[wplug] Newbie questions

[bgtrio at yahoo.com]

I thought I might just step back a bit and see if I can't get to the root 
of Anand's question.

Anand seems to be under the impression that the linux market is neatly 
segmented like the Windows market is- that is, he seems to think that 
"Linux Server" is a product much like Windows 2000 Server Edition is a 
discrete product.  It doesn't really work that way though- since no one 
company controls linux, there is not a single naming scheme for the 
vatious products that use linux as their kernel (usually called 
"distributions" or "distros").

There are companies that sell special-purpose distributions that are meant 
to fulfil a particular function out of the box, for instance Mandrake's 
gaming edition and Redhat Enterprise Server.  But since linux is free to 
modify as you see fit, there is no artificial distinction between server 
and desktop as there is in the windows world.

Microsoft is famous for doing awful things like limiting the number of 
incoming and outgoing connections to a computer to make sure you don't use 
their desktop software in a server environment where they hope to sell you 
their more expensive software.  Linux suffers from no such limitations; if 
you want your desktop to be a server, install and configure some server 
software and bang, it's a server.  Or better yet, just start the server 
software that was included with the distribution you installed.

I'm not as familiar with other distributions, but with both debian and 
redhat when you install their standard distributions, they ask you if you 
want a desktop machine, a server, or a custom machine (among other 
choices).  I did a redhat desktop installation yesterday, and did a custom 
installation choosing "everything" - this included a printserver, two 
databases, a windows file server, a mail server, a webserver, and nfs 
server, and a bunch of other services I probably don't even know about.  
Of course I'm not running all of them, but I could if I wanted to.


Bryguy


On Mon, 11 Aug 2003, John Harrold wrote:

> 
> 
> Sometime in August Anand Nimbalkar assaulted the keyboard and produced:
> 
> | Hi,
> | I am new to Linux and this group. I have a couple of basic questions.
> | (1) If Linux Desktop = WIndows 98/2000/XP then what is Windows 2000/2003 
> | Server =  ???
> 
> hum.. depending on your purposes you can probably use a linux desktop as a
> linux server.  at home i use linux as my desktop and run various servers on
> the same machine without any problems.
> 
> | (2) Is Linux Server software also free ?
> 
> for the most part. there are free databases (posgresql, mysql, etc),
> webservers (apache), ssh servers, ftp servers, etc. there are also
> commercial versions of server software available. as a rule of thumb, most
> services have a free and commercial versions. it's been my expirence that
> the free stuff out there is more than adequate for my needs.
> 
> | (3) Are there any special hardware requirements to run Linux Server. I have 
> | a 600 Mhz machine which I wanna use for Linux Server installation. Will it 
> | suffice?
> 
> it depends. if you want to serve 20,000 web pages a second, then no. it
> should however be able to serve the same stuff as well as windows running
> on the same hardware. 
> 
> | (4) Are there any good books that I can use to learn Linux Server.
> 
> check here for linux documentation:
> http://www.tldp.org/guides.html
> 
> | I am heavily biased towards Linux Server. Linux Desktop doesnt interest me 
> | much. I would appreciate if someone can answer the above questions specific 
> | to Linux Server software
> 
> if you have more specific questions we can give more detailed answers. i.e.
> what kind of server do you want to run? what expectations do you have for
> this server? do you have any odd requirements? 
> 
> 

-- 
http://www.livejournal.com/~bryguypgh