Windows vs Linux

[miked]

I currently have a store using osCommerce on a Linux based server through a small local hosting company. I'm thinking about changing to a different hosting company (godaddy.com). Godaddy offers both Linux and Windows based hosting options. Are there any advantages to either using Windows or Linux? What changes will I need to do to my current site if I go with one or the other?

Thanks,

Mike

[boxtel]

I currently have a store using osCommerce on a Linux based server through a small local hosting company. I'm thinking about changing to a different hosting company (godaddy.com). Godaddy offers both Linux and Windows based hosting options. Are there any advantages to either using Windows or Linux? What changes will I need to do to my current site if I go with one or the other?

Thanks,

Mike

 

none and none

[AlanR]

Search this forum for Windows servers. This link is good.

 

Windows Servers and osC

 

php under Windows is a poor subset of php under Unix/Linux.

 

For starters just think about .htaccess files.

[miked]

Search this forum for Windows servers. This link is good.

 

Windows Servers and osC

 

php under Windows is a poor subset of php under Unix/Linux.

 

For starters just think about .htaccess files.

 

Looks like Linux is the way to go.

Thanks.

[boxtel]

Search this forum for Windows servers. This link is good.

 

Windows Servers and osC

 

php under Windows is a poor subset of php under Unix/Linux.

 

For starters just think about .htaccess files.

 

poor subset is nonsense and htaccess has nothing to do with php.

[djs]

poor subset is nonsense and htaccess has nothing to do with php.

 

Correct, but .htaccess does have something to do with oscommerce :)

 

osCommerce does work under windows, but it does have some differences on a standard linux setup vs a standard windows setup. Any given scenerio may change. My experience has been that osCommerce runs much more robustly under Linux / Apache / php than it does under Windows.

 

A few general things to look out for, if you are changing hosts:

 

Windows:

- How is email supported? Usually on Windows, you need to use SMTP. osCommerce supports this but you may need to add a contribution to support logging into the SMTP server.

- .htaccess does not work under windows. This can have some negative effect for things like register_globals and for some SEO mods.

- mod rewrite does not work under Windows. This can have a negative effect if you use some of the oscommerce SEO packages to make the URL's look more like static URL's.

 

In General:

- Remember, you are hosting a business, not a personal site. Saving a few dollars on hosting isn't always the most practical thing.

- Backups. Make sure your hosts does routine backups (daily is best). Find out what it takes to have something restored, including both charges and time.

- Performance. Ask to see some sites similar to yours that are already running on the servers. In this case, ask to see an oscommerce site that is running in the same setup that you would have. This will help give you a feel for how loaded the server is, and whether or not it will handle your store. This is not bullet proof, but no host will ever say that their servers are slow and sluggish, so it's a bit better than asking :)

- Database performance. Ask them straight up, get it in writing, that their database configuration is setup to support oscommerce. This isn't hard, but on a large server farm, the db servers sometimes can't deal with all the connections that osc requires.

- Make sure they have a trial program, such as either no long term commitment or a 30 day money back guarantee, just in case your site doesn't work correctly on their servers. You never know what you'll find, and it's a pain if you have a year contract and the server doesn't support you correctly.

- Support. Be honest on your needs here. Most hosts will help you out on general things, like configuring emails, ftp'ing files, etc. If you need help with the osc portion, see if your host offers this, either as part of their hosting (many boutique hosts do) or as an add-on. I'm not talking development, but specific osc related questions.

 

Dan

[boxtel]

Correct, but .htaccess does have something to do with oscommerce :)

 

osCommerce does work under windows, but it does have some differences on a standard linux setup vs a standard windows setup. Any given scenerio may change. My experience has been that osCommerce runs much more robustly under Linux / Apache / php than it does under Windows.

 

A few general things to look out for, if you are changing hosts:

 

Windows:

- How is email supported? Usually on Windows, you need to use SMTP. osCommerce supports this but you may need to add a contribution to support logging into the SMTP server.

- .htaccess does not work under windows. This can have some negative effect for things like register_globals and for some SEO mods.

- mod rewrite does not work under Windows. This can have a negative effect if you use some of the oscommerce SEO packages to make the URL's look more like static URL's.

 

In General:

- Remember, you are hosting a business, not a personal site. Saving a few dollars on hosting isn't always the most practical thing.

- Backups. Make sure your hosts does routine backups (daily is best). Find out what it takes to have something restored, including both charges and time.

- Performance. Ask to see some sites similar to yours that are already running on the servers. In this case, ask to see an oscommerce site that is running in the same setup that you would have. This will help give you a feel for how loaded the server is, and whether or not it will handle your store. This is not bullet proof, but no host will ever say that their servers are slow and sluggish, so it's a bit better than asking :)

- Database performance. Ask them straight up, get it in writing, that their database configuration is setup to support oscommerce. This isn't hard, but on a large server farm, the db servers sometimes can't deal with all the connections that osc requires.

- Make sure they have a trial program, such as either no long term commitment or a 30 day money back guarantee, just in case your site doesn't work correctly on their servers. You never know what you'll find, and it's a pain if you have a year contract and the server doesn't support you correctly.

- Support. Be honest on your needs here. Most hosts will help you out on general things, like configuring emails, ftp'ing files, etc. If you need help with the osc portion, see if your host offers this, either as part of their hosting (many boutique hosts do) or as an add-on. I'm not talking development, but specific osc related questions.

 

Dan

 

Correct, but .htaccess does have something to do with oscommerce :)

 

this is incorrect

 

- .htaccess does not work under windows. This can have some negative effect for things like register_globals and for some SEO mods.

- mod rewrite does not work under Windows. This can have a negative effect if you use some of the oscommerce SEO packages to make the URL's look more like static URL's.

 

and this is also incorrect

[Mediajuggle]

Well if it's incorrect please inform us by stating why it is. It is my finding as well the PHP apps run better on Linux/Unix hosting as opposed to Windows which works better with ASP. If this is not the case, please elaborate so that we all may learn something.

[boxtel]

Well if it's incorrect please inform us by stating why it is. It is my finding as well the PHP apps run better on Linux/Unix hosting as opposed to Windows which works better with ASP. If this is not the case, please elaborate so that we all may learn something.

 

I am not stating an opinion, those statements are factual incorrect.

[Mediajuggle]

I am not stating an opinion, those statements are factual incorrect.

 

 

What I'm saying is please elaborate on them so that I will know for future reference.

 

If someone says "the sky is red", I can say, "that's incorrect, it's blue".

 

So what was incorrect about the previous statements?

[boxtel]

What I'm saying is please elaborate on them so that I will know for future reference.

 

If someone says "the sky is red", I can say, "that's incorrect, it's blue".

 

So what was incorrect about the previous statements?

 

Correct, but .htaccess does have something to do with oscommerce : no it does not.

- .htaccess does not work under windows : yes, it does

- mod rewrite does not work under Windows : yes, it does

 

cannot make it any clearer for you.

[AlanR]

poor subset is nonsense and htaccess has nothing to do with php.

Where to start?

 

Google comes up with 20 million hits for a search of all the words:

 

problems with php in windows environment

 

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=problems...ights=&safe=off

 

Here's a search only of php.net

 

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=problems...ights=&safe=off

[kgt]

.htaccess and mod_rewrite have nothing to do with Linux. They are both features of Apache, which absolutely can run under Windows. Most hosts run IIS with Windows, so you would likely be missing those features unless you found a host running Apache on Windows. MySQL can run with good performance on Windows, as can PHP.

 

The drawback is that all three of these programs are designed and geared more towards Unix environments. In most cases, they run perfectly well on Windows machines, but when problems arise (and they do), it can be hard to find Windows-specific help. That's rather irrelevant, however, since you're not administering your own webserver. Were you hosting your own site, I would strongly caution you away from Windows/IIS.

 

Most PHP hosts run Apache on Linux, so a lot of the help you'll find on these boards assumes that setup. In most cases, problems occur on a higher level then the webserver or the OS. You might have no problem hosting an OSCommerce site on a Windows machine, but unless the Windows solution is significantly cheaper (doubtful), I'd choose a Linux-based host. It just eliminates many potential problems.

[boxtel]

.htaccess and mod_rewrite have nothing to do with Linux. They are both features of Apache, which absolutely can run under Windows. Most hosts run IIS with Windows, so you would likely be missing those features unless you found a host running Apache on Windows. MySQL can run with good performance on Windows, as can PHP.

 

The drawback is that all three of these programs are designed and geared more towards Unix environments. In most cases, they run perfectly well on Windows machines, but when problems arise (and they do), it can be hard to find Windows-specific help. That's rather irrelevant, however, since you're not administering your own webserver. Were you hosting your own site, I would strongly caution you away from Windows/IIS.

 

Most PHP hosts run Apache on Linux, so a lot of the help you'll find on these boards assumes that setup. In most cases, problems occur on a higher level then the webserver or the OS. You might have no problem hosting an OSCommerce site on a Windows machine, but unless the Windows solution is significantly cheaper (doubtful), I'd choose a Linux-based host. It just eliminates many potential problems.

 

 

Exactly, opinions about which is better or worse aside, the boys needed to get the facts right first.

[Jack_mcs]

I currently have a store using osCommerce on a Linux based server through a small local hosting company. I'm thinking about changing to a different hosting company (godaddy.com). Godaddy offers both Linux and Windows based hosting options. Are there any advantages to either using Windows or Linux? What changes will I need to do to my current site if I go with one or the other?

Thanks,

Mike

If you have a choice betweenWindows and Linux, the better option is Linux. But my opinion aside, you will have a number of headaches if you go with godaddy for oscommerce hosting. Better to look elsewhere for hosting, IMO.

 

Jack

[boxtel]

If you have a choice betweenWindows and Linux, the better option is Linux. But my opinion aside, you will have a number of headaches if you go with godaddy for oscommerce hosting. Better to look elsewhere for hosting, IMO.

 

Jack

 

I respect both opinions just not Bushism, trying to substantiate an opinion based on factual inaccuracies or even google page counts.

[djs]

this is incorrect

and this is also incorrect

 

 

Let me be clearer. .htaccess is used in a normal LAMP setup to control things like access to the admin side of the site and setting site specific environment variables. This is not a requirement, but is common place. It does not directly effect the performance of oscommerce, but can impact it for a variety of reasons, such as setting register globals and other environment variables. While I agree that the .htaccess file is not required if you have control over other things, or a perfect environment, it's one of the things that I like to have. I stand by the statement that .htaccess in a LAMP setup, does have an impact on oscommerce. Running a live site on a host that does not allow the .htaccess directives, at least for security reasons, is probably asking for trouble. Yes, there are other ways to deal with this if you are very familiar with the setup and have access to other environment settings.

 

mod_rewrite: my experience is that there are very few commercial hosts that provide apache on windows. They provide IIS instead. IIS works fine, but it does not support the apache mod_rewrite module, thereby making some of the available oscommerce contributions ineffective.

 

I'll admit, I shortcutted the what's technically possible versus the what's commonly available. In this case, the question was regarding godaddy, I don't think they offer apache on windows at all, so while saying its technically possible, doesn't actually answer the question that was asked.

 

Dan

[kgt]

I'd like to correct some things...

 

Let me be clearer. .htaccess is used in a normal LAMP setup to control things like access to the admin side of the site and setting site specific environment variables.

 

Controlling access to the admin side has nothing to do with .htaccess specifically. It is called HTTP Authentication, and I cannot imagine ANY webserver that is not capable of handling at least Basic HTTP Authentication. I assure you that IIS is quite capable of handling HTTP Authentication.

 

A LAMP setting is not much different from a WAMP setting. All of what you are describing is available to a WAMP environment.

 

I stand by the statement that .htaccess in a LAMP setup, does have an impact on oscommerce. Running a live site on a host that does not allow the .htaccess directives, at least for security reasons, is probably asking for trouble. Yes, there are other ways to deal with this if you are very familiar with the setup and have access to other environment settings.

 

These directives (register_globals) etc, are not .htaccess directives. They are PHP and Apache directives and ANYTHING you find in an .htaccess file can be handled anywhere in the apache config files (httpd.conf) or PHP config files (php.ini). A WAMP server can handle all of this.

 

IIS does not handle Apache directives because it's not Apache. That doesn't mean there aren't other ways to turn register_globals on and off! .htaccess is a commonly allowed (NOT all hosts have AllowOverride On) method to handling this, so it is most often discussed, but it is not necessary. You can override PHP directives in a secondary php.ini file.

 

mod_rewrite: my experience is that there are very few commercial hosts that provide apache on windows. They provide IIS instead. IIS works fine, but it does not support the apache mod_rewrite module, thereby making some of the available oscommerce contributions ineffective.

 

This is somewhat true about URL rewriting. There are URL rewriting tools available for IIS. You'd probably have to pay big bucks to get a server with them though. It doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

I'll admit, I shortcutted the what's technically possible versus the what's commonly available. In this case, the question was regarding godaddy, I don't think they offer apache on windows at all, so while saying its technically possible, doesn't actually answer the question that was asked.

 

I agree that trying to run OSCommerce on a Windows server is more difficult, and I'd not recommend it, but you seemed to be arguing that it was not technically possible, which is not true. In fact, the only true setback is URL rewriting, which would be difficult to find. Doesn't mean I'd recommend it though. Why make life more difficult?