Linux Or Windows Server?

[Mjslive]

I personally like Linux servers as lower resources and over all better performance but im interested in seeing what people use and there explanations for it.

[Atmos]

depends entirely on the function the server would serve.

[Mjslive]

2 minutes ago, Atmos said:

depends entirely on the function the server would serve.

Im talking in a broad sense like if you had to choose one no matter the function what would it be.

[Atmos]

1 minute ago, Mjslive said:

Im talking in a broad sense like if you had to choose one no matter the function what would it be.

Gotta be linux then for control. And you can always emulate windows through the environment if you need to run windows specific applications.

[thekeemo]

Its a case by case basis but I lean towards linux for most of my servers

[Guest]

Linux because Linux doesn't have the pathetic file system limitations that Windows has. Especially for a server I would surely say that Linux would be a better idea. 

[jkalousek]

I think that it comes down to "admin" experience. When I started with servers I wasn't confident enough with Linux to actually run reliable secure 24/7 server. So I used Windows server and put some Linux VM's for services that couldn't run under windows. Nowadays it would be exactly the other way. Run Linux (well Linux hypervisor/VMS) and if there is something that doesn't run on Linux just add windows VM.

[MatthewsTech]

It comes down as mentioned earlier whatever you're most comfortable with. My work focus on Windows Server, most of them have no idea about Unix / Linux and I have to admit I am not the best Linux Sysadmin but I can work my way around it so they tend to ask myself for some help on adhoc request. It also depends on the environment, most of our stuff runs on Windows and all the backup software runs on Windows, we can also do certain things quicker using Windows and the fact it runs on an AD environment certifies a need for a majority of Windows for LDAP capabilities.

 

I like both, Windows is a bit easier to use in terms of the GUI but I am not overly keen on Windows 2012 over Windows 2008. But I like both, for me it really just depends on the use. I tend to focus Linux servers on web servers and mail/proxies whereas Windows for things like SQL which a GUI is much more helpful for.

[gexacor]

I'm using Windows mostly for infrastructure purpose: Active Directory, WSUS, etc.

If you have a Windows workstations environment you will have no choice at all.

 

But if I need to deploy webserver, backup server, file server then I use Linux anyway.

[leadeater]

It's rather hard to make such a broad type of statement as it entirely depends on the scope and requirements you are trying to meet. If I have to make such a statement then I pick Windows first and then use Linux where it either cannot be done or there is a special reason to do so.

 

Other factors come in to as well since a lot of the roles that suit Linux better than Windows I use dedicated hardware appliances, for example I use FortiGate firewalls for filtering and web caching where the equivalent would be L7Filter/Squid/DansGuardian//ClamAV/Kerberos/iptables. This is something I have done before and will never do again as the cost is worth it for a proper firewall appliance, and no I'm not saying there is a feature and capability difference there is a management, support and time/cost benefit. Also no, solutions like pfsense are not equivalent but do help address some of the problems.

 

If you want a fine grained and tightly controlled network for hundreds to thousands of workstations for general users to use then you will have a majority of Windows servers that is just the reality of it. If you go looking for anything like Group Policy outside of the Windows world the closet platform is Mac and it isn't even close to the control you have compared to Windows and additional tools like JAMF Casper don't fill the gap nearly enough.

 

At work we have around 1400 servers, mostly VMs on VMware & Nutanix infrastructure, and the split is 80/20 Windows to Linux. The Linux servers drive things like our Learning Management System (Moodle), MySQL servers, DHCP/DNS and other things I forget right now (too many to bother to remember).

 

Our storage is Netapp and Nutanix so is another potential Linux role that we use an enterprise vendor solution for, for the same reasons as before with firewalls.

 

[manikyath]

as someone who used both:

it depends 100% on what it's for.

 

- when the system's purpose is to sit at the top of a windows domain, the choice is pretty easy: windows server.

i'd claim that for every company running windows machines a windows server isnt just handy, it is a necessity.

EDIT: see your network as a wolf pack, and the windows server is the pack leader.

 

- when the system is providing a "service" AKA a game server, a website, VPN, chat server, etc. i'd say linux all the way.

a well configured linux server is more lightweight, has more management possibilities, costs less in software, and has MUCH more advanced security features. (know those "RWX"  rights in linux? windows has hat as well, and they're hilareously broken. if i say it should be recursive trough a folder, it needs to be recursive, not just the things it decides it applies to.)

[urkopineda]

Linux for everything, but Windows for active directory management. The user management system is more powerfull than in Linux.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

(know those "RWX"  rights in linux? windows has hat as well, and they're hilareously broken. if i say it should be recursive trough a folder, it needs to be recursive, not just the things it decides it applies to.)

The recursion works in Windows properly but it also supports overriding inherited permissions at a lower path. It's also easy to accidentally break the inheritance either by not fully understanding the permissions you are applying and how they work and also by canceling the permission application dialogue, this one really being a big issue if you don't know someone has done that and far as you can tell the permissions are correct until you look deeper.

 

Lots of of these issues are being fixed with ReFS v2, but yea you can count on Linux permissions to be what they actually say they are unlike Windows where you actually have to make sure and check.

 

---For everyone----

 

Also PLEASE don't tick "Replace all child permissions" unless that REALLY is what you want, fixing a broken share with million+ files and folders in it truly is a nightmare. Just restoring the ACLs from backup for that many files is bloody ages.

[manikyath]

27 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The recursion works in Windows properly but it also supports overriding inherited permissions at a lower path. It's also easy to accidentally break the inheritance either by not fully understanding the permissions you are applying and how they work and also by canceling the permission application dialogue, this one really being a big issue if you don't know someone has done that and far as you can tell the permissions are correct until you look deeper.

 

Lots of of these issues are being fixed with ReFS v2, but yea you can count on Linux permissions to be what they actually say they are unlike Windows where you actually have to make sure and check.

 

---For everyone----

 

Also PLEASE don't tick "Replace all child permissions" unless that REALLY is what you want, fixing a broken share with million+ files and folders in it truly is a nightmare. Just restoring the ACLs from backup for that many files is bloody ages.

i'll rephrase: it works, but on windows its somehow more likely to break, and harder to fix.

 

the reason i needed recrusive was because i was changing permissions on 300GB of data because it somehow suddenly got read-only for everyone but the accounts on the local system (which is a problem for a network share...) and about half way trough the changing of perms a memory leak caused explorer.exe to crash, giving me no automated way to fix the problem because appareantly windows can only "recursively" change permissions if those files share the exact same permissions.

 

result: i had to dig trough folders, manually applying the new perms to every folder that was missed, and for the folders that were done 'half way' i had to manually apply permissions to the subfolders and files, rinse and repeat 10 folders deep

--

i actually asked a guy that worked at an MS datacenter for help, and even he wished me good luck

[Sintezza]

It realy depends on your needs.

Both windows and linux have a certain place in the market on servers.

But i think that a Linux solution for servers in most cases offer more feutures, reliability and better security options.

Thats one of the reasons why Linux is pretty much still leading the server market.

Next to that Linux of course offers some very decent solutions like Linux Suse Enterprise or Redhat Enterprise.

Which are not free.

But there are also decent open source "free" solutions aswell.

And for smaler buisnesses thats still an interesting thing.

[manikyath]

7 hours ago, Sintezza said:

 

Thats one of the reasons why Linux is pretty much still leading the server market.

that's actually an often questioned statement.

there's no "real" way to test this, and different sources have vastly different stats.

- some datacenters and IT companies report all the way up to 95% windows server.

- "surveys" that check the servers running websites report something like 97% linux adoption.

- people who do a rough estimate often guess it's honestly a 50-50.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, Sintezza said:

It realy depends on your needs.

Both windows and linux have a certain place in the market on servers.

But i think that a Linux solution for servers in most cases offer more feutures, reliability and better security options.

Thats one of the reasons why Linux is pretty much still leading the server market.

Next to that Linux of course offers some very decent solutions like Linux Suse Enterprise or Redhat Enterprise.

Which are not free.

But there are also decent open source "free" solutions aswell.

And for smaler buisnesses thats still an interesting thing.

Linux servers is only leading for web hosting, HPC simulations/mathematics and clustered computing. The overwhelming majority of general purpose server installations are Windows Server operating systems, at lot of the reason for this is due to the desktop OS being Windows. Where the actual break down is is not known, private business are not so open about their environments and what servers they use.

 

I am of course excluding hypervisors from the Linux count as they are not equivalent, nothing to say you can't turn a Linux OS in to a virtual host however but general purpose use and virtual hosting shouldn't be run on the same OS.

 

There are also two areas where Windows has no equal and nothing can even compare to it, access control and updates/patching. Patching being slightly easier to solve but it's no out of the box toolset.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2210922/software/windows-server-vs--linux.html

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Linux servers is only leading for web hosting, HPC simulations/mathematics and clustered computing. The overwhelming majority of general purpose server installations are Windows Server operating systems, at lot of the reason for this is due to the desktop OS being Windows. Where the actual break down is is not known, private business are not so open about their environments and what servers they use.

 

I am of course excluding hypervisors from the Linux count as they are not equivalent, nothing to say you can't turn a Linux OS in to a virtual host however but general purpose use and virtual hosting shouldn't be run on the same OS.

 

There are also two areas where Windows has no equal and nothing can even compare to it, access control and updates/patching. Patching being slightly easier to solve but it's no out of the box toolset.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2210922/software/windows-server-vs--linux.html

as before mentioned, i'd call a windows server essential as a "pack leader" for a company windows network.

 

and to be honest with you, when ignoring cost and hardware requirements i'd say SSH (with bash, and its utilities along with that) and webhosting are the only things linux does "better" than windows server.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

as before mentioned, i'd call a windows server essential as a "pack leader" for a company windows network.

Yea I was in the middle of typing mine when your post came up, thought screw it post anyway spent the time writing it .

[samiscool51]

windows.

mainly because i use windows and the organization i work for deploys windows for the systems and uses a domain that doesn't work with Linux systems even tho it should i tested it with ubuntu 5.0 and it worked then 6.0 came out and it stopped working, the way it handles domains changed and the new one doesn't work with the servers

realy annoying now we have to use windows on all of the servers, that took 5 months to transfer  

[HewinFM]

Linux because I can quickly spin up a VM on my ESXi server and I don't need to deal with licensing for small projects. It's a great OS to learn, and very useful in a homelab environment.

[thepriceyman]

On 7/16/2016 at 10:37 AM, Atmos said:

depends entirely on the function the server would serve.

100 % agree

[harry4742]

I really like windows server and Active Directory BUT for home use it is way too expensive (thanks Dreamspark  ) and its getting way worse with Server 2016