Last week i set up a windows server at home for file sharing, VPN and plex media server. It's been doing great, without any real issues, aside for one thing.
I keep having this craving for linux whenever i'm doing something on it. Everything works as it should, is easy to configure (probably easier than linux) and its not *that* much of a resource hog over my usual arch linux install. I just cant seem to acclimate to not having SSH, and the linuxy commands. It also seems like the community support for linux is better.
so i was wondering if the community could help me here: should i give it more time, or should i go back to linux?
(licenses arent an issue, my school offers each student 9 windows server keys)
I'm always more comfortable with the familiar, but if you don't sometime experiment with something else you won't learn and having a purpose for that something else means you have to. If you go back to your Linux server will you reason to learn about windows server?
I would give it more time, even if its just a set period to build a bit of knowledge before reverting. If you have other linux systems etc you need to SSH into from the Windows server, you can use terminal software like Putty. http://support.suso.com/supki/SSH_Tutorial_for_Windows
In my line of work I often see Windows server deployments in environments where most of the Sysadmins use Linux on their personal desktops/laptops and there is also a lot of UNIX servers deployed. This is because there is some good (and not so good) software that requires windows servers - e.g. SQL Server, business intelligence, IIS and exchange systems. If you want a career in IT the more OS's you understand the better IMO.
i guess its like moving to a new house, however amazing the house is, you'll always feel weird at first. and really, i have the keys, might as well use them.
I learned computing on Solaris so I prefer a Unix-Like experience. You could always try Cygwin which adds a little Unix to Windows.
The stuff BGL pointed out are great uses for Windows (SQL, Exchange, Active Directory, etc) But if you want to deploy webpages/apps and cloud services Linux is where it is at.
its not that i want the unix-like experience, in fact, i like the windows experience pretty well. theres just a couple small details that make me a bit mehh.
and i'm actually mostly using the system for the active directory part. (the computer is too slow for anything else)
if i get something better for a server i might install windows server on it with the hyper-v and run my virtual machines on there, so my desktop doesnt need to have them all on the hard drive.