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."

Comments

Windows is cheaper, Mac is cheaper, Linux is ...

[jpt.d]

Give it up please! We have seen more than one of each of those 3. It is getting a little tiring.

Mac is always cheaper because you don't need to service them as much.
Linux is always cheaper because its free, and you can manage crap loads of machines.
Windows is always cheaper because you only have to upgrade every two years and they never need service.

Re:ZDNet is on drugs

[da_Den_man]

I would be prompted to correct that statement...in that You must be on drugs. Obviously, you must be either a FreeBSD advocate, or someone who has had A (meaning ONE) bad experience with Linux.

I would have to state that ANY file system, if dismounted improperly, would have issues at one point or another. I would also state that ANY OS will crash at one time or another. The beauty of Linux, from my perspective anyhow, is that it withstands these glitches with vary little problems. Lets start with the Windows File system. FAT32 is a hack from the original format, and is not recommended for use anymore. NTFS, while rather robust in its overall operation, CANNOT handle more than one improper shutdown without requiring massive amounts of repair and/or formatting. EXT2FS can tolerate MANY improper shutdowns on the systems I have run it on, for many reasons but mostly due to insuffucient power supply.

NTFS indexing is the worst offender of them all as it not only requires a service to be running (which costs time and effort on the system side) but if the index corrupts, you have lost the data on the drive. Period.

This has been my experience, your mileage may vary.