Hi,

Anyone care to comment on these server operating systems? I'll start:

In my opinion, FreeBSD is the most stable, Windows Server is the most user friendly and Red Hat is in the middle - a combination of the stability of FreeBSD with the friendly GUI of Windows (with X Window).

Windows and Red Hat supports more hardware types than FreeBSD, however FreeBSD works well (much better than Red Hat or Windows) under heavy traffic. If you have ever realised, most large sites run FreeBSD or other kinds of BSD - Sites with 1TB+ downloads everyday. Microsoft's Hotmail once ran on BSD (This was before the site remake about two years ago).

But the most stable OS I know of is probably BSD/OS. BSD/OS is known for running for years without crashing or needing a reboot.

if im not mistaken, BSD and REDHAT running on the same OS, that is Linux, and both support KDE for user interface. so, imho, i quite disagree to compare BSD and REDHAT as a platform rather than a distro or package. and when we are talking about server, both are running the same things, xcept for the tweaks.

most of sytems admin will go for Webmin for their tools to configure the Linux (server, os, hardware, and softwar). and it is a good practice since it is not a good idea to get addicted with a certain distro, and go blank when it come to another distro. so, once again, when we are talking about server operating systems, Webmin will come into the picture (for Linux), and the UI is just the same.

but, if we are talking about non-server operating systems, such as for end user to do their day-to-day works, then I difinitely go for BSD. they tweak the interface for easy navigation compared to RedHat.

how about microsoft windows server? imho, it has easy navigation, but too dependent. what i mean dependent is that the system administrator must alert for any new SP available from microsoft and install it from time to time, and talking about microsoft, we have to reboot it, that mean, taking it down for rebooting. whereas with Linux, we only have to stop the required process, apply the patch, and restart it back without taking the whole system down for booting.

just my 2cents...

BSD and Redhat are different. You could say that Redhat Linux and Mandrake Linux are just different distributions, but BSD is different. BSD and Redhat have different kernels.

BSD started from UNIX over 20 years ago. Linux started from Linus Torvalds in 1993.

Really? You would use BSD for a non-server operating system? Am I missing something here? IMHO, if I were to choose between BSD and Redhat for an end-user OS, I would go with Redhat. Have you tried the new Red Hat 9?

What do you mean by 'go blank when it come to another distro'. If your using software like Webmin, wouldn't it be the same on all distributions?

I'm no BSD/Linux Guru. What I have said is based on what I have experienced before, what I have fiddled around with and what I have read, so if I'm wrong, please correct me.

thanx for the info sufyan, and for correcting my mistake on reffering FreeBSD as another linux distro. it should be mandrake. sorry for my mistake

anyway, i choose to put Webmin into my example because, imho, most, if not all, system administrators are using it. you give any unix like operating systems to them (or at least to me), and the first thing they (or i) will do is to install Webmin. so for me, the interface, and i mean the one which we will be using to tweak and configure the server, are all the same, by using Webmin (or the tools in the category). be it RedHat, or our beloved FreeBSD (anyway, by saying 'go blank', i mean that people who rely on on interface that only exist only on one operating system will 'go blank' if he shift to anther).

anyway, for your question whether if that i would use FreeBSD for a non-server operating systems, i can't answer you that because i never use it before. im saying that because of my mistake refering FreeBSD as a Mandrake. sorry again... my bad

thanx again sufyan for the correction, and nice to have alert users in this forum.

* i should get some sleep... darn this streamyx

No problem...

I'v never used Webmin before, but it looks like an interesting program (from their website).

Although you can use Webmin to configure your server once everything has been setup, you will still need to know the basics - such as installing Webmin in the first place. But on most systems, if you're typing commands from a shell, most of the commands are standard so people shouldn't get to much of a shock when moving from one distribution of Linux to another. The difference I think between the different distributions are the packages included in the distribution and the graphical user interface.
It's also nice to see people sharing their views and opinions.