Who Has Faster Pipes? Linux, Win2000, WinXP Compared

SeaBait writes: "This revealing article about the High-performance programming techniques on Linux and Windows shows that Linux rules. The performance testing was on Pipes(interprocess communication mechanism available on both Windows and Linux and UNIX). Although I new Linux would fare the best, the poor performance of Windows XP was a surprise. Windows 2000 actually did better than XP!"

Comments

This should come as no surprise

[sting3r]

Windows pipes are much lower on the evolutionary ladder than Linux IPC mechanisms. Consider:

• Windows pipes cannot exist in arbitrary places on the filesystem. Therefore service hijackings are easy if you can DOS the existing service into dying. On Linux, an ordinary user can't create /dev/log or /dev/printer (even if they kill syslogd/lpd), but on Windows anyone can name a pipe whatever they want (as long as it doesn't already exist).
• Windows pipes have no access control. Hmm, didn't SANS just report on the sorry state of Windows security?
• Windows pipes do not support ancillary data or OOB data. This makes them limited communication facilities.
• Linux pipes use copy-on-write instead of straight out copying. Therefore the paging mechanisms enhance speed because the data is simply remapped, not manually copied.
• Linux provides a much richer set of IPC mechanisms, such as semaphores, shm, messages, as well as the socket based facilities.
• Linux pipes are much easier to write for. Win32 pipes are difficult to use in a C program and subtle programming errors can cause many problems in unrelated modules.

As is often the case, Microsoft just threw something together and called it "infrastructure." Linux developers drew on 25 years of UNIX evolution and experience, and made a better product as a result.

-sting3r

The Minority View

[TopShelf]

I don't use Linux - and I've been a regular /.er for years. Comparisons like this are interesting, as the previous poster noted - MS spends zillion$ to get their word out, so I see nothing wrong with posting alternative viewpoints here...

Performance usually the least of my considerations

[eyeball]

As a systems architect at a very large (non dot-com company I might add), when considering platforms and technology for adoption, speed of certain aspects of an os are usually pretty low on my list of priorities. Tops are:

- Available human resources: do we have developers that know x technology. If not, how available are they?
- Business: are there any benefits to adopting a certain technology, such as existing or potential partnerships? i.e.: existing support contracts, brand name recognition
- Liability: is there someone to blame when things go wrong? (like it or not)
- Scalability: can the adoption of a technology come with a guarantee that some aspect of performance doesn't hit a brick wall?

Among others.

Re:Premature

[Score Whore]

Would you care to elucidate on the power, flexibility, and customizability of your GNOME desktop wrt how it stacks up against Windows in those areas. Also please expand on how linux doesn't constantly crash. You see I find that Windows as a whole is more stable than the components of linux. Just because the webserver in my workstation doesn't go down, it doesn't mean that my work isn't interrupted when my X server/web browser/email client/cd burning software/etc. crashes. So how is it better for me that some parts of the OS are still functional? Particularily parts that are almost entirely fluff for my day to day desktop use? It would probably be wise for the Unix community to stop generalizing its arguments into pointlessness. Instead we should focus on actual strengths that can be shown as real benefits.