Carter Maslan

i agree. im running a linux box at home, but its slightly more advanced (Duron 700, 256mb ram, 30Gb hdd). it runs WhiteBoxLinux, which is based around Redhat entrprise server, but its free. i have a spare machine here, Athlon 1.33Gz, no ram or hdd currently, and im thinking of turning it in to a server, to take load off my other one. i havent fully decided on OS yet, but in 70/30 on moving to windows. and the linux box will probably be upgraded to windows too. its a might at the moment. one this is for sure. im not getting rid of my mac!! :P

Aha! But there is a free replacement for your setup that will take care of your nightly updates. IMHO, it works better, too.

Check out yum, or even better yet, fedora.redhat.com

I agree completely too.

I used to use several linux dedicated servers in the US for hosting friends sites, projects, etc., and one in the UK for my home stuff - streaming and as a gateway and router. Cobalt raq's are now virtually unsupported, so I decided to move on rather than become a target. I now run win2k3 on one server in the US and Debian on my home server in the UK...

For a home system I've been very happy with a Debian - it's 100% free including the apt repository, full auto-updating and you can choose to use the stable (read: old) version, testing or unstable versions. A good solution if you want to minimise MS licensing costs - but they're probably not as much of an issue for you soo...

Windows 2003 server is probably real cheap to internal MS staff - and the price was all that held me off using it at home too - it's certainly more feature filled and secure than any of the non-specialised linux' I've played with although there are situations where linux is better still... Routing to name but one. Since moving to win2k3 on my US server I've found uptimes aren't as great yet too (this will hopefully improve!), but that updates are painless and not that common, it's easier to secure, acls are more easily supported, and .net stuff runs on it without as much messing around as with linux.

All in all it was a good move, and hopefully windows update supporting the OS for five years or so should prevent what made me move to win2k3 from making me move to something else.

I expect the situation will soon reach a point where Linux once again beats windows on a point for point basis, but as long as MS adds more USEFUL features or lowers the price they can make it more attractive once again.

Serious server features in longhorn on the pro version (assuming there is one) will certainly be a nice feature if they're there for the class of user that wants a server at home. Fingers crossed they're there...

Rather than Debian try Gentoo, I've found it more up to date, more secure(holes that exist in debian aren't all there in Gentoo because apps are fixed versions), and faster. The only downside to gentoo is that it takes a while to update/install apps because they are compiled locally, but many of them are more optimized versions because of it.

So, rather than upgrade to Redhat 10 ("fedora"), or Debian, or any other other supported and automatically-patchable linuxes (Fedora would even be just an in-place upgrade) for the low low price of $0.00, you're installing Win2003? But maybe it was free for you too -- in which case it *would* represent a good value, but probably not as good as simply upgrading what you have.

I don't get it. If OSes are not a religion, why would you go to the extra trouble and expense to switch?

Alex -
I posted remembering the RHN choices I saw when my demo account expired, and I was looking for a simple way to keep the system up to date automatically (like Windows Update does). It looked as though the price of a single year of RHN's annually recurring subscription exceeded the cost of Windows XP with free update service. I'll look into the options you list above.

In any event, I won't switch my old system from Linux if I decide to keep it running (it couldn't run Windows XP). I was saying that I would use Windows XP on any new system that I purchase. Beyond free update services, my ~ $80 for Windows XP provides a remote desktop my family can use, a runtime (.NET Framework) that makes programming easier, great device compatibility, ongoing advances in XML Web Service support, etc...

Good luck with your upgrade!

I run Windows XP, Mac OS X and Redhat at my house, and at my company. I don't adhere or object to any of them per se (e.g., on 'religious' grounds), but I do object to any of them being pushed as the One True Solution. Microsoft irritates people (including me, and I'm an IT manager for a healthcare corporation, not some mama's-basement M$-hater) because it tends to push all of its stuff as the One True Solution. People like Linux and open-source software, in part, for the opposite reason -- it interoperates. It exists to get along with others. Samba is an illustration of that; it doesn't exist to make unix <-> unix setups easier, it exists to make windows <-> unix setups easier.

Microsoft would do well to focus a little more on "playing well with others" and less on "defend windows at all costs." It would actually make windows better for the customer, in the long run.

Agreed. Heterogeneity is just reality. We’re focused on XML and interoperable Web Service protocols as the optimal way to “play with others” as you say. Interop is core to our platform strategy (e.g. http://www.ws-i.org/ , http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/default.mspx )