Over the past several years Linux has gone from being simply a bithead's toolbox to one of the most complete and stable operating systems available. Like the various Unix platforms on the market, Linux was designed to be completely customizable for any user's needs. There's one key difference, though: Unlike most commercial Unix offerings, Linux is fully open source. The accessibility provided by the GNU license, under which the Linux kernel is released, gives users unfettered access to change, adapt and patch the OS for their own uses. Such patches, submitted by kernel hackers from across the globe, are how the kernel code continues to progress, improve and have new features added regularly.
So why has it taken Linux so long to gain ground, and why does it still struggle to gain a foothold in today's enterprise environments? Obviously there are some enterprise-specific reasons, which we explore in more detail in "Are We There Yet?", but one of the largest problems is market fragmentation. Ideally, a unified effort would mean enhanced benefits of scale, thereby contributing to larger budgets for development, marketing and technical support. But this is not an ideal world, so we set out to evaluate the major distributions.
Our qualifications for this review were simple: A distribution must have commercial support in the United States via phone and e-mail, and that support must be offered by the vendor -- not through a third party. Of the 150-plus distributions available, only six met our qualifications, and only five vendors accepted the invitation: Caldera International, MandrakeSoft, Red Hat, SuSE Linux and TurboLinux. Progeny Linux Systems, the sixth, declined to participate, saying it was between revisions.
We've conducted in-depth tests of Linux before. In fact, in June 2000 we made our Chicago Neohapsis partner lab a completely Linux-driven environment and moved everything from backups to VPNs (virtual private networks) onto the OS (to see how well we fared, check out "The Linux Challenge"). This time, also at the Neohapsis lab, we added a new twist: We also evaluated workstation functionality, as opposed to looking only at the server side.
Server vs. Workstation
An enterprise environment comprises basically two classes of computer: workstations and servers. In the Windows world, Microsoft differentiates these categories in the operating system by bundling different software packages and by changing how OS-level resources are allocated -- dedicating more resources to processing requests for the server version while giving more cycles to the GUI in its workstation version.
While most Linux vendors also offer workstation and server distributions, the differences are less dramatic. In every workstation distribution we tested, we had the option to install an e-mail server, a Web server and a database server (among many other options). And in every server distribution we reviewed, we had the option to install at least one office suite. Unlike Microsoft Windows, where the entire OS is packaged around its particular role, Linux distributions typically distinguish the workstation from the server based on how much software is included and what software is installed by default. The rest is up to the user. The heart of Linux, the kernel, remains the same.
All five participating vendors have workstation and server versions of their products. However, halfway through our testing, TurboLinux asked us not to review the workstation flavor of its offering. The company is discontinuing general distribution of the product and will be offering it only as an OEM installation.
Testing Criteria
Evaluating a distribution based on the role it will play within your enterprise is important. While one product might make a great workstation, it doesn't necessarily make a great server. It was here that separating the workstation from the server became critical for our tests.
While the distributions themselves don't make much of a distinction between the two classes, our testing and expectations did. Postgres SQL server is far less important to a workstation distribution than it is to a server, and by the same reasoning, you wouldn't turn down a good server distribution simply because it doesn't include a nice office suite.
With the exception of some specialized server distributions, such as SuSE's Groupware Server (a Lotus Domino-specific distribution), Mandrake's Single Network Firewall product and the TurboLinux Database Server (featuring IBM DB2), we saw no major difference between the installations of plain-vanilla servers and workstation distributions from any of the vendors included. Workstation and server distributions do differ, however, in the included software.
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