Linux Vs. Windows XP in serving and hosting Geeklog?

Authored by: vinny on Monday, April 07 2003 @ 09:43 AM EDT

Linux will probably give you better server performance over Windows XP (especially the home edition). That being said, unless you're getting thousands of hits per hour (a really high traffic web site) it is unlikely you'll notice much of a difference with your hardware (i.e. you have enough RAM and processing power that even windows bloat doesn't hurt you much).

If you have some old hardware laying around, I'd suggest installing linux there and 'practicing'. Running a linux server is a much different experience from running an Windows (XP) server.

-Vinny

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Authored by: zx6r on Monday, April 07 2003 @ 01:41 PM EDT

I agree with Vinny.

Here is my take on it, if it ain't broke don't fix it. You are comfortable with XP and know what is going on there.

If all you want to do is try Linux, I would not replace your existing XP installation. I would find a separate piece of hardware and try Linux there. If you don't have extra hardware lying around, I find VMware works well to try new OS's. Your box is more than capable of running Linux under a VM and serving pages, the downside would be that VMware is expensive. It may be cheaper to buy a second box. You could also dual boot your existing machine, which is kind of what your doing with Knoppix and SUSE, only install the OS on a hard drive partition rather than running off a CD filesystem. Just be sure to backup your XP installation in case things go bad.

I personally like running servers with Linux because I don't have to run a GUI and can eek a little more performance out of a box, or run on a box with less hardware required. I find it easier to administer a box remotely with Linux as well. SSH is my friend, until the next vulnerability hits.

I guess what I am trying to say is that Geeklog is great and runs on multiple platforms, go with what you are most comfortable with. The performance differences between the OS's are probably not going to be noticeable.

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Authored by: vbgunz on Monday, April 07 2003 @ 06:19 PM EDT

Thank you both for your input. I am somewhat in love with SuSe and am curious. If I put it on another box what would be equivalent to a 1.2 Athlon w/ 512RAM without the 1.2 Athlon w/512RAM?

What I mean is if IBM can run it on a wris*censored*ch what would be the mininum specs that can match what I currently run?

300 Celeron, 128 RAM?
450 P2, 64 RAM?

Thanks :)

---
Victor B. Gonzalez

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 08 2003 @ 04:46 AM EDT

Linux can be configured to run on very modest hardware. The IBM wrist watch example is probably taking it to the extreme.

Most modern Linux distributions won't install with less than 32MB RAM. Disk usage really depends on how much software you install but several hundred megabytes isn't uncommon.

As far as CPU goes, power is cheap these days and faster always helps but you can expect decent interactive performance over an encrypted link with a 500MHz, or faster, CPU.

I use both FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux. My systems generally have 256MB of RAM and software RAID-1 mirrored disks. The CPUs are 500MHz to 800MHz and they work just fine.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 07 2003 @ 09:17 PM EDT

I think there's tools for some tasks, and tools for other tasks.. I run http://mvgals.net on an old linux laptop (it's actually not geeklog; it's gallery, but thinking of integrating geeklog around gallery..) the laptop is only 700mhz, but runs circles around my workstation athlon 1.8 when it comes to automation (i.e. cronjobs/scripting in general...)

Still, I use the large desktop (which, btw, has 4x160gb drives internal, main reason I picked up that motherboard..) as my dvd ripper/player as well as for mp3's, and use my linux laptop for any code that goes around the files served via fileshares from the w2k box.

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Authored by: os on Tuesday, April 08 2003 @ 05:45 AM EDT

Hi

You really should get another box if you want to learn Linux as fast and painless as possible.
Also a good book helps.. If you are going to host a ‘production’ site, e.g. something more than an personal site that needs to be up, you should go with what you know, but I hope your not planning to use windows xp for that ..

If its not anything important, why not give it a try? And yes, a simple box witch 500mhz can do the job, just don’t install graphical stuff. Scary without windows and nice icons? Vel, that’s linux / unix for you and a server is not suppose to have any icons!

My 2 cents of course, but I’m always right :)


ø.s

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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 16 2003 @ 05:51 AM EDT

Hey i reasently change my college servers over to linux redhat we now have routers, cash servers and the works and the systems run faster smoother and much more funnto use .... plus if you use the KDE gui not the GNOME then you get options to change everything :-)

hope this helps you choose :-)

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 04 2003 @ 07:39 AM EDT

Interesting bug in the censorship there. I wouldn't have thought that wrist watch shoul be censored!! :o)

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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 04 2003 @ 08:12 PM EDT

It censored the word because it thought it was a ladies private :)... I am getting a few newer systems soon and after migration I think I might get red hat linux and give it a try... SUSE looks good too...

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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 10 2003 @ 04:02 PM EDT

Yes, you

must

be exposed to Linux. Yes, buy another box and start fresh; it's easier than dual booting your XP machine. Also buy a KVM which makes life sweeter and they are cheaper than new console devices. When you self-run a blog, you no longer will be a newbie. Good Luck- [geeklog@rmwd.net]

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Authored by: mentorkyrom on Monday, November 03 2003 @ 05:17 PM EST

The KDE interface is more for me. Linux' focus isn't so much on performance as it is with stability- however, don't get me wrong, a decent linux server can handle alot that's thrown at it. To bad we've lost Red-Hat however :( . You can still always try to install <a href="www.mandrakesoft.com">Mandrake</a> They have a great and VERY easy distrabution going.
<p>
Keep in mind you can always make another partition for your linux OS and install a boot loader like LiLo :)

<br>
Good Luck<br>

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Authored by: fairclothb on Monday, July 05 2004 @ 10:14 PM EDT

Lost of Redhat is not correct. You still have it for FREE, just named a little different.... Try out... http://fedora.redhat.com/

It is bleeding edge technology, but It works good and is updated a lot.

-b

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Authored by: bbnet on Monday, April 05 2004 @ 03:18 AM EDT

May want to give red hat and apache a shot, great performance for sure, however, you're bottleneck will probably lie with your isp's upload rate, ussually a fraction of the download speed. Best of luck!

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Authored by: fairclothb on Monday, July 05 2004 @ 10:24 PM EDT

Do not think about it!!! Linux is the way to go.. I say that as I do run it on my server, to host my geeklog. I work with large Organization that is on Oracle Portal Tehcnology on Linux. Also Oracle uses Linux for there internal Business use. Bigest thing that makes it better is not just it speed and stability, but its scalibility to adapt to any enviroment and have High Availibility. The choice is easy if you looking to the future.

-fairclothb

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