Re: How effective is Linux as a Server

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009, Mike cco_uk wrote:

I would like to know how Linux stacks up Windows as a server,
especially using databases!
It may be called a database server but I'm not sure.
Anybody know the comparisons?

Forty years ago, Unix was born. It became a major operating system
for servers. Linux came along shortly less than 20 years ago, to bring Unix to the rest of us, who couldn't afford or get Unix. Linux has
likely surpassed Unix for server operation, just because it's so everywhere.

Unix was designed as multi-user/multi-tasking from the beginning. For much of its life before Linux came along, you couldn't really afford to
use Unix as a single-user system, the OS was too expensive as was the software to let a single user hog the system. When Linux came along,
it became a more single-user arrangement, not in terms of the actual operating system, but it was now cheap enough, as was the hardware,
so people could run it without worry of cost. But it's the same
operating system that is used in server applications, and since
Linux is about being "unix" it's as viable for server applications
as Unix.

Note the reverse is true of Windows. It was designed as a single
user system, and any server use was built on top of that.

The difference is so much that some still argue that "linux isn't
ready for the desktop" while others will look askance at the idea
of using Windows for anything but a desktop.


Michael

.

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