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Unix Hosting
What is Unix?
Unix is a powerful
multi-user environment designed primarily for servers and
advanced users. It has a steeper learning curve than other
operating systems, such as Windows or Mac OS, but offers superb
flexibility and stability. Though inexperienced users sometimes
find its complexity daunting, Unix is very popular, and in
recent years it has become more accessible.
Unix was developed
at Bell Labs in 1969, but in the past three decades many others
have contributed to its evolution. In reality, Unix is not
so much a single operating system as it is a standard upon
which organizations and companies base their own systems.
Examples of Unix implementations include AIX (IBM), Solaris
(Sun Microsystems), IRIX (SGI), BSD/OS (BSDi), and Linux (GNU).
To the casual user, these different systems are very similar
because they all provide a common interface through the Unix
shell.
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What are the advantages of Unix?
Talking about
this in term of web hosting, we can tell you that the most
attractive about Unix is that it offers you a lower cost of
web development than Windows NT. Most Unix hosting plans are
cheaper than that of NT. Why? Because most web hosts use the
free version of Unix (like Linux or FreeBSD). They don't have
to pay thousands of dollars to by the operating system and
associated tools to run the server.
Uses of Unix
web hosts will enjoy using a lot free tools and applications
that have been written primarily for Unix community. Perl
is one of the most popular language of CGI, and you can find
a lot of free Perl scripts on the Internet.
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What are the disadvantages of Unix?
Unix is difficult
to use. How difficult? Some Unix web hosts allow access to
your account via Telnet or SSH. This kind of access will allow
you to have more control over your web hosting account. For
example, you can edit file on the remote server, you can change
the read/write/execute permissions of folders in your accounts,
and more. In order to admin your account via Telnet or SSH,
you must have enough knowledge of Unix commands.
We mentioned
in the previous question that there are lots of free scripts
available for use with Unix hosting accounts. Those scripts,
however, require knowledge of Unix in order for you to customize
the scripts to match your requirements. You may find yourself
spending a day or more learning the basic of Unix and Perl
before you can get up and running with the free scripts.
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What is the difference between UNIX and NT?
Microsoft Windows
NT and Unix (of which there are many varieties, or flavors,
including Linux, AIX, Solaris and more) are computer operating
systems. Both Windows NT Server and quality Unix implementations
are enterprise application servers that can be used for a
variety of critical purposes, including, but not limited to,
Web, email, and database hosting. Windows NT was developed
by Microsoft and is, in many ways, the flagship of their software
solutions.
UNIX's development
roots begin about twenty years ago - jointly at Berkeley University
and AT&T Bell Labs. UNIX is often referred to as an "open
system", which means that its source code is publicly available.
This has both its advantages and disadvantages. While it has
allowed many thousands of developers from all over the world
working for different companies to contribute to its development,
it is also more complex and less coordinated.
Both of these
operating systems make excellent platforms for mission-critical
Web hosting, and they function well. There are some differences
of the two systems:
- Windows NT supports most
Microsoft products including Microsoft FrontPage - a popular
Web authoring tool.
- Windows NT supports Active
Server Pages (ASP) - a popular programming that allows you
to build dynamically database-driven web pages (connecting
to Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL server).
- Remote interactive access,
via telnet or SSH is only supported under UNIX. Generally
one is able to do more configuration/setup tasks themselves
rather than having to request services from web hosts.
- The majority of existing CGI
programs (generally Perl scripts) that are available on
the Internet have been developed on Unix platforms and hence
tend to install and operate much more smoothly under Unix.
Many Perl Scripts are FREE!
The bottom line
is that for many web sites the operating system on which the
Web server is housed is largely inconsequential. The real
question is, "Are you using a specific web site or database
technology that is more appropriately hosted on NT instead
of UNIX (or vice versa)?" If your web site does not require
special features offered by Unix or NT, you can choose either
NT or Unix to serve your web site. It doesn't matter!
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