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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?
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
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).
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.
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.
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!
Yes, I found it very interesting that they spent about the first half of the article rationalizing why they didn't actually test a distro of Linux that will actually run on anything, like the single floppy I boot my 486 laptop from, which subsequently runs the system from rather meager memory.The entire "test" is founded on misrepresenting the claim that "Linux will run on anything."
I also always get a kick out of the "poor people are idiots who can't learn to run the system" argument as well. That'll really get them on your side and buying your products.
Dear Bill,
Let me give you a hint. Poor people have more time than money and expect to have to do things the self-sufficient hard way. Many of them even take pride in being able to do so.
And the local library is full of things called "books" and people who know how to read them. Like, computer books. That's where I went to read Kernighan & Ritchie. They've got a full set of Knuth too. Not to mention that computer training is a standard part of library science these days.
Nice try.
Yours,
KFG
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
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.
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...