A small-to-medium-sized organization consisting of about 100 users must have a few basic services on its network. These include:

• File and print
• An application server
• E-mail
• Internet access
• Intranet services

Currently there are three major network solutions in the NOS market to choose from: NetWare, NT, and the different flavors of Unix. Here we do a brief comparison of Linux (a flavor of Unix) with NetWare and NT.

Although all these operating systems can be set up to support these services, they differ from each other in terms of hardware costs, application support, documentation, and technical support.

The prime requirement for any organization is file and print services, and Linux can be easily set up to provide this just like the other two. In addition, if an organization requires e-mail, Internet access, and an intranet setup, Linux can be configured to provide these on the same server that’s running file and print services. The same argument also holds for NetWare.

NT would require a separate dedicated server for e-mail, but Internet access and the intranet can be set up on the file and print server. But if an organization wants an application server for RDBMS services, then a separate dedicated server will have to be set up in all the three cases.

Another interesting factor to look at is the hardware platforms supported. NetWare runs only on Intel machines, NT can be installed either on Intel or DEC Alpha. Linux is available for a host of platforms including Intel, Apple PowerPC, Sun’s SPARC and UltraSPARC.

Linux excels in the availability of bundled applications with the base OS. When you get Linux, you don’t need to buy anything extra for giving Internet access, e-mail facility, intranet services, and of course, file and print. In case of NetWare, you will need a separate product like Novell Border Manager to give Internet access, and another product like Novell GroupWise to give e-mail facility. File and print and intranet services are available in IntranetWare v4.11 and above. NetWare bundles Oracle 8 with a 5-user license with version 5. Sybase is bundled with Red Hat Linux 5.2.

In case of NT, you need separate products to provide e-mail and Internet access, apart from the base OS. The choice of products though is very wide. In e-mail, you can go for Microsoft Exchange, or third party solutions like Lotus Notes, etc. For Internet access also options like MS Proxy server are available. File and print and intranet services are provided with the base OS.

One major cause of concern for corporates while choosing an operating system is technical support and availability of third party applications on the platform. In this area, NT enjoys the maximum support from third party applications, and technical support is also readily available.

Third party application support in NetWare is moderate when compared to NT, but availability of technical support is excellent.

Until recently, there weren’t too many third party software developers backing Linux. But recently, many software giants (Oracle, Corel, Sybase, IBM, Netscape and SAP amongst others) have started to officially support Linux and are porting their applications to the platform.

There are other issues worth considering like documentation, management, and flexibility. The documentation available for NT is relatively moderate. NetWare has very exhaustive documentation, and Linux is saturated with it.

In management, Linux gives maximum flexibility in administration, as it can be done through GUI (graphical user interface), CLI (command-line interface) and WUI (Web-based user interface). The last two make it ideal for remote administration over slow WAN links or even congested LAN links.

NetWare needs both GUI and CLI for administration. It has utilities like NWAdmin for Windows and Netadmin for DOS to manage the network resources, and console commands for configuring the server. Remote management over a WAN is not very easy.

NT administration is almost entirely done through GUI, which can be a serious limitation if the configuration needs to be done remotely and only low bandwidth is available (such as at a remote location on a WAN).

Another major advantage with Linux is its modular and customizable nature. Due to this (and the freely available source code), organizations can choose what they want to install to suit their needs. Keep the parts you need and discard the rest. This is what gives Linux the flexibility to be installed even on under rated hardware.

For example, you can have a single floppy installation of Linux that runs a fully functional router on a 386 machine, or a complete intranet server on a relatively low-end Pentium-based machine. Even the GUI interface is an optional component. Such flexibility is not available in either NetWare or NT.