RasterWeb: Rambles: ntorunix

Ok, I'm not a big Windows user, that's for sure. As far as a desktop machine, I don't think I'd ever choose Windows. I'm also not a Unix kinda guy. Or at least I haven't been so far. (For my purposes here, I may use the word 'Unix' to encompass any unix-like OS, such as Linux, FreeBSD, etc) I've always been a Macintosh kinda guy, well, except for before there was a Macintosh, when I was an Apple ][ kinda guy. Anyway, I eventually came into contact with Windows NT Server a few years ago, and even learned hot to do some administration, just basic stuff - glad I didn't have to install it! And it seemed ok. Yes, me - a certifiable Mac maniac, thought this Windows NT thing was ok. (I did say 'ok' and not 'great'.)

It was just a simple file server, nothing too fancy, but it got the job done. I do wish it had the ability to send mail to me when we run low on disk space, but I've got a 10 year old mac doing that now...

So time passes, and eventually I get involved with doing web stuff. And I start working with people who use NT for a web server, still not a big deal, they got Services for Macintosh up and running, and I could just copy files where they needed to go. Then someone else was in charge of the new box. They never managed to get AppleShare right. They said 'use FrontPage and you'll have no problem.' Uh, yeah, big problem... I asked for ftp access, they couldn't quite get that either... nightmare... (especially for someone using a Mac in what looked to be a Windows world!)

Eventually someone else was put in charge, I get ftp access, telnet, etc. and they seem more than happy to do it. I also find out they're now running Linux, an OS I had heard about a few years back, which was getting pretty darn popular. Oh, and they were also using Apache instead of Microsoft Internet Information Server, and instead of 'Webbots' and FrontPage extensions, there was Perl... (be still my heart!)

Up to this point I had gotten to the point of doing scripting on the Mac, setting up web servers on the Mac, and writing some cgi's on the Mac... but anything I did for the web at large was static pages... sigh...

So I get around to learning Perl (after previously trying with little success) with a little help from some good teachers, and I start throwing cgi's onto this Linux box, and they actually work! Cool, to say the least! I get good enough at Perl (uh, don't worry, I've still got a long way to go!) that I can write my own semi-cool scripts, modify other's scripts, and wow some people. In fact I got an upload script all set up under Linux/Apache/Perl in about 10 minutes. Sweet!

Then came NT. I was doing work on another server, Windows NT/Internet Information Server/Perl. I thought, 'hey, Perl, excellent! I'm all set!' - well, I found that moving things from Linux to NT wasn't always easy. The upload script never worked right, we could upload one file, but then had to manually delete a temp file. We tried to have the script delete the temp file, but that never worked. We tried a few other upload scripts, and none seemed to get it quite right, problems with permissions, temp files, etc... Did I mention it worked flawlessly on Linux, and took 10 minutes to set up? Ok, so myself and my teacher-guru web server guy try and try, and can't seem to figure it out. We did get some other upload scripts to (kind of) work, but it took about 10 to 20 (maybe 30?) times the amount of time and work.... and I still don't think it's right... ugh...

I also got involved with doing a site for a client. Their site was going to be hosted at an ISP, and they signed up for an NT account instead of a Unix account, thinking 'well, we use NT in the office, shouldn't our web site be NT?' They also wanted controlled access (ala htaccess) which again, under Unix takes a very minimal amount of time to configure, as long as the server supports it. Did I mention they wanted it all as soon as possible? So I emailed the support staff of the ISP, and asked about protected directories under NT - I did read their docs first, and found nothing helpful on the subject. I also knew the headaches of NT/IIS - even with Perl, I thought we might run into trouble. So they got it switched to a Unix account, and I got things up and running very quickly and semi-painlessly. A few days later a support person got back to me saying 'sorry there really is nothing like htaccess available to users with NT accounts. uh-huh.

I also started taking care of some sites running on FreeBSD with Apache, and again found things simple and powerful, as compared to Windows NT. Things like telnet and a command line can make a huge difference, and this is coming from someone with not-a-whole-lot of Unix experience...

I still prefer my Macintosh to anything else I've seen for my desktop machine, and that's not saying it should be your desktop machine, but for a server a Unix variant does quite well...

I haven't even gotten into my views on the monopoly, stifling-innovation, proprietary, open source, and support arguments most people mention when talking about NT and Unix, I'll save that for another ramble, because this one is done.

Ok, let's go with Unix...

  Last Modified: 04.02.2001 by rasterboy