From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Aug 21 07:12:23 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA09771 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 07:12:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from wolf.com (ns1.wolf.com [207.137.58.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id HAA09760 for ; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 07:12:21 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dan@wolf.com) From: dan@wolf.com Received: (qmail 16053 invoked by uid 100); 21 Aug 1998 14:18:44 -0000 Message-ID: <19980821141844.16052.qmail@wolf.com> Subject: Re: NT vs FreeBSD To: craig@hotmix.com.au (Craig Beasland) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 07:18:44 -0700 (PDT) Cc: telecom1@erols.com, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <000401bdccc5$ca31d910$0a1e21cb@superbruce.hotmix.com.au> from "Craig Beasland" at Aug 21, 98 01:40:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > >>>1.) Ease of Use (Administration) > > Depends on your background, we had a guy who had a unix background so BSD > was not that difficult. In terms of installing NT is much simpler than BSD. But in terms of resolving non-trivial problems (such as IP address collisions on the local network), neither NT nor Unix is trivial and gaining the skills to resolve issues such as this on Unix is no more difficult than gaining the same skills on NT. > >>>4.) Security (Which is more secure?) > Seem to be about the same for both. It depends on how vigilant you are > about security fixes. The Unix ones seem to be a bit quicker once a hole > gets identified though. You must be one of the lucky few who hasn't yety been targetted by a serious nasty hacker. NT is an easy victim to such clowns, while Unix systems generally aren't. > >>>5.) FreeBSD w/ Apache OR Website Pro for NT? which is better & why? > This would depend on exactly you want to do. If you have a database in ODBC > format then NT is the only way to go (as far as I know), otherwise Apache is > a great option. Sorry, I'd have to disagree. MySQL runs on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux and other Unix and Unix-ish system and offers ODBC drivers. I can think of no instance in which NT with any available web server would be a better solution than Apache on a Unix box (and yes, I run both Unix and NT boxen for a living). > >>>6.) Anything else I forgot to mention. > We use the NT box for ASP and data driven web sites, because our background > is in VB and MS Access programming. If we need to serve up only static HTML > pages or simple perl scripts we use the BSD machines. If your programmers known only VB and Access, then you might be stuck with an MS solution. A much better solution would be to pay for some training for your guys, and teach them Perl and Unix. In such an environment you can do everything you can in the VB world, but do it more quickly, more easily, more reliably, and have a far superior product when it's done. In my current position I use Apache on Unix (Solaris 2.5.1) machines to build dynamic web pages and maintain small-to-medium-size databases. I also run a purchased vertical-market package on an NT box. Changes to the dynamic page build scripts happen much rapidly on the Unix machines, and we have had far fewer security- related issues on the Unix boxes. I have also run some benchmarks, and found that I can get a much higher web throughput from the little P90 with 32 MB of RAM at my desk (running FreeBSD) than from the NT machine, a PPro 233 with 128 MB of RAM. Dan Mahoney dan@wolf.com dmahoney@pe.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message