Unix and Linux Systems

2008/04/09




Some of the folks who commented at Linux in the long run seemed to miss that I am
a Linux fan. In fairness, those folks probably aren't regular readers
of this site, so in reading through the short post at typical web scan
speeds, they only saw the negative things I said and missed all the
positive. That's normal on the web today.


Of course the chances of any of those folks coming back to read
this is low.. they made up their minds as to what I am and that's
probably the end of that. But just in case one or two do find their
way back here..


Really I'm a Unix fan


My main concern with any operating system is that it be Unixish
and have a strong shell (bash preferred, but I'll live with ksh if
I have to). Obviously there are a number of possibilities
that meet that criteria. I also strongly believe in open source. I
think software patents are wrong, wrong, wrong, and really think
that open source software is important to society as a whole - we need it.


Macs don't meet the open source test. Oh sure, there's plenty of
open source in OS X, but there's plent that isn't. Apple flunks
my Purity Test.


And yet here I am running a MacBook Pro. Believe me, I am a little
conflicted about that (Mac OS X Shame) but because I need a laptop and didn't want to have to struggle
with finding the right hardware for Linux, I took the easy way out and
went with the MacBook. You can argue that I wimped out too easily, but
that's the decision I made.


However, in the rest of the world, Linux always wins my vote. When
I sell Kerio mailserver I
always try to convince the customer to run it on Linux. Why? Because
it will work better, it will handle more users, it's easier to do
anything funky that might be required.. sure, Mac OS X does all that too,
but why spend all that money for something Linux does perfectly?


I also try to use Linux for file and print servers. That's sometimes
a harder sell, especially when someone has convinced the client that
they must
have a Microsoft Domain Controller
. But I have put up more than
a few.


One area I would like to use Linux for is centralized backup of Windows
machines. I haven't done enough research on what's possible in that
area (suggestions welcome).


So am I a Mac Fanboy? I'd say no - I'm a Unix fan who opted
for convenience. Am I a Linux fan? Obviously. But lazy enough
to run a Mac for now. Confused? Me too..






















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