I am currently a college student looking for ways to prepare myself for any Server Administration job once I get out of college. I've been going back and worth between Freenode IRC channels (#linux and ##windows) trying to decide what to learn. On one hand, we have Windows Server 2008 R2, people in #linux keep on telling me to just go ahead and use it because "samba can't provide everything Server 2008 R2 does." The more and more I read up on Samba (especially Samba4; which I realize isn't going to be released stable for a while) it feels like it *can*provide all the features Server 2008 R2 does. Can you do a bit of myth debunking for me? Would you suggest samba for managing Windows clients (any other tools you can recommend in addition?) I really would like to use Samba + Linux because of the cost of ownership and the open-source community, I just want to make sure it's up to par with Server 2008 R2s offerings. Thank you so much for your time!
On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 04:08:38PM -0400, Chris wrote:> I am currently a college student looking for ways to prepare myself for any > Server Administration job once I get out of college. > I've been going back and worth between Freenode IRC channels (#linux and > ##windows) trying to decide what to learn. > On one hand, we have Windows Server 2008 R2, people in #linux keep on > telling me to just go ahead and use it because "samba can't provide > everything Server 2008 R2 does." > The more and more I read up on Samba (especially Samba4; which I realize > isn't going to be released stable for a while) it feels like it > *can*provide all the features Server 2008 R2 does. > Can you do a bit of myth debunking for me?If you want to be an admin of samba boxes, then play with samba. If you want to be a windows admin, then go play with windows (samba won't be any help learning that).> Would you suggest samba for managing Windows clients (any other tools you > can recommend in addition?) > I really would like to use Samba + Linux because of the cost of ownership > and the open-source community, I just want to make sure it's up to par with > Server 2008 R2s offerings.Linux + samba is a great way to get a cheap and reliable fileserver (and to some extent a domain controller) for windows clients. Administrating it is nothing like administrating a windows server at all. It is simply an alternate choice of server. So if you want to learn to administrate a windows server, then that's what you will need to learn on. -- Len Sorensen
As a career move I don't see any reason why you shouldn't / couldn't learn both. Couldn't hurt, would increase your knowledge base and extend your resume/options. On Mar 17, 2010, at 1:08 PM, Chris wrote:> I am currently a college student looking for ways to prepare myself for any > Server Administration job once I get out of college. > I've been going back and worth between Freenode IRC channels (#linux and > ##windows) trying to decide what to learn. > On one hand, we have Windows Server 2008 R2, people in #linux keep on > telling me to just go ahead and use it because "samba can't provide > everything Server 2008 R2 does." > The more and more I read up on Samba (especially Samba4; which I realize > isn't going to be released stable for a while) it feels like it > *can*provide all the features Server 2008 R2 does. > Can you do a bit of myth debunking for me? > > Would you suggest samba for managing Windows clients (any other tools you > can recommend in addition?) > I really would like to use Samba + Linux because of the cost of ownership > and the open-source community, I just want to make sure it's up to par with > Server 2008 R2s offerings. > > Thank you so much for your time! > -- > To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the > instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba