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Linux Is Cheaper
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is running a story on what a lot of us already know: Linux IS cheaper than Windows. This not because it is free. It is because Linux admins, although slightly more expensive, can handle a significantly larger number of systems than their Windows counterparts."
NTFS, while rather robust in its overall operation, CANNOT handle more than one improper shutdown without requiring massive amounts of repair and/or formatting
Really? That's funny... 'cause my computer, for some reason, won't shut down properly - I have to just yank the plug. I've done it dozens of times, and guess what - NTFS is just fine, no problems.
Lets not go making stuff up, eh?
Wow. You're talking about a lot of admins. I handle the functions of systems administrator and network engineer alone for a site that does 2,500,000+ hits per day. If I had to do it with Windows, I'd be swamped. Because I choose reliable hardware and Linux, it doesn't take a lot of time at all.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
This is all fine and dandy but money isn't the object. It's about what you want to do and how you want to do it. If *nix does what you want and Windows doesn't then the choice is made for you. If they both do what you want but your people are more comfortable doing it in Windows then that's what you go with.
I'm not saying that money isn't a factor at all. Sure it is. But if money was the main factor in the decision for a company, and I were a stockholder in that company, I would be very concerned. If they were switching from Windows to *nix based on cost, I would have to wonder if their eye was really on the end goal.
In my case I operate a public safety system, a 911 dispatch center. Our radio consoles and recording system all use Windows NT and 2K. We KNOW it would be cheaper to use *nix. We KNOW the system would be more reliable. Our CAD system runs AIX and sets a great example to prove the point. All that doesn't matter one single bit. Why? First off it's propriatary equipment and only runs on Windows so we cant change it. Second we couldn't justify the down time for the change and operator training.
It's not about price or TCO. If that's what starts to drive the *nix community then they will lose big time. Focus on doing a job, doing it well, and making it a pleasure to do the job. That will win customers/users in the end, not price.
This comming from a man know by family and friends as a tightwad.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I'll probably get marked as a troll by those linux zealot moderators among us, but oh well.
Not necessarily a troll, but I definitely disagree. And your attitude will likely get you troll status no matter how true or false your argument is. Anyways...
This "study" is preposterous. While Linux has a lower TCO in small lab or workgroup environments it is highly unsuited for real enterprise environments.
I think it would be the other way around. Small environments don't have the manpower for setup, but enterprise environments usually have to custom-build solutions no matter what they start with, be it Windows or Linux.
While Linux has many of the same feature analogs that Windows 2000 does, the Linux ones are usually incomplete or far inferior to their Microsoft counterparts and require a significant amount of time to install (In order to install software X I have to recompile these libraries too?!? But software Y relies on them, oh? I have to recompile that also?), maintain, and upgrade.
If this is your impression of linux, then you must be doing it wrong. You almost never need to hand-compile stuff nowadays. Most distributions not only have most of the stuff you need out of the box readily available, but have sane upgrade systems as well.
- A Distributed Directory Service. OpenLDAP with SSL? PLEASE! Active Directory works well, right out of the box.
And where exactly is your argument as to why LDAP doesn't work?
- Client Policy Management. Uh, I can install Samba and hack away to get ntconfig.pol to work, which is a seriously out of date policy scheme from the NT/9x days, or Active Directory.
I'm really not sure what you're saying here.
- Remote Software Installation? In Linux, whichever hack you choose, it's going to require a lot of administrator time. With Windows 2000, you've got the package installation via GPO's. Easy to setup, and you can automaticaly configure clients with software packages based on the organizational unit (eg. Lab 1 in building 4) they're in.
apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade
- Centralized Management Tools. There are a few crappy third party tools for Linux, but they suck, to be frank. With Windows 2000, you have the MMC tool. Heavily upgraded since the NT4 days, this tool allows you to generate custom toolsets to administer your entire organization from one window, if you choose. Just add a snap-in and go.
There's a number of centralized management tools that get the job done, although I agree they're not as pretty as some of the Windows stuff. They're not unusable though.
- Remote Administration. Linux? X11 or VNC. Windows? The excellet Remote Desktop/Terminal Services software. Much more stable, smoother (movies & sound via RDP anyone?), and not clunky.
Maybe you can argue clunky, but unstable? X11 and VNC are perfectly stable.
- Kerberos, with no dicking around, nuff said.
Yeah, kerberos is still a bit of a pain, but much improved in recent distros.
- Enterprise monitoring utilities. With Linux, you have things like BB and syslog, yippee. With Windows 2000, you have BB, but also excellent tools like Microsoft Operations Manager, and the numerous other network monitoring tools (like the cool ones from Solar Winds).
OpenNMS. 'Nuff said.
- Automatic Updates & Patching. I think Red Hat still has that crappy update utility, sucks if you've gotta update 50 servers that way, though. Microsoft? Software Update Services and Automatic Updates right now. Not the perfect solution, but much better than what Linux has going for it.
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
With an even moderately competent Win2k administrator a network can be almost completely managed from his desktop.
Wasn't the whole point that a moderately competent Linux administrator managed more servers well than a moderately competent Win2k administrator? It's not like they made it up, they did a survey.
One can even argue that, with a competent administrator for each, Windows 2000 can be made more secure (while still being perfectly usable). I won't even get into the whole debate about the number of Linux exploits compared to the fewer Windows 2000 exploits on Bugtraq, because that really doesn't mean much overall.
Yeah, a good administrator can secure either OS reasonably well.
When it comes to pure software price, sure Linux is cheaper. When it comes to the enterprise? Please! Linux can't compete, right now. Microsoft software appears expensive (and most certainly is overpriced), but when you figure in man hours installing, updating, and maintaining, salaries for those people, and downtime while you recompile app x and lib y and app z that depends on y, Windows 2000 starts to look very attractive.
I think the whole point was that even counting all those things you're mentioning, Linux came out cheaper. You can always make an argument either way, but the point is, they went to real companies and asked them about their costs.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
I'd answer that if I didn't think you were trying to bait me into a failing grade of intelligence.
"Yeah well you're a Windows idiot. All you do is set it up with Linux and it just works!" -- That is basically the response I expect from my answers.
The truth of the matter here is that at the place I work everybody's computer is treated like they own it. They don't act as terminals. We don't have policies about who can install what. You own it. For a company our size, it works. People do upgrades. People install stuff. The computers move around. Etc etc.
My job is to make sure they stay up and running. I don't spend much time doing that. I don't have to do emergency Windows reinstalls. I don't have to do virus cleanup. (Despite popular belief, Outlook 2k is not that vulernable. Outlook express is another story...) I don't have to troubleshoot bluescreens. As a matter of fact, the only bluescreen I've seen in the last year had to do with my Sound Blaster Audigy card that has the worst drivers ever.
I'd be pulling my hair out right now if all the BS that gets spread about Windows was true.
(Note: We all use Win2k and the occasional copy of WinXP, Win95/98/Me was permanently banished from this office for being totally unreliable. Too bad the NT line's reputation here is tainted because of that, despite how unrelated those products are.)