# Windows Vs Linux Servers



## techmaster85 (Sep 5, 2011)

Hi All,

I am an IT Admin for a small company (150 users) and currently we use all windows servers, 2003, 2008, 2008R2 and 2012. I am interviewing for other positions and many of the Sys Admin roles want to see Linux server use.

Was just wondering what the differences are in an enterprise enviornemnt between the two, how hard is Linux server to use and where is the best place to learn to have some knowledge of it? I use Mint and Ubuntu in the Desktop form, not the server forms..

Thanks


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## rhynes (Aug 14, 2006)

Been running linux in different server applications for years, and i'm still no expert with it. I'm not the personality that can learn from a book, best learned at the keyboard. There is a wealth of information on linux online. 

Best thing to do is just pick a task and do it, samba is a great place to start. Or register an internet domain and play around with webservers and email. I generally use ubuntu, but have used centos in the past as well. I find ubuntu is a little easier all around, some may find another flavor better. The latest samba is great, mimic's windows environments, can use the windows remote server tools to admin some of it. 

If you have a decent laptop/desktop, install virtualbox and load your preferred flavor of linux in a virtual environment. It's fast and easy, if you screw up, you can have restore points to return to or just delete and start over.


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## techmaster85 (Sep 5, 2011)

Ya, I have done that with Virtualox before, but I have never had any enterprise "project" to be using it with. I've learned the desktops fair enough, but I still don't understand what a linux admin at the enterprise level does.


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## rhynes (Aug 14, 2006)

Ask yourself what a windows admin does at an enterprise level? It's too much for one person so roles are generally divvied up among multiple people. Exchange server admin, Domain admin etc. I was once offered a job as a windows update admin, wanted me to run updates on 1000 servers - not my cup of tea and i'm not an enterprise type of guy. 

So linux sysadmin's will be the same. Talk to different companies, look at the linux job offers and see what they are looking for in mail software packages, domain admin etc. That's your base. Linux can be a steep learning curve, and server isn't workstation.


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## techmaster85 (Sep 5, 2011)

Your entire job would be to make sure the updates were current on 1K servers? That was all you would do every day?


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## rhynes (Aug 14, 2006)

Yes, that's all they wanted. If you're looking to get into Linux, think about what you want to do and go for it. If you enjoy windows domain networking, concentrate on samba. Linux is a lot of fun


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## techmaster85 (Sep 5, 2011)

When you say concentrate on Samba..I'm such a newbie all I know is samba is a form of tranferring and networking in Linux...can you elaborate more?


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## rhynes (Aug 14, 2006)

Samba essentially builds the equivalent of Windows domain / active directory. I would start by building a linux domain controller and add some workstations to it.


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## zx10guy (Mar 30, 2008)

I had to mess with Linux in a passing situation with past jobs. Know enough to be dangerous. As rhynes stated, you just need to start with specific projects and then build on it.

What I did find was the use of webmin was the quick and dirty way of getting things set up using a GUI. webmin provides you the capability to set up Samba shares and to mess with the internal Linux firewall (iptables)...among other functions.


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## rhynes (Aug 14, 2006)

zx10guy said:


> I had to mess with Linux in a passing situation with past jobs. Know enough to be dangerous. As rhynes stated, you just need to start with specific projects and then build on it.
> 
> What I did find was the use of webmin was the quick and dirty way of getting things set up using a GUI. webmin provides you the capability to set up Samba shares and to mess with the internal Linux firewall (iptables)...among other functions.


Yes, webmin is a great addition to any linux server.

I'd suggest starting with ubuntu 12.04 LTS, download the desktop version so you'll have a GUI to work with but as you get used to working in terminal, you probably won't use it much and can do without. Ubuntu desktop can be set up as a server, other than lack of GUI, the server is really no different. I started working with gedit but forced myself to learn nano in the terminal.

Maybe full bore samba domain is a big bite to chew on, you can set samba up as a peer server using simple file sharing. Linux file and folder rights were difficult for me to wrap my head around, but once you learn them, it's not so bad. Once you feel comfortable with a peer server, go for the domain. You can use windows remote server tools to config much of samba.

Linux is a great feather in cap.


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