> It all comes down to the fact that Linux really is not ready for prime time.
I disagree. Possibly more significantly, IBM disagrees — they are giving up their own OS in favor of Linux, a process that started ten years ago now. If you’re arguing that IBM is no longer a going concern, well... between you and IBM, I know which company I’d rather have stock in.
I also have been in the IT industry for more than 20 years. At home, I have Mac and Linux servers, but my main machine is a laptop PC running Windows — because I must have Windows when I interact with people like you — with my real work done in Linux virtual machines. Because Windows is such a dog, it *must* be the host until I get a laptop with virtualization technology built in. In the nearly four years I’ve used this laptop, I’ve had to reinstall Windows three times — in three machines running Linux in that time (one physical and two virtual), I have *once* reinstalled Linux — and that was by choice, because I wanted to standardize on one distribution.
I wouldn’t use a Windows server if I had any choice at all — having been a consultant for more than ten years, I have watched Windows servers actually nearly close two different small companies. When Unix servers are in use, then typically the only problems are human error... and a decent backup strategy is all you need for recovery.
Setup times, like all other tasks, depend on what you are familiar with. If you want printer and file sharing, if you’ve installed any recent GUI-based distribution, you can do it pretty much the same as you do on Windows: look for “Network”, then “Sharing”, in the menus.
If you can’t get a good Linux person, there’s a problem with your interview process, not the lack of candidates.
You see, I can say almost the exact opposite in regards to Linux. I guess it all comes down to the sheer moments of terror one has experienced and which OS has more than often been the culprit (for you Windows, for me Linux)
As for IBM I hesitate to support any OS direction of theirs since OS/2
as for “there’s a problem with your interview process, not the lack of candidates.”, maybe so.