Slashdot Mirror
Time To Re-Evaluate Microsoft's Linux Myths Page?
cluge asks: "MS still proudly presents their Linux Myths Page and recent Dell commercials show Linux as a 'lower end' solution. This seems even stranger coming from Dell when you look at all the the Linux solutions that they are offering. The comparison made in their print adds compare 2 machines with vastly different amounts of memory (or so has been reported here and elsewhere). With a new kernel coming out, should the Linux community tune a couple of machines and set up an open test? Test the following: static Web serving, file sharing (Samba or NTFS), and routing performance. Having Linux knowledgeable people run the test allows performance tuning for the application being tested. The testers comments and recommendation on performance tuning will be valuable to the entire Linux community and the tests will let the community know where it stands, win, lose or draw." So how much difference does a year make? Do any of the claims on that page still hold any merit today?
That page wasn't accurate *then*; I'm sure you can look up several refutations of it.
:)
However, I'd be interested in seeing another round of benchmarks, especially between Linux 2.4.0 (preferably whenever it's officially released) and Windows 2000. Also, a comparison between the many actual journaling filesystems that run under Linux and the one (not really) journaling filesystem that runs on NT/2000 would be interesting; heck, include BeOS in that one, too!
Ground rules: use identical hardware, use stable, recent software, tune it all as much as possible, and test with multiple hardware configurations, (i.e. not just 4 Processors and 4 NIC cards; that's not terribly realistic in the first place) to figure out what is the best overall solution.
Also, when determining web server performance, make sure there are some tasks that are CPU-bound or IO-bound as well as simply network-bound; you want to test everything.
That all having been said, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the Mindcraft-specific differences have been fixed in 2.4, and therefore Linux should perform significantly better on those sorts of tests than it did in the past, as well. I'd rather see some more well-rounded tests constructed to go along with that, though.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
When are people going to grow up and realize that all architectures deliver or can be made to deliver basically the same sort of general performance and that any OS is going to shine in some particular area at some particular point in time?
IT managers really get my goat.. Lessay the entire development staff has a UNIX background and wants to develop a web application on PHP and Oracle. IT decides that NT is "better" than linux because ASP can serve pages a little faster than Apache can dish out PHP3 so then what do they have? Ground zero. Development staff that can't work with the tools. Same thing on the flip side... Try to make flashheads/Adobe GoLive! style designers work with Linux webservers. Give it up. Buy NT.
NT4 and Linux 2.2 kernels offered basically the same thing packaged two different ways. Windows 2000 rocks. Linux 2.4 rocks. Why is it a fight? I like 2000 on my desktop; Linux on my servers.
Why doesnt someone start a Linux Marketing Fund to buy advertising and pay PR people to dish out the same shit for Linux that everyone else is dishing out for their junk? Why does Linux always have to remain on the devensive? It could have the hell marketed out of it if someone wants to fund it.
Where are your priorities anwyay?
~GoRK
Non-geeks don't know anything other than what the numbers and PR tells them.
I talk to people who wonder about the "LINUXGRUVEN" sticker on my laptop, and I oft come up with "Windows is easy to learn and hard to use, while Linux is hard to learn and easy to use."
User-friendly, ergonomic, simple interfaces are for Gee Q. Public. There is an overwhelming majority that use computers for e-mail and IM and basic web work and word-proc-ing. They want a simple interface and a simple system. At least in the first part, MS did it.
But.. if you offer to teach people on how to use Linux, we can make an inroads. I've offered my cousin, a 13 yo who likes computers and hates AOL (praise Jeebus!), to teach him how to use Linux and let him use some of my sacred pile of O'Reilly books. I offer classmates that are interested the same option, to liberate themselves from Microsoft tyranny (and save big bucks in software).
No takers, but the offer is open.
The way to increase Linux use by GQP is to make it less imposing. Teach it to your friends.
Yes, this approach may sound familiar. It's how most religions got started, by a faithful few spreading the word to the World At Large.
YES. I am a collar-wearing linux evangelist. I intend to join the GeekCorps.
Amen. Thus ends the lesson.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
I see a few problems with the suggested tests.
Static web content. This is almost a non-issue for dynamic eCommerce sites that generate most pages from database content and/or personalised content. In the coming age of Internet transactions there will be little requirement for purely static serving at large volume. Servers need to be tested for performance talking to Oracle/DB2/SQL Server databases, and also server to server XML. These are soon to be the more prominent roles of the web server in the business world rather than just serving up static pages.
And routing performance against NT? Why bother? How many people do you know that buy NT boxes for routers? If you're going to spend the money you might as well buy a hardware solution. If you don't want to spend the money, then everyone knows Linux already makes a decent router regardless of the 2.4 kernel.
When it comes to a purchasing decision, it will end up coming down to more than just this sort of testing.
That might sound like marketing-speak, but for better or worse, its true. NT is there in the server farms of America, and it is staying up and performing in spite of itself. Get used to seeing Win2k more and more in the server farms you visit in coming years.
There are no OEMs that provide uptime guarantees for Linux
Once again, the grain of truth here is that none of the linux distro vendors can really be taken seriously at this point, and most have thrived purely on the goodwill of the community. I can't think of one commercial distro that is truly enterprise worthy outside of Debian (which I consider noncommercial).
After the RH 7 debacle, do you really expect them to offer uptime guarantees? Sometimes I wish someone like IBM would issue a distro, just so there would be a real player with a serious service commitment behind the product.
Linux is getting there, and for most of its users its presents an incredible value. You have to look past these customers at some point and consider how you are going to satisfy customers who do not have budget constraints, but do have significant demands of the software and support they pay for.