NTS4 vs. Linux study from Mindcraft.

[Scott Dier <dieman@ringworld.org>]

Hello, If you havent seen on Slashdot allreaday -- 

Mindcraft has released a report saying that NT is faster for web and file
serving.  Go read it.  Check out some of the graphs.  Like the apache one,
where it just drops off in the middle of the graph.  Why?

Because Mindcraft is a bunch of inept sysadmins.  So when your boss goes
NT is better than Linux, you can tell them about these facts.

Mindcraft turned off "widelinks" in samba.   From the original author of
Samba he said that with it turned off it takes 6 more function calls to
perform operations.  That sounds like it would probally run faster
(Someone should get around and prove this.)

Secondly, the apache stuff can be explained by one thing : File
Descriptors.  You can change them to higher numbers if you want, but
Mindcraft left them at the standard number.  So while the computer *was
not* hitting its max CPU, it was waiting for a file descriptor.  Mindcraft
could have reconfigured the kernel and had /much/ better performance and
see that Apache, while it might not be faster -- scales much better than
IIS does.  I saw an article from a /long/ time ago on a zdnet site that
showed apache scaling from 100 to a ton more (1000+ i think) as a flat
line for latency of getting pages.  Thats cool :)  

Really, I'm throwing this forth as a discussion object and as something so
when the FUD hits the non-techies and they ask you about it you have
something concrete that you know is right. 

The mindcraft survey is at -
www.mindcraft.com/whitepapers/nts4rhlinux.html


-----------------------------------------------------
Scott Dier 		<dieman@ringworld.org>
Ringworld.Associates	efnet(#nicnac,#@,#minnesota)
612.494.6664		<page-dieman@ringworld.org>
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