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PPC Linux vs. Mac OS X Server: Linux Edges Out
Spencerian writes "Mac OS X is a very promising new BSD variant, but how does it rate as a server? Byte.com writer Moshe Bar has made an extensively balanced performance comparison of Mac OS X Server 10.1.5 versus SuSE Linux PPC with the 2.4.19 kernel. Both operating systems ran on the same hardware: an Xserve 1U rack mount server from Apple. While /.ers may guess (correctly) at his results, Mac OS X Server 10.1.5 wasn't as far behind the curve as you might think. Performance might've been better if Moshe had Mac OS X Server 10.2, with its faster GUI and other enhancements, but still, it appears that Mac OS X Server 10.1 was doing pretty good for a 1-year old."
It would be simple to check the referring URL and if it matches slashdot.org to send back a 403.
Has Byte been bytten in the past by the slashdot effect? (no typo - just a bad pun)
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
To me, the performance of Linux over OS-X is marginal and not really worth considering. The choice really is over what the computer administrator is more comfortable with - hell, put NetBSD if it will make the administrator more productive. The server only costs $3000 bucks so screwing around just to get a 10% improvemnt is not worth it - but if Linux makes the administrator 10% more productive then do it.
Stupid Example:
I haven't benchmarked FreeBSD vs Linux and I really don't care - all my file servers are FreeBSD because I'm expensive and learning Linux is not cost effective (for me). YMMV.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
a) Get the latest Jaguar
b) Go to Apple and SuSE and get advice on tuning
c) If it is available under SuSE, use gcc 3.1 for compiling
Moshe admitted that there was probably alot of optimizations that he missed. I'd like to see them both tuned for speed and then compare them.
Microsoft's Windows 2000 Server beat a Red Hat Linux* server in bandwidth tests, showing its clear superiority.
* Red Hat Linux v4.2 used in tests.
Saying MacOS X is derived from FreeBSD is like saying that Windows XP is derived from System V because they both have POSIX compatibility layers. It's stupid and wrong.
From the /. article...
Mac OS X Server 10.1.5 wasn't as far behind the curve as you might think. Performance might've been better if Moshe had Mac OS X Server 10.2, with its faster GUI...
From the article itself..
The included AGP 4X card with 64 MB of dedicated graphics RAM is a screamer...
Ok, my question is this: It's a server-to-server comparison. What relevance does the speed of the GUI , and the performance of the graphics card, have? IMHO, the GUI should be shut down if at all possible for any server application.
Code or be coded.
One word comes to mind:
NetInfo.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Well, the xserves are a very sweet package for the price. Fast, low power, low heat, small, good looking(for clients) and very reliable. I havn't done the full cost-benifit analysis, but I think they would come out well against many cheaper Intel based solutions.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Agreed... but let me throw you a curve.
POSIX systems have extensibility, portability, multiple programming languages, a networked windowing system with your choice of WM/DE, TRUE multiuser capability, efficiency and stability.
What does Windows have? Most of the above, specifically minus portability, the networked windows system (Terminal Services doesn't cut the cheese), efficiency (in recent versions) and stability. What Windows doesn't give you is choice. I argue Windows is not any more "designed for the user" than Unix, but rather that in Windows (or at least in each version) everything is only One Microsoft Way, and you cannot do much to change that. Microsoft also has mindshare and a $50+ stock price.
To the topic at hand now. Apple now more or less equals Unix as far as the OS is concerned. Specifically, OS X is POSIX plus everything being pretty, and there being an Apple Way (often, multiple Apple ways such as the choice of APIs) and a BSD Way to do most things.
This is why I argue OS X, now that it is proving itself as a server, can advance ground on the desktop and on the server.
"I am root. Bow before me." To this I say, "You are root, and you bear the sins of the world upon your shoulders."
And a Perl script launching "wget", instead of just using LWP? Whuh? Huh?
So, all these benchmarks are suspect. Beware. The author is either confused, or the editors mangled his message.
The BSD development process is slow and steady. It doesn't have 4 different threading models in the tree. It puts stability above new features. All good things for Apple.
It would have been nice though.....
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
When you compile these applications, doesn't the source code contain platform-specific optimizations?
It wouldn't surprise me that the implementation of Linux sendmail (for instance) has been tweaked to run faster than the OSX version.
Obviously, the excuse "its not the OS, its the apps" holds little water... since the OS is only as good as what you run on it... but still...
That is just so much bullshit. Windows does not automatically install HTTP or FTP servers, or anything like it. You have to specifically request that when installing.
Granted, what you get when you do request it (IIS) is crappy to administrate and has the worst security record ever, but it is not installed by default. And when you have installed it, it does not start by itself. It does not come with "no pasword". Etc.
That is just something I can only assume that whiny youngsters said to their parents/professors/whoever that was really mad when the computer got hit by some virus. Maybe you are one of those, covering your *ss still?
On a side note, last I tried Mac OS X, it did by default install (and maybe even start?) an Apache server. But that was a long time ago, and it may have been a beta release.
The real fact is that if Apple was as hated as MS, they would have as many exploits, and that probably goes for Linux. Or maybe it is that noone would pay that insane money for a machine that can't play their games just to see how it could be rooted...
... for a Mac. When it goes up to double performance, I'll consider it. For now, it is just so many pretty colors when running in as a server. In my personal opinion, that goes for the desktop too. But I'm sure many disagree, because "OS X has feature X!" Fine with me.
A more legitimate comparison would be a $4000 Xserve running OS X vs. $4000 worth of Linux on x86 hardware.
But, we know what the results of that would be.
POSIX is all about portability. The day I can take a Unix program and recompile it on Windows without the use of an intermediary API or environment (Cygwin, MS-SFU) is the day Windows is truly POSIX compliant.
FTR, for drivers, Windows provides some POSIX support. This is why your hosts file is in a directory called etc in system32\drivers, for example. But Windows breaks POSIX in many other smaller ways. I'd really question how MS got that certification for Win2k.
"I am root. Bow before me." To this I say, "You are root, and you bear the sins of the world upon your shoulders."
Sure, these benchmarks prove nothing and say very little, but what difference does it make if the perl code runs wget rather than using LWP, provided how it's done is consistent across testing platforms?
If this was an attempt at testing the speed of perl, yeah, he really should've used LWP.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Windows does not automatically install HTTP or FTP servers, or anything like it. You have to specifically request that when installing.
Guess you haven't installed a copy of Windows 2000 Adv Server.
The real fact is that if Apple was as hated as MS, they would have as many exploits
No, because Apple actually gives a rats ass about it. The are reasonably quick about fixing expliots, as opposed to dragging their heels for months after they've been warned until an exploit is actually floating around (and sometimes even longer that).
This is as relevant as the MIPS rating of a CPU (null, to be explicit). I'd really suggest them to take a look at some hardware reviews from gaming sites (e.g. firingsquad) to learn some benchmarking methodology.
And yes, pipes are much faster on Linux than on Windoze. Is it a relevant performance measurement ?
The Raven
The Raven
Why did Apple choose to go out and start a new kernel project when they could have just based OS X on the Linux kernel instead? They could have gained so much ground and lost so little. It's worked for so many other companies--why not Apple?
Because NeXTStep was BSD-on-mach, and MacOS X on Xserve is essentially the next (forgive the pun) iteration of the NeXT Cube. (I am posting this from OmniWeb 2.0 running on NeXTStep 3.3 on an original Color Turbo).
Its called "fact checking". If you are publishing for a magazine, its a requirement. Moshe could of typed this in Google and figured it out quickly. You would expect a person that is doing benchmarking of a product for publication to actually understand how to set it up for the test. Not doing this has made this article a waste of time.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Yeah, totally. What could possibly be easier than remembering 2211* commands off the top of your head, without having any reminder of their name, location, syntax, or dependencies at the time? That's of course ignoring the added simplicity of remembering shell aliases, your current directory, all your environment variables, invisible key bindings, context-sensitive tab completion, symlinks, named pipes, libraries, permissions...
Hey, I use a shell ten hours a day, I'm not disputing that there are very many things for which it's a fantastic tool. But carefully selecting how you measure "simplicity" in this way is just being gratuitously obtuse.
*items in my current path on my primary linux box
MacOSX is over 10% slower in most test, that sure as hell is not pretty good. That's bad, very bad.
Especially if you realize that PPC is MacOSX' major (in fact the only) platform, while for Linux it's just a minor platform that receives not nearly as much attention as for example x86.
And I guess you could still squeeze out some performance gain if you use a source-based distro like Gentoo.
Meatspace analogies are fun, but usually serve no purpose whatsoever.
As for my original point - a steering wheel may be easier to use in some cases than a CLI, but it's still not simpler. :)
Oh, and unless you believe in a deity of some sort (as I realize many people do), nothing in life exists for a "reason".
sic transit gloria mundi
The fact that OS X needs to improve in VM and I/O handling is understandable given its relatively young age. After all, Linux has had more than ten years to get where it is today, and even that is not much by OS standards.
i would have expected the guys at apple take the vm and i/o handling from bsd and maybe tweak it to make it faster. they did not write this from scratch - so what's this age comparison about? linux does not have a consistent history of beating bsd in this department...
From the article:
"Having said that, let's look the Apache results:
URL OS X 10.1.5 | Linux 2.4.19
624.1 reqs/second | 703.5 reqs/second
From these results one can assume the VM and network stack of Linux to be superior to OS X. It could also be that the page reclaiming algorithm is simply smarter in Linux than in OS X."
Is it just me, or does Moshe come across as a bullshit-artist? This guy honestly sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about.