Stepping into an online business with fortitude and comprehensive analysis of the requirements- is the ground rule of flourishing companies. Most of the businesses choose either of the operating system-Linux operating system or Windows to manage their work. These popular operating systems possess different features and functionalities, thus, it is indispensable to be acquainted with both of these operating systems.

Hereby, this blog will focus the essentials of the OS that differentiate one from the other:

-Complete Access vs. No Access: One of the major differences between the Linux and Windows Server is that Linux provides access to the source code, which allows users to fix the bugs, or make changes, as required. On the contrary, Windows does not provide access to the proprietary code and have no provisions for making alterations. 

Providing access to the codes is considered risky as well as advantageous. Having said risky means, access to the code opens the operating system and various applications installed on it to the hackers and malicious programs. Whereas, advantageous means- you can make improvements and can fix the bugs for unswerving computing.

-Open Source vs. Proprietary: Linux is an open source operating system, which can be freely distributed, downloaded, and installed. Even the priced versions of Linux are inexpensive. Conversely, Windows are much more expensive. A single copy of Windows can cost upto $50-$450, whereas with just one copy of Linux, you can install it on number of systems.

-Case Sensitive: File names and directory names are case sensitive, which can be easily understood by a simple example -if you save a file name like work.html, and other page in the same directory as Work.html, there will be two different pages. Having said this, means you have to type page URL with the same case, otherwise you may land on 404 error page. Contrary, Windows is not case sensitive.

Support Checklist

  - File systems: Linux supports Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, Jfs, Btrfs, FAT, ReiserFS, Xfs, FAT32, and NTFS file system. Moreover, Windows support FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT file systems.

  -GUI Support: KDE and Gnome are the two major GUI's provided by Linux. However, there are number of alternatives, which a Linux user can use, such as Unity, Mate, LXDE, Xfce, twm, etc. Beside, Windows GUI is an integral component of the OS, hence it is not replaceable.

  -Command Support: It can support multiple command interpreters and Windows has not too many options.

 

Specific Server Applications: Windows Server supports ASP Classic, ASP.NET, MS Access, MSSQL, C#, Visual Basic Development, Remote Desktop are the specific applications, which dedicatedly runs on Windows server. SSH, FrontPage Extensions, and specific Apache modules are Linux supported applications.

Both, Windows and Linux servers have some pros and cons that one needs to carefully evaluate while selecting one from them.