[plug] Linux/Win2000 feature comparison guide

[Leon Brooks]

Jeremy Malcolm wrote:

Unusually nice of Microsoft but (welcome to Internet time) already obselete.

> In addition,
> many pieces of core functionality are not included in the base product -
> such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) data encryption support - and must be
> acquired, installed, and configured separately, further complicating
> tasks for system administrators.

1. it's a one-liner with any modern version of RPM (both download and install),
apt-get or whatever.

2. As of last month, that's no longer so. Mandrake 7.2 ships with the full monty
now that it's legal, and previous versions offered to automagically download and
install same from outside the 'States anyway.

> In addition, although a large number of
> graphical administration tools are provided, most advanced configuration
> or administration tasks still require direct editing of configuration
> files or the use of command-line utilities, a burden that demands
> administrators with considerable UNIX skills and expertise.

Sorry, must disagree. You can edit these things with GUI tools no more difficult
to use than Notepad. And I _want_ it that way, given that their alternative is
implicitly the Registry.

> Finally,
> many key features are lacking including large system scalability,

Dell's multi-CPU SpecWEB tests made a mockery of that.

> fail-over clustering, load balancing services,

1. More of this around than you can poke a stick at.

2. Who needs failover anyway? (-:

> integrated component
> model for building distributed applications,

Several of these.

> distributed file system,
> user data and settings management infrastructure, and a hierarchical
> directory service.

Several of these, including systems for which heriarchical directories are only
one subset.

...and so on.

-- 
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, it is by the beans
of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the
shaking becomesda warning, it is by caffeine alone I set my mind in
motion. -- Programmer de Vries