[SLUG] Re: performance of linux vs windows nt/2000

From: Paul M Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Date: Sun Dec 09 2001 - 21:58:49 EST


Justin posted this question to another list, and Bryan TheBS Smith
answered it there. This was his answer. (Hope he doesn't mind me quoting
him. ;-)

----- Forwarded message from slug@lists.nks.net -----

Justin Keyes wrote:
> One site showed many different tests between linux and nt (one
> being the mindcraft test), and showed that windows served many
> more pages per second than linux as a web server.

Yes, because IIS is an NT _kernel_-based web server and Apache is an
user-space (i.e. regular, protected program) web server. As such, Tux,
a Linux _kernel_-based web server, was born out of this contest.
Webspec performance of Tux is 3x that of IIS. But I do *NOT* advocate
running a kernel-based web server for reliability reasons.

The contest also used quite unrealistic system configurations. From the
hardware, to only serving static web pages. It also didn't show where
Apache absolutely rules, _dynamic_content_, which is what 98% of the
major sites use. In comparison to Apache modulararchitecture, IIS'
VB/ASP just cannot keep up.

> Another site--a linux gaming site http://linuxgames.com/articles/
> comparison/ -- rated the frames per second served by 3 different
> video cards under linux vs. windows; linux was significantly
> lower than windows with every card (even when the company had
> special drivers for linux)! I know this is an extremely
> vague question, but does hardware perform better under linux or
> windows?!!

_Only_nVidia_ (hopefully ATI soon) produces Linux and Windows drivers
from the same codebase. All other vendors either get theirs from 3rd
party efforts (the majority), or post-hacked configuration (e.g.,
Matrox). In the case of nVidia's drivers, they are purposely tweaked
for reliability on Linux, and disable various features (like Sideband
Addressing, Fast Writes, etc...). With those features enabled, Linux
can "hold its own" against 2000/XP at OpenGL and wins many, and both
blow Windows 9x away.

The bottom line is that when it comes to 3D performance, the underlying
OS doesn't matter. It's the maturity of the hardware and the drivers.
I'll gladly take a 5-10% performance hit in Linux for increased
reliability. I like running for months switching between games, surfing
and working.

-- TheBS

--
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org   chat:thebs413
Engineer  AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
President    SmithConcepts, Inc.    http://www.SmithConcepts.com

----- End forwarded message -----



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