What is wrong with my windows?

  • Thread starter Thread starter gnaynit
  • Start date Start date
G

gnaynit

Mabey this is whats wrong with my windows

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=3D459&tag=3Dnl.e550

'Unix beats Windows' - says Microsoft!

Ok, that headline may be a bit overblown - but Microsoft Research has released part of=
a report on the "Singularity" kernel they've been working on as part of their planned=
shift to network computing. The report includes some performance comparisons that=
show Singularity beating everything else on a 1.8Ghz AMD Athlon-based machine.

What's noteworthy about it is that Microsoft compared Singularity to FreeBSD and Li=
nux as well as Windows/XP - and almost every result shows Windows losing to the two Uni=
x variants.

For example, they show the number of CPU cycles needed to "create and start a process"=
as 1,032,000 for FreeBSD, 719,000 for Linux, and 5,376,000 for Windows/XP. Similar=
ly they provide four graphs comparing raw disk I/O and show the Unix variants beating=
Windows/XP in three (and a half) of the four cases.

Oddly, however, it's the cases in which they report Windows/XP as beating Unix that a=
re the most interesting. There are three examples of this: one in which they count the=
CPU cycles needed for a "thread yield" as 911 for FreeBSD, 906 for Linux, and 753 for Wi=
ndows XP; one in which they count CPU cycles for a "2 thread wait-set ping pong" as 4,70=
7 for FreeBSD, 4,041 for Linux, and 1,658 for Windows/XP; and, one in which they repor=
t that "for the sequential read operations, Windows XP performed significantly bet=
ter than the other systems for block sizes less than 8 kilobytes."

So how did they get these results?

=


The sequential tests read or wrote 512MB of data from the same portion of the hard disk=
.. The random read and write tests performed 1000 operations on the same sequences of b=
locks on the disk. The tests were single threaded and performed synchronous raw I/O.=
Each test was run seven times and the results averaged. =


umm=E2=80=A6

=


The Unix thread tests ran on user-space scheduled pthreads. Kernel scheduled threa=
ds performed significantly worse. The "wait-set ping pong" test measured the cost o=
f switching between two threads in the same process through a synchronization objec=
t. The "2 message ping pong" measured the cost of sending a 1-byte message from one pro=
cess to another and then back to the original process. On Unix, we used sockets, on Win=
dows, a named pipe, and on Singularity, a channel. =


So why is this interesting? Because their test methods reflect Windows internals, n=
ot Unix kernel design. There are better, faster, ways of doing these things in Unix, b=
ut these guys - among the best and brightest programmers working at Microsoft- eithe=
r didn't know or didn't care.

And if they're the best and brightest, what do you think happens when the average Micr=
osoft programming whiz gets asked to program for Linux?
 
gnaynit said:
Mabey this is whats wrong with my windows

Oops! You posted to the wrong group again. What's the matter, kid? Home
from school for the holidays and bored? Come post in c.o.l.a. (Google).
We'll take care of you there.

Malke
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Back
Top