Hello everyone. I would like to get your input on which server has faster load times, UNIX or NT. I am currently using a Linux server (westhost.com) and my pages loads very slow. I suspect it's my banners because it's accessing a different server for the banners.

I am also looking for another hosting company for a mirror site with the following features in descending order of importance.

1) Bandwidth limit no less than 15 GB (no unlimited transfers)
2) Disk space no less than 50 MB
3) Perl CGI, PHP, MySQL, SSI
4) Monthly price no greater than $30 (am I asking too much for this price?)
5) User friendly control panel
6) Own IP address, own domain name
7) P***word protect directories
8) 30-day money back guarantee (more is better)
9) FTP access
10) Access to raw log files
11) Established company having more than 1000 sites hosted (for security reasons)

So far I've found tera-byte.com to meet my specifications. I've heard ALL good things about them, does anyone have a bad experience with this company?

Thank you.

There are differing view on the subject of NT versus Linux:

http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/JoycePark/JoycePark1.html
http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/ (warning this is biased entirely in favor of Unix)
and

http://www.mindcraft.com/whitepapers/openbench1.html

That being said, it has been our experience that Linux is much more stable in a hosting environment and definitely more cost effective. Keep in mind: the Mindcraft tests were performed with the old Linux Kernel, the new Linux Kernel should blow away NT :).

You should have no problem finding a host that can meet your requirements. Tera-byte is a really good company, and anytime I have seen a customer post a bad experience about them on this board, Steve is quick to respond and correct the problem.

I agree...

Linux, offers more flexibility and more versatile than NT servers. Our company host both server types, and it also depends on what you plan to do with your web site. In general though, Linux is better for many situations.

Thanks,
Patrick

Thanks for the info guys. What is your take on this benchmark test from mindcraft showing NT is at least twice as fast as Unix?

http://www.mindcraft.com/whitepapers/openbench1.html

Load time is one of my main concerns on my site. What do you think? Should I stick with Unix or go to unfamiliar waters and test out NT?

Personally, I believe that NT is by far the inferior product. I only support NT because for reason Bill gates has managed to buid a demand for it, like every other badly made well marketed microsoft product out there. on another topic I definitly suggest tera byte, they have the best reputation.

Aside from that benchmark test being done on the old Linux kernel, as others have pointed out, there are other considerations in choosing an operating system.

Linux and Unix are more dependable than Windows (any variant) and do not have problems associated with Windows, like memory management.

They use less system resouces than Windows and can run well on systems that would choke on Windows.

Linux has certain advantages over both Unix and Windows
free versus license fee
updated much more rapidly due to its open source nature
gets hammered more by crackers yet vulnerabilities are closed faster too - an important security consideration
easier configuration of many programs (i.e. Perl and cgi)

see http://securityfocus.com for more on the subject.

NT is directly related to PPP (pee, pee, pee!) :)

From our experience *nix servers are a lot more stable than NT servers.
They also are less of a resource hog, overall support more features and serve as better web servers.

The only reason some developers choose NT is that they either haven't got very much experience with linux systems, have had an application developed in ASP using microsoft SQL server or access and hence choose a windows based solution.

The speed problems you seem to be facing could be caused by a few things. It could be an overloaded webserver, lag on the route to your server or maybe not enough bandwidth.

The first thing to look at perhaps might be doing a traceroute to your account and seeing what paths it takes.
Your can get a good little free traceroute program from here:
http://www.cyberkit.net

Hope this helps.

regards,

Simon

Sorry I overlooked it before in the talk about Windows and Unix. Banners and banner manager programs can indeed slow the loading of pages. I've seen it happen quite frequently.

Sometimes you can even see it just above the task bar when it tells you it is attempting to contact the site wher ethe banner originates.

Those Mindcraft benchmarks were sponsored by Microsoft. I don't have a link handy, but there was quite a rage over them about 2 years ago when they first appeared. I know http://linuxworld.com covered it in depth. If you are tech-savvy and know well the characteristics of what is being tested, it is easy to make a benchmark go in the direction you want it to go.

General consensus is that Linux and Unix are superior to NT in terms of performance, reliability, security, and usually economy. I have little to add to the debate, except to say that I am disappointed that Linux in particular isn't more user friendly. That is the great strength of Microsoft products, aside from things like ASP and the rest.

I wandered around easypooltutor (very nice, but I don't
like having to scroll horizontally) and it was usually
fairly quick to load except for the occasional loooooong
wait.

Watching the status line, it looks like the wait was for
your external ad servers, not your primary host. Changing
hosts won't fix that. Since so many people participate
in banner/ad programs, the servers for those services can
get quite slow at times.

Mindcraft took a lot of heat for their original comparison
test of Linux and NT. They'd used a heavily tuned NT box
against an untuned Linux box running an older version of
Linux. It looks like they've re-run their tests with a
better Linux config, but their motivation appears to have
been solely to clear up their reputation. Their new tests
show that their Linux box could saturate about 2.5 dedicated
T3 network lines while their NT box could saturate nearly
7 dedicated T3 lines. I'm not exactly sure that anyone had
that kind of network bandwidth hooked up to a single
machine, so the usefulness of the "NT is 2.7X faster than
Linux" result is probably nil. Too bad they didn't do a
price/performance graph...

On the other hand, the Linux folks looked at the results
of the first test and saw that they revealed some
limitations Linux had with scalability and threading, and
they set about fixing them. Does anyone know how Microsoft
is doing on the 62000 "open issues" Win2000 had when it
first shipped? ("open issue" = "bug with a PR department.")

For fun, I went to http://www.netcraft.com and checked out
the uptimes of several hosts running NT versus Linux and
Solaris. The longest uptime for http://www.microsoft.com (running
on NT, of course) is 75 days, and their longest 90-day
uptime average is almost 19 days. http://www.cobalt.com (the
maker of tear-byte's servers) on the other hand has been
up for almost 119 days, with a 90-day average of about
74.5 days. http://www.sun.com has a max uptime of 112 days and
a max 90-day average of 55.6 days. The 90-day averages
give you a good idea of how often a server is rebooted and
how long it stays up, while the max uptime shows how long
they've managed to keep the server up in one shot. This
isn't exactly a good scientific test, but it sure looks
like the Linux and Solaris servers stay up longer than the
NT servers do.

All "Unix" is not Linux. I'm more familiar with Sun's
Solaris variant of Unix and their UltraSPARC computers.
I've had someone ask me for a recommendation for a Sun
web server to compare with a NT-based quote they'd
received. Sizing his requirements had me recommending
*one* of Sun's lower end servers. Their PC vendor (a big
name PC company) had recommended over 20 multiprocessor
NT boxes for the same application! With the huge cost
of all that hardware and all those NT and IIS licenses,
the Sun box had the price of the NT solution stomped.

I've run Sun servers that we rebooted annually because
that was our operating procedure, not because they needed
to be rebooted. I'd pick Solaris or Linux over NT any day.


Scott

Thank you guys for all your input. You have convinced me once again that I should stick with UNIX not only because it's better but that what I have been used to.

Regarding my site's slow load time, my external ad server is really slow and I'm thinking of replacing them with everyone.net's advertising program. Any of you guys have any input on everyone.net's advertising program? I am using their e-mail, community and search programs already so I might as well use their advertising.

One thing I noticed with their advertising server though is that sometimes the ads don't load and a 404 error occurs. This can be really annoying. At least, my current ad server doesn't do that.

Besides everyone.net, can you give me more options? I don't know any other ad server programs out there.

Any input?