What are benefits of running Java on Linux (moving away from Windows)

Question

I am currently running a large distributed Java system on Windows.

What are benefits of moving to Linux - from a Java point of view?

One I can think of is being able to run 'services' natively. At the moment I have to log in to the Windows box and start the Java program.

Are there performance gains, etc.?

Answer 1

There are no major Java-specific advantages, the JVMs are pretty much the same.

You get the usual advantages of having a Unix-like operating system however. Many of those advantages boil down to familiarity or re-usability however, since Windows has slowly caught up with many of those:

• easy, pretty standardized scripting: pretty much every unix-based OS has a POSIX compatible shell (Windows got the PowerShell, however)
• easy, standardized, secure remote access (SSH)
• ...

Answer 2

One potential benefit, the windows timer can be problematic (you can find many posts via google around this issue).

One good resource here.