Windows vs Linux Installation

[Aoirthoir]

We are currently running windows servers here. I myself prefer linux. We have a new server being installed now and will have 2 servers available for experimentation. We are considering one going to windows and the other to linux. In dataface is there any essential difference, in either system? Would my dataface applications run the same without change (including without change to any of the Pear, or other libraries and modules)?

Secondly:
Most of what we do is internal and will be part of an intranet. However we are considering allowing certain customers access to certain parts of our applications. Our tech guy is a windows fella, who has no problem with running linux except that he doesnt know how to support it. He is also considering the future supportability of the systems here. As to whether another tech (a linux tech) would end up costing more than a windows tech.

So the conclusion we have come to thus far, for security reasons, is to run the intranet as a windows system (with dataface of course) and the external server as a linux system. With the possibility to migrate one way or the other in the future.

I am open to any comments from anyone.

Thanks again.

Holler.

[shannah]

Hi Holler,

All of my development is done on Mac OS X and Solaris. Most of the production systems I currently have running are on Solaris running PHP 4.4 and MySQL 4.1, but my laptop is running PHP 5 on Mac OS X (MySQL 4.1). I have also installed Dataface onto a number of unix/linux variants running PHP 4 or 5 - mostly running MySQL 4.1 . I do have a Windows machine that I use to test Dataface. I have a number of unit tests and some Selenium functional tests that all are required to Pass before I release a version for distribution. I always run the tests on:
Solaris with PHP 4.4, MySQL 4.1
Mac OS X with PHP 5, MySQL 4.1
Windows XP Pro running IIS and PHP 5 and MySQL 5

Certainly the safest bet is to use it on a Linux/Unix platform since that has seen the most use, but it should work on windows also - and I have seen a number of people write in that are successfully using Dataface on windows.

Hope this helps.

[njw]

I am running Dataface on a remote linux server via a hosting service. No issues other than my occasional incompetence!

On the cost front, I would have thought that most IT graduates these days will have a reasonable understanding of Linux, and in any case, it should not be difficult for your business to train someone up reasonably quickly, since there is plenty of internet based support available. IBM's FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) policy of the 1960's and 70's is alive and thriving within Microsoft's marketing department!

(For background, I was an IT Director in the UK for 15 of the past 20 years and I have had to switch software and hardware platforms a few times - it is much less of an issue than any incumbent supplier leads one to believe.)

Neil

[Aoirthoir]

Thanks both of yall. For the windows end I downloaded and have installed:

WAMP5 Version 1.6.3

Created by Romain Bourdon (romain@anaska.com)
Powered by Anaska http://www.anaska.com
Sources are available at SourceForge
http://www.wampserver.com

However it seems a lot of the dataface scripts have
As far as the cost I agree with you on that as well. Ive not played with linux for years and was never an administrator. But a lot of things come back real fast. And there are a lot of tasks I am using the linux on my hosting provider's system for, rather than mucking around in windows. Command line tools like sort and uniq. Also it seems to be the networking and permissions on Linux are a lot simpler. Windows has so many areas you have to change just to give someone permission to access the system in the way you want. On linux, create groups for certain folders. Make any user a member of all those groups. Done.

In addition our tech guy things linux is more secure becuase the crackers arent attacking it since supposedly it is not as abundant as windows. Well on a user desktop that might be true. But the vast majority of systems on the net for servers are linux and unix. I didnt explain that part to him, but I did explain that it is not because linux is not under attack that it is more secure. But because the entire way the OS is designed. In windows most services have access to most folders and thus most files. It is not that way with linux. And as long as someone is not running as root, they are usually going to be pretty secure.

So I am going to eventually have them move some things to linux as we can. In the meantime I am going to concentrate this weekend on converting these dbf files over. Then running Dataface on them so tuesday after the holy day I can show them the real power of dataface.

Thanks again for yalls comments.

Holler back.