Three Enterprise Operating Systems Compared

Anonymous Coward writes "Finally, a much awaited review of enterprise OSes. The guys from NW Test Alliance pitted Red Hat, UnitedLinux, and Windows against each other and rated them on several rubrics. Red Hat won by a slight margin on the basis of its high hardware compatibility and strong security integration."

Comments

Three?

[jejones]

You'd think that the United Federation of Planets would pick one and stick with it...

Re:Three?

[Surak]

Yeah, I know. The triple-boot scenario is a real pain too. The Romulans show up, start firing on us, and we're like "Quick. Fire photon torpedoes!" And, well, sadly the photon torpedo driver is closed source and no one's reverse-engineered one for Linux yet, so we have to sit there and take a pounding while the damn ship boots Windows 2349 Starship Edition.

A real pain, let me tell you.

Re:Three?

[91degrees]

You know, you had me wondering WTF you were talking about for 5 minutes until I reread the title of the story. You fucking geeks really take the cake don't you. Are you that idiotic that you don't understand Enterprise Operating Systems are for large corporations?

Well, perhaps you should read the article before the comments.

anyway, let me explian... The comment was what we referred to as a "Joke". This is a deliberately nonsensical comment designed to provoke mirth. By misinterpreting the word "Enterprise", as the starship in the well known Science fiction Series "Star Trek".

Not actually a comparison with Windows

[Brento]

Read the article. There's a graph with some stats on Windows vs the two Linux distros, but it's not a comparison between all three - only between the two Linux distros. The last page makes it pretty clear when they only rate the two Linux distros, and Red Hat wins that comparison.

This is *not* a long-awaited comparison between Windows and Linux. It's not even a long-awaited comparison between Linux distros - the whole article spans a whopping three pages, and it's woefully incomplete.

Re:Not actually a comparison with Windows

[jonadab]

Quite so. Webserver, I can just tell you, Linux will walk away with,
but I'd be very interested to see such a comparison for the database
server, (SMB) fileserver, thinclient server, and whatever other
categories the people organising the comparison think important.
(Print server is probably not necessary any longer, at least not
with the high-end hardware, now that you can get a really nice
network printer with a full maintenance contract and also use it
as a color photocopier on the side... but I'm sure there are
other uses for which the comparison could be done.)

> It bothers me when I see people with a whole lot of experience on
> one OS and some experience on another OS criticizing something
> about the one in which they have little experience, and this
> applies in any direction.

I have more experience with Win9x than any other OS, but I criticise
it more than any other OS except pre-X MacOS. Actually, in general,
I tend to criticise OSes in direct proportion to how much experience
I have with them, because it's by experience that you learn the
foibles, the things that are _wrong_ (not just different) with an OS.

I switched to running Linux full-time on my desktop about a year
ago this past April or so (though I'd multibooted for a while before
that), and I'm getting now a pretty good feel for what's wrong with
Linux (or, at least, with Mandrake).

> So far, most of the tests I have seen have either not been
> comprehensive enough, or have been slanted by the bias of
> the testing group.

Indeed, and that goes both ways. Microsoft pays some "Research"
group to prove NT is better, and then the Linux blogs post stories
showing that Linux is better, written by Linux geeks. I don't
trust either side of that. And then of course Apple will tell
you that Mac OS X is the best; it might be a _little_ easier to
believe they know what they're saying if they hadn't said that
about Mac OS 8 and 9 too, which didn't even have multitasking,
but even then I'd still rather hear it from someone who gave
each system a fair shake.

And yeah, I'd want proponents of each OS to configure that OS,
and then the people doing the judging to compare. Either that,
or all three OSes should be left in their out-of-the-box state,
in which case it might matter deeply which distro is selected
to represent Linux.

RTFA

[... James ...]

This isn't a Red Hat vs. UnitedLinux vs. Windows review. The declare Red Hat the victor over UnitedLinux. The compare some things, such as max tcp connections and file transfer times against Windows, but never do they declare that Red Hat has better hardware support or is easier to configure than Windows.

Comparison of Windows and Linux: Apple and Orange

[reverend0]

Even though it would be "fun" to see a comparison between Linux and Windows, I don't think it really could and should be done. Mr. Gates and Company would like for us to think that it is a viable solution to everything but honestly, as we all have discovered, there is no silver bullet. So what Windows may be good at something Linux may suffer at and vice verca. Now to know each ones strengths is truely valuable.

However what the article does with the two linux distros is good. Now we are comparing two OSes designed for the same general tasks and let them duke it out.

But in the end, I would like to see some list of strengths.

non-enterprise notions of "transactions"

[LinuxParanoid]

One never knows whether a journalist/reviewer/linux-advocate really understands what an "enterprise"-ready OS is. For the purpose of this post, I'm not arguing whether Linux is or isn't one. But I had to laugh after seeing a chart showing "Successful transactions per second" and doublechecking their footnoted definition of transactions.

OLTP? Database? TPC-C? No. A transaction was downloading 20 4k-byte files.

--LP

Somewhat bogus

[tarquin_fim_bim]

Enterprise distos are all about clustering and load distribution, but these tests are caried out on single machines. What is the point?

Re:OS X Server

[someme2]

ME: I will now recite three random numbers... 74... 21... 48... 11...

SLASHDOT GUY: Well among others you definitely missed 82.

ME: Thank you for the valuable information.

Enterprise Operating Systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they include any Enterprise Operating Systems in their comparison of "Enterprise Operating Systems"?

I mean, like Solaris or AIX.

No OS/400? No OS/390? WTF, Windows?!?

[GojiraDeMonstah]

I thought the title said Enterprise OS. All of the >$10 Billion/year companies I've written software for run *nix on Sun and/or *nix and/or an IBM OS on medium to big iron. They are not running Windows as an "Enterprise" platform.

I'm not talking email servers where a few poor sap CIOs got talked into running Exchange farms, or similar unfortunate tragedies with IIS, I'm talking the ERP stuff that runs the factory, accounting, payroll, and other stuff people have to bet their businesses on.

I realize OS/390 and Windoze are apples and oranges, but come one, they said ENTERPRISE. Now if they mean "Enterprise" as 2 guys and a van and a laptop, then hell yeah bring on the Windows. Otherwise, it's like having a review of the world's fastest street cars pitting Acura vs. Mazda vs. Toyota. The Lamborghini and Ferrari folks are tapping their feet and rolling their eyes. Put DB2 on an S/390 and on the bitchinest Windows box you can get your hands on, then do the test. I dare you.

No Novell?

[Friendly]

WTF? Nice to see that the Novell was once again left out of the testing. Why don't you Linux Zealots try and broaden your horizons. After all the recent Novell is "Linux's best friend" posts the last couple weeks and still they get no respect. Novell would rape your Linux in such testing. Also Novell is now giving away 5 user Small Business Licenses. You have to jump through some hoops to be able to get your hands on it, but it is pretty painless. Novell is by far the best NOS out there, it is mature, stable (600+ day uptimes any one), and has great applications. Also most if not all on Novell'a apps run on UNIX, Netware, Linux and Windows.

For the love of god Linux is not the end all be all of NOS, if you hate M$ that much (I do) look at all the alternatives. Free does not make it better.

Friendly