The Mindcraft Debacle: Part MCXVI 137
Quite a number of people wrote in to alert us to the Salon story about the Mindcraft survey. Andrew Leonard, does a great job of tracing the trail, including the information about how Mindcraft is asking for help from Linus, but is not apparently giving him the information that he needs. Ah, the joys of industry. Mindcraft has agred to re-do the tests, with Linus' help, as aforementioned, but is continuing to be...less then forthcoming about the tests. Meanwhile, Microsoft is trumpeting the original study.
Microsoft is pumping up Linux. (Score:1)
Microsoft has never made such serious mistakes in so short of a period of time with the rest of its competitors.
Microsoft web site. (Score:1)
Linus in the dark? This is just wrong. (Score:1)
M$ News? (Score:1)
Certifications (Score:1)
A second test... (Score:3)
"Even with help from the top two Linux minds, namely kernel inventor Linus Torvalds and top lieutenant Alan Cox, Linux was unable to match the performance of the NT machine under test."
If Mindcraft is being as unhelpful in giving information to these two as they were in replying to Usenet posts for help, you're going to see a steaming pile of FUD right in the middle of that report.
Let's face it, the Mindcraft results are going to say EXACTLY what the Microsoft marketing forces want them to say. If the marketing people say there's a perception that Linux is difficult to get support for, you can damn well bet you're going to see forced substantiation of that claim in their report notes.
This second test, if it continues under the same sort of conditions that Salon notes, will NOT be any better than the previous. In fact, given the level of expertise being "consulted" in the new test, this result could hurt the Linux image much, much more.
They should use dual-processor machines this time (Score:2)
sorry but I think that's unrealistic -- how many
shops use quad-Xeon-processor machines for web serving
and file serving? I think dual-PII-processor is the
more common workhorse in this industry, and I'm
pretty confident Linux beats NT on dual-processor
hardware.
They should be testing "typical" hardware
platforms rather than using hardware so maxed-out
that hardly anyone would own such a machine
these days, or at least not for plain-ol'
web serving -- database serving maybe but not
for web serving and file serving -- that's
ridiculous!
...and I think the whole point of Linux is you
can run a pretty fast web server on *cheap*
hardware so you really don't need quad-Xeon
w/ 1 GB of RAM to serve some serious enterprise
level web traffic anyway -- a plain ol' pentium box
will work just fine.
So how about an OPEN test? (Score:1)
What we need is an open test conducted by a trusted third party. MS can show up with their 50 drones and go head to head against a handful of Linux/Samba/Apache developers.
That would be something to read about, instead of all these bogus benchmarks payed for by Bill.
TedC
MS and the 'net (Score:1)
The MS site sums it all up (Score:1)
"Microsoft was pleased but not surprised by Mindcraft's results concerning the excellent performance of Windows NT Server."
Why am I not surprised either.
You're confused as well. (Score:1)
RAID 4 is the dog-ass-slow write performance because there is only one parity disk. RAID 5 is striped parity with the pairity bits hitting each disk. It is slightly slower than a single drive for writing, but significantly faster than mirrored drives (the slowest write of all RAID systems).
RAID 5 is the 2nd fastest reading system (losing only RAID 1 across an equal number of disks and, for example, 5 disk RAID 5 is basically equal reading to 4 disk RAID 1).
If you have hardware RAID like these servers, then you're not going to notice anything with write speed.
You're not doing writing, are you? (Score:1)
Apache was *NOT* tuned. (Score:1)
They had a god-awefully small StartServers and MaxServers line as well as a MaxSpareServers 1. They also ran apache out of inetd.
They did *NOT* tune apache upward.
OK, now you're sounding foolish. (Score:1)
RAID 0 is striping. In fact, RAID 0 will speed up writes and reads if it is implemented correctly. Many companies don't do this and simply create a volume set so the 2nd and later drives don't get written to until the first is full.
RAID 1 is mirroring. That means everything you write to drive 1 gets written to drive 2 and drive 3 and drive 4, etc. That's X copies getting written where X is equal to the number of drives.
RAID 5 is striping with striped parity. Unlike RAID 4 which places a bottleneck on the parity drive, RAID 5 spreads the parity across all drives. Parity calculation is often done very fast in hardware, like on those *hardware* RAID controllers.
Now you've just gotten almost an hour worth of CS lecture in 3 paragraphs. If I have to do that again, I'm going to bill you.
Your theory conflicts with the real world. (Score:1)
It's very obvious you don't know how RAID 5 works.
First, yes it's an XOR (at least you got that right). However, reading takes just over x+1/x amount the time of reading from a RAID 1 set. Just over being the time it takes to do an XOR and comparison.
Writing, however, takes x+1/x amount the time as it takes to write to a true RAID 0 (aka striped, no parity) set. Again, the extra time is the time it takes to calculate the parity (XORing is very cheap, in fact, on the i386 set, xor ax,ax is faster than move ax,0).
So, again, what was that?
Gee, you mean you can't test a read? (Score:1)
You lose.
Gee, so when everyone says Microsoft... (Score:1)
If I am wrong, it should be trivial to correct me. No one has.
No. (Score:1)
If you're looking for optimal performance you have to a) know what you're doing. and b) compile the packages yourself, including only the options you need.
I also don't know where you got your ideas about RAID. RAID 1 is what you want for higher performance on a web server. RAID 5 shows little thought went into the choice.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
No. (Score:1)
Perhaps you need to read up some on RAID - RAID1 is the fastest and safest of all the RAID standards. It's what you use if cost is not an issue. For a server, that tends to be the case.
For some good introductory docs on RAID try the Software-RAID mini HOWTO.
Matt.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
No. (Score:1)
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Linus in the dark? This is just wrong. (Score:1)
They documented that they did some serious tweaking of the NT server, even so beyond what microsoft suggests for reliabilty. They had to get that information from somewhere, they probally had a MS tech either over their shoulder or on the phone telling them to apply this reg tweak, apply this patch to bind the nic's to each CPU....
Why can't we do the same for linux? Why can't Linus and have direct access to the server that they're supposed to be helping on?
They must be trying very hard to "proove" that NT is "better" then Linux.
grr stoopid html (Score:1)
Build a Linux machine that equals performance (Score:1)
Mindcraft did publish the performance of their NT box, so there is a target to aim for.
Don't worry, be happy (Score:1)
A stupid thing to do (Score:1)
Your Right, I had an intership with em. (Score:1)
Mindcraft had -0 credibility before this fiasco... (Score:3)
You'd think that if a company pays for tainted benchmarks, they could at least ask Mindcraft to cook the numbers less blatantly.
THe best way to do this test, I think, would be to run the NT benchmarks, then let Linus, Alan, Brian, Andrew, and Dean (I apologize for any gurus I forgot) have their way with the same server for testing. Let the Mindcraft stooges watch. They may just learn something.
Plan (Score:2)
However waiting for a company to do something is a stupid way to go. I suggest some non-profit linux organization find out how much it will cost to purchase one of these machines, and create a fund where people can contribute money towards its purchase. Then allow folks who know about configuring it contribute information on how to do it. Publish the report, and bam, end of story. The machine could then be used for other linux related things such as hardware for linux developers to work and optimize on, or other such things. The potential for this is great since if its alot of folks will be willing to contribute to it. hell i got $10 bucks to go towards this beast.
and i am sure that the money could be raised from slashdot users alone, much less the entire community, since once the project is started, companies will try to get some press coverage by saying they helped in the project.
Anywho this is my humble opinion, and what do i know?
Testing again, cool! (Score:1)
with the AMI RAID driver will do much better, but everything else should work.
I don't expect them to change hardware, and to be honest I don't want them to, it's up to us to
be real world too.
Three things I hope they do:
Use kernel 2.2.pre7 patch3, it's a very nice kernel.
More RAM, at least to the two gigabyte limit.
One OS on the drive, and real world raid5, not raid0, this is a server stupid.
The right amount of swap I have wondered and wondered about that one.
A correctly tuned apache server, at least use the
know what your doing.
SAMBA, use the damn package unless there is a GOOD reason not too.
Get rid of the enterprise edition; server is what most people will buy it's a bit more real world.
And last document better; I would feel better if I new exactly why something failed or not.
No. (Score:1)
But it's Mindcraft, I would not want them too.
It's a SERVER!!
Not just a 'Web server' both should be running RAID 5.
Think about it; would you run RAID1 on a real server?
If you do; I don't think I would trust you with my data.
Re:Things can only get worse! (Score:1)
My take is that anyone from the Linux community participating in the "fairer" (what a joke) test should instead release a disclaimer stating the fact that any test that does not include colaboration from Linux people is invalid!!
I suggest Linus, Alan Cox or anyone from Linux simply put out an open letter stating their discontent with the issue of secret tests, and avoiding being pawns in M$ propaganda machine.
Branman
Worried, don't give Mindcraft legitimacy (Score:1)
It worries me because I think the Linux community did a very good job of refuting the ridiculous results of the test, but if they redo them and can claim that Linux lost even with the help of Linus and Alan Cox . . .
Allowing Mindcraft to do another test gives them a legitimacy that they don't deserve. I would much rather see VA research do a test, they would do an excellent job of tuning Linux, and in fact I would even trust them to be fair to Microsoft.
I realize its not up to us to say whether they repeat the test, but it should just be ignored.
Summary: we already debunked the Mindcraft benchmark, lets not play back into their hands by taking them seriously and giving them a renewed credibility. Please, VA research or someone of that ilk, come out with your own more legitimate tests.
Worried, don't give Mindcraft legitimacy (Score:3)
It worries me because I think the Linux community did a very good job of refuting the ridiculous results of the test, but if they redo them and can claim that Linux lost even with the help of Linus and Alan Cox . . .
Allowing Mindcraft to do another test gives them a legitimacy that they don't deserve. I would much rather see VA research do a test, they would do an excellent job of tuning Linux, and in fact I would trust even trust them to be fair to Microsoft.
Summary: we debunked the Mindcraft benchmark, lets not play back into their hands by taking them seriously and giving them a renewed credibility. Please, VA research or someone of that ilk, come out with your own more legitimate tests.
"Why No Widelinks" campaign (Score:1)
The only story getting out into the media is that Linux was not optimised. What's really going on is that in some areas it was pessimised.
Spread the word!
RAID confusion? (Score:1)
RAID 0 = concatenation/striping
RAID 1 = mirroring
RAID 5 = distributed parity
RAID 0 by itself provides no redundancy at all, it just combines several physical disks into one larger virtual disk. It can improve performance, especially if striped properly. In fact, RAID 0 on its own reduces redundancy - if one disk goes, you lose the entire volume.
RAID 1 is mirroring, which gives you redundancy, at the cost of extra storage requirements - you need two (or more) 1GB disks to get a 1GB mirrored volume. Mirroring can slightly improve read performance, and slightly disimprove write performance (everything has to be written twice, or more).
A common setup is RAID 0+1, striping and mirroring in combination.
RAID 5 is distributed parity - another form of redundancy. You can combine, say, 4 disks into one volume, with 3 disks worth of data and 1 disk worth of parity information.
RAID 5 is cheaper than 0+1, since it requires less storage. Read performance is fairly good, but here's the catch: write performance is lousy. If it's a write-intensive filesystem, don't use RAID 5.
No, I'm not confused (Score:1)
Think about it for a minute.
Every time you write a block on a RAID 5 volume, you have to recalculate the parity for that block. That means you have to reread the parity stripe, and XOR the information before you can write the block.
Hardware RAID helps with the XOR process, but it doesn't help with rereading the disk.
If you have hardware RAID like these servers, then you're not going to notice anything with write speed.
If you're doing a lot of writes, you very definitely will notice decreased performance compared with mirroring.
It's not a theory - it's fact (Score:1)
Oh, save the condescending attitude. I work with RAID systems every day. Don't tell me I don't know my job.
You conveniently ignored what I said, so try to pay attention this time: to write a RAID 5 partition you must reread parity information from the disk, unless you are doing a Full-Stripe-Write; you need to write (ndisks -1 ) * stripe_size bytes of data in one operation to avoid the performance hit. Oh, and that data has to aligned on a stripe boundary, too.
Otherwise, you end up doing either a Read-Modify-Write or a Reconstruct-Write, and that's expensive.
For write-intensive filesystems, don't use RAID-5
My source for this?
Now are you going to tell Veritas that they don't understand RAID either?
First, yes it's an XOR (at least you got that right). However, reading takes just over x+1/x amount the time of reading from a RAID 1 set. Just over being the time it takes to do an XOR and comparison.
You're wrong there, too, by the way. Reading a RAID-5 volume is just as quick as reading RAID-0. No XOR'ing needs to be done when you read. And you have the cheek to accuse me of not understanding RAID-5?
Re:OK, now you're sounding foolish. (Score:1)
Could be because everyone in this thread except you knows what they're talking about?
File a complaint with the FTC... (Score:1)
Now if we could only get MS-lackey Jerry Pournelle to retire, we might actually get some quality journalism.
MS Publishing is Always Entertaining (Score:1)
How redundant. How does one compare two incomparable systems? I suppose this is the "new" ground Microsoft and Mindcraft are breaking together. :P
logan
addendum. (Score:2)
More info. (Score:3)
We need to get the word out (Responses requested) (Score:1)
NT beat Linux by a factor of X with the help of Linus Torvalds himself.
Linus has pretty good media coverage and he could use that. This is such a waste of his time. I think that the Salon article was excellent and should be seeded far and wide to the press. Anyone else have observations on that? Also, any ideas on where it would be best to send pointers would be appreciated. I think it's important that the news of their latest plot be aired *before* the results of the tests are released, after which time we'll just sound like we're whining. Perhaps being in the spotlight will make them less bold in publishing their figures, as well.
Microsoft has done this before (Score:1)
Anyway, NT 3.51 met this certification only when NOT CONNECTTED TO A NETWORK. Only NT 3.51 meets it.
Yet MS continues to sell NT 4.0 as meeting the security certification whose name I forget.
They are one of, if not the, most blatently dishonest companies around.
Microsoft's power is not so absolute (Score:1)
They see the constant deadlines being pushed back, MS not delivering on promises, MS getting caught astroturfing in the past, new MS technologies not working as they should, and lately very hyped MS only viri, etc.
MS IS looked at as a safe choice only because we know that they will not be going out of business tommorow (hence: "You can't go wrong buying MS")
MS is going down a slippery slope, W2K(NT5) will make or break the company, if past performance is any indication, NT5 will not live up to its hype.
Your Right, I had an intership with em. (Score:1)
Sure this is a form of client/server, but the MS c/s server model was fat client, where you install a client program on 500 PCs, that take up 450megs on your PC for a "slim" install or 700megs for a full install, and require 64Meg ram to get by. This had the advantage of locking you into MS technology all around.
I also fail to see how NT is an improvement over VMS. VMS at least was a multi-user OS, and I never saw a VAX go down for anything except a hardware failure.
The big Microsoft crash....WINDOWS 2000! (Score:1)
Well, if they had done multiuser correctly in the first place they wouldn't have this problem. But if you start growing your technology tree from a seed called Quick and Dirty OS, what can you expect.
Windows Y2K will be the end of Microsoft's OS dominance, you can count on it. (Still, I don't want them to go completely bankrupt. Age of Empires 2 and that new optical USB mouse look sweet!)
The Mindcrap Affair: good news: Ghandi stage 3... (Score:3)
There's an old quote, attributed to Ghandi, and often cited in linux advocacy:
These four stages of victory map nicely onto what's happened and is happening between Microsoft and Linux:First they ignore you. Microsoft did this for years, not really surprising anybody.
Then they laugh at you This comes from from all levels, including Gates himself, and mostly takes the form of FUD. Do you really want an OS developed in some guy's garage? Is linux going to be here tomorrow? Linux has no roadmap. Can linux really be well-tested? I consider all this FUD to be a form of laughing at linux; it's really too indirect to be considered fighting.
Then they fight you The Mindcrap Affair places us full-square in stage three. Microsoft is actively fighting, trying to bloody the penguin's nose (beak?). Granted, they're fighting dirty, but they are fighting. And get used to it; we're probably going to see a lot more of this from Microsoft.
So why is this good news? Because it puts linux one step closer to stage four: Then you win. And it won't happen soon enough for me.
--JT
Benchmark Fest probably? (Score:1)
Yeah We have to pay extra for Apache and Samba? (Score:1)
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: They should use dual-processor machines (Score:1)
These people are asking (or at least should be): what should I be running six months to a year from now in order to handle the predicted traffic and server load?
Considering how quickly the semi-conductor industry is still moving, I think 1 GB quad-Xeon boxes are going to be more or less the standard new server box in a years time.
Of course, Win NT scales to 4 processors so badly that Microsoft is artificially retarding the development of SMP hardware, so I could easily be wrong and we'll be stuck with 2-way SMP for longer.
For example, there is almost no available Intel hardware bigger than 4-way SMP, even though handling more processors is well understood: Sun's entry-level(!) enterprise server E450 handles up to 8. There is nothing keeping the Intel hardware vendors from building bigger boxes besides the limitations of MS operating systems.
Salon (Score:1)
A refreshing change from ZD!
(CmdrTaco: can you get Andrew to do a piece or two for
Generally that's wrong (Score:1)
I've worked on-and-off with NT since 1994 (shit - 5 years!), and generally the MS technical community is very cynical about Microsoft's business practices and marketing, and especially suspect of MS's technical claims or benchmarks. Many of the folks I've worked with have been through the Microsoft PR gristmill with Novell, OS/2, and various midrange systems, and have seen it all before.
While things like the Mindcraft study will impress the totally clueless PHBs and the Gee Whiz NT admins, no technical person with experience dealing with MS would give the thing a moments worth of thought. Even the ZD "PC Week" article essential was headlined "MS rigs benchmark".
Microsoft's user loyalty is a mile wide and an inch deep - don't forget that when dealing with MS Zombies. When the Unix/Linux tide starts rising, they'll follow right along.
--
A stupid thing to do (Score:1)
Does everybody know it's a fake?? Microsoft is aiming this type of crap at senior management: People who have limited capacity for critical thinking and would rather have their homework done for them by "independent" reviews.
One would hope that their technical experts would set them straight but unfortunately with senior management, once the mind is set, it's a helluva task to change their mind.
Incoming troll! (Score:1)
The whole Mindcraft thing is a joke. Linux will never get a far shake from them with MS paying the bills.
All OSS big wigs (Score:1)
It's all well and good for Linus and Alan Cox to help tune things for a benchmark. But actually, they are not the best people to do so. The best people to do so are those with domain experience -- that is, people who implement and manage large systems using Linux.
And again, let me warn everyone: benchmarks are a moral hazard.
--------
A stupid thing to do (Score:3)
Micrsoft so proud of the survey while everybody knows it's fake.
Saying that "NT is for mission critical applications" and is stable, is the stupidest thing ever.
(I wouldnt trust NT to feed my cat, and I don't even have a cat)
People know that they lie, and they become even less credible.
I think they make a joke of themselves, and it's quite funny, too.
In their struggle to survive Linux, they are being fools, and that will cost them costumers.
People are starting to realize what Microsoft is about.
Their crap bloatware is getting on people's nerves,
and the legal tactics are now more understood by the public (thanks to the DoJ).
But more of it, people are sick of being fed lies, and obviously bogus facts.
We don't want fake videotapes and false promises.
I'm glad to see Microsoft like that.
I'm just waiting for the big crash.
---
Astroturf wars (Score:2)
Between the overt attempt to fake a "groundswell" of support, the bungled videos in front of the DoJ and now the "benchmarks" that "prove" Linux is inferior to NT (as shown by an "independent" testing lab, no less), the Emperor's new clothes are revealing what Microsoft *really* means...
MS is getting desperate! (Score:1)
anonymous speculation (Score:1)
I can verify that Mindcraft is not a Microsoft spinoff. They have been around for over 10 years. They are, however, essentially 'mercenaries'. I cannot say, however, that Microsoft hasn't purchased all or part of Mindcraft, although MS, being under scrutiny from the FTC (as well as the DOJ) would have to divulge any such investment. Their original purpose was doing POSIX compliance validation for OS vendors, however, they have also been doing benchmarking for a long time. At one time their primary customer was IBM (they provided benchmarking numbers for the RS/6000 in its early years).
Your Right, I had an intership with em. (Score:1)
Of course not, it isn't. NT is a half-baked re-implementation of MicroVMS with the bloated Windows GUI sitting on top of it. It isn't an improvement over even old VAX VMS, let alone recent OpenVMS.
VMS at least was a multi-user OS,
NT could be if it wasn't strangulated by the Windows GUI code which is inherently rooted in a single user philosophy.
Personally, I never even liked VMS. It was unecessarily crufty and complex and built from the large monolithic applications philosophy which I was never comfortable with.
I think NT has all the worst aspects of VMS without any of the redeeming qualities. If NT didn't come from Microsoft, it would be dying even quicker than VMS is.
propaganda (Score:1)
Since you didn't state it in quite specific enough terms for the sarcastically challenged to grasp. Here is my read between Microsoft's lines:
The fact that we (Microsoft) have to pay a company like Mindcraft to rig test results shows why NT is losing the war as a web server platform to *nix and Apache.
Microsoft and Mindcraft: Loss of integrity (Score:2)
From now on I will take all claims made by Microsoft with a bigger grain of salt.
Microsoft will survive this debacle, but I'm sure that Mindcraft will take a serious blow. With their integrity questioned, who will take their tests seriously? I don't think that they'll be getting too many customers now.
Here is a suggestion for the Linux community: Someone should start a Linux hardware benchmarking and testing project. The role of this project would be to provide tips for tuning different configurations of computers for different purposes. Maybe they could get VAResearch to loan some hardware for the tests. The project team could challenge people at Microsoft to beat their results in head to head competition with impartial judges.
Funny, MS doesn't mention ANYTHING about the CPU (Score:1)
This could happen. (Score:1)
Corporate propaganda (Score:1)
As an aside, I remember reading about how the tests were done with about 140 machines running Windoze creating the load on the server. For a truly fair test, I would like to see the tests repeated with 140 Linux machines. Even better would be 140 assorted machines with completely unknown operating system configurations: Windoze95, Windoze98, Linux from various distributions, Macs and so forth. After all, isn't that what happens in the real world?
---
When you read anything on microsoft.com, remember:
microsoft.com is the official organ of the Microsoft Corporation politburo
The big crash (Score:1)
I read in the business section of this morning's paper that a large investment firm (sorry, I forgot the name) is selling off all of its Microsoft stock, about $280 million worth. Apparently it figures that the stock is about peaked out, and there are better places to put the money.
Plan (Score:1)
Worried, don't give Mindcraft legitimacy (Score:1)
If Linus and Alan have a chance to help in redoing the tests (assuming the tests were done to their satisfaction), then I say go for it.
It seems that maybe there is some fear that Linux may not "blow away" NT like it has been talked about. This wouldn't surprise me, given the oversized hardware the test is being done on. It is already known that Linux has a lot of room for growth in that market.
It is not a bad thing to openly display the shortcomings of Linux. This will spark interest in overcoming these problems (and as the Salon article mentions, the ball is already rolling on this).
But then again, maybe Linux will "blow NT" out of the water. I for one would like to see the results.
Re:Corporate propaganda (Score:1)
Funny, MS doesn't mention ANYTHING about the CPU (Score:1)
M$ "News?" - Hah! (Score:1)
"Microsoft was pleased but not surprised by Mindcraft's results concerning the excellent performance of Windows NT Server," said Ed Muth
Well *of course* they're not suprised! This phony crap is so transparent. Next time they should have NT edge out linux by an order of magnitude, not just double or triple, then they could say they were "pleasantly surprised".
Bunch of lying, cheating, conniving, manipulative turds. Makes me want to thow up.
propaganda (Score:1)
"And test results like these help explain why Windows NT Server 4.0 has so much support."
Ah, they speak the truth...
--
Microsoft should be publicly punished (Score:1)
WindowsNT Server 4.0 significantly outperforms Linux in enterprise class systems
Redmond, WA--After these tests, WindowsNT Server 4.0 is still at the head of the class.
Microsoft SHOULD NOT be able to get away with such a cunning, blatent lie. There should be mass attention brought to this and expose these damn fools.
I want to see front page headlines in say the NY times like "Microsoft are cheats"
It's one thing to defend your OS, but its another to setup a scam like this.
Microsoft has done this before (Score:1)
http://www.ntsecurity.net/scripts/loader.asp?iD
Not sure how biased or fair it is but I thought it
was pretty interesting.
But does the general public? No (Score:1)
Not gonna happen, they get too much M$ advertising money. Not to mention the fact they own a NETWORK. Linux coverage(+)in the mainstream PC press is still sparse, although you can see media bubbles rising from the riverbed to the mainstream (/. --> Network TV)
Microsoft is pumping up Linux. (Score:2)
you weren't paying attention to the doj trial, were you?
Fire with fire (Score:1)
Why not put together the funds to pay Mindcraft? Commission them to do a real study, publicly announce it, make sure that the hardware is the same and get the best people in both camps to tune their machines. It could be a win for all parties. Except one :)
You may say that Mindcraft is biased, but if you are a paying customer, they have to live up to their promise and guarantees. Of course they could turn down the work, but then you would have the truest indication of their motives. Money should be the same color, no matter who's hands it is coming from.
Fire with fire (Score:1)
However, if one simply did the Linux side, then pointed to the already published NT numbers for comparison, this may be doable.
Better yet, don't use the Mindcraft guys at all. Get a machine with the same hardware setup as Mindcraft published, throw Linux on it, tune it, and watch it scream. You or I can't afford the hardware, but dedicated Linux vendors can (several of who advertise here). Better yet, they have motive to refute the results. And they can invite anyone to the tests to examine the setup, in case people complain about impartiality...
No. (Score:1)
Sure, you can get optimal performance by compiling from source. You can also shoot yourself in the foot quite badly. I think Mindcraft was aiming for the right big toe.
Don't worry (Score:1)
Don't worry. If/when they complete the "test" and publish it, naming Linus and Alan as "helpers", the first thing the news media is going to do is to call Linus and Alan to get a comment about it and thereby get the real story. In fact, having Linus and Alan involved in this actually helps us prove the point that MindCraft is not interested in obtaining decent Linux performance.
Mindcraft website still trumpeting... (Score:1)
Anyone else want to give them a nudge?
Curiouser and curiouser! (Score:1)
So, I look around a bit and click on a few items looking for a way to contact _anyone_ with a comment about the story and came up with the big zero: Nada, nothing, no way to say "Hi Microsoft, your story on the Mindcraft debacle has a few problems." This is typical MS in that MS doesn't want to hear from MS customers because MS is too busy trying to dictate what said customer should be doing and thinking -- and totally missing the boat all the while.
Justice will be served when MS turns around one day and finds they are missing many millions of customers. Count me in that rapidly growing group.
1 1/2 years of livin' and lovin' Linux!
Hypocrits!!! Look at hotmail! (Score:1)
Just look at what their famed hotmail runs on -- netcraft.com [netcraft.com] speaks the truth!
Microsoft is going to pay dearly in the end. Anyone with some sense has seen through this FUD already. Alot of people out there are in bed with Microsoft and take it's lies for gospel. They won't believe anything works but Microsoft and they are doomed for a hell working in help desks for eternity.
Once the new study is run by Mindcraft with the full support of Linux users, Microsoft will be exposed for the fraud they are. Alot of the damage has been done already. Linux is still small and hopefully people realize that when they read Microsoft's news releases.
What about a complaint about Mindcraft? (Score:1)
So, by publishing this report as it was they are *certifing* that linux was running at peak performance
And, several of the changes they made, appeared to even reduce the out of box performance
So, are they *certifing* something that is obviously (and knowingly) false?
Why Linus? (Score:1)
Huh, got a much better idea, less do a benchmark and let Linus and BGate$ setup their own machine (same hardware of course).
THEN run some tests.
Breace.
Quickie followup...my bad (Score:1)
Jack
The truth hurts (Score:2)
I think that pretty much sums up the whole situation. And here Microsoft is trying to tout this result as something valid when the whole Linux community is up in arms over it, the press is outright calling the results a sham, and even Mindcraft is now wanting to redo the tests, most likely to get some respect back. I hate to say it (actually I LOVE to say it) but Microsoft is again making themselves look stupid by demeaning Linux. Hell, I just started running Linux full time after playing around with it for a year, and I have to say I've never been happier with speed, stability, and performance. Let real world examples show Linux is better than NT.
Jack
You're confused as well. (Score:1)
RAID1 on writes because it must recompute parity info on each write which requires several additional read and write operations. In some cases its read performance may be much slower then RAID1. For example many small files, opening file
requires modification of its access time which is a write operation. You can observer this behaviour
with INN or sendmail with large number of users.
RAID1 is actually faster then RAID0 or RAID5 for reads because it has twice the number of disks and with proper implementation _all_ disks are used to
fetch data.
You're not doing writing, are you? (Score:1)
up writes. For RAID5 it may not be the case
because each additional disk increases number
of operations to recalculate the parity.
Re:Incoming troll! (Score:1)
I don't think M$ support would help much, but at
least it would be possible to find someone you
could pay to set up a web server and tune it on
NT. Linux web consultants are still hard(er) to
come by.
How much did Mindcraft pay (or how much would
anyone who wanted the same level of support
have to pay.) How would this compare with
chartering a 747 to pick up some Linux, Samba
and Apache people?
Re:Why test on a similar machine? (Score:1)
How much does a license for NT cost now? A little
more than a Linux CD, I guess. The difference in
Many, many times more, in the case of file
serving. The more clients you want to handle the
more you pay. (Somehow I doubt the "license
manager" does any performance tuning...)
software should go to the hardware side, if we
want to compare configurations that cost the
same overall.
You also need to factor in chargable support.
Anyway if you'd did this you'd be pitting this
poor little SMP box against a huge cluster of
Linux machines
Re:Apache was *NOT* tuned. (Score:1)
They also ran apache out of inetd.
Possibly with tcp wrappers on as well, which adds
in additional DNS lookups and logging.
Also the way they had IIS configured to log in
large chunks is unrealistic for any real world
situation.
Why Linus will NEVER be allowed near the comp. (Score:1)
When when they undertsand the concept. The number one best super-duper cool reason to choose linux over NT isn't performance (not that it wouldn't beat the shit out of NT) but it's the code. You have all the info right there at your fingertips to crunch out your own perfect server, and you never have to wait for someone to come along and stick a bottle in your mouth.
Microsoft will always be believed.... (Score:1)
Todd Gearhart
Re:A mistake on my part.... (Score:1)
Todd Gearhart
Picts of life... (Score:1)
Take note of our hypocritical society
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