linux, unix, windows

[Elena Leontieva]

Hello,

It is again management question. Could you share very general yet up-to-date information/description of Linux as it relates to other UNIX, specifically HP-UX and Windows.

Thanks,
Elena.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Linux, open source, free, scalable to a degree, will run on HP server class Itanium hardware.

Unix, not free, HP-UX is industrial strength and the most reliable OS I have ever seen.

Windows, will work with both, but I recommend doing little else other than user desktop apps on it.

SEP

[Arunvijai_4]

Linux - Free, Secure, Support variuos HWs, Lower TCO, High ROI.

Unix - History, Support from Vendors, Rock solid.

Windows - Desktops and Laptops. Not fit for Server env or data centers.

-Arun

[Muthukumar_5]

I hope this is your thread?

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=956835

Please post a question in any one of the forums.

===

To answer your question,

Linux - It is a growing child to get stablity, performance and scalablity. It is not much used in productive environment. It is growing to reach a staturation level. It is coming with lots of opensource functioanlities and managed lots of world wide contributors.

HP-UX - It is commertial. It gives performance, stablity and scalablity. Production environements are using machines with HP-UX, Solaris or AIX. It is having good inbuilt functionalities and opensource products can be portable to it.

Windows - It is desktop based and useful for itermediate level productive environments. Opensource products are started to be portable to windows.

If you are going for performance, stablity and scalablity, cheap cost then go for FreeBSD.

hth.

[Bharat Katkar]

Hi Elena,
Now in Linux Forum let me just talk about Linux.
This is what people talk about this OS. Though it sounds true i can't guarantee the contents.

=========================================
The bottom line seems to be that Linux definitely has it's place in the
future of IT, but it's not the panacea that (some) are touting it as.
Most people who responded have at least a couple of years experience
administering Linux. Everyone seemed to agree that Linux has made great
strides within the last year or so, and has become a bit more stable and
"mainstream". Some felt that Linux was still "not ready for prime time"
(I tend to agree). Some others felt that Linux was equal to, if not
better than, most mainstream OS's.


The applications most frequently mentioned as being good candidates for
Linux were:


1) Web Servers
2) Network services (such as DHCP, DNS, Firewalls)
3) Small Oracle databases


The applications most frequently mentioned as being poor candidates for
Linux were:


1) Large server applications (such as SAP)
2) Large Oracle databases
3) MIssion critical applications (Linux, in general, was still felt to
be a bit unstable..not by all, but by most).


(NOTE: I understand that some may disagree with the above criteria. I'm
only presenting a general concensus based on all the responses I
received. I'm sure that there are "exceptions" out there.)


Just about everyone agreed that RedHat support was severely lacking (the
expression most commonly used to describe RedHat support was "it's a
joke"). The overwhelming recommendation was to purchase HP support if
you plan to implement RedHat Linux in any medium or large scale form.


It's interesting that this issue can create so much emotion; on both
sides of issue (for and against). I, like most people, am suspicious of
extremes. I don't believe Linux will save the Universe, but I also
don't believe that Linux is evil and should be abolished. <--(Well..at
least when I've calmed down a bit after spending hours trying to get a
driver to load.)


I think some of the emotion against Linux isn't necessarily an issue
with Linux, per se. It's more the frustration with having a solution
shoved down your throat solely based on numbers, not on technical
feasibility; and this decision is often made by those who couldn't
compile a kernel if their life depended upon it. Even those who were
strongly in favor of Linux felt that the decision to move an application
to Linux needed to be based on technical merit, and not on financial
savings alone.


I found it interesting (but not surprising) that many who responded
about Linux mentioned "outsourcing" in almost the same breath. In
today's IT world there are some scary things going on; many decisions
appear to be based solely on the bottom line and the human cost is
completely ignored (or simply considered unimportant). Working
hard and being good at what you do is no longer enough; you have to
compete with someone making $5,000 a year, and being asked to implement
a "cheap" solution, with no regard to the amount of work involved to
install and then maintain that environment, only adds to the anxiety,
frustration, and stress.

For myself, I will continue in my struggle to become well-versed with
the Linux Operating system; I can see the writing on the wall and, like
it or not, the words spell out "Linux". Maybe I just don't have enough
experience yet, but I still am a bit leery of having to maintain several
Linux servers. It took me over a week to get the Linux cluster OS up
and running. The network card wasn't recognized so I had to find the
driver at www.hp.com. The instructions to install the driver included
recompiling the kernel (this is why I was concerned to read that
recompiling the kernel can invalidate your support agreement); the
instructions for configuring the Emulex HBA card were 53 pages long.
When I install an HBA card or a network card on an HP-UX server I simply
install the card, run swinstall to load the driver, and reboot....it's
done.

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to respond. I know that
there are many Linux user groups out there, in fact, almost too many;
it's confusing trying to figure out which one to join. I've always
gotten such great responses from this particular mailing list and this
particular post was no exception. "
===========================================

Picked up from the link:
http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/HP-UX-Admin/2004-07/0040.html
:)

Regards,

[Aco Blazeski]

At our site we have Tru64, Solaris, Windows and Linux AS

In my opinion, from our experience:

- Windows: if in your company you have non-IT person, then Windows for Directory Services (AD), mail (Exchange), and maybe small databases (SQL)

- Commercial UNIX for serious tasks, large Oracle databases, demanding applications and proccesses where stability, reliablility (and so on) is required

- I don;t think that Linux is ready for some very serious production tasks. For example linux cluster software (in my opinioin) is far behind for example tru64 cluster. We have a couple of Linux clusters and I can't say that we had no problems

Regards

[Guru Dutta]

Hi ,

Linux is open source,the kernel is flexible,it supports good scalability,supports clusters(MOSIX etc...) and is available also on Itanium(HP).

HPUX is a excellent stable OS with the constraint its not open source.
As far as Windows is concerned I would rather discourage to use it as a server OS.

Thanks,
Dutta

[Alessandro Pilati]

Elena,
in add to other answers, other links for you:
WINDOWS vs UNIX
http://hosting.soundtrax.net/unix_or_windows.htm

LINUX vs WINDOWS
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/33089.html

UNIX vs WINDOWS
http://www.brandblast.com/hosting/web-hosting-unix-vs-windows.html

Cheers,
Alessandro