RE: Linux Myths...

["Ingles, Raymond" <Ray.Ingles@fanucrobotics.com>]

> From: Thomas Strohm [mailto:Thomas.Strohm@de.bosch.com]

> (1) Myth: Linux performs better than Windows NT
[...]
>     In [5], I read that "Also, on some systems, Windows NT Server,
>     Enterprise Edition, can allow certain applications to have a 3 GB
>     address space [...]

 Isn't that using the PII "36-bit addressing"? That requires applications
to be written specifically for it; it's basically like "Expanded Memory"
for 2GB systems. :->

> (d) What is asynchronous I/O and what are completion ports? Was that
>     pioneered by NT? Does anybody know?

 There was a thread on linux-kernel a few months ago about this...

> (2) Myth: Linux is more reliable than Windows NT

 From a presentation I did on Linux late last year
(http://www.tir.com/~sorceror/presos.html):

-------------------------------------------
The researchers used the simple method of giving programs random streams
of input (the so-called "fuzz test"). They found that while the commercial
Unix systems had failure rates of over 18%, Linux had a failure rate of
7-9%. As the authors say: 

"It is reasonable to ask why a globally scattered group of programmers,
with no formal testing support or software engineering standards can
produce code that is more reliable (at least, by our measure) than
commercially produced code..." 

The paper is avaliable at
http://www.cs.wisc.edu:80/Dienst/UI/2.0/Describe/ncstrl.uwmadison/CS-TR-95-1
268 .
-------------------------------------------

 Doesn't compare to Windows NT, obviously, and it's from 1995, but it
does attempt to quantify an aspect of Linux stability.

> (c) Complexity of managing Linux. We know that Linux is not at all
>     more difficult to manage than NT. Do we need to make a survey by
>     asking system administrators?

 Managing *one* Linux box is more complicated than managing *one*
Windows box. (If you consider text files complicated.) Managing *one
hundred* boxes is a different story...

> (a) There was some note (in LWN if I remember correctly) that the US
>     Army does not use (anymore) NT, because its not secure enough.
>     Does anybody have a link to this note?

 It's using Mac OS now:
"http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep1999/a19990901hacker.html"

 Not exactly an endorsement of Linux, but not so good for NT.
-
Fud-counter:  Setting straight the facts
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