well said oblio, I do have a tendancy to cringe when using linux for core services, I usually stick to BSD for core and Linux on edge level. But then again BSD (and in your case Solaris) have been around for a much longer time. Hence the proven stability!!

Suse is the only Linux distro I've ever used for a core fileserver and I was quite pleased. I may try it again soon, however I'll keep my apache installs on BSD. Although powerful, and quick to evolve! Linux is still in it's infancy (okay so more around the puberty stages) whereas BSD and Solaris are tangling with middle age (oh no, I hope we dont see a mid life crisis!). But you gotta give it props, at least the yearn for stability and growth is there... seems M$ keeps changing things before their platforms even hit adolescence.... kinda scary really.

I suppose it all depends on what tools youre using in my case, one should never stick with a platform simply because of personal taste alone. The platform should match the job. I suppose Linux is moving more toward user friendly desktop type uses, which of course will cut its use among backbone server operations. But it's good to see something with a nice interface and a lot of power.

(and beleive it or not, I actually kinda like NT 4.0......... kinda)