My opinion, for what it's worth. If you run a server of some sort, Linux is by far your best choice. Windows simply doesn't have the options for tailoring your server specifically for your needs, Linux is more secure, and more stable. The software is also free. In short, if you are running a server of some sort, you'd be stupid not to run Linux.
I'll just give you a quick example. I run Half-Life servers on the weekend, and I host a website. I have a business cable connection, and I do it on that. I used to run Windows XP Pro. I switched to Linux a couple of years ago. I used to have a check list for starting up and shutting down my servers, with over a dozen steps each way.
That has been replaced with one step. I run a script, enter the game server I want to run (I run a variety of different mods), and the script does everything else for starting up the server, and I have another script that shuts down the server, which requires no input from me at all. I could never have done this with Windows without at least the equivalent of a college degree.
With Half-Life and Half-Life 2, you can control the number of updates per second which your server sends, and that is a pretty effective way to manage the bandwidth your server uses. I have limited bandwidth so I have to manage it carefully. Generally you want to have your updates per second as high as possible for performance reasons, but you will be limited by your hardware and bandwidth, and how many server slots you wish to host.
When I switched from Windows to Linux, my server slots remained the same, but I was able to more than double my updates per second. It seems to me that pings to the server also improved, but certainly not as dramatically, and that is a bit harder to judge because the factors which will affect ping times to a server are generally external to the server itself.
The learning curve can be steep, but if you are running a server, you should be prepared to put the time necessary into configuring it, and securing it properly, so with either Windows or Linux, if you are starting from scratch, you will need to put some effort into setting it up properly, or if you are a business, either have a capable IT department, or be prepared to pay a consultant to do the job for you.
For desktops, the choice isn't as clear. Linux is more customizable, it is generally more stable, and infinitely more secure. There are also distros that are quite user friendly, but getting specific software to run properly on Linux, especially popular games, of which extremely few have native Linux versions, can require some effort and access to expertise.
Because Linux is advancing so quickly often information you find on the internet is out of date, so finding the solutions to specific problems can be a big job at times. However, once again, the software is generally free, and while getting someone to fix your problems for you is much more difficult than it is with Windows, you have a lot more options for fixing the problems yourself.
But I'll make a little prediction for you. Right now, for the average user, Windows is the better option, simply because it is supported better by the commercial community. However, I predict that within ten years, and probably a lot sooner than that, Linux is going to be better than Windows in every way, including running native Windows software. It is going to be all the good things it is now, and it is going to be more user friendly.
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I like Beer myself.
[/ QUOTE ]You and me both. Good beer is much less expensive than good wine. So if you are fussy like I am, unless you are rich, beer is the way to go. But in this case Wine is much less expensive...
