No, I'm not 'Roger'. Please don't be mean. Thanks.

On linux you don't have to reboot when you install a patch, plus I cluster all important servers for redundancy. I also read that insurers raised rates for people using NT. I don't know if Linux is right for a small shop that doesn't need high up time, but I know my company needs it. The reason we went with Win2k was that we read that the " five nine" uptimes were possible with that OS. Unfortunatly because of the virus/worm situation my corp didn't see that and we had to switch to linux. The license model on Windows changes on October to the subscription model so we felt it was the best time to switch. I guess if I ran a small operation with 1-30 people(with a good cash flow), than Windows might be good because Windows Servers have a less steep learning curve because it's mostly point and click, and if didn't have to provide mission critical reliability. So for like a family resturant or a couple of programmers writting apps for windows those servers are good.

The desktop is still Windows, I only installed Linux on the servers. I also know that it can't get any worse than Windows so I'm satisfied with my decision. That Gartner report just proved my decision, and if I do have problems(I doubt I will) I'll just show it to my boss.

I actually did this because I was under pressure from management to increase the uptime. I get nervous everytime I have to take the server offline to install a patch. I work at a medium size company with 400 employees and they can't do their jobs when the servers are down, and in this economy we cant afford to pay people to be idle for 3 hours every week(plus our customers may go to a competitor :-( ). I didn't like going to meetings where I was interogated on why we had to stop production. Going to anouther propriatary OS was not an option because we already spent the budget for windows licenses. I didn't think linux could be an answer because I didn't think Linux was Enterprise ready, but Rogers persistance gave me the idea to try.

I actually evaluated Linux on a test server for about a week, and then I deployed department by department, through out the company. I did this so I could replase MS specific products. It was quite easy because we don't use MS SQL Server(Oracle is what we use). Roger has posted here for a few months, and I decided to try linux on an test basis, just so I could prove him wrong. It worked so well that I just completed the switch on the server side. So overall it took me about 3 weeks. :-) I am evaluating Linux as a desktop enviroment, but I will have to be more careful because I will have to train employees, or modify Gnome/KDE so it is simple to use.

I only posted to thank roger. I don't want any Anti-Linux hate mail, so I didn't include my correct email address. I didn't have a membership but I have been reading the forum messages for months, but since I had such good luck with linux I felt I needed to thank Roger. I hope that clears things up. :-)

I have been reading the various posts that Roger and others wrote, and I finally realized he is right about Linux. The Gartner report has really changed my mind about MS in the Server market. I have already switched over all my company's servers from Windows 2000 to Linux because they would be down at least twice a week due to patches and hotfixes that needed to be applied. As of right now I'm so relieved that I did this, as it was quite easy to switch over my Active Server Pages to php with a program include in my distribution. Everything is running great. I'm now looking at making linux the desktop OS. I would now like to thank Roger for being persistant and informing me about Linux. The down time has now been eliminated from my company and that is great in this economic down turn. Plus I don't have to pay MS all those server license fees. Roger I hope you continue in your efforts, because at first I found you extremely annoying and brash, but I found that you are right. It takes an emotional effort to switch from something like MS after using it so long to Linux, and the only way I was able to do this was through your constant presentation of the facts. This finally made me realize that it is my responsiblity to make sure I have a secrure OS. If you hadn't informed and challenged me, I still would be an MS user. So I would encourage you not to get discouraged at some people's responses becuase they need to be informed, and nothing less than what you did will change them.