A Multi-user OS
Unix is a multi-user OS: several (indeed many) people can be using the same machine at the same time, either independently or working together. Windows simply does not offer this facility.
Hardware
Unix is available on a very wide selection of hardware including Intel and clones, MIPS, Alpha (Digital/Compaq), Motorola, SPARC, PowerPC...
Stability and Upgradability
Unix is much more stable than Windows; its much easier to upgrade both the OS and applications without problems.
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Library files (.sos and .as on unix; .dlls and .libs on Windows) on unix have explicit version numbers so that different versions of such a library can coexist on a system. Hence: upgrades of one application do not break others...
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Unix is much more stable than Windows: my Linux PC happily stays "up" for months at a time.
The Netcraft uptime survey of Web servers is revealing: all the top sites as of today (14 March) the top 13 sites are all unix; the next two are mixed unix/Windows; the next eight are all unix; then one mixed; the next seven are all unix...
Unix --- the Ultimate IDE?
Well, that would be a daft claim, but it's surely the most flexible and powerful ODE around.
Many people like to work with a "modern" compiler (and linker) withing an IDE such as that provided by J Builder, Delphi or Visual Basic. Unix evolved (amongst other things) as an IDE. With tools such as emacs, gvim, vi, make, dbx, ld, ar, CVS, gcc, the X Window system, shells, shell-scripting... plus the multi-user nature of Unix, there simply is no more powerful development environment.
Apple!
Apple well-known for producing machines which are easy to use --- things simply work --- now use a unix for their operating system, with, of course, their interface on top. So the easiest to use computers on the planet now run unix!
Performance, Resources Required
unix requires far fewer resources in terms of hardware than Windows. Two aspects to this:
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Suppose you need to offer a service such as email or a web-server and this service will be stressed: speed, stress-endurance, stability...
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Unix will run on a machine with only a Intel 386 and 4Mb of RAM! All those old Pentium 1 machines that can't cope with NT will run Unix fine. Suddenly all those old machines you have around become very useful and provide years more use.
Working Environment
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One can choose from many user-interfaces: choose one that suits you and your hardware resources (from the minimalist twm to the resource hungry KDE 2). Some examples may be found at...
There are two environments that are of particular interest at present: KDE and Gnome.
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Applications
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rpm pkg deb
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Remote Working
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Philosophy
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Shells
Community and Support
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Free Applications