Which Unix Platform is best and used most????

Question

Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, Lindows, ??????

Answer 1

I have been a tech TL for Unix System Admins of a large organization as my previous profile, and we supported different versions of OS/400, AIX 5x, HP-UX 10/11i, Sun Solaris 8/9 and Linux (RedHat EL). I have also been an Sys Admin for Novell Netware, FreeBSD, SCO and various versions of Windows starting from Win 3x to Win 2003. Have worked on a few others, but those OS never made it big...

So which is the best OS? It depends upon what you need to run / do with it. An OS takes the role of an operator (what we had with early mainframe systems) and if your task is to just work on word and excel documents, Windows XP may be good enough for you. And if you are doing simple data entry or have a POS in a third world country, you may actually be using software made for DOS (all command line / text GUI).

However, come to big organizations that have lots of data and processes (even business) that utilize that data. They need powerful systems and high end applications where Unix and it's clones come into the picture - stable, robust with some of the best performance. If your work is involved with cheaper hardware / non proprietary etc. I would say go ahead with Linux or Solaris if supported.

On the other hand, if you have the hardware to go with it, HP-UX or AIX may be the ones to consider. We have run very large oracle databases, have designed systems with TBs of storage, written network backup apps & DR software etc. and with the right hardware / OS combination, all the top versions of Unix / Linux perform quite alike. The differ only in the cost and quality of support – so if you go ahead with a free version of Linux, you may have a 10 to 20% performance lower compared to AIX, though a lot of your effort would need to go in to keep it tuned and running well. Likewise, if you go for HP-UX, and have a support package, most of your headache will be limited to the cost of hardware / software and upgrades. So the key is in finding the combination (platform) which is right for you and meets your budge requirements.

Hope this has helped.
Andrew

Answer 2

Which one is used most depends on the part of the world.
Solaris is more popular than AIX or HP-UX (although with regional differences). WHich one is best? That depends on what you consider 'best' and most important. Is it the cost, support, security, stability, features? Again, my preference is Solaris.

Answer 3

I am a Windows power user since 1996. And last year trying to install and learn linux. Based on my experience, the easiest linux is Ubuntu, and Xandros. Now in my PC, I put both Windows XP and Ubuntu, dual boot. Why dual boot? Because I still need some of applications that only Windows can run it. I need to use Adobe premiere and photoshop, and Games, that not available in linux platform. Other things run well on linux. I type this post using ubuntu while hear mp3 music from xmms. And my ubuntu wallpaper was a nice snapshot of one of my DVD movie.

Answer 4

sun solaris, freeBSD,

Answer 5

I like FreeBSD or Ubuntu