>
> >>The groundlings want to know if Debian is better than Red-Hat etc.?
>>>John
> >
>>FWIW, our webhosting, mail service, etc. for over 100 domains was
>>done on Slackware until recently, a conscious choice by my sysadmin
>>based on security and performance issues.
>>
>>Those same issues, especially the former, led us to change recently to
>FreeBSD.
>>
>>That other issue, ease-of-use, was not part of our criteria, however.
>
>Could you elaborate on some of the differences that influenced your
>decision. We have both in our shop but the essential differences are not yet
>clear to me.
When we migrated our production (ie client) servers to Linux in 1997
we decided on Slackware which seemed to be leanest and meanest,
focusing on network services rather than workstation functions or GUI
which are the 'selling' points of other distributions.
In February 2001 we revamped our systems. We switched to FreeBSD for
reasons that are fairly consensual in the ISP-tech community: the
'explosion' of the Linux OS has created a popular moving target for
kiddy hackers and assorted other bad guys. After five years running
public internet servers, it gets tiring being on red alert all the
time. (I don't mean to imply that our Linux servers ever let us down.
They didn't. But the Times are a'changing).
FreeBSD is a mature (ie, less glamorous) system that places security
on a higher rung. It is arguably the system of choice for ecommerce
websites, corporate email, and other critical apps.
I am new to this list and to healthcare informatics as well, but
FreeBSD does not seem like a bad choice after reading the discussions
on this list concerning the need to protect EHRs, etc.
--
.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'.'^'
Denny Adelman, Directeur
I-Link, Internet en pays de Cocagne
81000 Albi, France +33-5 63 54 81 77
