jchimim - "Yes, there are some un-stable versions, but a Unix administrator will think nothing of a server that's been humming along for years without a reboot or crash. A Windows administrator will brag about being up for weeks."

I agree, sort of :)

Obviously the larger Unix systems (Solaris, AT&T SysV, BSD) have a long history but Linux is considerably younger - and has a much less consistent quality control process in place. Current Linux 2.5 for instance has a IDE subsystem that is consistently destroying filesystems and the SCSI code doesn't even have a maintainer. That does not bode well for it.

As always. much fun can be had reading the Linux kernel development emails :)

My point is not that Linux is bad - but that the long history of Unix development doesn't apply. Linux is a ground up re-write by amateurs who by and large have never seen the source to a large Unix and many have not been involved in a large coding project at all. If I was going to bet the farm on an open source OS it would definitely be one of the BSD's. Probably NetBSD.

As for uptimes, good Windows administrators have always had machines that ran without any problems at all - only rebooting for software upgrades and security patches when desired. Since Windows 2000 and NT 4.5 it has rarely if ever been known for Windows servers to reboot spontaneously unless the hardware is bad.

Leaving a machine, ANY machine that is critical, up for years these days means that you are ignoring serious and important upgrades fixing bugs and security holes.

jchimim "Just like it's only natural that Unix (and its varients) are preferable for network servers because of their stability."

And that is changing... the migration to Unix variants is being seriously altered by the massive success of WindowsXP. It is fast, secure and stable. It is easy to administer and compatible with a huge amount of software as well as being a platform for ASP.NET development - an incredibly cool technology that is winning a lot of converts among the perl/python/Linux or death crowd :)

Microsoft won this round. Linux will always be there - but it won't be the thing that topples MS.