Why not use Unix?

one thing is the cost.. and the other thing is the support...

1) Cost

2)Windows NT is mouse click based..click the mouse and u can do everything.

But in UNIX u have to some major task u have to do so many things like to edit the verious files, write a shell scripts run verious commands etc..

Regards

D.V.Bhagwat

Interesting, I just did a conference on the comparisons and differences including advantages v. disadvantages.

Unix, depending on your flavor (HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, etc.) is becoming a lot more mouse based to perform the basic tasks that you can perform in NT as well. Unix also gives you way to perform system level tasks that you have no control over in NT. However, you have the cost concerns (Unix is truely best on RISC hardware, which is much more costly than Intel hardware). You also have cost of maintenance. The average Unix admin is paid about $7500/yr more than the avearage NT admin and is a lot harder to find. Support is more expensive from vendors as well.

All of the users use Windows and are not familiar with the Unix interface, so if you have Unix it will only be for servers and you won't have a repository of extra parts laying around.

So now I turn the question to when should you forget about cost concerns and go with Unix no matter what? When security and/or availability are extreme concerns. If you have a major need for tight security on a server go with Unix. You can lock it down a lot tighter than NT. When you must be up 24/7 no questions asked go with Unix. You don't have to reboot Unix when you make typical changes (Win2k is an improvement for Intel, but it isn't perfect yet). Also, if you need to execute multiple tasks simultaneously go with Unix. That is what Unix is designed for. Don't get tricked into thinking that it will executea single task much faster than an NT server. As long as each machine has the right amount of resources they will perform a single task in similiar times. Depending on the type of task Unix may be faster, but then so may NT. Unix takes over in thespeed arena when you are attempting to perform multiple tasks all at the same time. Then the cost difference is will worth it because you save in production time.

Hope this was

Why ask why, it isnt cost. Red Hat is free by download...
So in this geeks humble opinion its the users. They were the ones that gave MrBill the home market, suprise thats what they can run.. oh well..
Red Hat is so far the only Unix I am familiar with, it has a good shot, but be prepared to run a bunch of scripts to keep your users OFF the command line. They do not need to be there, want to be there and nor should they be there....
If security is a concern, lets face fact, #1 security should always be a concern, #2 its more work but a tighter box when Unix is used....
Be happy all,
peace

Cost is part of it, but now Solaris 8 is freely available for Sparc and I386 arcitectures (see www.sun.com).

Linux has more of a social movement behind it, more press than the venerable Unix, and a more user friendly interface for the most part making many tasks easier on Linux than Unix.

I think also that Linux offers a more standardized product. I can move from SuSe, Red Hat, Yellow Dog etc. and know that when I'm in /etc I'll see rc.d. The various flavors of Unix all have different ways of organizing themselves. I have worked with Solaris (a System V Version 4 flavor), AIX, HPUX, and FreeBSD as well as Linux. All have subltle and not so subtle differences.

But Unix is far from dead with Solaris being the dominant flavor. Perhaps the reason for the comparison is that most high end servers use Unix, which has been around over 30 years, and is the most reliable, stable, and fault tolerant OS around. So if you want to show that you are stable and high quality you will have tocompare yourself to the king of OS's -- Unix.

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