[NT vs Linux] NT loses

[rajesht@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rajesh Thiharie)]

It's a lot of marketing hype. 
Period. 
Check out http://www.linux-vs-nt.org/ and you'll know what the truth.

NT doesn't even have TCP/IP implemeted properly. 
Forget about other things. 
The NT server ships without a telnet daemon/client. If you don't get
even basic stuff and get to be 400% better it's a lot of very hot air.

Can a physically challenged [NT] individual win the 100 m at the
Olympic. Microsoft would have you believe that it can.

The rest is .... what you think / believe.


Ghins Mathai wrote:
> 
> Hello everybody,
> 
> A friend sent me this article. Do not know how much of it is true.
> Please go through it.
> 
> PC Week Labs' tests show what path Linux must take
> By Henry Baltazar and Pankaj Chowdhry, PC Week Labs
> June 25, 1999 3:45 PM ET
> 
> In a first-of-its-kind open benchmark comparing the performance of Linux
> and Windows NT, PC Week Labs not only found that NT remains
> substantially
> faster but also isolated Linux's shortcomings and gained insight into
> where
> future development of the open-source operating system should be headed.
> 
> These tests follow the controversial NT/Linux comparison conducted by
> independent benchmarking operation Mindcraft Inc. and sponsored by
> Microsoft Corp. The Linux community had cried foul after this April
> match,
> which found NT to be 400 percent faster than Linux. All the principals
> agreed to let PC Week Labs arbitrate a rematch.
> 
> After a tortuous five days of tests, audited by the best and the
> brightest
> from Mindcraft, Microsoft and Red Hat Software Inc., and despite
> significant tuning improvements made on the Linux side, Windows NT 4.0
> still beat Linux using the Apache Web server and Samba in every
> performance
> category, although the margin of victory was smaller than in Mindcraft's
> tests.
> 
> But far more interesting is that, in all the areas in which the Linux
> community cried foul, its assumptions were wrong. Where kernel problems
> were found, fixes are already under way.
> 
> For instance, the open-source community objected to Mindcraft's use of
> the
> Apache Web server in its benchmarks, claiming that using the fastest
> open-source Web server, Zeus, would improve results. We tested Zeus on
> Linux and found its performance peaked almost exactly where Apache's
> did.
> 
> Working with Red Hat programmer Zach Brown, we traced the problem back
> to
> the lack of a multithreaded IP stack in the Linux networking subsystem,
> which caused a performance plateau in the operating system, not in the
> Web
> server.
> 
> The problem is being fixed in the next version of the Linux kernel, and
> a
> beta is available in the 2.3-kernel series. However, the upcoming
> improvements don't stop there. The next version of Apache will have a
> new
> static page engine, similar to the fast path in NT's IIS (Internet
> Information Server).
> 
> Zeroing in on the Web server
> 
> In the open benchmark using Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation's WebBench
> 2.0,
> which Mindcraft used as well, the IIS 4.0 Web server pumped out an
> impressive 4,166 requests per second, compared with 1,842 requests per
> second on Red Hat's best run (see top benchmark chart).
> 
> In comparison with Mindcraft's initial report, IIS 4.0's performance was
> 126 percent better than Apache, as opposed to the 400 percent difference
> Mindcraft found. And where Linux's performance collapsed after the
> client
> load exceeded 16 computers in Mindcraft's original Apache benchmark,
> Linux
> fared better under heavier loads in our tests. The discrepancy in
> results
> may stem from the differences between the Mindcraft and PC Week Labs
> testbeds.
> 
> We also tested both operating systems on a single-processor box with
> 256MB
> of RAM to evaluate performance on lower-end hardware. NT still had a
> performance edge over Linux (1,863 requests per second compared with
> 1,314
> requests per second in WebBench, for example). This amounted to a 41
> percent performance difference but showed that, even on cheaper systems,
> NT
> came out ahead.
> 
> File server: Also not on top
> 
> Running ZDBop's NetBench 5.1 to test file service performance, we found
> that Linux running the Samba file gateway did not top NT in any test
> (see
> bottom benchmark chart). Linux and Samba's best numbers (which were
> achieved while running on NT workstation clients) were considerably
> slower
> than NT's best numbers (155.9M bps vs. 338.3M bps).
> 
> Previously, we had found that Samba could outperform NT 4.0 using NT
> workstation clients (see "NOS crossroads," PC Week's Shoot-Out of
> network
> operating systems). As a direct result of that Shoot-Out, Microsoft's
> performance engineers were prompted to find ways to enhance file
> throughput
> from NT servers to NT workstation clients.
> 
> Upon closer examination of the NTFS (NT File System), Microsoft found
> that
> when the data volume was configured as a single partition, the
> contention
> for NTFS' transaction log slowed file transactions significantly.
> 
> By breaking up the data volume into four NTFS partitions (each with its
> own
> transaction log), we were able to distribute transaction entries,
> eliminating the bottleneck.
> 
> Linux and Samba had their most favorable performance comparison with NT
> when we ran both on a single-processor server with 256MB of RAM. In this
> configuration, NT performed 52 percent faster than Linux running Samba
> (165.2M bps vs. 108.7M bps).
> 
> Technical Analyst Henry Baltazar can be contacted at
> henry_baltazar@xxxxxxx
> Senior Analyst Pankaj Chowdhry can be contacted at
> pankaj_chowdhry@xxxxxxx
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> For more information on Linux in India visit http://www.linux-india.org/

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 __________________________________________
| Success is not knowing the things to do. |
| It is knowing the things not to do.      |
|__________________________________________|

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For more information on Linux in India visit http://www.linux-india.org/

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