Date: Fri 11-Jun-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Linux-NT

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Linux vs NT

By Bob Brand

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

In the rarefied air of medium sized network operating systems, it is generally

believed that Linux outperforms Microsoft's Windows NT (soon to be called

Windows 2000) when run on low cost PCs. In fact, since Linux is free and a

10-user license for NT costs about $1,100, Microsoft finds itself under a

great deal of pressure when it competes head to head with Linux. It came as a

shock to the computing community when a so-called "whitepaper" appeared on a

website run by a company called "Mindcraft" with the bold headline: "Microsoft

Windows NT Server 4.0 is 2.5 times faster than Linux as a File Server and 3.7

times faster as a Web Server." Yikes! How could this be?

On Closer Examination

This 18-page "Certified Performance" report is packed with figures, graphs,

and glowing comments on the superior performance of NT over Linux. In fact, to

an untrained eye, it would appear that anyone choosing Linux over NT would

need a serious checkup from the neck up. The fish starts to smell, however, on

page 14 (rather deep into this official looking document) when this statement

appears: "Mindcraft, Inc. conducted the performance tests described in this

report between March 10 and March 13, 1999. Microsoft Corporation sponsored

the testing reported herein." Basically, this would be equivalent of Phillip

Morris stating that cigarettes pose no health risk from tests conducted in a

hospital run by the Tobacco Institute.

What Was Tested?

Linux and NT were run on identical computers -- high end Dells (4 x 400 MHz

Pentium II Xeon microprocessors with 4 GB 100 MHz RAM). This is not exactly

the kind of gear found in most Linux or NT LANs (local area networks).

Microsoft/Mindcraft concocted a test that would try to put NT in the best

light while putting Linux in the dark. Only recently were new versions of

Linux released allowing it to run on multi-processors. However, it doesn't

stop there.

The Windows NT was "tuned" (a fancy name like making a souped-up car run on

regular gasoline) for optimum performance on this specific system. Because

Linux was "green," a laughable attempt was made to "tune" Linux. In fact, when

experts examined how Mindcraft attempted to "tune" Linux, they discovered that

the opposite occurred -- it ran slower.

When the results were released, the reaction from the Linux community was

swift. In April, Eric Raymond, arguably one of the highest profile Linux

supporters, wrote a stinging rebuttal to the test in Slashdot, News for Nerds

, in a piece titled "The Mindcraft Fiasco."

The following is an excerpt: "But the story took a strange turn today (22

March) when Microsoft spokesperson Ian Hatton effectively admitted that the

test had been rigged! "A very highly-tuned NT server" Mr Hatton said "was

pitted against a very poorly tuned Linux server".

In late April, Andrew Leonard wrote in Salon "Microsoft's Flawed Linux vs NT

Shootout," a more detailed account of the incident. Leonard speculated that

Microsoft's clumsy stunt could indeed backfire on the Redmond giant. That

appears to have happened. I could only find one South African website

(Computing News) that lifted whole parts of the Mindcraft whitepaper and

dumped it on their homepage. No author was ascribed to the piece. It would

certainly appear that this site is a mouthpiece for Microsoft propaganda. Sad.

Other than that, the Internet community seems to have shaken its collective

head in disbelief on all fronts.

What's Next?

Now that the dust has settled somewhat on this issue, a few conclusions

surface. Microsoft sees Linux as a serious competitor to Windows 2000. In

fact, it appears that MS does not know how to put up an effective defense.

Setting up a strawman using Mindshare as its cheesy accomplice does not fool

anyone. Many argue that Microsoft would be better served if, instead of

wasting money on rigged tests, it put its efforts behind fixing NT bugs and

patching security holes faster. It takes a certain arrogance to feel that

Microsoft smarty-pants can put one over on the computing community and get

away with it. Any network administrator smart enough to buy a multi-processor

high-end e-mail/web server is surely smart enough to poke giant holes in such

a flimsy pseudo-report. What in the world was Microsoft thinking?

My guess is that the Linux community will now collectively tune Linux for the

multi-processor Dell system (once they become more widely available) and shove

undisputed "true" results all over the Internet.

The biggest victim in this whole bizarre mess is Microsoft credibility. It is

indeed a sad day when Microsoft puts a neighborhood hot-rodder behind the

wheel of an Indy Formula 1 race car and points out that the machine was flawed

when the kid puts it in the wall at the first turn. Don't be surprised when

they "hit the wall" in the Justice Department's anti-trust lawsuit.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.mindcraft.com/whitepapers/nts4rhlinux.html

http://slashdot.org/features/99/04/23/1316228.shtml

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/04/27/mindcraft/index.html

(This is the 158th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, Genealogy on the Net is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until

next week, happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet Info

for Real People can be found at www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and

suggestions to: rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)