why is most hosts using unix for there servers?

[Rich]

this is something i have been checking out a lot lately and it looks like a lot of places like th ebig hosts are all using unix on there main servers is this cheaper and easier to use than window hosting i do not think i have seen a lot of big sites on window hosting?

[Abstract]

Hi Rich,

I assume you mean unix based servers. Like linux, freebsd or openbsd. With the real Unix in general you have to pay license costs. I don't think many real unix web-server are out there, I could be wrong.

Your right more then 70% of the web-servers are unix based. I think there were a couple of reasons for it. First off all there isn't any license costs involved which makes it cheaper.

Beside that unix-based server were more reliable/stable if it came down to uptime.

I'm talking here of the past. I don't know how it is today. It could be that windows servers are more stable now.

[MMemmer]

Not so sure that it is a stability issue with Windows, you just need to be prepared to reboot the server at least once a month, Windows likes that vs Unix based platforms that i know of that have been up for over 400 days.

IMHO the primary reason for choosing Unix over Windows is that Unix has always been more secure.

[raymor]

Security is one large part of it, but it's a bit more general than that.
The POSIX style operating systems derived from UNIX are multi-user
(server) systems. Historically, UNIX was developed to run large mainframes
which would be used by many people at once. Nobody sat down at a Unix
system - you used it over a network, so these systems are also called
"network operating systems". Today, we call such a computer a "server".

Microsoft's big contribution was hacking together an OS that could run in 16KB of
memory on a 4.7Mhz processor "home computer". For perspective, today's home
computers have 250,000 times as much memory. They were far less powerful than
many of today's digital watches, so the designers of home computer systems had to
cut out a large portion of the code to make a tiny little system The home computer
would only be used by one person at a time and would never be attached to any
kind of company network, so they took out anything related to security or networking.
The internet explosion ten years ago had Microsoft shitting bricks because
suddenly their home computers, which were specifically designed to never
be connected to anyone else, were suddenly connected to the whole world.
They duct taped some networking stuff on top of the system and lately have
been trying to patch on some security, but at heart Windows is still a single
user system, not a multi-user (server) system.

During those 28 years or so that Microsoft was building single user home systems,
the "UNIX like" systems - Linux, FreeBSD, etc., were becoming better and better
network servers, so they are 28 years ahead of Windows when it comes to
networking and security. As an example, when the National Security Agency
needed a secure system for working with national security secrets, they took
Linux and added addtional security enhancements to make Security Enhanced
Linux ( SELinux). Since most everything is shared in the Linux world, SELinux
was shared so your server now has the same security enhancements that the
NSA runs.

[twoface31]

Its because of security and easy maintenance for backups etc....