Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1520 mails)

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2009-08-04 at 00:46 +0200, Sandy Drobic wrote:
> Ben Kevan wrote:
> > Today I was approached by management (a different division that handles
> > standards etc) and was told that I have to give a compelling reason of
> > why I need to run Linux instead of the standard "windows".
> > I need to come up with a nice list / document why by tomorrow.. but I'm
> > so irritated right now, that I'm having a hard time formulate something
> > in a professional matter..
> >
> > So I'm reaching out to the sys admins here asking for some help and
> > lists of some good reasonings..
> Standard is a nice word. The last time I checked Linux was the standard for
> efficient and reliable mailservers (Sendmail, Postfix, Exim...), none of them
> are available under Windows. 

You're excluding the entire Exchange universe from your "reliable
mailservers".  Which pretty much sinks this argument.  As much as most
people on this list may despise Exchange [including me] it is not
inherently unreliable - it just *really* needs to be configured by
someone who *really* knows what they are doing [I'd assert the same is
true for every groupware solution].

> I would hate to think about trying spam filtering
> on a windows box.

This is quite [very?] common and works just fine.

> Let's move on to webservers. While Windows has gained quite a bigger part of
> the cake, the majority of servers still run Apache/Linux. While here a Windows
> version is available it is still not as efficient and "standard" as the linux
> version.

This is a flimsy reason.  The question for web servers is what is the
recommended platform for the specific web services/applications you
host.

> Let's talk about downtime. My linux boxes need one command to stay all
> up-to-date. They seldom require a reboot (only when a kernel update is
> available). I can then schedule a reboot reliable at a convenient time.

The same is true for any recent version of Windows Server.

> My windows boxes are notoriously hard to keep up-to-date because I need to
> reboot them all the time. It is a bit difficult to schedule reliable reboots
> since the scripting is more difficult and I have to to it every month. :-((

You need to setup a local WSUS service.

> There are lots of reasons why I have both in my company. I am using whatever
> system fits the requirements best.

Which is the best explanation;  but to be convincing to management
arguments need to be more specific.

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