| Professional administration (Command-Line Utils) | 5 | 2 |
| - This is a real thing. FreeBSD like other UNIXes is a command line OS build on the basis of the command line work and Windows is an OS build on the basis of a Graphical Interface (Remember the first NT). Today are improvements in Windows like in FreeBSD... but there are not a Windows "Command-Line" Server so you depend on the GUI to do some administrative tings. And notice that un FreeBSD you have a /etc that holds all configuration and you can modify anything using a text editor. But in Windows the registry is a mystery.... don't you think? | ||
| System Maintenance | 2 | 5 |
|
- Windows: Software Upgrades, Patches, Service Packs and implementation of new
versions of application is an easy task. First we have Software Update
Services. This is a service that automatically distribute patches and
service packs into a network and helped with Active Directory it can install
automatically these patches on client machines making an Up-To-Date Network. We
have MSI (Microsoft System Installer) too, that takes charge
of controlling the installation of applications and the control of
software versions. With this technology (and with Software Shadow Copy and .NET
Framework) windows minimized the DLL Hell problem because has a copy of
different versions of the same library and dynamically manage wich
library is the most adequated to work with. DLL Hell: Problem that appears on Windows and UNIX. Suppose that you have an application that use a specific version of a shared library and you install other program that needs to use a newer version of the same library. If you upgrade the library to the newer version maybe your old program doesn run. What do you do?. This is the DLL Hell problem. |
||
| Fast and Secure communications (TCP/IP) | 5 | 4 |
| This is relative too, because there are many opinions
about that. I will put here my experience in my custom scenario. I have a
Server that is acting as a gateway between Internet and my Lan and of course
this requires extreme security because there are many Attacks on Internet. So i
decided to configure a FreeBSD Server with it's integrated firewall and
Squid acting as Proxy and a Windows Server 2003 using ISA Server 2004. ISA
Server has more features than Squid+fw and seems to be more powerful so
why i gave 5 to FreeBSD? It's a simply reason: the Kernel. We could configure (programmatically of course) the Kernel to only do the functions that we need, and we eliminate that functions that doesn't interest us. Also we install FreeBSD in Secure Mode, and only install the packages that basically we need. You can imagine which were the results: FreeBSD was Fastest acting as a Proxy/Gateway! Windows: Loads a lot of services that ISA Needs to run, and performance was worse than FreeBSD. But remember that in a real scenario maybe you will want to loss a bit of performance and give more features, so there are not a big difference between Windows and FreeBSD. |
||
| Driver and Hardware Support | 2 | 5 |
| That is classical. Windows supports all kind of hardware because all hardware makers build drivers for it. FreeBSD, and other UNIXes only support drivers built for them and those that the community ports. | ||
| Amount of Services and commercial Applications | 2 | 5 |
| This is the hard reality, there are more companies that build hardware for Windows rather than build it for UNIXes. | ||
| Amount of Services and free Applications | 5 | 4 |
| There are a big community that builds tools and applications for
UNIXes. But why windows got 4 and not 2 or 0? Because this tools can
be used in windows too. For instance, Apache runs on Windows too. Also exists
Windows Services for UNIX, exist UNIX Emulators and many tools that facilitate
the port of UNIX software to Windows. Of course software generally runs
better on the native host operating system. We could say that from UNIX to Windows software can be ported too, but, WINE (Tool to port from Windows) runs stable running a windows Program? mmm... i don't think so. |
||
| Technical Support | 2 | 5 |
| Windows costs money... so it has the best technical support in the world. We could notice Windows Update, TechNet, MSDN, etc. | ||
The chart speaks for itselt. Each OS has favorable and unfavorable features. So our recommendation is the following one:
If you or your company are not interested in Computer Services or it is not the main objective and you doesn't want to spend time and money developing applications the best option is to pay the licenses of Windows 2003 Small Business Server for example. The primary cost will be quite big, but the maintenance is extremely cheap and the stability of the system will be good and it won't need of a net administrator that makes configurations constantly and maintaining the server daily, because Windows offers many possibilities of Automation. However, if you use some version of UNIX, for example FreeBSD that is the one that I like, you will have to compile things, you will be upgrading the OS every week, and you will have to adapt each service to your necessities using programation or command line tools, thing that with Wizards in Windows can be made.
If you or your company is an ISP or they are devoted to the creation of applications, or they offers some type of computer service in general, I believe that the best option would be some free version of an OS (for example FreeBSD) because they could reprogram the operating system completely and they can eliminate the modules of the OS that they doesn't need, as well as to create new sections according to it's necessities. Also for a programmer the best option is this because it has all the freedom to create code and has many utilities that it can use. The cost of the OS is free.
So I believe that this it is a point to think and to debate. And those that continue discussing on that it is better after reading this article I tell him: "Performance and security are not in the operating system. They are in the maintenance and the net administrator's dedication."
About the author:
My Name is Alejandro Tamayo Castillo, I am an student of Mathematics and
Cybernetics of University of Havana Cuba. I have passed many courses of
Network's Administrator,Windows Server, UNIX, C, C++, C#, .NET Programmer, and
others, and i am intrested on post my own experience. My natural languaje is
Spanish, but i know how to write English (i think).
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
- "Head to Head, Page 1/2"
- "Head to Head, Page 2/2"
