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Microsoft Challenges Linux's Legacy Claims
Michael writes "Microsoft Corp.'s Linux and open-source lab on the Redmond campus has been running some interesting tests of late, one of which was looking at how well the latest Windows client software runs on legacy hardware in comparison to its Linux competitors. The tests, which found that Windows performed as well as Linux on legacy hardware when installed and run out-of-the-box, were done in part to give Microsoft the data it needed to effectively 'put to rest the myth that Linux can run on anything.'"
Come back when Windows can run on non-x86-hardware and toasters.
how about those knicks?
Already people are commenting about how Linux can run on different processors than Windows. Not what they were testing.
From TFA:
""Quite simply, I wanted to examine this factually, using real customer scenarios to test this hypothesis: can Linux run on older hardware than Windows? In many developing countries and public institutions, such as a local library, they typically don't have deep technical staff, so they need to use software without lots of modification and customization."
So yes, Windows95 will INSTALL on a 486SX-25 with 16 MB of RAM, but can you do anything? I think WinXP probably WONT even install on that. Is a P2-350 with 64MB of RAM a decent Win2003 box? Not on your life. Welcome to swapville.
This is the dumbest, most shill-like "benchmark" I've read about in a while. Come back when they do webserver benchmarks on the legacy HW. How many of the tests will read "No results for Windows because the OS won't install on this platform" ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
While I can run the "client software" on legacy hardware (whatever they define that as), I still can't run, with any decent performance, a fresh install of Windows XP Pro SP2 on my 386, whereas I can pop in my FreeSCO CD and use the machine as a router (or Slackware and use it as a terminal/IRC/MUD/Bugzilla/CVS/Whatever server).
It's not what I can display on a monitor with my old hardware, it's what I can get that damn machine to do.
The study merely proved that Microsoft's current operatings systems can run on the smae hardware. It didn't prove a single thing about the ability of linux to "run on anything." It was entirely limited in scope - they just installed straight out of the box linux distros and Microsoft's OS on old hardware. The myth they were actually trying to disprove is that Windows doesn't run on old hardware.
Thalasar
The tests, which found that Windows performed as well as Linux on legacy hardware when installed and run out-of-the-box, were done in part to give Microsoft the data it needed to effectively "put to rest the myth that Linux can run on anything.
In other words: None of these devices were actually connected to the Internet.
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Run WindowMaker instead of KDE or Gnome. It'll work just fine, and likely better than Windows.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I believe Microsoft's article is reasonable, to a certain extent. They haven't been comparing apples with oranges, but instead are showing that computers running similar application suites behave similarly, whether running on Linux or NT.
The problem with the article isn't that they aren't comparing apples with apples, but that they're ignoring the fact that the oranges exist. If you aren't running desktop apps Linux will run well on small amounts of RAM - even less than the 64MB they quote as the minimum limit - and that similar apps aren't as readily available under the Windows OS.
They're also neglecting to mention that you'd need to spend hundreds to obtain a licensed copy of XP for your legacy hardware, as opposed to downloading a Linux CD image.
Microsoft thus decided to test this premise by installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Pro 9.2, Mandrake 10, Linspire 4.5, Xandros Desktop 3.0, Fedora Core 3, Slackware 10.1, Knoppix 3.7; Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 out-of-the-box on older hardware to see what happened.
The real story here is how revealing this "Comparison" is about attitudes at Microsoft. They weren't interested in doing a valid test which might have been of some use in improving their product. All they were interested in doing was showing a competitor in a bad light, even if it meant blatantly rigging the test. This is an ostrich "head in the sand" trick.
It's because they refuse to accept fair comparison and competition, and to improve as a result of that competition that they continue to expose users to constant security risks.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Instead of comparing a present-day Linux distro on that hardware to Win95, compare a 1995 distro and see how it looks. I'll bet you not only have a GUI, it'll be faster than the GatesWare.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
What about NetBSD? I'd like to see them install Windows CE on a mechanical pencil! Hah!
Be relentless!
Exactly. Saying windows 95 works on a 486 and KDE doesn't is stupid. I can just as easily go on about how windowmaker, blackbox, rox, etc. run fine on a 486 while WinXP won't even install.
From TFA: "The fact of the matter is that if you look at popular desktop Linux distributions from Red Hat or Novell's SUSE, they match or exceed the system requirements of Windows XP. For example, Novell Linux Desktop 9 requires a minimum of 128MB physical RAM, which is identical to the requirements of Windows XP. If you compare OpenOffice 2.0 to the system requirements of Microsoft Office and again they are identical," he said.
..
I winced at the bolded section. 128 megs? Windows XP? Are they bloody serious? We don't want a computer that just boots up - we want productivity. And for productivity, XP needs more than 128 megs, unless by "productivity" you mean "wordpad"
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
It took a long time for Windows to be able to run well on low cost hardware. Nowadays, everyone has 256 or 512MB even on budget systems, and so the requirements aren't much different because EVERYONE will run X.
Basically, the test was stupid and missed the point of being able to run Linux on older hardware - by lowering the requirements through a choice of what you want to install (namely the GUI).
Which is why, looking at the list, they picked the distros that they did. I'd be curious to know if they turned off all the extras that come turned on in most distros. It's not a fair comparison, for example, to install a stock Mandrake that comes with OpenOffice turned on when Windows doesn't ship with Office installed.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
When I read the blurb, I figured out what I would find in TFA. They're comparing XP to, say, SUSE 9.0 or RH 4.0 EL. Both optimized for current systems. Here's the difference; there are many distributions of linux targeted at older, slower machines, going all the way back to 286's. I would like to see performance comparisons between Windows and a linux distro targeted at smaller machines. See distrowatch; they list a couple that are *meant* for this application, so you don't have to be a kernel hacker or techincal expert to modify your linux distro for your hardware.
*yawn*. Same old MS crap.
Thinking outside my Head
The salient points are in the statment above. The claim that "most" linuix distros had limitations preventing them from accessing a 32mb system with "aceptable performance" is entirely unsurprising. I note that neither RedHat (to pick one) nor Windows XP would like such a system very much, especially for modern "desktop application performance" (read OpenOffice and MS Office). In that case it is really the apps that are the limiting factors.
They never state what distros were tested (I assume Novell and RedHat when in doubt) nor how installation was done. Rather they pull a nice switching strategy. They test some unnamed distros and then state that windows CE is better than them on legacy hardware.
That is much like saying Windows CE is better than Windows XP on legacy hardware or that MuLinux is better than RedHat on older hardware. In both cases the former was designed for such a task while the latter was not. In both cases the former have limitations that prevent them from running "Modern Desktop Apps", that is in fact the point.
This is a simple "bait and switch" comparison, and if this is all the CTO uses when comparing all distros of linux to windows for some use; fire them.
There's nothing substantative in the article. I didn't see benchmarks, I didn't see screenshots of the system in action. I saw he said/she said between some MS people and some guy from Novell.
It's below a non-story.
I really want to get a lot of publicity for being able to misunderstand something, then hire some folks, buy some hardware, install some software, spend months generating data all based on my initially incorrect assumption of what I think I heard someone once say about something that I know if I really tried to unblock it, I would know right away that I was full of shit and just pandering to the marketing department, since they have all the money, and my weak ass strawman argument wouldn't hold up to even a casual look, but who cares - it makes a great bullet point.
No seriously. I want it. And a end to run on sentences....
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
I think when most people say Linux runs on anything, they don't mean Fedora Core, or any particular distro. Microsoft's tests are flawed because they assume we mean that Fedora Core 4, or Ubuntu with a nice full GUI desktop setup will run on anything. When I think about Linux running on anything I think about Linux running on my Linksys WRT54GS router, or Linux running on cell phones. We're talking the full linux kernel, with a stripped down environment. I doubt Windows XP (even without the GUI) would run on a cell phone. The XP-embedded kernel might, but not the normal kernel. Linux's strengths lie in it's modularity; the kernel can be stripped down and run in minimal environments, all using the exact same code base, with the same kernel APIs used everywhere.
So it seems that Microsoft is deliberately confusing the issues here. A modern Gnome or KDE desktop on Linux no better or worse than Windows XP on 10 year old hardware with a full GUI desktop. But can Windows XP run on a 20-year-old 386 at all? Linux can. And while a Gnome desktop might now, X11 with a GUI of some kind certainly can. That's what we mean when we say linux can run on older hardware. Furthermore, much about Linux that enables compatibility stretching back 30 years doesn't really have anything to do with Linux itself either. For example, I can connect a Gnome desktop remotely to a 30-year old Unix mainframe and run X11 programs completely seamlessly. I could even fire up a 20-year old unix workstation running X11 and connect to a brand-new gnome desktop running on FC4 somewhere and expect it to work at least.
Further, Linux seems to be able to adapt much quicker to new platforms than Microsoft. The 32-bit to 64-bit jump was made years ago with Linux, with no major kernel API changes. Compare this to Windows which has Win16, Win32, and now Win64, with major changes in between, requiring some interesting hacks to preserve backwards compatibility. Linux, thanks to its Unix heritage, has always thought about things like making x-bit clean (where x is 32, 64, or whatever) and dealing with things like endianness. Linux isn't perfect; if there are issues with moving between 32 and 64 bits, or moving between little and big endian, they are bugs that need to be fixed. Microsoft has never expended much effort to think about such issues, as near as I can tell, since they thrive on the Wintel monopoly. Getting Windows endian-clean, for example, just isn't a priority.
And the last time I checked, each one of those (except Mitel - they've flip-flopped a couple of times) started with Windows, and is shifting to Linux...
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
There is a huge content-free lead-in to the article. Here is the meat.
But first, my comment:
Judge for yourself whether or not the minimal configuration is really the minimal one. I personally am inclined to think 2GB is way too big of a disk. If you just want a webserver, DNS box, firewall, etc. you don't need a bigger disk than 32MB, if you are using a BSD. I would guess it is the same or better with Linux. But Windows includes so much unnecessary stuff in the basic install, you need 2GB. This actually does matter -- if you need 32MB, that is a cheap flash disk. If you need 2GB, that's a lot.
"In the tests run in its lab, Microsoft found that most modern commercial Linux distributions could be installed successfully on systems with a Pentium processor, with 64MB of RAM and a minimum of 2GB of hard disk space.
"Memory prevented the successful installation on a typical 1997 system, as 32MB of memory is not enough to install most Linux distributions or to run desktop applications with acceptable performance. A memory upgrade could prolong the life of such hardware, but the cost and effort of locating old memory and installing it onto all corporate clients significantly reduces the potential savings," Hilf said.
Minimum requirements for office productivity performance on a Linux system were any Pentium II (PII) system with at least 64MB of RAM, he said, adding that playback of sound and video would typically require a PII 400 or better.
"This corresponds to an average PC issued between 1998 and 1999," Hilf said.
If Linux was installed on an older system, such as an average PC of 1997, then the desktop performance falls below what is typically acceptable for a common user, he said."
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
First and foremost I love studies that compare the system requirements on the label. This seems like an obvious ploy to convince developing countries to use Windows on hand-me-down hardware. This article is not going to convice anyone that even if XP can run on a Pentium 1 it is worth paying more in software licensing fees than they paid for the hardware.
The only way Windows will convince people that Windows is good for legacy hardware will be if they either restart support for Windows 95 and Windows 98 or write a service pack that will remove or downgrade many system components. This of course presents a major problem for them since they also have to please the OEM's desire for software that forces you to upgrade.
This much aside I beleive all this article shows is that Microsoft recognizes they might lose market share in developing countries and that is a huge compliment and inspiration to open source companies.
One problem with Linux vs. Windows comparisons is that Linux is just a kernel, whereas Windows is a kernel + desktop environment + userland + web browser + more. Linux can run on legacy hardware; even the latest Linux kernel will run decently even on an old 386 with 8MB RAM, along with the latest versions of the GNU userland, X, a text editor like vim or emacs, and maybe even lynx. (Just don't think about doing anything more complex, such as use a graphical web browser, Java, GTK or QT application, fancy desktops, etc.) On the flipside, can Windows XP even install on an 386? You'll have to revert to DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 if you want a decently-performing Windows config with those specs. And who'd use that in 2006? (You'd have to pay me to use DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11, and give me copies of WordPerfect 5.1 and Lotus 1-2-3 2.4, as well ;).) Windows 95 can technically run on that machine, but you'll be in swap city....
If you are a hardcore Unix user, you can be very comfortable with a 386 or 486 with 8-16MB RAM, as long as you love the command line (and are not even considering any intensive GUI applications). Heck, 386 and 486 users got it much better than Thompson and Ritchie did ;). However, once you start adding GUI toolkits, multimedia applications, quality web browsers like Firefox and Konqueror, full-blown desktops, office suites, VMs for all of these languages supported by the developers (like Java, Python, Ruby, Perl, ...), libraries for oodles of functions, transparent graphics, and all of those other features, Linux, just like any other OS, needs much more processor speed and much more memory. You'll need at least a 233MHz processor with a minimum of 256MB RAM in order to avoid much of Swap City, and you'll need 500MHz and at least 384MB RAM to completely avoid all of it (unless your work is truly computer-intensive). Windows XP works the same way.
All that I'm saying with these comparisons is that many people quickly forget that all Linux is is a kernel. Linux, along with the GNU tools, can be ran from specifications as little as a 386SX with 4MB RAM to 96-node Beowulf clusters each featuring the fastest chips on the market, along with tens of gigabytes of RAM. Just don't come crying when your OpenOffice takes a year to compile on your 386, and a day to open ;).
People don't choose Linux over Windows because they want to run it on an old 486. Hell, you can buy a 600Mhz Pentium III that'll run any Linux distro on Earth for about 150 bucks on Ebay. Who cares about old hardware?
People buy Linux because:
1. It's much cheaper than Windows, with a much more liberal license which lets you do whatever you want without a huge, complex, draconian EULA;
2. It comes with a full set of development tools out of the box, and for most people offers all the software they will EVER need, so you don't have to blow hundreds of bucks on additional software packages;
3. Most of the additional tools people want can be had for free or very little money (like Java's SDK, which can be downloaded for nothing, or Oracle Express, which is also free).
4. It has better default driver support than Windows, without having to go out to a vendor site and hope they still offer downloads; In fact, most hardware is detected right off the bat nowadays.
5. YES, Linux is more secure than Windows, and offers better and more diverse tools for locking down your system. Also it tends to be more stable, and has much more gentle memory and disk requirements.
6. This one's esoteric, but what the hell: I can use Reiser FS on Linux; Windows didn't offer a journaling ANYTHING up until their latest greatest (does that even offer journals???). Under Windows, if you lose power suddenly, the next time you power up you could have a garbled registry (reinstall time!). Under Linux with Reiser, when you reboot, the system politely tells you it's going to check the journal, and it fixes itself. This alone is a good reason to prefer Linux.
Overall, Linux is better than Windows in almost every conceivable way. The only other operating systems that come close are Mac OS/X and the *BSDs.
But I guess, if I was Bill Gates, I'd want to divert everyone's attention away from the "Linux is better" problem, too. Hey, kids! Look over here! Windows installed on a 486! Don't pay any attention to that nasty Novell guy over there, with his nasty Kontact information manager, and all his talk of "security" and "stability" -- you don't want those, they're not good for you! Come have some Outlook and IE!
Feh.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Did you install all of the extras? Did you disable the things you didn't want? Windows comes with a minimal set of tools, and no word processor, spread sheet, data base, etc. Most Linux distros cram every extra in existence onto your drive. While I detest this practice, and and only install what I need, Windows doesn't even give you the option.
In short, Linux is a kernel and drivers. Everything else is GNU, Apache, Mozilla, etc. The distros bundle that all together in different ways. Most people forget that fact most of the time, and it makes it easy for the unscrupulous and the incompetent to compare apples to oranges.
Do you realize how much the environment is choking on throw-away tech every year? I covered this very topic http://techn0manc3r.blogspot.com/2005/12/linux-and -environment.html with links. Yes, it's a huge deal. Count me in with the other who recycles old Windows boxes I find and gets year's further use out of them. More money to donate to FOSS, less waste to the environment.
By the way, when I worked for no less an enterprise than Citigroup incorporated, you couldn't walk two feet in the processing center without tripping over a 486. This was only two years ago.
I don't know what they were installing, but not the distros I use. See... lesser known fact about *nix is that it comes in many flavors. If, say, you had an older, piece of junk, you can get just as new a version of Damn Small Linux as you could Fedora Core 4. One is 50 MB, on a cd, the other 6 GB on 4. The thing they're assuming here is that you have to have a GUI to be productive. I call shenanagins.
I've done this same test with a box I 'liberated' from another source. (Was given to me, as it was too old to donate, believe it or not). 'Tis a first gen Pentium, with a whopping 32 MB RAM. I've got Fedora Core 4 on there just fine! It works as a web server, a file server, as well as a programming workstation, and email. I even browse the web on it fine! Oh, one small thing, it won't run X, de to size. (Ok, it will, ya just don't wanna... trust me). Guess what OS was on there previously? a very, VERY sluggish version of 2000. I don't know how they kept it running, but they did.
I ask you, which is better on legacy hardware? The ability to choose what you need, so as to maximize what you have? Or the ability to run everything in the world, and see what breaks?
To the people out there about to mod me flamebait: Yes, I read TFA, and no, I don't buy it. To judge to world of Linux on a few distros is foolish. Just as they test a bunch of versions of Windows, they need to do a range of Linux. Jump to the end of the article:
Good, they acknolwdge what I just said. But again, how do you define out of the box? Is it whatever boots from the CD? Or a 'full install'? I really think this is one of the worst benchmarks I've seen (even the other "independant" studies Microsoft did over the summer) due to the vagueness of the problem (my 'legacy' is your 'dream machine') to the differences inherant in different operating systems.
As an aside, my 'check' word here is "unguided". How fitting I think.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
I just bought a toaster today and it cannot run Linux or Windows. I was about to take them back until I realized that I don't often check my email at the toaster, I normally do that at the blender before I check my RSS feeds from my dishwasher.
I think we're overlooking the real news here: They got Windows to run!
That's what I need... a toaster that needs fixing every few days, constantly pops up toast containing viruses and Spam, and keeps telling me how great it'll be when it starts working correctly, probably sometime in 2007.
That depends what distro you use. Red Hat Enterprise certainly isn't designed to run on a low-end computer out of the box, but Vector Linux is and I can guarantee you that Vector will outperform any Windows OS (incl. 95 and 98) on older hardware.
The main difference is that with Windows what you get out of the box is largely what you will end up using. With Linux you can take a RHEL system running a fat desktop and put a light-weight desktop environment or window manager in place of Gnome and you've got yourself a fast machine. Trim down some unneeded services and you're pretty much where Vector Linux takes you by default.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
XFCE is also a good option. I use it (as provided by Debian) on an old P1-233/32MB laptop which previously ran Win95.
Keep in mind that this whole thing is aimed at organizations, rather than the mom's basement crowd.
IT Manager: Can I extend the life of this old Win98 hardware with Linux?
Answer: Absolutely! You just need to run some weird distro with no commercial support, use some wacky window manager, and live without anything like MS Office!
IT Manager: Aaaaah. OK. (Slowly backs away and starts perusing $300 Dell Celerons).
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I'm just going to say up front that this is not a comment with a conclusion.
I've been in this silly business for damn near 40 years (augh); my first computer had 8K of memory (yes, 8K, not megs) but we successfully ran a whole small business accounting system on it. 100 lines per minute chain printer. TI doesn't make a calculator that small.
I went to grad school in Computer Science in 1983; we ran a whole graduate department on a PDP 11/70. Less than a megabyte of RAM, maybe 250 MB of disk total. Less than one MIP. We got a VAX in 1985; suddenly we had a WHOLE MIP, and a shared terminal in each grad student office.
I'm writing this on a G5 MAC. God alone knows how many MIPS --- thousands, certainly. I use it alone.
Frankly, I'm not sure where all the cycles go.
Exactly, and that's what makes the whole thing stupid.
Microsoft doesn't know how to attack Linux, since it comes in so many shapes and sizes. So, they pick a specific point where they know the results will be favorable - or at least not negative in their direction.
It's a dumb argument. The point of Linux is that you can do whatever you want with it, anyone can. And I can get a distribution (or make my own!) that will run happily on a 486 with limited memory, complete with a GUI and some software such as a web browser, less full-featured word processors/etc (over OpenOffice), great mail clients, etc. If you have a new PC, you'll want a prettier desktop with lots of bling, and apps that take advantage of your hardware. I tend to remember doing just this with Linux, with my 486, when I still used one as my primary PC. It wasn't as long ago as it seems.
If they say CE will run on old hardware, well, good for them. But it doesn't mean anything (we can't get it) and it proves as much as this 'test'. Nothing.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Do you realize how much the environment is choking on throw-away tech every year?
I've been volunteering at Free Geek in Portland. We get donated computers from individuals and companies, save what can be reused and recycle what can't. I haven't done anything on the recycle end yet myself (except reject newly received machines that will end up in the recycle area), but it looks like a huge job. There's a lot of toxic crap to dispose of.
Regarding the article, Free Geek sets PIII/500MHz as a minimum for a computer it will attempt to rebuild. Anything slower gets recycled. Once a machine is rebuilt, we install Debian. Because of this, I was under the impression that trying to run Debian on anything less that a PIII would be difficult, at least, if not a fool's errand.
Michael
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality;..."
Some crazy fin writes an OS and I get a cheap desktop that doesn't blue screen and actually performs a lot better then certain commercial OS'es and does not costs me a sackfull of money to get the latest bugfixes.
The Internet has made a huge impact on the way the world works. No not because of internet shopping but in that communities can be build with a far larger catching area. It doesn't matter how obscure your interest are, with the global internet their are bound to be other weirdos out there who are intrested in the same things as you.
As someone who actually had an interest in anime/manga before the internet (yeah I am old so what?) I am still at times amazed by the huge change the internet has made. Previously you had to really seek out a club that probably had only 1-2 members per province and would have real trouble getting their message out. With the internet I can google and find hundreds of sites specializing in every type of manga/anime.
It would probably be quit hard to find enough people in your own town to build an OS. In fact linux shows this. Not that many other fins involved but because of the internet it doesn't matter. Weirdos allover can easily find each other.
So a knoppix live cd made by persons from all over the globe can be easily found by anyone else on the planet. Same with firewall on a floppy distro's. Just check distrowatch to see how many tiny little 1 man distro's there are that nevertheless manage to reach a global audience.
MS must really be getting desperate if now they are even trying to spread fud about the capacity for Linux to run on cheap hardware.
Linux is made by people for people. It does not have to be succesfull, it does not have to be worth it. There are countless people out there who are happy to spend all their free time producing special versions of Linux and give away their work for free.
This allows for Linux distro's to be easily available in the most obscure languages possible since all it requires is one(1) person with a passion and there is no need for a cost benefit study.
Linux runs on X because. Not because anything just because. Windows CE only runs on X when someone decides it is worth their time and effort and money.
Yes some companies have decided that they want to try making money from Linux. Good luck to them and they add valuable extra's to the effort but they are not Linux. They are a small subset of the global effort. Not a coordinated effort. Just hundreds of thousands of people who want software to do what they want and screw it being complex. That is part of the enjoyment. You don't think someone modding a GBA to run as a webserver has anyother motive then "Because"?
Linux is people who grow their own food, Linux is people that take 20 years to build their own plane, Linux is people who climb up a mountain nobody cares about, Linux is all these efforts being able to benefit all the others. Or not. because it don't matter. If all the effort to put Linux on PPC never ever generates a single bit of usefull code it don't matter because Linux does not ever have to make a profit to survive.
Even if Linux died, so what? Linux ain't Linux, Linux is an idea and BSD or god forbid Hurd could easily take over. because Linux is not new. It is in fact ancient. Linux is civilisation. Each generation building on the achievements of their elders and sharing their knowledge with the next generation.
The idea that you keep new ideas locked up is not how mankind has progressed.
I do not have to figure out how to pump water or filter it or store it or even figure out that I need it to survive. Others have done it before me and shared it with the world at large. I do not have to figure out h
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Clearly spoken by someone who didn't live through it...
Keep in mind that this whole thing is aimed at organizations, rather than the mom's basement crowd.
Keep in mind, that this article specifically mentioned "developing nations". $300 dell machines may be a drop in the bucket for a US corporation(though that may not last much longer), but that's a substantial amount of money for someone in say, Mexico, or in a really poor nation.
In the article, they even suggest using Windows CE and mention an amount of customization... I haven't played with wince in ages, but the last time I did, it was like Windows 3.1 brokeness revisited. I'm sure it's gotten better, but what are the odds that there will be more people in developing countries who can customize wince than who can customize linux? Especially with ridiculously easy configuration ability. Take DSL, that is a joke to install and configure.
some weird distro with no commercial support
If you're trying to use old Pentium 100s, something tells me you've already decided that support is not a huge issue anymore.
use some wacky window manager, and live without anything like MS Office
Yeah, here's the big joke about office... Very few people in my experience(fortune 500 corp, 2 smaller corps, a non-profit, and small business), use more than 5 percent of the features of Office. For most people, Office is a howitzer to combat the fly problem they have. And wacky window manager? What makes any window manager more whacky than another?
If you're in a poor country, or in a poor school district, or just looking to cut the fat out of your IT budget, why not consider using older equipment and a distribution like DSL? If you're not professionally publishing anything, and just need standard Word processor, spreadsheet, email, etc..., why not look at it? If you don'tlike it, fine, but you won't know until you try.
It's kind of funny how a 200MHz Pentium, a chip with performance in the same ballpark as a Cray-1 supercomputer, ended up being unusable even as a mere typewriter. I guess that's life in the wacky world of modern software.
I heard the phrase Out-of-the-box thrown around alot by the Microsoft executives in the articles.
did anyone else notice that?
bang suddenly crammed in between the regular ocurrence of the phrase
Out-Of-The-Box
theres mention of Microsoft superior hardware support
Yes there are more drivers FOR windows
ironic since they dont work Out-Of-The-Box
they are 3rd party additions
Batteries Not Included
My legacy Athlon board, onboard sound, My bt878 TV tuner, dont install out of the box My ATI and Nvidia video Cards (256 or less colours) and IDE is barely functional.
And even my new hardware needs 3rd partyy drivers,
Audigy 2 ZS and bt878 TV tuner onboard sound and Network
dont even work in even the latest Windows 2005 MCE
What kind of media centre doesnt support media devices well?
All of the above hardware worked in Mandrake 10 out-of-box with full performance without the need for extra drivers or fiddling
However my HDTV tuner didnt work in Mandriva out of the box,
but didnt work in Windows out of the box either
The director of the Microsoft linux lab comes right out and says the intention of the testing was to "put to rest the myth that Linux can run on anything.", so you already know that the test has no credibility since its objective was not to find out IF linux can run on anything as is generally assumed. The conclusion to the test came before the test or the results, sounds like standard Microsoft tactics.
Anyhow, reading Hilf's responses in the interview it appears that the tests showed that linux does run on anything based on their test results. He admited that "The tests, which found that Windows performed as well as Linux on legacy hardware" and therefore linux did run on the legacy hardware as installed "out-of-the-box". So the title to the article is wrong as Microsoft's own tests proved that linux would run on the legacy hardware.
Now I suspect that what Hilf wanted to say was that BOTH the Windows and linux installations did not run adequately on the legacy hardware with "out-of-the-box" installs. But he doesn't want to admit it because he actually does realize why there is a wide spread assumption that linux runs well on legacy hardware, because it does.
Note the response to the journalist's question about why there was a "linux runs on anything" assumption, "Hilf said the technical capability to modify Linux, to strip it down to run with a minimal set of services and software so that it could run on all sorts of hardware devices, had generated that larger assumption that any type of Linux distribution could run on all sorts of hardware devices".
And here Hilf is at first correct and then only half correct. It is true that you can strip down linux to make it more efficient and capable on legacy hardware, and it is also true that the latest desktop distros take advantage of the latest hardware and therefore have similar requirements to Windows. But he fails to acknowlege two facts that I suspect he is aware of, 1) even the latest distros can be pared down so they can be efficeintly used on legacy hardware for applications which have reduced resource requirements, and 2) there are light weight linux distros out there which are capable of effectively running on legacy hardware.
Case in point. I can, and have, taken a 533MHz system with a Via Eden processor, 128MB of RAM, dual ethernet cards, and one wireless network card and install the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora Core and have the latest kernel, selinux ACL, iptables, apache, bind, dhcpd, openvpn, and nfs and then proceed to efficiently use the box as a small business web server, file server, firewalled router, wireless access point, caching nameserver, and LAN dhcp server. And the first step is to simply click on only the software packages you need on the box when going through the graphical install.
And the second case in point, as has been pointed out in several other posts I've read, a usable desktop can be made out of legacy hardware using something like knoppix, damn small linux, or any other distro that was designed to use limited resources.
They are really grabbing at straws in their linux lab at Microsoft to try and prove their misconceptions about linux.
burnin
Did I miss it or was the slackware result not mentioned?
From my experience slack is the easiest to put on an old box. Most current versions of Linux cann't seem to handle low res video during the install. I don't know about version 10.1 but 10 installs nicely on 200mhz pentium for use as a firewall.
We've all seen these skewed comparisons before. The technical bits tick me off, because everybody knows that with a half hour at distrowatch and an hour or two of googling you could find a version of Linux that would make for a valid comparison.
The thing I find interesting is the PR side (I guess I would, that's my field). In PR you learn that one key to winning public opinion is to appear to be reasonable. The American public (can't speak to any others, even though I live in Germany at the moment) will give you the benefit of the doubt if you appear reasonable.
MS did that. They loaded up the most popular versions of Linux, they used the default installations (hey, it's what the Linux guys recommend!), they let the chips fall where they may. A couple of things helped them, of course. They have Linux guys (or former Linux guys) working in the lab that did it. People will assume those guys would, if not put up a fuss about an unfair comparison, at least make sure Linux was installed as well as Windows was. Second, they traded on the computer user psychology they themselves have mostly set up -- use what comes on your machine, or what comes in the shrinkwrap. Go with the default on everything, because it's too damn complicated to figure out all this tech stuff. We know what's best for you (and it ain't choice).
And, as somebody noted, they alluded to the "we've got to help our little brown brothers" school of thought by talking about the poor devils just trying to get by with older hardware and limited knowledge, completly ignoring ingenuity, necessity being the mother of invention, etc.
All very slick, all very reasonable sounding to those who don't know the details and aren't inclined, or don't have the time, to find out more or think it through.
Unfortunately, people fall for this stuff all the time. How often should you change the oil in your car? Every 3,000 miles or three months. Who says so? Why, the guys who sell oil changes, of course. You see it again and again. MS is just playing the game. Open source is a different game. The question is, can is stay on the court with the big boys playing the usual game. Looks promising now, but (as we used to say in the Army) every day's an adventure.
I'll make the argument here the legacy machines don't matter. Cheapest new computers are now so cheap yet so powerful that the space and power requirements needed to run an old machine are just not worth it. Get a new machine, send yours to recycling. That said, last thing you need when you have an old clunker that's not worth keeping is to pay for a windows license for it. Microsoft must be on crack to make such irrelevant comparison, unless they intend to give free licenses. And even so, it requires an immense degree of cluelessness to prefer an old version of windows over a new version of a minimalist linux distro.
Is this really most interesting thing that happend in "Linux World" in last few hours? I doubt that and although I now that this kind of story causes a lot of comments on /. and probably is very good for your marketing purposes this article is not worth it.
Everyone on slashdot knows on what type of hw you can run linux and can not windoze, we don't need this kind of article to irritate us!
Shame on you slashdot.
So, what would be the difference exactly?
I will tell you what. With Linux you become owner of your infrastructure. Once you have the dosh to move to commercially supported versions the migration is far less painful, not to mention that you always know that your data is accessible and protected agianst the whims of a coporate concern.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What is the credibility of MS's Linux Lab when benchmarking Linux vs Windows?
In a scale of 1 to 10 I would say -1.
Honestly guys, keep the results to yourselves, and all the best for you. To publish them is a no win situation. If you say Windows is better in any measure it will be pointed out, rightly, that you are an interested party. If you find that Linux is better, well, I would like to see the day you plublish that. Most likely that will be quietly ignored.
So what is the frigging point exactly?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Have you tried putting BeOS or QNX Neutrino Desktop on the machine?
I've seen both work wonderfully on a P-166 w/ 32MB Ram; MP3 playback, web browsing, video, whatever. Lots of popular OSS will run on either (especially BeOS) with little trouble, including Firefox (unofficial builds, I think, look at BeBits.com). If all you want to do is make an old machine productive, those are your best bets. I'm sure there are torrents out there for BeOS (can't buy it anymore, except maybe on Ebay), and I think you can still buy the QNX i386 desktop install disc for a few bucks--it's the embedded and specialty versions that cost a bunch.
Of course, I used to have Windows 95A on a P100 w/ 64MB ram, and that never seemed too bad to me at the time... hell, I even played some 3D (true 3d, not just Doom) games on it. Go figure.
That's MS's rebuttal to bloat complaints. Actually, from my personal experience editing files sent to me in Word by dozens of users, it's not true, rather 95% of users use ONLY the functions iconised on the formatting toolbar. Actually, most users could run Winword 2 with no loss of functionality (and a large increase in speed). Even better, spend a day tutoring them in Word 5 for DOS or WordPerfect 5.1 and they'd be twice as productive.
I recently delivered a used machine to a client. He wanted XP on it because that was what his kids used at school and they were used to it. It was a PII-433 with 128M RAM and Office 2000; It ran quite acceptably. Not fast, but you could do "real" work on it. By that I mean the kind of word pocessing, spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations that kids have to do for high school nowadays.
But let's be real fair here: most people don't do a clean install of Windows; they take whatever was installed on the machine by their favorite OEM that they ordered the machine from.
I recently worked on a Dell machine for another client: a P4 2.8 GHz Celeron with 256M RAM (upgraded to 512 M RAM after complaints to tech support about performance). The thing was a dog! It ran slower than the PII-433 system mentioned above. There were two big culprits:
1. all the "crapware" that Dell installs as a matter of course on every machine they ship (I classify a lot of it as spyware - it constantly uses the Internet when connected to report back to Dell, pop-up ads about latest offerings from Dell, etc, etc).
2. Norton Internet Security package that Dell now seems to install on any machine they shup. This stuff is an absolute pig that seems able to bring the fastest system to its knees. It includes a built-in software firewall that was so stringent that my client could not even connect to AOL thru their 800 number to establish what local numbers were available without disabling the firewall. It even managed to slow down his Internet connection which was only a 28.8 dialup (he could only manage 28.8 because of noisy phone lines). How can you possibly slow down a 28.8 dialup connection?
I managed to get the system to run effectively by doing a complete clean reinstall of XP from a standard Windows XP install disk and then installing only Norton AV 2002 and using XP's builtin firewall. The system was easily 10X faster at the screen and mouse. A coupla weeks later I got a call from the same client complaining about slow performance again. When I got to his location, all of the offending software was back in place! It seems that the very first thing Dell tech support does is force the customer to use the included restore CD to reinstall the factory configuration. They won't even answer questions about the system if it has any configuration except theirs!
Maybe Microsoft is not the (only) one forcing the need for ridiculous amounts of computing power on the desktop. I see much more drive for this from OEM manufacturers who see their systems not as a tool for their customers to use, but as an opportunity to continuously sell more crap to their customers.
It gets even better.
"'[Pentium II with a minimum 64MB RAM] corresponds to an average PC issued between 1998 and 1999,' Hilf said."
In 1998, the latest Slackware distro ran fine on my 386DX40 with 8MB of RAM, though X was a bit choppy. Conversely, the newly-released Win98 required a 486DX66 and 16MB RAM.
Hilf should have just gone all-out and said that many modern distros which come on DVD won't even install on older boxes because they lack DVD drives. It would have been just as valid.
In all the discussion, I don't see anyone mentioning the key point: what are you going to be doing with the machine in question? Isn't that what the low-level object of the excersize is? Fundamentally, I think the problem breaks into two major requirements:
a) running an OS on old equipment which will allow a thin client to run on a server
b) using aps which will create files (such as Word/OpenOffice)
I've used some 21 operating systems over the last 15 years and they all have their pros and cons. The issue today is bloat-ware. All mainstream operating systmems and distros are getting larger and larger and require vast amounts of RAM to run properly. The problem is not the software that's included, the problem is that hardware detection lacks one specific capability: to configure the distro/OS to suit the hardware available. The only exception is Gentoo, but it does not even do the job I'm talking about. It compiles to suit the processor, but that's it.
I'm talking about a distro/OS that automatically slims itself down if it detects a PII on install. To date, I have not seen anyone attempt this (and it's quite a challenge). Furthermore, it would have to let the user know what they were going to sacrifice to make the system run at a reasonable speed.
Here's an example: say I install into a PIII, 600 Mhz machine with 64 Meg of RAM. There is no way on God's green earth that OpenOffice will run. KDE will require at least 128 Meg for basic performance. This means that the install has to tell the user: You're going to be running WVM or some other 'light' window manager and you'll be using a far simpler text editor. Also, a bunch of services may be stripped out and limits put on the number of, say, fonts that load.
Having an OS that tailors itself to the hardware is something that I have felt is long overdue and will help crush Microsoft's bogus tests and arguments in the Windows/Linux debate.
Recently, I note that there are changes coming to the Linux kernel which will allow for processor detection. The question is: who's up to doing it? Mr. Shuttleworth, are you listening?
*** Don't be dull.***
Does Windows work as well on older hardware as Linux?
To quote an old SCotUS Justice, "Common sense revolts at the idea."
I am running several domains on an old Toshiba laptop with a 233 PII and 96MB RAM. Specifically, I am running the most recent version of Ubuntu Linux (Ubuntu Server Edition 5.10). It handles 4 web domains, 5 mailing lists, dns, and a horde of other responsibilties.
My challenge to Microsoft? Do the same thing on the same hardware with their latest OS. I'm waiting.
For anyone curious about what is set up and how, you can see my how-to page on the topic of installing these services in Ubuntu on the laptop..
-Tom
When you produce crud you have also to produce FUD as the easy way to try to defray the perception that your products are singularly bad. The sole job and raison-d'etre for their Linux lab is to produce factitious/fictitious data showing that Linux is more insecure, vulnerable and unstable, more costly and limited in terms of every metric known to man than Windows. You have to give them 5/10 for their efforts at FUD and 10/10 for their advertising of Linux as I'm sure here are many who hadn't heard of Linux or paid it any attention before Microsoft alerted them to it.
One question that I find is being missed is that of broaching Microsofts need to challenge 'Linux History' with some study or other.
If I were a military analyst I'd have to argue that
those who need to make pointless attacks tend to do
so out of desperation. One could be led to assume that
Microsoft's battle is already lost if they need to
expend resources on things like this rather than just
making a better product.
And, where the hell is the improved product?
How long do we have to wait for Microsoft's
*improved* operating systems to actually reach
the market. Have we seen one yet that we haven't
had to patch ad-nauseum to make or data safe?
The ultimate winner in the operating system race
will quietly continue to improve and promote
good technology rather than tearing down the
competition.
Propaganda is always a double edged sword. A small
part of the population will always fall for it. The
rest will maintain various degrees of scepticism.
Ultimately, if the story is incorrect or shown to
be biased, the propagandists tend to get cut by thier
own barbs.
One really has to wonder what the heck is going on
at Redmond when they pull circus acts like this.
Management from 'stupidville' I guess. I think I'll
sell my stock while it's still high.