Unix Vs. Windows - Essay Example

UNIX vs. WINDOWS UNIX and windows are the primary operating systems in the world today. In fact, an open source version of UNIX, known as Linux, had evolves as a popular choice among ardent programming enthusiasts. However, the popularity and extent of use among different categories of users is due to the different strategies adopted by the promoters of both operating systems. The fact that windows has grown to be the most widely used operating system is due to the extensive and aggressive marketing strategies adopted by the company (Microsoft).

Apart from allowing the operating system to be used by complete novices (as a result of the ease of operation and the simple user interfaces), Microsoft has also forged partnerships with many big and small PC manufacturers, thereby ensuring that the operating system is shipped along with the PCs that consumers purchase (Jeurguen Haas, 2005). However, UNIX (as also its various versions) continues to be the preferred choice of programmers and software developers in the case of network programming.

This is due to the fact that UNIX offers ready-to-use libraries that facilitate the use of direct networking features such as sockets, semaphores and pipes. In windows however, the user is encapsulated from all such features, thereby denying them flexibility at the core programming level. This, according to them, is due to the fact that the operating system offers additional advanced capabilities when compared to Windows (Jeurguen Haas, 2005). One of the most versatile features of UNIX is the fact that the operating system can be installed on numerous machines consisting of different architectures (be it cluster or distributed architectures).

Moreover, unlike window, which is a PC based OS; UNIX can be installed on supercomputers and mainframes with a minimal change of configuration alone (KernelThread, 2006). Another problem that continues to plague windows is the constant occurrence of system breakdowns and frequent hang-ups, while such a problem has been found to have lesser frequency of occurrence in the case of UNIX. As such, a UNIX machine requires less network administration and maintenance. UNIX also offers a greater processing power and is found to have solutions for distributed environments as well.

The above points do not mean that windows do not provide networking solutions. The upper advantage of UNIX over windows based solutions lies in the fact that in order to operate across a network using windows, one would have to usually install additional software in order to communicate with other network resources, while UNIX provides all such tools beforehand at the time of installation (KernelThread, 2006). A common misconception, owing to the use of internet through Windows by most users would lead most to believe that Internet works on Windows as the foundation.

However, industry statistics suggest that as mush as 80-90% of web resources are stored and made available through the UNIX operating system, wherein the predominant web server technology in use is the Apache web server. The fact that UNIX offers more options when it comes to security features and mechanisms in comparison to windows is an added advantage in the case of the former. In contrast, windows come along as a part of many other products, which is why, the vulnerability of the operating system to security attacks and breaches, becomes more prominent (Tom Halfhill, 2007).

In spite of all these programming-level advantages that UNIX possesses over Windows, there are a large number of users under the Windows platform owing to the reason that installing and using applications (be it under networking) is much easier under it when compared to UNIX applications. This is due to the provision of easy-to-use interfaces under Windows based application, while UNIX continues to be a command line interface, which restricts it to be preferred by professionals alone. Thus, the applications available for networking under Windows are numerous while the networking capability of UNIX is much higher when compared to windows.

REFERENCES1. KernelThread (2006), a taste of computer security. Found at: http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/security/uw.html2. Tom Halfhill (2007), UNIX v. Windows NT. BYTE magazine, May 1996.3. Jeurguen Haas (2005), UNIX vs. Windows. Found at: http://linux.about.com/cs/linux101/a/unix_win.htm