Linux in a Windows World

Comparing Linux and Windows Features

When deploying Linux, you must consider the overall feature sets of both Linux and its potential competitors. In an environment that’s dominated by Windows, the most relevant comparison is often to Windows, so that comparison will be described in the rest of this chapter.

Tip

Linux shares many of its strengths with other Unix-like OSs, and particularly with other open source Unix-like OSs, such as FreeBSD. Linux is probably the most popular and fastest-growing of these OSs because of its dynamic community and large number of distributions. If you prefer to run, say, FreeBSD, you certainly may, and much of this book is applicable to such environments; however, this book does focus on Linux, and it doesn’t always point out where FreeBSD or other Unix-like OSs fit into the picture.

Linux is a powerful operating system, but Microsoft’s latest offerings (Windows 2003 and Windows XP) are also powerful. Important differences between the two OS families include the following:

Cost

Linux itself is low-cost, and this fact can be a big plus; however, the cost of the software is likely to be a small factor in the overall cost of running a computer. The TCO of Linux versus Windows is a matter of some debate, but it’s likely to be lower for Linux if experienced Linux or Unix administrators are already available to deal with the system.

GUI orientation

All versions of Windows are largely tied to their GUIs; administering a Windows box without its GUI is virtually ...