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Date:      Tue, 20 Nov 2001 21:06:14 +0100
From:      "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com>
To:        "Andre` Niel Cameron" <AndreC@Axxs.net>
Cc:        <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: home pc use
Message-ID:  <009201c171fe$d273a270$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
References:  <3BF9B12B.3D521A4D@nycap.rr.com> <20011119220243.A268@prayforwind.com> <009a01c171a9$4eedbee0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <E1667rO-0002md-00@mrvdom03.schlund.de> <00cd01c171ac$ca0fa0e0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <20011120102625.GB75402@rhadamanth> <00d201c171af$61dccb80$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <20011120024643.B92409@xor.obsecurity.org> <012001c171b5$ac8d86a0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <014e01c171d4$72316610$a50410ac@olmct.net>

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André writes:

> I would like to say well said.

Please do!

> ... KDE and Doom:)

Wait a minute ... Doom runs on FreeBSD?  Does it require X?

> I also have a FreeBSD "Server"  I acctually
> tried running NT and win2k as servers and was
> horrified by performance/stability/security.

They make excellent servers in certain situations, but not right out of the box,
and not without a massive rack of hardware to run on.  They are easy for
inexperienced administrators to set up.  They do have a lot of potential holes,
and the initial ease-of-use rapidly becomes fatiguing as you get more and more
familiar with the system.

I used to run an IIS site.  Very easy and friendly to configure, at least
initially.  But as the days and months wore on, it got more and more tiring to
drill down through endless graphic dialog boxes just to change the
configuration.  And it was slow: on a loaded server, it took time to bring up
each box.  And very often you had to do things locally, or via incredibly
bandwidth-wasteful tools like pcANYWHERE, because remote administration of an NT
box in any efficient way is nearly impossible.

> NT/2k makes a good file server in a
> internal Windows based network.

Yes, it speaks native Windows out of the box, and if all you have on the network
is Windows, it makes an excellent and secure file server.

The real problem is in a heterogenous network, and _especially_ when you need to
put things on the big, bad Internet.  It's scary the first time you run a test
tool against an NT system and see how many ports it has open and waiting for
attack.  Yes, NT security is rock solid in the kernel, but most of the
Internet-style services don't use NT security (which is largely proprietary to
Microsoft) and just accept anything from anyone!

> This is the first time I have seen someone speak
> like this, usually it is death to those who say
> windows in a *nix list.

Every system has its place.  I still recommend Windows desktops and Windows
servers in certain environments, particularly small businesses and offices that
cannot afford the kind of very technical people needed to run a UNIX system
competently.  But when you move into the big leagues, and you have servers
running at redline all day long, being attacked by young male script kiddies 24
hours a day, with 100% uptime requirements, it's time to hire the experts and
install the crusty old UNIX servers and streamline them to do exactly the job
you require, no more and no less, with the best possible utilization of
resources.  And when you move into that realm, something like FreeBSD starts to
shine very brightly indeed.




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