linux | DataRecoveryUnion.com

Linux is a great and powerful operating system that has included unique features, advanced technologies and great applications. The reason behind its popularity is its great maintenance and security of data stored into their hard disk. Linux operating system is a multi-user and multi-tasking operating system that is the need of today’s world where unlimited data storage required into the computer. It is very powerful and easy to use operating system that has no required extra efforts. Anyone can use this that has technical sound or not.

Since it has multi-user & multitasking capacities, it is widely used around the world and there is a big community of Linux users. Although it is a high quality product, but sometimes it also face problems like data crash or data corruption. The corrupted data can be user stored data of system data which is necessary to run the system properly. If this kind of unfortunate event happens and you found that you can not access your files then you need to use certain recovery software so save yourself from this disaster. The software which is used to do certain critical operations are known as Linux Data Recovery Software.

The Linux Data Recovery Software can do all kind of recovery based on Ext2, Ext3 & ReiserFS file system recovery, recovers Linux deleted files or other kind of files. It first searches the bad sector, corrupted or deleted files and then it recovers it. Then it repairs all the files. After the repairing process finishes, it stores it on the specified location where you want to store the repaired files.

The Linux data recovery software is a must have product for all the Linux users who are professionals and thoroughly use their Linux based computer. The Linux data recovery software is made to recover all kinds of corrupted or damaged files which are on the Linux operating system. It helps you in following conditions:

When your files & folders are lost on your Linux desktop
You have accidentally formatted your hard disk
You have deleted the files from the trash or recycle bin
Operating System corruption
Missing files & folders
Missing Volumes
Deleted Volumes

Linux Data Recovery Software is software which can solve all your problems on your Linux based computers. To save your precious data, you must need to go for the Linux data recovery.

Hard Disk Repair

Linux Document Preparation

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago12 years ago03 mins

addftinfo        Add information to troff font files for use with groff.
afmtodit        Create font files for use with groff.
colcrt        Filter nroff output for CRT previewing.
enscript        Convert text files to postscript.
eqn        Format equations for troff. Compiles descriptions of equations embedded in troff.
geqn        Used to print special symbols and complex equations. Not user friendly.
git        GNU interactive tools.
gitaction        Per file type action script.
gitkeys        Display key sequence utility.
gitmount        Allows any block device to be mounted.
gitps        A graphical process viewer and killer program.
gitrgrep        A recursive grep program.
gitunpack        Used to unpack archive files in a given directory.
gitview        A hexadecimal or ASC file viewer.
grodvi        Convert Groff output to TeX dvi format, normally run by groff.
groff        Used as a front end for the groff document formatting system.
grops        Postscript driver for groff. invoked by groff.
gtbl        Used to prepare charts, multicolumn lists and tabular formats.
hpftodit        Create font description files for use with groff.
indxbib        Make inverted index for bibliographic databases.
lookbib        Search bibliographic databases.
nroff        Emulate nroff command with groff.
pfbtops        Translate a postscript font in .pbf format to ASCII.
pic        Compile pictures for troff or Tex.
psbb        Extract bounding box from postscript document.
refer         Preprocess bibliographic references for groff.
rpm2html        Make an html database from rpm repository.
soelim        Interpret .so requests in groff input.
tbl        Format tables for groff.
TeX        Used to format professionally typeset documents (Chapters, Headings, and paragraphs).
texi2html        Texinfo to html converter.
tfmtodit        Create font files for use with groff.
troff        Formats documents as part of the groff document formatting system.
yacc        A parser generator.

Hard Disk Repair

Linux Printing and Programming

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago12 years ago14 mins

Linux Printing

banner        Print a large banner on printer.
lpr        Print, submits a job to the printer.
Ex: lpr -Pdest filename. Dest is the destination printer. the name of the file to print is filename.
lpc        Lets you check the status of the printer and set its state.
lpq        Shows the contents of a spool directory for a given printer.
lprm         Removes a job from the printer queue.
gs        Ghostscript – A PostScript interpreter.
pr        Print a file. Ex: pr filename |pg.
tunelp        Set various parameters for the lp device.

Linux Programming

as86        Assembler
awk        C programming language – allows finding of lines with specific characters.
bc        A precision calculator language.
cproto        Reads in c source files and generates function prototypes for all the functions.
ctags        Generate tag (index) files for source code.
dialog        Display dialog boxes from shell scripts.
egcs        GNU project C and C++ compiler.
f2c        Converts fortran code to c code.
gawk        Pattern scanning and processing language. GNU’s implementation of awk.
gcc        GNU c and c++ compiler.
-g        Produce debugging information.
-pg        Generate profile info that will allow the gprof program to display timing info.
gdb        Debugging program.
gprof        In /usr/bin, allows you to tell where most of the execution time is spent in a program.
igawk        Gawk with include files.
indent        Reformats c source code for consistent indenting and opening and closing brackets consistent.
ld         The GNU linker.
ld86        Linker for as86.
make        GNU make utility to maintain a group of programs.
nm        Lists symbols from object files.
objcopy        Copy and translate object files.
objdump        Display information from object files.
p2c        Converts pascal code to c code.
prompt        set prompt = “waldo” (in C shell) ps1 = ‘waldo’ (in BOURNE shell)
PS1=”[\u@\h \w]\\$ ” makes prompt = [username@hostname current directory]
see the BASH or your shell’s man page for more information.
size        List section sizes and total size.
strip        Discard symbols from object files.
xxgdb        X windows based graphical user interface to gdb.

Scripting Languages

Perl        A command interpreter for the Practical Extraction and Report Language (perl).
Python        A report language.
Tcl        Tool command language shell. Enter by typing tclsh.
info        Return information about the state of the Tcl interpreter.
Tk        A graphical user extension to Tcl based on X windows. Commands are same as Tcl.

Hard Disk Repair

Linux User Management

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago12 years ago06 mins

ac        Print statistics about users’ connect time.
accton        Turn on accounting of processes. To turn it on type “accton /var/log/pacct”.
adduser        Ex: adduser mark – Effect: Adds a user to the system named mark
chage        Used to change the time the user’s password will expire.
chfn        Change the user full name field finger information
chgrp        Changes the group ownership of files.
chown        Change the owner of file(s ) to another user.
chpasswd        Update password file in batch.
chroot        Run command or interactive shell with special root directory.
chsh        Change the login shell.
edquota        Used to edit user or group quotas. This program uses the vi editor to edit the quota.user and quota.group files. If the environment variable EDITOR is set to emacs, the emacs editor will be used. Type “export EDITOR=emacs” to set that variable.
faillog        Examine faillog and set login failure limits.
finger        See what users are running on a system.
gpasswd        Administer the /etc/group file.
groupadd        Create a new group.
grpck        Verify the integrity of group files.
grpconv        Creates /etc/gshadow from the file /etc/group which converts to shadow passwords.
grpunconv        Uses the files /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow to create /etc/passwd, then deletes /etc/shadow which converts from shadow passwords.
groupdel        Delete a group.
groupmod        Modify a group.
groups        Print the groups a user is in
id        Print real and effective user id and group ids.
last        Display the last users logged on and how long.
lastb        Shows failed login attempts. This command requires the file /var/log/btmp to exist in order to work. Type “touch /var/log/btmp” to begin logging to this file.
lastcomm        Display information about previous commands in reverse order. Works only if process accounting is on.
lastlog        Formats and prints the contents of the last login.
logname        Print user’s login name.
newgrp        Lets a suer log in to a new group.
newusers        Update and create newusers in batch.
passwd        Set a user’s pass word.
pwck        Verify integrity of password files.
pwconv        Convert to and from shadow passwords and groups.
quota        Display users’ limits and current disk usage.
quotaoff        Turns system quotas off.
quotaon        Turns system quotas on.
quotacheck        Used to check a filesystem for usage, and update the quota.user file.
repquota        Lists a summary of quota information on filesystems.
sa        Generates a summary of information about users’ processes that are stored in the /var/log/pacct file.
smbclient        Works similar to an ftp client enabling the user to transfer files to and from a windows based computer.
smbmount        Allows a shared directory on a windows machine to be mounted on the Linux machine.
smbpasswd        Program to change users passwords for samba.
su        Ex: su mark – Effect: changes the user to mark, If not root will need marks password.
sulogin        Single user login.
ulimit        A bash builtin command for setting the processes a user can run.
useradd        Create a new user or update default new user information.
userdel        Delete a user account and related files.
usermod        Modify a user account.
users        Print the user names of users currently logged in.
utmpdump        Used for debugging.
vigr        Edit the password or group files.
vipw        Edit the password or group files.
w        Display users logged in and what they are doing.
wall        Send a message to everybody’s terminal.
who        Display the users logged in.
whoami        Print effective user id.

Hard Disk Repair

Linux System Management

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago29 mins

Environment

env        Show all environment variables.
export        Set the value of a variable so it is visible to all subprocesses that belong to the current shell.
printenv        Print all or part of environment.
reset        Restores runtime parameters for session to default values.
set        Shows how the environment is set up. This is a builtin bash command.

Library management

ldconfig        Updates the necessary links for the run time link bindings.
ldd        Tells what libraries a given program needs to run.
ltrace        A library call tracer.
trace        Same as ltrace.

Module and kernel management

depmod        Handle loadable modules automatically. Creates a makefile-like dependency file.
dmesg        Print or control the kernel ring buffer. This shows the last kernel startup messages.
genksyms        Generate symbol version information.
insmod        Install loadable kernel module.
lsmod        List currently installed kernel modules.
modprobe        Used to load a set of modules that are marked with a specified tag.
rmmod        Unload loadable modules.

Runtime level management

exit        Terminates the shell.
halt        Stop the system.
init        Process control initialization.
initscript        Script that executes inittab commands.
logout        Log the user off the system.
poweroff        Brings the system down.
reboot        Reboot the system.
runlevel        List the current and previous runlevel.
setsid        Run a program in a new session.
shutdown        If your system has many users, use the command “shutdown -h +time message”, where time is the time in minutes until the system is halted, and message is a short explanation of why the system is shutting down.
# shutdown -h +10 ‘We will install a new disk. System should be back on-line in three hours.’
telinit        By requesting run level 1 a system can be taken to single user mode.

System Configuration tools

ctrlaltdel        Set the function of the ctrl alt del combination.
isapnp        Configure ISA plug and play devices.
kbdconf         A Redhat Linux tool which configures the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file which specifies the location of the keyboard map file. This is a GUI based tool.
kbdrate        Set the keyboard repeat rate and delay time.
kernelcfg        A Redhat GUI kernel configuration tool, Start X, then run it from a console session.
linuxconf        Redhat’s GUI linux system configuration tool.
lspci        List all pci devices.
mesg        Control write access to your terminal.
mouseconfig        A Redhat Linux tool used to configure the /etc/sysconfig.mouse file. This is a GUI tool.
ndc        Script file used to restart, stop, start the DNS server.
Printtool        Redhat’s GUI printer configuration tool.
quota        Display disk usage and limits.
quotacheck        Scan a filesystem for disk usages.
quotaoff        Turn file system quotas off.
quotaon        Turn file system quotas on.
samba        Script file used to stop, start, restart samba services when not run using inetd.
setpci        Configure pci devices.
setserial        Set/get serial port information.
setterm        Set terminal attributes.
setup        Set up devices and file systems.
stty        Used to configure and print the console devices.
swapon        Enable devices and files for paging and swapping.
swapoff        Disable devices and files for paging and swapping.
timeconfig        A Redhat Linux tool used to configure the /etc/sysconfig/clock file. This is a GUI tool used to set timezone and whether or not the clock is set to GMT time.
tset        Used to initialize terminals.

System Information

arch        Print machine architecture.
df         Shows disk free space.
du        Shows disk usage.
free        Display used and free memory on the system.
ipcrm        Provide information on ipc facilities.
ipcs        Same as ipcrm.
lsdev        Display information about installed hardware via files in the /proc directory.
lsof        List open files.
lspci        List PCI devices .
pnpdump        Lists ISA plug and play devices resource information.
procinfo        Display system status gathered from proc.
pstree        Display a tree of processes.
runlevel        Find the current and previous system runlevel.
strace        Trace ssytem calls and signals for a binary program.
stty        Change and print terminal line settings.
tload        Prints a graphic representation of the system load average.
tty        Print the filename of the terminal connected to standard input.
uname        Print system information, Prints Linux.
vmstat        Report virtual memory statistics.
xcpustate        Displays CPU states (idle, nice, system, kernel) statistics. Runs in X?

System Logging

klogd        Kernel log daemon which intercepts and logs Linux kernel messages.
logger        Make entries in the system log.
syslogd        Linux system logging utilities.
sysklogd        Linux system logging utilities.

System Security

System time
cal        Calendar.
clock        Used to change or get current time. The command “clock -–w” sets the hardware clock.
date        Print or set the system date and time.
hwclock        Set or read the hardware CMOS clock.
timed        Time server daemon to synchronize the host’s time with other machines, normally invoked at boot time from the rc(8) file.
timedc        Timed control program.
tzset        Used to change the users private time zone by setting the TZ environment variable.
uptime        Reports how long the system has been running.
zdump        Prints the current time in each zonename named on the command line.
zic        Reads text from files named on the command line and creates time conversion files.

X Management and programs

SuperProbe        Probe video hardware.
Xconfigurator        The Redhat tool used during system setup to configure X.
xconsole        Displays messages usually sent to /dev/console.
xf86config        Older version of XF86Setup.
XF86Setup        A newer X configuration program with a GUI interface which modifies the “/etc/X11/XF86Config” configuration file.
xvidtune        This program will test video modes on the fly without modification to your X configuration. Read the usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/VideoModes.doc file before running this program.

Hard Disk Repair

Miscellaneous Linux Commands

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago04 mins

Keys and keycodes and console

dumpkeys        Dump keyboard translation tables.
getkeycodes        Print kernel scancode-to-keycode mapping table.
lesskey        Specify key bindings for less.
loadkeys        Load keyboard translation tables.
psfaddtable        Add a unicode character table to a console font.
psfgettable        Extract the embedded Unicode character table from a console font.
psfstriptable        Remove the embedded Unicode character table from a console font.
resizecons        Change kernel idea of the console size.
setkeycodes        Load kernel scancode-to-keycode mapping table.

Ncurses functions

captoinfo        Convert a termcap description into a terminfo description.
clear        Clear the terminal screen.
infocmp        Compare or print out terminfo descriptions.
reset        Restore run-time parameters for session to default values.
tie        Merge or apply WEB change files.
toe        Table of terminfo entries.
tput        Initialize a terminal or query terminfo database.
tset        Terminal initialization.

CD programs

cdparanoia An audio CD reading utility.
cdrecord Record audio or data compact Disks from a master.

Other

alias        Ex:: alias dir=’ls -a’ – Effect: Makes dir list all files (no spaces next to the = sign).
bison        GNU project parser generator.
chvt        Change foreground virtual terminal.
crack        Program used to find bad passwords or crack security.
cvs        Concurrent Versions System.
deallocvt        Gets rid of unused virtual terminals.
dumpkeys        Dump keyboard translation tables.
fc         Fix command. Used to edit the commands in the current history list.
gdbm        The GNU database manager.
gpm        A cut and paste mouse server.
history        Show commands listed in the shell history (last n).
lilo        Boot management program.
mc        Visual shell for Unix like system. A file manager.
nc        A file manager.
pdksh        Public domain Korn shell.
pilot        Filesystem browser.
PS1=”Please enter a command”        Set Bash level 1 response.
PS2=”I need more information”        Set Bash level 2 response.
rcs        Recision Control system. Change RCS file attributes.
sash        Standalone shell with built in commands.
screen        Screen manager with VT100 terminal emulation.
sleep        Ex: “sleep 2” – wait 2 seconds.
tcsh        C shell with filename completion and command line editing.
unalias        Ex: “unalias dir” – Effect: Removes the alias dir.
units        Unit conversion program.
variables

* set – Ex: set t=/temp
* unset – Ex: unset t
* echo – Ex: echo $t

zsh The Z shell.
ttysnoop A program that comes with some systems that lets the administrator to snoop on the user’s terminals.

Hard Disk Repair

Linux Network Management

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago12 years ago06 mins

Names

dnsdomainname
Show the systems DNS domain name

domainname
Show or set the systems domain name

hostname
Used to show or set the name of your machine for networking

nisdomainname
Show or set systems NIS/YP domain name

nodename
Show or set the systems DECnet node name

ypdomainname
Show or set the system’s NIS/YP domain name

Network setup and commands

arp
This program lets the user read or modify their arp cache.

dig(1)
Send domain name query packets to name servers for debugging or testing.

finger
Display information about the system users.

ftp
File transfer program.

ifconfig
Configure a network interface.

ifdown
Shutdown a network interface.

ifup
Brings a network interface up. Ex: ifup eth0

ipchains
IP firewall administration used to set input, forward, and output rules.

netconf
A GUI interactive program to let you configure a network on Redhat systems.

netconfig
Another GUI step by step network configuration program.

netstat
Displays information about the systems network connections, including port connections, routing tables, and more. The command “netstar -r” will display the routing table.

nslookup
Used to query DNS servers for information about hosts.

pftp
Same as ftp.

ping
Send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts.

portmap
DARPA port to RPC program number mapper. Must be running to make RPC calls.

rarp
Manipulate the system’s RARP table.

rcp
Remote file copy. Copies files between two machines.

rexec
Remote execution client for an exec server. The host uses the rexecd server.

ripquery
Query RIP gateways. Request all routes known by an RIP gateway by sending an RIP request.

rlogin
Starts a terminal session on a remote host.

route
Show or manipulate the IP routing table.

rsh
Executes command on remote host.

rup
Displays summary of current system status of a remote host or all hosts on the network.

ruptime
Show host status of local machines.

rwhod
System status server, maintains database used by rwho and ruptime.

showmount
Show mount information for an NFS server.

tcpd
Access control facility for internet services. Can be set up to monitor requests for Telnet, finger, ftp, exec, rsh, rlogin, tftp, talk, comsat. It filters access for these requests.

tcpdchk
Tcp wrapper configuration checker.

tcpdump
Dump traffic on a network. Prints out headers of packets that match the boolean expression.

tcpdmatch
Predicts how the tcp wrapper will handle a specific request for a service.

Telnet
User interface to the TELNET protocol, setting up a remote console session.

traceroute
Print the route that packets take to the specified network host.

ipx_configure
Tool to setup Netware access.

ncpmount
Netware filesystem mounting program.

nprint
Novell print command.

pqlist
Netware printer list for a given server.

pserver
Netware print server.

slist
Netware server list.

Communications commands (includes mail)

biff
Notifies the system if mail arrives and who it is from.

comsat
Biff server to receive reports of incoming mail.

expire
Used to purge old news articles.

elm
Electronic mail.

ftp
File transfer protocol.

mailx
Berkley mail program.

metasend
Interface for sending non-text mail.

nn
Net news.

pine
Program for internet news and e-mail, Can send documents, graphics, local & remote messages.

sendmail
A popular Unix, Linux mail message transfer agent.

smail
A popular mail message transfer agent which is easier to set up than sendmail.

talk
Lets two parties talk simultaneously.

telnet
Allows a user to have a login session across a network on a remote host.

tin
Net news reader.

write
Allows users to directly interact with other users via terminal number (one way at a time).

Data Storage

The Information about Linux Desktop from IBM

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago10 months ago07 mins

21 May 2009: IBM announced the results of a study conducted by the I.T. analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, commissioned by IBM, which showed that Linux desktops were easier to implement than IT staff expected if they targeted the right groups of users, such as those who have moderate and predictable use of e-mail and office tools

The research behind the report, “Linux on the Desktop: Lessons from Mainstream Business Adoption,” was designed, executed and interpreted independently by Freeform Dynamics. Feedback was gathered via an online survey of 1,275 I.T. professionals from the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a spread of other countries across Western Europe and the Nordics. Ninety percent of the study’s respondents had direct experience with desktop Linux deployment in their business.

Those with experience of such migrations said that Linux on the desktop was best achieved when it was first targeted to groups of non-technical users. Transaction workers and general professional workers were seen as more than twice as likely to be primary targets for desktop Linux adoption than mobile and creative staff. A majority of the respondents indicated that Linux desktop deployments to these targeted groups was easier than anticipated.

“Some users care a great deal about their desktop computing environment and may be emotionally or practically wedded to Windows,” said Dale Vile, research director, Freeform Dynamics. “The trick is to avoid getting distracted by these, and focus on the users for whom the PC on their desk is simply a tool to get their job done. Migrating a general professional user who only needs to access a couple of central systems, an email inbox and light word processing is pretty straightforward.”

Key statistics of the study include:

71% of respondents indicated cost reduction as their primary driver for adoption.
35% stated the ease of securing the desktop was another primary driver
32% cited the lowering of overheads associated with maintenance and support in general were factors contributing to the benefit of desktop Linux adoption
Those with experience of Linux desktop rollouts are 50% more likely to regard non-technical users such as general professional users and transaction workers as primary targets for Linux
58% of those with prior experience of a Linux desktop rollout see general professional users as primary targets
52% of those with prior experience of a Linux desktop rollout see transaction workers as primary targets.
32% of those with prior experience of a Linux desktop rollout see power users as primary targets.
47% of respondents said usability was the main consideration when evaluating or selecting a desktop Linux distribution for use in a business environment

The study confirmed Linux on the desktop adoption is primarily driven by cost reduction. About twice as many of the respondents cited cost savings over security as the primary driver of why they’d adopt Linux on the desktop. Participants in the study indicated that both environments can be secured adequately — it’s just cheaper to secure a Linux desktop and maintain it that way.

“If a company is a ‘Windows shop,’ at some point it will need to evaluate the significant costs of migrating its base to Microsoft’s next desktop and continuing the defense against virus and other attacks,” said Bob Sutor, vice president of Linux and open source, IBM Software Group. “Savvy IT departments see the Linux desktop as a PC investment that actually saves money during this downturn. We see the recession fueling open source on the desktop.”

The user groups in the study were defined as:

IT operations/support staff
General professional users (relatively light and predictable use of e-mail, office tools, etc)
Transaction workers (mostly using enterprise applications in a routine prescriptive manner)
Other (non-IT) technical staff (e.g. engineers, technical designers/architects)
Office based power users (e.g. finance staff, marketing teams, knowledge workers, etc)
Highly mobile professional users (e.g. sales, roaming managers, etc)
Creative staff (non-engineering, e.g. graphic design)

For more information on IBM, you can visit http://www.ibm.com/think

Hard Disk Repair

Windows & Linux for Workstation & Servers

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago12 years ago08 mins

Windows is generally perceived as being easier to use and administer and mostly with good reason. Most companies choose Windows as their desktop environment and often for their intranet servers too. And yet some companies selected Linux as the desktop and server platform for their massive infrastructure upgrade. In the following paragraphs I will explain the rationale for the decision.

As Sever Machines: Linux VS Windows

For Example: we have embarked on a massive upgrade of our infrastructure with the addition of several 24/7 servers with RAID 1, QA automation machines, order processing machine and redundant internet connections. Each server machine will have RAID 1 and also have hot backup. The choice was between Windows server and Linux. Choose Linux for our server machines for the following reasons:

1. Web server runs on Linux for strategic and security reasons. It only makes sense to have the same server operating system and environment here to simplify maintenance.

2. There should have two machine (one for hot backup) to provide internet connection. The same machine will also host DNS server, Web server and database (for the applications). In short we should make it a near duplicate of our web server machine. The idea is to be able to use this machine to act as a emergency backup of our live server(s). Both the machines (files and database) will be synched several times a day. This machine can also act as backup DNS provider. However this cannot be used to distribute load under normal situations because the upload bandwidth is low as is normal in ADSL and Cable connections. Even then this should provide me with some peace of mind. It only makes sense to have similar configurations in this machine as our current web server machine(s).

3. High cost of Windows server machines for multiple licenses and complicated licensing schemes. The cost of procuring and ensuring that we are compliant is very high for small organizations, not simply in dollar value but also in terms of resource allocation. They will use commodity hardware and they will have to replace them from time to time. However, with Linux they can keep several hot backups and not worry about breaking their licenses. In intend to use Fedora Core as our experience with them has been very positive.

4. RAID 1 support: Both Windows 2003 server and Linux provide software RAID 1 support and also other RAID levels. Unfortunately Windows XP Pro or Windows 2000 do not provide RAID 1 support (mirrored). You must purchase the server version. Both operating systems work with hardware RAID 1. However at this time we choose the software route as it fits well with our strategy of using commodity hardware and having spare backup machines; also it is cheaper without compromising data integrity and availability. Generally in software RAID the performance is expected to be lower. Also in Windows RAID support you will first have to install the operating system on a non-RAID device before RAID can be enabled. Linux provide all the RAID support through software and for free. Their RAID support appears more configurable and all encompassing.

5. The server applications like Apache HTTP server, Subversion, MySQL, DNS Server runs equally well on both platforms.

As Workstations: Linux VS Window

Development & QA Automation Machines

These need to be high end machine. For Example: we use a code editor for php and Eclipse IDE for Java. Both of them are available in Linux as well as Windows XP. Linux comes with Bash shell which is significantly superior to cmd prompt in terms of scripting and task automation. Java and PHP work in Linux as well as on Windows platform.

Blogging Machine

As a blogger we simply need a web browser and a convenient feed reader. There are several PHP-MySQL based feed readers which will suitably serve our requirements. Firefox works fine with Linux as well as Windows. So you see Windows do not have any advantage here.

Email

Any machines require email access. In my experiments Thunderbird came slightly ahead of Microsoft Outlook for pure email purposes especially due to built in Naive Bayesian filter and close integration with Firefox, our web browser. For additional requirements like Calendar, Sunbird is a good choice.

Security

Linux is traditionally ahead of Windows in terms of security. We can get a reasonable protection with iptables alone. ClamAV serves as a decent anti-virus solution for Linux among others. Frankly Internet Explorer will not be missed.

Office Productivity Suite

Star Office competes well against Microsoft Office in this department.

Linux lacks behind in ease of use and requires more upfront training. However the increased security, availability of software RAID 1 (mirroring) and lack of licensing hassles give it a strong advantage over Microsoft Windows. This is just my opinion.

Data Recovery

Comparison of Software RAID on Windows versus Linux

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM16 years ago12 years ago14 mins

The basic idea of RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) is to combine multiple small, independent disk drives into an array of disk drives which yields performance and recoverability exceeding that of a Single Large Expensive Drive (SLED). Redundancy is also provided (unless RAID 0) which allows easy and often automatic recovery from hard disk crash. With the reduction in price of ATA and SATA drives it is often a good idea, even for desktop computers, to setup a RAID 1 system to allow you to function in the event of hard disk failures. In RAID 1 two hard disks (or portions of them) mirror each other. RAID 1 is essential for our environment. I have tested both Windows software RAID facility as well as Linux RAID capability. Linux RAID support is way superior to Windows and should by itself be the reason to switch to Linux. I have given 4 reasons to support my claim below.

Linux supports RAID on block devices. So you can setup RAID between two partitions on the same hard disk or even on two RAID 0 arrays, effectively creating RAID 10 array. Windows simply supports RAID 0 and GBOD (known as linear on Linux) only for non-server users. Linux support all RAID variants. Even Windows server doesn’t support the intermediate RAID variants.

In Linux as well as Windows you can create RAID arrays spanning machines.

In Windows you cannot install the operating system on RAID. In Linux you can even install the operating system on RAID file system. This means if one of the hard disk dies you can easily boot from the other hard disk (assuming you transferred the MBR earlier).

If you have spare hard disks, Linux will automatically configure it and add to the RAID array, should one of the RAID disks fail. This is to my knowledge not possible in Windows.

Linux RAID can be easily configured during installation. All the partitions (/, /opt and even swap) can and should be RAID enabled. Windows RAID is harder to configure and is done after installation of the OS, from disk management.

Comprehensive RAID support by itself (not to mention security) should be reason enough for SMB servers to switch to / use Linux.