Why choose linux over NT for server?

rudeboymcc

rudeboymcc

rudeboymcc

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21 May 2003
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Hi. I've got an old computer (athlonxp 800mhz,512ram) and want to make it into a server. I'm gonna put 1 terrabyte of hard disks in there, and have it serve movies, music (through itunes) and maybe a printer to maximum 5 computers.

At first I thought linux. I'm quite happy using it but not good enough to say install gentoo without a lot of reading.

Then i thought why not just install windos NT on it? I know exactly how ot use it, I can't see there being much of a performance difference for my needs, and I know all the hardware etc will work with it easily.

Is there anything you can think of why I should use Linux instead of windows?

One thing i'm not sure about is which windows is the latets NT one. is it still 2003 or is XP capable of doing it all?
 
well I won't actually be usign RAID. I have though about it and did end up buying two same model 250g hard disks but in the end I figured it's not important data so i'd rather have the space.

apart form raid and costs is that it?

somethign i was thinking of was spyware and viruses with windows but if i'm not browsig the internet and msn isn;'t installed then there shouldn't be a problem right? is there any way to actually disable internet access to that computer? it will be running through a netgear router.
 
Well the server's gonna be in my house so reboots aren't a problem at all and I know how to configure windows really well so I think windows it is!.

One thing I have just rememberd is the machine doesn't haev sata and the two drives I have are SATA II. if I get a pci sata contorller will it be nearly as fast as if the ports were built onto the motherbaorD?

Also when choosing a windows, what advantages would i have if i got WIndows server 2003 over windows XP? It's not going to haev different user permissions so shall i just stick with XP?
 
I was looking at freenas at first which is UNIX but it';s literlally just a NAS and it can't serve to itunes and doesn't support sata so isn't an option.

are there any others you can recommend that are actually servers? and what's the difference between linux and unix? is it the dos of linux?
 
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