work as well as it does on 90% of the worlds computers is no easy task)