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It's well known that the BSD platform on which OS X is based is historically chock full of security holes. Seriously, ditch that and go with Windows NT, a solid OS backed by the world's largest software company.

Read what a MSCE had to say about Why Microsoft uses Solaris instead of NT and how most large corporations are fazing out NT in favor of BSD or Linux. While you're at it, try a search on "blue screen of the death" on Google, for a proof that NT is worthless garbage and that Windows 1901 is even worst.

And, in fact, you can point people to documents showing COMMERCIAL Unix TCO lower than WinNT - so Linux should be lower again. www.unix-vs-nt.org

With all due respect, but I still think a M$ network is easier to maintain than a *Nix one.

With all due respect, NT network administration is a nightmare. Try and remotely adminster a large NT setup out of the box. Sure, you can buy expensive and buggy add on software that makes remote admin possible, but it's not as easy as administering Unix. The problem is that clueless bosses and newbies see NT's GUI and think ``this must be easier than Unix''. The truth is that the investment in a little Unix knowledge pays off much better than investing in an NT `solution'.

If you want some more info on this check out http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/.

Chris

What would be interesting is how it [the Intel CPU] compares with the CPUs that run inside most modern servers.

The problem is that you are starting to compare systems, not just CPUs. Of course this is what you ultimately want to do, but unfortunately this is a little harder. There are many more variables to consider.

Some old numbers are in the classic Unix-vs-NT article at unix-vs-nt.org where you have ByteMarks on I*86 and Sparc platforms using Linux and Solaris (about half way down the article).

I don't know of any more recent benchmarks -- I guess there should be some web server statistics out there somewhere.

What would be interesting is how it [the Intel CPU] compares with the CPUs that run inside most modern servers.

The problem is that you are starting to compare systems, not just CPUs. Of course this is what you ultimately want to do, but unfortunately this is a little harder. There are many more variables to consider.

Some old numbers are in the classic Unix-vs-NT article at unix-vs-nt.org where you have ByteMarks on I*86 and Sparc platforms using Linux and Solaris (about half way down the article).

I don't know of any more recent benchmarks -- I guess there should be some web server statistics out there somewhere.

http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/hotmail.html

After buying Hotmail in the end of 1997 they tried to run it on NT. Here's an article about it.

I hope for god's sake your a troll. If not, it's time you spend some time reading the kirch papers over at unix-vs-nt.org

heh...

A lot of people think that " Deja can do whatever it wants on its excellent service," but that's the result of a skewed outlook. The fact is that Deja is a very important and powerful business that controls the window through which its users look on the world, a power which they can easily abuse to trick users into making horrible mistakes. While adding a word or two to a post might seem to be a reasonable way to draw users towards companies that want to serve them, it also controls how those users comprehend the very fabric of the world wide web. I'm certainly glad that no such awful lies and manipulations are being visited on me by my MSN!

Since, when we at slashdot ask for an "unbiased, Non-FUD benchmark" what we really want is something that gives the versimilitude in Linux superiority. Eh, well, here are some links anyway. Take what you want.

First off, some general info (not a benchmark, so it actually contains Truth!)

It may be slightly out of date now that w2k is out, but unix-vs-nt has what appears to be relatively honest benchmarks.
Likewise, PC Week did a review last year shortly after the Mindcraft one

Not a benchmark either, but article on LinuxToday about Linux in the Enterprise.

http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/hotmail.html

http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/hotmail.html

They don't have to:
kirchner paper

Joe

Hotmail was running that other rock-solid stable and scalable OS. Solaris. Billy Boy and his marketing driven cohorts did not want to hand their arch-nemisis Scott McNealy of Sun with such a PR coup. So (showing a remarkable misplaced lack of technical judgement, typical of marketing types) they tried to replace Solaris with a version of NT which did not have proven scalability in such a large environment.

The results were not pretty. The full story (not that you will bother to read it) ishere

Here is an interesting extract for your enlightenment.

In a leaked report, sources close to Hotmail said: "... its whole mail server infrastructure is Solaris. NT couldn't handle it. On the web server, they're running MP Pentiums and Apache on FreeBSD. They're moving to Solaris for threads. The engineering team did its best to run NT - and failed. The issue's being escalated."

Again, sorry for spoiling your day with some facts about Microsoft and their lame-assed non-scalable so-called operating systems.

Thank you. Props to trollmastah

Amazon.com Books, the world's largest on-line bookstore, relies on DIGITAL UNIX AlphaServer 2000 systems to keep its Internet business open around the clock. DIGITAL VLM64 technology keeps data highly available to customers. "The extensive Web server capabilities of the DIGITAL AlphaServer series, coupled with its smooth upgrade path, provided the perfect solution for our rapid growth curve."

Check out the Kirch Paper, the ultimate tool against FUD.

I know about Windows NT Server 4.0 vs Unix but it would be handy to have something targeted to this situation. A study that showed a realistic comparison of support costs, network usage, security issues, and hardware costs between Windows and Unix.

Why?

So that when Microsoft wants to donate to a university with strings attached, people can evaluate whether or not the Microsoft solution with the handout included will cost more than a Unix solution. If it (as it often will) does then it becomes much easier to make the argument that the offer is not worthwhile.

Otherwise cash in hand is a very hard thing to argue with...

Cheers,
Ben

Or, one could look at the facts and skip your poor excuse for a troll.

"The Linux evangelism has to tone down..."

You sound like a puppet.

I've grown sick from a lifetime of having morons shove their (generally brainwashed) dogshit dogma down my throat, while decrying evangelism against their cause.

Wake up.

You mean about Apache? Try the Netcraft web server survey, which currently shows Apache at 56%, while M$ is at 22% and going down (yes, I know that "going down" in reference to M$ products usually means something else). The survey has colorful pictures in it, so M$-users won't be too confused. :-)

The Unix vs. NT Organization has good resources, including a paper by John Kirsch written mainly for suit types who might actually be capable of thinking for themselves.

Exchange is just a plain pain. The senate uses it for, what, maybe 1000 users (Senators and support)... When they were flooded with email last year, the servers locked up totaly. Many messages for days on end were lost. A cluster of Linux boxen would be a bit overkill, but if you wanted to do it, it would be a far better solution than ANYTHING Micro$oft.
If you need some white papers to convince your boss(es) go to: http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/

Our company just switched to Linux servers, away from NT. NT was excessively difficult to remotely administer and install, and we found it to be very cumbersome, with very high overhead. Linux has so far been an absolute dream to remotely administer, and our server implementations have yet to crash or even require a reboot. Now that we have all our configuration files completed, installation is very fast and simple, leaving more time for testing any new changes.
I apologize if this sounds bad, but it is a very bad business decision to change your platform based on a single benchmark. NT is more costly, both in cost and administration. My company's experience with it has been very poor.
If you're having trouble convincing your clients of this, just point them at the Kirsch Paper. It worked for us.

I would dispute this statement. I would suggest that the reason NT is growing is because of marketing and FUD tactics used by Microsoft. By and large, the people making the purchase decision to go to NT is not aware of enough of the factors to make an educated decision.

The argument "UNIX can crash too" is no longer an acceptable argument. Yes UNIX can crash, but it is more likely that a problem manifests itself in only one process. It is QUITE rare that anything will bring a system to its knees requiring a reboot as on NT. When UNIX systems have problems, it is usually a case of a poorly configured system. The same can't necessarily be said for NT.

"who is to say that unix is any more 'stable' than NT?" A number of well conducted surveys. A great deal of anecdotal evidence. An understanding of how the operating systems work. If you care about stability, do your research. http://unix-vs-nt.org

Further, let's talk about maintenance. Have you ever applied a service release to fix a security hole to NT or Linux/*NIX? 1) You'll likely see the fix in around 1-2 days from first report for Linux. How long does M$ take? 2) On Linux you can apply the patch, so long as it isn't a kernel patch, without rebooting. I haven't yet seen a service pack on Window$ which doesn't require a reboot. So what is 5-15 minutes downtime for a reboot worth to you - if you're running a POS system? An e-commerce site? Any mission critical software? Fact is, yeah reboots aren't that big a deal on desktop client machines, but you have to reboot servers - that's unacceptable.

-- ???

But where is this proof shown? This report has charts and graphs much like what a manager would want to see. If you go to http://www.unix-vs-nt.org you will notice you have to do a lot of searching to find comparisions between nt and linux. Most of these comparisons are out of date. In other words a manager might rely on this report especially when cnet is reporting it and there is no counter to it.

Is there anyway what so ever to put this to the test and do a real world test. Pit a nt server against linux server and /. it? I have never used smp in my life (not enough money) and would never be able to do this type of comparison but there must be some way to do this and prove one way or the other which one is real. And I bet that there are a lot of people here that know about bench marking and which ones are the best. Is this at all possible or am I living in a dream world?

A report by D.H. Brown Associates is used as a source for John Kirch's NT Server 4.0 vs. Unix page. They don't seem to be too biased. On the other hand, I couldn't figure out how Linux came in under NT. Even if they were talking about journaling, NT doesn't do that either, and Linux DOES do SMP. They either got their facts screwed up, or they had some reason that they didn't present in the article.

A study by D. H. Brown was used as a source for John Kirch's NT Server 4.0 vs. Unix Page. I don't know where they get their funding, so I can't say for sure whether they are objective or not, but this is at least one in their favor.

This article couldn't have come at a better time. The old standbys (e.g., the Kirch paper) are great for details, but this wraps it up in a nice, bite-size chunk that even management can understand. Icing on the cake for a certain internal memo...

There is certainly a great deal of such material out there.There are strong
reasons for arguing that Microsoft's claims as to the supposed cost effectiveness of NT are largely
specious.

One such report, recently announced by the Giga Information Group states: "a
wholesale migration to Windows NT Server 4.0 will cost, on average, two to three times more than
upgrading to NetWare 5.0.", and they attribute much of this difference to "include the need
for more hardware, greater network admin expenditure and the need to buy additional third party products
to achieve the same level of functionality as currently found in NetWare and Unix systems."

A
summary is available herehttp://www.theregister.co.uk/990126 -000022.html An extensive summary and analysis is available
here: http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/. Microsoft has
considerable problems delivering what it markets itself as delivering.

PS, sorry about the wierd formatting. ./ doesn't seem to want to behave.