[Discuss] Why use Linux? (back to original question)

[Richard Pieri]

markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
> In a web environment you should be using Linux, hands down. I'll amplify
> this assertion a little bit as well, you should make sure your web service
> environment is in a virtual machine on Linux.

What's wrong with *BSD? As a matter of fact, for security I'd suggest 
using OpenBSD first and go with a Linux distribution when there is a 
specific need not addressed by the BSDs.

> The shear number of tools available on Linux is just simply amazing.
> Screen, ssh, PAM, qemu, libvirt, virt-manager, X, and yes, I said it, The
> X Window Manager.

Screen: OS X ships with it.
SSH: OS X ships with it.
PAM: OS X ships with it.
QEMU: OS X doesn't ship with it but it's installable via MacPorts.
libvirt: Just like QEMU.
virt-manager: Not in MacPorts but it may be compiled separately.
X11: OS X used to ship with XQuartz but Apple separated it from the OS 
distribution to ease development and updates.
Sparse files: OS X's VFS layer supports sparse files.

You got eight things wrong out of eight about what OS X has and can do. 
The BSD UNIXes can do all of these things, too. Barring less broad 
hardware support the *BSDs can do them at least as well, if not better, 
than Linux can.

Oh, and by the way? Windows can do all of these, too, courtesy of Cygwin 
and MinGW.

-- 
Rich P.