Microsoft Throws Down Embedded XP Gauntlet

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Microsoft has published an online document entitled 'Why Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and Not Embedded Linux?', in which embedded XP is compared to Embedded Linux in eight ways. Given that fact that 'Embedded Linux' is not the product of a single dominant vendor, but rather is the result of the collaborative (and competitive) efforts of an entire market consisting of dozens of large and small companies plus thousands of individual developers, LinuxDevices.com is inviting the Embedded Linux Community to respond to 'Why Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and Not Embedded Linux?' through guest editorials and talkbacks."

Comments

Why? Why Not?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

'Why Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and Not Embedded Linux?'

Gosh, maybe "not being held hostage by the business requirements of your single vendor" qualifies as a valid response...

The Microsoft article can be found at

[rodbegbie]

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/embedded/xp/evalu ation/compare/notlinux.asp. rOD.

I'm reassured by that last line:

[YeOldeCurmudgeon]

Hold up guys. Just keep in mind all that shocking Microsoft XP is better than Linux propaganda is followed by this classic Microcruft waffle: This document is provided for informational purposes only, and Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to this document or the information contained in it. So their lawyers don't want their marketing folks to stand by their words, even if they publish them like they are fact. Just wait until we'll have a new Mindcraft comparison at the embedded level.

What bozo wrote this?

[taniwha]

I tried to read the Microsoft document, but when I reached the line "There is no common integrated device electronics (IDE) for Linux" I had to stop ... I couldn't stop laughing. Strangely I could swear my Linux boxes are full of IDE drives. Of course they were talking about software development infrastructure. p>

Obviously this was written by someone who has no idea what they're talking about, and not much about computers at all, perhaps the meaphorical room full of monkeys with typewriters, or a marketting person with an MBA

Marketroid speak is scary.

[Darby]

I would expect CEO's of tech companies to be less susceptiple to this sort of tactic than those of a company whose tech budget is all under the 'expense' column.

A quick glance through the page set off my bullshit detector big time.

I mean some of these are gems:

Comprehensive:
Windows XP Embedded is the most reliable version of Windows ever. Comprehensive OS foundation with proven performance and reliability
On a brand new system. Where was this proven, in the imagination of MS marketing?

Windows XP delivers equivalent or better uptime than Windows 2000 Professional and three times the uptime performance of Windows NT® 4.0.
Compared to the crap we got you to buy before this thing rocks!

Across an average of industry-standard benchmarks (Winstone and Webmark), Windows XP system performance is 54% faster than Windows® Me® and equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional.
Windows XP is 34% faster on system startup and 21% faster on resume from standby than Windows 2000 Professional (700 MHz CPUs and above).
Application startup is 21% faster in Windows XP than in Windows Me and equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional (after first use).

Comparing this to our other products, rather than to the competition which we're trying to mislead you to believe we're doing in this document, this is faster, contrary to third party benchmarks.

Note: Windows XP Embedded was not tested directly. Internal Microsoft testing indicates that Windows XP Embedded exhibited similar or better reliability and performance characteristics than Windows XP Professional.

In fact we're not even really talking about what we say we are.

On the Linux side we have a big N/A. Meaning we don't want to compare to them in this category.

Windows XP Embedded supports a minimal bootable image of 4.8 MB.

I'm not an embedded developer, so I can't say how good this is.

Lineo sites a minimum footprint size of 2MB ROM / 4 MB RAM for Real Time Linux with an embedded Linux kernel (both are required). Red Hat, for its new version of embedded Linux, recommends 8MB RAM and 4MB Flash as minimum system requirements. The Red Hat Linux kernel alone uses approximately 1.5-2MB in ROM depending on configuration.

But I can say that comparing the minimum needed to boot versus the recommended usable system size isn't apples to apples. To actually have anything besides the OS it seems like Linux will take far fewer resources in any configuration.

Unmatched
Windows XP Embedded
An unmatched technology portfolio for building the next generation of devices

Buzzwords, zero content.

Windows XP Embedded delivers a feature-rich multimedia experience. Full support for DirectX® 8 provides superior graphics rendering and performance.Direct3D®-advanced support for interactive 3-D graphics applications.Windows Media 8 for industry-leading codecs and Digital Rights Management (DRM).Support for advanced graphical functionality including ClearType® fonts and multiscreen.DVD video support.

We will completely tie you in to MS proprietary interfaces making it call for a complete rewrite of everything you've done if you want to move to any other platform.

Embedded Linux
Linux is a follower, not an innovator

Arguable, but so is MS, but we won't mention that here.

To get the functionality, quality, performance, codec support and DRM delivered in Windows XP Embedded, OEMs will need to license an array of third party components including codecs, DRM and renderers (players) that generally come with incremental licensing fees. The MP3 basic decoder costs about $0.50 per-unit. If an OEM wants the enhanced functionality of MP3 Pro, it will pay an additional $2.50 per-unit royalty. For MP3 Pro encode and decode, costs can run an incremental $7.50 per-unit.

More FUD, usless comparison

[uslinux.net]

Useless comparison. Utterly useless. Comparing Windows XP Embedded to Red Hat Linux 7.1. Um, RH 7.1 is NOT an embedded OS, sorry Microsoft lackies. If your're going to compare the two, your need to pick an embedded version of Linux. Go talk to Lineo. You can prove anything with incorrect information. I can prove Embedded Linux is a thousand times faster and more stable than Windows, if I use Windows 3.0 as a baseline.

And one of my favorite quotes:

• Note: Windows XP Embedded was not tested directly. Internal Microsoft testing indicates that Windows XP Embedded exhibited similar or better reliability and performance characteristics than Windows XP Professional.

Now, if you were, say, flying an aircraft, knowing Microsoft's track record, would you trust Windows XP Embedded to keep you in the air?

And frankly, they're trying to compare Windows XP to Linux. Window managers? Who the hell uses Window managers in *most* embedded devices? I'm not talking Palm pilots here - I'm talking refrigerators, toasters, watches, automobiles, TVs, stereos, etc. And no drivers for embedded architectures besides x86? How about StrongARM, PPC, and every other supported CPU?

Really, this is just sad. And the worst part is that many of the people who make decisions will believe this because they don't know any better. Anyone care to write up and post a VALID comparison? Lineo? Perhaps another embedded linux vendor? Embedded Linux Journal?

Re:More FUD, usless comparison

[szcx]

They do talk about Lineo. If you had actually read the article, you'd know that already. But go ahead and scream FUD anyway. Don't forget to distort a few facts while you're doing it.

FWIW, they mention Lineo here;

Lineo's SDK supports only four preconfigurations--two for x86 and two for PowerPC.

and here;

Lineo's Embedix BDKs have some preconfigurations, but they cost an additional $595-$1495 and are CPU and board specific.

and here;

Lineo sites a minimum footprint size of 2MB ROM / 4 MB RAM for Real Time Linux with an embedded Linux kernel (both are required). Red Hat, for its new version of embedded Linux, recommends 8MB RAM and 4MB Flash as minimum system requirements. The Red Hat Linux kernel alone uses approximately 1.5-2MB in ROM depending on configuration.

and here;

Lineo charges for some IP, including the boot-loader, code optimizer, reflective memory, debugger and preconfigured device-specific distributions. Royalty fees can run from $1-15 per-unit for this incremental IP.

and here;

Lineo sells its SDK for $5,495 per seat. Anything other than installation support costs extra, and for support you have to call Lineo, Caldera and/or Metrowerks depending on your particular issue. There is no single source of support.

and here;

Lineo offers free 30 day installation support. Anything else costs extra and may require a call to Caldera or Metrowerks depending on the issue.

and here;

Given the many recent announcements (Lineo laid off 13% of its staff a few months ago and recently announced plans to lay off or spin off an additional 170 employees, and Red Hat recently cut 17% of its workforce), it is questionable whether commercial embedded Linux vendors will be around to provide support for the long-term.

and here;

Managing licensing under the GPL is so convoluted that Lineo felt compelled to deliver a tool just to detail the licensing model (GPL, LGPL, BSD, proprietary) for each OS component in an image. Lineo charges $3,000 (US) for this tool, which must be purchased in addition to the Embedix SDK. If an OEM wants to ensure its IP is protected, additional development and legal resources must be allocated to watchdog the development process and final product. In addition, there are potential legal and royalty costs that may arise due to issues around patent infringement that are just now surfacing in the courts.

You're really not much better than Microsoft, are you?

Embedded linux

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Embedded linux is so great because it comes entirely in source. The embedded market is the embedded market so you could do things to the drivers to adjust the operating system to your needs.

Let's say you want to build a hard-real-time audio processor, with windows such a thing is simply impossible, because adjusting the scheduler is not something you will be able to do. Furthermore the driver for the audio card IN SOURCE is required to test for problems there.

In my experience you can get an embedded linux kernel running on 3 megs of flash and 16 megs of ram (they didn't have anything smaller, so excuse me).

There are a lot of useful projects working with embedded linux (see opensource.lineo.com. let's see them duplicate those first. Also software that works on linux can simply work, without modifications (although people tend to make it somewhat smaller) on embedded linux.

X86 only

[AaronW]

As someone who works in the embedded networking area, we laugh at Microsoft. One reason embedded Linux is making inroads is that it supports a wide variety of processors and architectures. Windows XP will not run on Power PC, Mips, or a variety of other platforms. Also, it is much easier to write embedded code for Linux just because it is open source.

VxWorks is also popular (but it's very $$$ with full source) because it can run from a very small footprint. The last project I worked on had a flash footprint of around 1.6MB and ran quite well with 8MB of RAM (this was a L3 switch with a lot of additional proprietary software).

Many embedded areas don't care about wiz-bang user interfaces or multimedia. Also, with embedded Linux there are some nice alternatives. There is an embedded version of QT and KDE that do not require X Windows that includes a full-featured web browser that better follows the standards than IE.

Also, getting close to the hardware is much easier in Linux than Windows. Writing kernel loadable modules is a trivial task for Linux, and setting up communications between user and kernel drivers is also trivial (through ioctls or even the proc filesystem).

Linux also comes with a wealth of sample code from which to base a driver or application. With Windows you get whatever comes with the DDK, whereas with Linux you get the source to every non-proprietary driver available.

Embedded developers also like to have the full source code to everything. When something goes wrong, we don't have time to wait for a 3rd party to fix a bug. Can you imagine waiting for Microsoft to fix a bug that only affects a few people?

-Aaron