Woah there buddy. Have another read of my posts and you'll see I clearly state Windows is a viable option. I'm just pointing out the plus sides to Linux, plus sides which often go unnoticed by many. You want to use Windows then be my guest, I'm certainly not one of the "Linux is 1337 and everyone should use it for everything" crowd. I'm one of the "use the best tool for the job" crowd, and as such I'm pointing out why Windows isn't always the best tool for the job.Linux users will never change. They're almost like Apple users, one step down from technical evangelism with an ego to match. Only they would take the meaning behind my words to paint them in a negative light.
If you think it is, then sorry but I'm afraid you fall squarely into the category that you point at the Linux crowd (and the Mac one - where did they come into it?!) Serious question, have you ever used Linux for any serious server work? I.e. not just casual home use. My work often involves setting up various servers and hammering them to high heaven - I use Linux as a base OS because from experience I simply find it the best tool for the job. I'm no fanboy, if Windows held up better I'd be using that without a doubt.
That's all well and good if you're using it in a trusted, low traffic environment, but that's an awfully old OS now. Exposing it to an untrusted environment would be silly, and would you really be happy hammering that hardware with an old version of NT on there?! The point I was making is I can run some of the latest Linux distros, fully patched and secure, just tweaked a little on stupidly low end hardware, and it holds up against some serious hammering. Even the flashy Beryl desktop effects can run perfectly well with KDE on machines that XP can sometimes struggle on...My father. Windows NT on a Pentium Pro 200.
Can you provide a link to this report? I'd be interested to read it. Saying that they "both have security pitfalls" is a bit of a vague statement in itself - Windows 7 and Windows 95 both have security pitfalls, but would you feel equally safe using them both online?!A report issued recently shows that they both have security pitfalls, so saying one is better than the other is foolish and in some cases, dangerous to your client(s).
Linux is now better than it was when it started, exponentially better on all counts - believe me trying to install Mandrake or Redhat back in the day was a flippin nightmare, and that was just the installer! And geez, just as much of a detriment to security and stability as Windows - what makes you say that?! It'd be nice to have some examples to back these points up, or at least show where you're coming from. People using Windows still gladly accept they have to log in as an account with admin rights whenever they want to do anything, or hit the "allow" button on a UAC prompt constantly whenever it pops up because "that's just what you do." Besides, UAC is pretty fatally flawed anyway. Compare that to Linux's security model where, with any intelligence you NEVER log in as root and only ever su / sudo to root level access briefly when a particular application requires it (which, unlike Windows, it rarely does.) If you want me to explain more about why it's better, then I gladly will... but in short it was designed from the ground up as a much more fine grained access system with much less potential for rogue processes to trash any important files.My point stands. You cannot compare Windows to Linux like you could when Linux was getting its start. Linux is now just as much of a detriment to security and stability as Windows is.
I'm not sure what you mean by living in the past - Linux has become much more of a contender in recent years, not less. You seem to be shouting it down as much as you can for server work which IMO is one of its biggest strengths. If you hate it for server work, what would you say it's better for? I distrust anyone who says any OS is flat out better than any other for any possible task. Despite Ubuntu getting there, Windows is still more user friendly, has better support and is quicker to set up in the vast majority of cases. For some work I'd say Solaris was far better than Linux - in fact if it had better support then I'd use it over Linux pretty much hands down!I distrust anyone who says it is still better than Windows. In some cases, absolutely, but not on all the fronts people are still living in the past for.
If you want to shout Linux down for a particular reason and give evidence of why you're shouting it down, same with any OS, then please back up these reasons with examples. I've stated hard reasons why I don't rush to Windows for server work and generally steer clear of it, all of these backed up by using Windows and finding these problems or drawbacks first hand when directly comparing to a Linux machine. If you can produce similar examples and links then please, please do - I always enjoy a good debate where people are quoting proper articles and citing real use cases, I think both sides can learn a lot from that. At present though I'm just hearing lots of unsubstantiated, vague points with no proper backing - not really a lot of good to anyone.