<div>OK,</div>
<div>I've been using Linux for about 10 years. And at first, I did think it was hard. Now I've come a long way, but so has Linux. I do also work on Windows desktop systems (mostly XP) from time to time and manage a small Windows XP network. I am not what you would call an IT Professional, but I do the management/programming/etc/etc/etc as needed.</div>
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<div>Whoever decided that Windows point and click on servers was easy is fooling themself. I just installed a Windows Server 2008 for the first time. I have never used a Windows Server product in my life. My knowledge of Windows XP was completely useless. All I wanted was a terminal server so everyone can run Quickbooks and Mozilla Thunderbird from a terminal. Pointing and clicking (the so-called easy way) led to much frustration and error messages that I did not understand. I wanted to point and click to change my IE security level because I couldn't visit any websites. Nope, had to spend some time searching on Google for this "special security mode." Installing terminal services told me I would have to reinstall any applications that I wanted to use on terminal services. After setting up terminal services and some users and adding them to the "Remove Users Group" I still couldn't get them to log on, and forums on the Internet had instructions from older versions of Windows Server that didn't even help me at all. Now I know that I know nothing about Windows Server. That's my point. If you don't already know it - it isn't *more* user-friendly. Eventually I got everything working (keeping fingers crossed.) But I had to go through cryptic error messages, hard to find configuration settings, strange default security settings, and the OS yelling at me the whole time that everything I was doing was wrong. And dependencies on IIS that disappointed me because who wants to run a web server if they don't absolutely have to (because of security concerns)?</div>
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<div>The thing is, doesn't matter if it's Linux or Windows or anything, you must know the specific operating system in detail or spend a lot of time learning each concept before you can set up a proper server. People who think one is easier is just because they are more familiar, have specific objectives, or just plain preference.</div>
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<div>If someone wants to make a tool that makes it easier for Windows admins to run Linux servers, I'm sure that would be useful to some. But to claim this as a cure-all for the perceived (but nonexistent) additional complexity is bogus.</div>
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<div>-Joseph</div>
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