Linux kernel bits which I feel excited about…

Here are some  comparisions between:

Linux (2.6.23) versus Windows (Server 2008)…

I compiled these here so that, next time if I want to check the scheduler latency of linux kernel, I should not go for googling.

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Performance

Scheduler (performance)	Linux	Windows
scheduling latency (average)	0.009mS	2mS
scheduling latency (worse)	0.3mS	16mS

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Interrupt Performance

Interrupt (performance)	Linux	Windows
interrupt latency (average)	11uS 5uS (custom)	36uS
interrupt latency (maximum)	1000uS	45000uS

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Stack

Stack (kernel)	Linux	Windows
kernel stack size	8KB	12KB

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Uniprocessor Boot Image

Boot Image (uniprocessor, no PAE)	Linux	Windows
filesizes – kernel mode (no drivers)	1.7MB	6.9MB (3.3+0.5+2.0+2.0MB)
filesizes – user mode (no drivers)	-	3.0MB (0.7+1.0+0.6+0.7MB)
filesizes – total (no drivers)	1.7MB	9.9MB

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Hardware Clock

Hardware Clock	Linux	Windows
tickless	Y	N
timer interrupt frequency default – uniprocessor	250Hz	100Hz
timer interrupt frequency build time configurable – uniprocessor	unlimited	N
timer interrupt frequency – multiprocessor	250Hz	66.6Hz
timer interrupt frequency build time configurable – multiprocessor	unlimited	N

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Memory Hardware Limits

Memory Limits (Hardware Support)	Linux	Windows
Maximum RAM – 32bit, no PAE	<4GB	1GB (Starter) <4GB (others)
Maximum RAM – 32bit, PAE	64GB	1GB (Starter) <4GB (others)
Maximum RAM – 64bit	1024GB-8589934592GB	- (Starter) 8GB (Home Basic) 16GB (Home Premium) 128GB (others)

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Multiprocessor Limits

Multiprocessor (limits)	Linux	Windows
Maximum number of CPUs – 32bit SMP	32 (logical)	1 (Starter, Basic, Premium) 2 (Business, Ultimate, Enterprise)
Maximum number of CPUs – 32bit NUMA	32 or 1024?	1 (Starter, Basic, Premium) 2 (Business, Ultimate, Enterprise)
Maximum number of CPUs – 64bit SMP	255 (AMD64/Intel64) 1024 (IA-64)	0 (Starter) 1 (Basic, Premium) 2 (Business, Ultimate, Enterprise)
Maximum number of CPUs – 64bit NUMA	>1024	0 (Starter) 1 (Basic, Premium) 2 (Business, Ultimate, Enterprise)

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Device Limits

Device (limits)	Linux	Windows
Block device limit 32bit	16TB	16TB
Block device limit 64bit	8EB	256TB
Major/minor numbers	4k/1M	-

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Kernel Source Code

Kernel Language (no drivers)	Linux	Windows
source	open source	closed source partly open source (WAP access WRK)
language – C	Y	Y
language – Assembly	Y	Y
language - SEH	N	Y
language - VEH	N	Y
language – C++	N	Y
language – C proportion	94% ±3%y	60% ±25%
kernel – size Source_lines_of_code	3.5M ±0.5M	10M ±5M

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Kernel + Drivers Source Code

Source Code (kernel + drivers)	Linux	Windows
language – C proportion	94% ±3%	70% ±25%
language – C++	N	Y
total Source_lines_of_code	7M ±2M	17M ±9M
estimated bug error rate per line	0.02%	0.2%
i.e. estimated bugs total	1400	34000

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Kernel Development

Development (kernel)	Linux	Windows
development model	open source	closed source
development cycle time -major release	35 months	63 months
development cycle time -minor release	3 months	31 months
development cycle time -patch release	ongoing	ongoing
development process – simple	Y	N
modularity – high	Y	N

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Hardware Form

Hardware (PC)	Linux	Windows
Desktop	Y	Y
Laptop	Y	Y
Media Center	Y	Y
Tablet	Y	N (Starter, Basic) Y (others)
Rack, Server etc	Y	Y (see limits)
Wearable	Y	Y
Hardware (other)
PDA	Y	N
mobile phone (cell phone)	Y	N
router	Y	N
internet tablet	Y	N
watch	N Y	N
coffee machine	N	N Y (XP)
embedded (other)	Y	N

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Hardware Architecture

Hardware Architecture Support (PC)	Linux	Windows
x86 (Intel)	Y	Y N (Starter not all)
AMD64/Intel64 (AMD/Intel)	Y	Y N (Starter)
IA-64 (Intel)	Y	N
Hardware Architecture Support (current)
PPC64 – PowerPC-64 (AIM)	Y	N
SPARC64 (Sun)	Y	N
ARM (ARM)	Y	N
PA-RISC (HP)	Y	N
Cell (STI)	Y	N
AVR32 (Atmel)	Y	N
Blackfin (Analog Devices)	Y	N
MN10300/AM33 (MEI/Panasonic)	Y	N
Orion Feroceon (Marvell)	Y	N
System i (AS/400) – POWER (IBM)	Y	N
Cray – Opteron (Cray/AMD)	Y	N
z/Architecture (IBM)	Y	N
ETRAX CRIS (Axis)	Y	N
H8 (Renesas/Hitachi)	Y	N
SH – SuperH (Renesas/Hitachi)	Y	N
SH64 -  (Renesas/Hitachi)	Y	N
V850 (NEC)	Y	N
MIPS-64 (MIPS)	Y	N
MIPS-64 (Cavium OCTEON)	N Y (patch)	N
MIPS (MIPS)	Y	N
Hardware Architecture Support (non-current)
PPC – PowerPC (AIM)	Y	N
SPARC32 (Sun)	Y	N
Alpha (DEC)	Y	N
Cray – pre-Opteron (Cray)	N	N
System i (AS/400) – IMPI (IBM)	N	N
System i (AS/400) – RS64 (IBM)	Y	N
m68k (Motorola)	Y	N
m88k (Motorola)	N Y (branch)	N
S/390x (IBM)	Y	N
S/390 (IBM)	Y	N
MIPS (DEC)	Y	N
Hardware Architecture Support (game consoles)
Wii (Nintendo)	Y	N
Xbox 360 (Microsoft)	Y	N Y (branch)
Xbox (Microsoft)	Y	N Y (branch)
PS3/Playstation 3 (Sony)	Y	N
PS2/Playstation 2 (Sony)	Y	N
Gamecube (Nintendo)	Y	N
Hardware Architecture Support (other)
others	Y	N

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Virtualization

Guest

Virtualization (Guest)	Linux	Windows
Can be run as guest	Y	N (illegal Starter, Basic, Premium) Y (+1 licence Business, Ultimate) Y (Enterprise)
maximum number of guests (RHEL, Microsoft Virtual Server)	unlimited	512 (with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, for free)

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These comparision are blindly copied from this link.

Many thanks to the author of this comparision, for his hard work and for enlightening us.

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Understanding, KDE 4 is fast !!!

I am using Kubuntu 9.04 – i386 as my default OS (KDE 4.2.3)…..

and I have Vista installed on my laptop too…..but do not use it….

(my notebook is Dell inspiron 1420 with intel G965 graphics)….

I have been using all the KDE 4 releases including betas and RCs on my default installation which were humbly provided by Ubuntu ninjas…..and always excited with every new release because of new features and greater speed……

(using KDE, since KDE 3.4.*)

I am happy with the speed and responsiveness of the system…..

Sooo, what’s the point???

Okk, here is the thing…

today I installed KDE windows binaries, just to play with them on windows and to check how the plasma stuff runs…..

Before running KDE on windows, I had the impression that there would be some performance loss on the alien environment…..

I must admit, I’ve never seen such lightning fast applications and environment (dolphin, okular, gwenview and plasma)…..browsing pretty big pdf files on Okular…..thumbnail generation in gwenview and dolphin….everything is just snappy…….

now after using it for half an hour, native windows applications seem to me like they are running on alien plateform….

the KDE is running amazingly fast on windows……:D

I feel that KDE is running 10 times faster (I didn’t run any benchmark……just stunned with the performance) on windows than on my jaunty……

what is wrong???

I think, the main culprit for this poor performance is INTEL graphics…..the stack is under architectural changes…..and will improve in coming driver releases…..but I do not think they can ever improve the performance at the scale I just felt on here…..

even with Nvidia performance is not very good on linux….

or may be the whole X thing is letting the linux graphics down (speed / responsiveness)….

Closing

Just wanted to thank to KDE developers and all the people related to the project….

You are doing marvelous job….

I wish INTEL linux graphics improve soon.

So, now I can say (without any hesitation or doubt) that

KDE 4 is really faaaaaaaaaasst !!!!!

Operating systems popularity comparision (kind of)…

Just a comparision of popularity of different operating systems based on google search results…..

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Linux

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Mac

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Windows Vista

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Windows XP

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Solaris

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BSD

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As you seen here “Linux” has the most number of search results on GOOGLE….

which makes it MOST popular OS of the GOOGLE (WEB) WORLD….

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One more comparision can be seen among various Linux distros…

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Ubuntu

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Fedora

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Opensuse

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Mandriva

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As expected………Ubuntu is winner here…

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I did not include the search result with the word “WINDOWS”…..

since, it seems more generic…

Though, it gives most number of results….

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Windows

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So, I give you……… ONE MORE REASON TO BE HAPPIER !!!

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What do you say???

Vista is not good for multimedia…..

To check capability of GMA X3100 graphics core, I downloaded trailer of 10000 B.C..
The resolution of the video is 1920×800.

and I tried to play it on Vista (Vista Home Basic 32-bit),
Result: flickering playback, video was running in frames

I thought, I should have bought nVidia 8400GS card, which was an option with Dell 1420.

Googling told me that the card is much capable in doing this.
Then what went wrong???

I tried the video on Ubuntu 7.10 (I keep dualboot) and it was playing beautifully…
that means card and hardware was not the problem…

XP never had such problems, it was great for multimedia point of view.

I still could not believe that vista is unable to play a video.
so I reinstalled the vista and driver from intel website (latest).
but the result was same.

MediaPlayers I tried were VLC 0.8.6, The KMPlayer and QuickTime 7.

May be it was the problem of driver but i tried two versions of intel graphics driver.

What I concluded with all this was Vista is really lacking in the field where windows was strong.

All I say is – Best of luck, Microsoft !!!

Update:

After updation of recent INTEL graphics driver (last week of sep’08),

It seems to be working better.

Playback is smooth but _CPU_usage_ is still around double (than it’s on kubuntu 8.04 KDE4 remix).

My first laptop: Dell 1420

so i got my first laptop at 16th January 2008,
almost after one month when i called Dell first time.

Dell Inspiron 1420,
ruby red colour – Microsatin finish,
2GHz Intel Core2Duo T7250 800MHz FSB,
x3100 Intel graphics core,
2GB of 667MHz RAM,
160GB harddisk,
14.1″ – 1440×900 glossy screen,
2MP webcam,
8 in 1 cardReader.
bluetooth,
DVD writer,
WiFi,
100Mbit ethernet,
ExpressCard slot,
6 cell battery,
Windows Vista Home basic 32bit,
and other common stuff.

An average configuration…
cost was arround Rs. 44,000

I chosen Dell, because if you go for HP, Sony VAIO or Lenovo, the configuration I took would cost you more than Rs. 50,000 and I needed a machine as a replacement of desktop.
Not for business or for carrying around…

As first impression I found it a little heavy….
i didn’t check its weight but it seems heavier than it should have been..
but the body seems solid…since it’s made of magnesium alloy not any kind of plastic…
whatsoever, it’s pretty..

Vista Performance score I got was 3.5
CPU                             4.9
Memory                        4.8
Graphics                       3.5
Graphics productivity  3.5
HDD                             5.1

not that bad……isn’t it..
better then my friend’s VIAO.
He got 2.7 with almost same configuration (harddisk is 250GB)…

It has got pretty comfortable keyboard…

but, screen is not that good…..
it seems faded…
well, I knew it already…
still at WSXGA resolution it doesn’t affect that much….

As a opened the box, I played some default music present in vista.
Speakers are fine….good enough for a loptop computer…

…..rest in Part 2