Daho,
There are quite a few reasons to choose some type of *nix box over windows
2000.
#1. Less of a cost involved for software, including the operating system.
#2. The ability to not have to buy per-user licensing to cover database
connections (since mysql / postgresql are both essentially free).
#3. Hardware is less of a concern -- depending on what you plan to do with
the web server, you can run it on a P133.
#4. *nix is typically much more stable -- I don't think I've ever seen a
windows 2000 server up for longer than a few months, if that.
#5. Unix+Apache+PHP+MySQL / Postgresql is probably one of the most solid
server combinations I have ever seen.
As kind of a followup to #3, I founded a group called Web Spinners at the
University of West Florida -- the very first server we had was a P75, 32 MB
RAM, 3.2 GB hard drive running Slackware 2.x (which we later upgraded to
Slackware 3.0)
The next server was a P133 w/ 128 MB ram, and 3.6 GB total hard drive space
running Redhat 5.1 (later 5.2). After the P133 was taken back by the
generous member that had loaned it to us, the server was on a 486/100, 96
MB RAM, 3.6 GB total drive space, which stayed as our main server for
several years going from RH 5.2, then to 6.0, and finally 6.1. Of course,
you can't run a win NT / 2000 server off of a 486/100.
The latest server, which was put together from parts, has cost us a grand
total of $850 (including upgrades) and of course, has not cost a single
cent on the software side. It is a Celeron 400, 128 MB RAM, with 14.4 GB
of drive space spread over 3 hard drives (1 6.4 GB drive, and 2 4 GB drives
which are "mirrors" of each other (replacements for the 2 20 GB drives we
had in there)). On our heaviest traffic day (which was about 200,000 hits
per hour for 4 straight hours), our server never went below 70% CPU idle.
Michael
--
Michael Viron
Registered Linux User #81978
Senior Systems & Administration Consultant
Web Spinners, University of West Florida
At 04:27 PM 06/13/2001 -0400, daho Med wrote:
>I'm planning to set up a new web server,
>and I'm still finding out which platform better for me to choose
>(win2000 or Unix)
>so any one can advice me,
>
>Thank you
>
