Windows 7 - Linux Faster Than Vista

Asked By measekite

28-Nov-08 02:49 AM

Linux: World's Fastest Computers
As has been the case for years now, the fastest of the fast are Linux computers.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computerworld.com
Nov 27, 2008 1:40 pm

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There are fast computers, and then there are Linux fast computers. Every six months, the Top 500 organization announces "its ranked list of general purpose systems that are in common use for high end applications." In other words, supercomputers. And, as has been the case for years now, the fastest of the fast are Linux computers.

As Jay Lyman, an analyst at The 451 Group points out, Linux is only growing stronger in supercomputing. "When considered as the primary OS or part of a mixed-OS supersystem, Linux is now present in 469 of the supercomputer sites, 93.8% of the Top500 list. This represents about 10 more sites than in November 2007, when Linux had presence in 91.8% of the systems. In fact, Linux is the only operating system that managed gains in the November 2008 list. A year ago, Linux was the OS for 84.6% of the top supercomputers. In November 2008, the open source OS was used in 87.8% of the systems. Compare this to Unix, which dropped from 6% to 4.6%, mixed-OS use which dropped from 7.2% to 6.2% and other operating systems, including BSD, Mac OS X and Windows, which were all down this year from the November 2007 list."

Microsoft is proud that a system running Windows HPC Server 2008 took 10th place... behind nine supercomputers running Linux. Even then, this was really more of a stunt than a demonstration that the HPC Server system is ready to compete with the big boys.

You see, there are no Microsoft programming tools to write supercomputer compatible applications. That will come years from now with Visual Studio 2010 and when Microsoft's F# is more than a research project language. In short, Windows HPC isn't ready for prime-time.

In the meantime, the real work is being done on the Linux computers. The number one supercomputer? Once more it's IBM's Linux-powered Roadrunner That's the same supercomputer, which this summer broke supercomputing's sound barrier: a sustained run of more than one petaflop per second or 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. Beat that Microsoft!

The Roadrunner does have competition now though. The Cray XT Jaguar also recently busted the petaflop wall. The Cray also, of course, runs Linux. In the XT's case, it's running CNL (Compute Node Linux). CNL is based on SUSE Linux.

Needless to say, all the Linux systems do have working parallel-processing languages, like GCC, PGI and PathScale. For now, and the foreseeable future, Linux will not only stay the fastest computers, they'll also be the most useful fast computers.

Computerworld

28-Nov-08 05:24 AM

And the Linux OS used on supercomputer or massively parallel platforms bares
little or no relation to that used on desktop system.  All of the Linux
operating systems used on these supercomputers are highly modified and
bespoke system -yes based on Linux (but then again Linux is just based on
Minix that was based on Unix), in the similar way to a formula 1 racing car
is based on a road car but in reality they are worlds apart in terms of
implementation and technology under the hood.
And yes these massively parallel applications are compiled using specific
optimized compilers and again in many cases custom development tools - but
then look at the work loads thee systems are sued for , weather simulation,
nuclear weapons test simulations, etc etc - again super bespoke and targeted
applications.
None of this is terrible relevant to the majority of the space Microsoft
occupy.  The sales of supercomputer platform are extremely limited while the
desktop and server platform using Microsoft operating systems are
ubiquitous.  The use of the Windows Server HPC products is aimed more at the
mass market use of high performance computing such as large scale Monty
Carlo simulations for traders etc, and not predominantly the extremely
specific areas (and niche in term of sales etc) where the vendors of
supercomputers live, Remember Microsoft is a software company the majority
of supercomputer platforms are supplied by hardware vendors who make a
significant profit on the hardware such that the OS tailoring and
development tools are developed off the back of this and effectively
supplied with the kit for free, again not a business model that Microsoft
could play in.
As an aside as you state ".. Microsoft is proud that a system running
Windows HPC Server 2008 took 10th place... behind nine supercomputers
running Linux ..." - so a set of commodity servers running a Windows OS is
behind 9 specialist supercomputers running bespoke operating systems and
costing a staggering amount of money more then the Microsoft solution.

Basically there is very little value in your post to a Vista newsgroup and
your subject line is even more misleading - you might as well have said
Ferrari is faster then minivan.  It is simply horses for courses.
Also you should really provide links to your sources for the information and
quotes in your post.
--

Mike Brannigan

28-Nov-08 05:55 AM

What is the point of a faster OS with those crappy Fonts. Ubuntu developers
should put their effort in producing a decent Font Rendering if they are
thinking of competing with any other OS.

28-Nov-08 07:50 AM

The changes for memory management and interrupt handling are significant
kernel changes  and to exploit massively parallel architectures takes more
the just those 2 significant changes, the CLE offers a number of changes
from a standard SUSE environment.

From Crays own braochure on teh XT model

The Cray XT5 utilizes the Cray Linux EnvironmentT (CLE). CLE is a suite of
high performance software which includes a Linux-based operating system
designed to run large, complex applications and scale effi ciently to more
than
240,000 processor cores. The Linux environment features a compute kernel
which can be confi gured to match different workloads. When running highly
scalable custom applications, the compute nodes can be run in a lightweight
mode, ensuring that operating system services do not interfere with
application
scalability. This special design ensures that there is virtually nothing
that stands
between the user's scalable application and the hardware.
When running Independent Software Vendor (ISV) applications, the compute
nodes can be confi gured by CLE to run a more compatible compute node
Linux OS, complete with the necessary services to ensure application
compatibility.


Nonsense - Linux is widely acknowledged to be based on the work of
Tanenbaum around Minix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX
Of course by editing my full comment you are taking it out of context the
actual Linux based on Minix discussion is not germane to this discussion


no - again by editing you are missing the point.  The original poster was
making a biog deal about "Linux" being used on supercomputers compared to
Windows.  The point is that the Linux being used is a massively modified
product from the desktop OS and the actual instances of this in use today
and minuscule when compared to the use of the Windows server operating
systems.  I am not disputing that special purpose Linux implementation on
supercomputer platforms can perform faster then Windows Server 2008 HPC
system (well the top nine world wide do but that still leaves all the rest
behind a Windows based HPC system)-the main issue is the pointlessness of
holding up these special purpose Linux implementations and comparing them to
Vista as per the title of the original post.



Yes the CNL is hugely modified - Windows Server 2008 HPC is a minor set of
changes to the core Windows Serve kernel, and again coming back to the
original post and its title,  a User of Windows Server 2008 can easily use a
Windows Server 2008 HPC system whereas the use of a household Linux distro
vs. CNL or one of the other supercomputer specific implementations of Linux
are worlds part.

--

Mike Brannigan

28-Nov-08 10:04 AM

I have both XP and Ubuntu on this machine, an AMDXP 2200+ with one gig
of RAM and an nVidia 6200 AGP card with 512MB of memory. Ubuntu runs a
little quicker than XP but if Vista was installed on this machine, it
would crawl or not work at all!

Alias

28-Nov-08 10:11 AM

But you need to ask yourself?  Can you get your work done with an Ubuntu OS
or do you need Windows?  Quite a few people need Windows because of the
applications they use.  In that case Ubuntu is totally useless.  In the
Vista group, most people have Windows applications so the need for Ubuntu is
probably less than one tenth of one percent.  Maybe you would have better
luck hawking your precious Ubuntu in other forums.  Try the alt.binaries
forums.

28-Nov-08 10:18 AM

'Would crawl or not work at all'? Sounds to me like you have never actually
tried it..



--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

28-Nov-08 10:30 AM

'If'? Now little boy, "if' is reputed to be the biggest word in the
English language and seeing as how you're the biggest known and admitted
liar in here well, 'if' you had Vista and 'if' you installed Vista, you
might know what you were talking about.
You don't, you didn't, and so you don't.
No 'ifs' about it, you're lying troll!
Hahahah!

28-Nov-08 11:10 AM

Don't need Windows.


Yeah, like 1 per cent.


So those who comprise the 1 per cent should use Windows.


Speak for yourself if you can.


When I want advice from you, I'll let you know but I wouldn't hold my
breath if I were you.

Alias

28-Nov-08 11:11 AM

Hey, the man can read!


I have and it did not work as the hardware is not high end enough.

Alias

28-Nov-08 11:16 AM

You don't need any OS.  You're too stupid to figure out any programs.


You keep believing that.  You are the one who also belives that Ubuntu is
downloaded by millions each day.  In reality only 4 people use it.



Your figures are screwed up.  Less than ONE percent use Ubuntu.  The rest
use Windows.  Typical for a retard like YOU. You are not good with facts.



I did - You just don't comprehend.


Sorry - you are too screwed up to take any rational advice.

28-Nov-08 11:18 AM

You would be lucky to get a Sheep.  I heard that you tried to masturbate and
your hand said NO.

28-Nov-08 12:28 PM

I have over a 100 fonts in my Linux and they render just fine.

28-Nov-08 12:30 PM

You also have Da Lamb Chop fetish with Da Baboon.  Isn't that correct?

28-Nov-08 12:31 PM

DaJerk weights in

28-Nov-08 12:37 PM

DaJerk weights in
--------------------
Yes, you did...jerk!

28-Nov-08 12:45 PM

So do you rub Da Lamb Chop on Da Baboon to increase your Da Jerk count?

29-Nov-08 05:48 AM

Significant but not extensive, and not enough to make the
system very different from an ordinary desktop kernel.


Even an MCSE should know better than to quote wikipedia as
an authorative source.  Linux shares no code in common with minix
other than a few lines necessary to ensure Posix compliance and to
mount minix filesystems.

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/codecomparison/alexey.html

Linux has been examined numerous times in both academic and legal
proceedings and has been shown not to be "based" on any preceeding
system.  Saying "linux is based on unix" is like saying Vista is based on
VMS because it's based on XP which is based on NT which was written by a
guy who was for-real inspired by VMS and besides it's in wikipedia.


You're supposed to edit your included text.  There's no point
in re-sending the same stupid bytes over and over and over again so someone
can add /me too.  It's the mark of a nimrod to include a complete copy
of what's easily available to any newsreader.


No, it's not.  The memory management and IRQ routines are a tiny
part of the entire kernel, a few hundred K out of about 59MB of source.

You can build pretty high performance linux clusters using out of
the box releases.


No.  Most of the "changes" consist of management software, not
kernel mods.  If you actually look at what a compute node is you'll
see that it's just a very small kernel with anything that would detract
from pure cpu throughput simply left out.  And of course the service
nodes are pure SUSE.

A user of Windows 2008 can no more "use" HPC than a user of Windows
2008 can use Enterprise SQL Server.  Unless you're willing to count "after
some work I managed to install it but we can't do anything useful with it
because we dont have sufficient hardware and besides the license is
about 150K" as "use".

Oh, you mean it'll run Word?  Well, really, if you NEED openoffice
on your Cray you could get it to work...  Might not take anything but
a statically linked version.

28-Nov-08 10:38 PM

The words "based on" and "derived from" are just words and should not be
taken literally.  Linux is a Unix like OS and the majority of Linux
commands and their arguments are the same or vary similar to Unix.  One
who knows Unix can stumble through Linux with very little that is totally
new.





on VMS because it's based on XP which is based on NT which was written

28-Nov-08 10:40 PM

Is it willie or bill?

29-Nov-08 05:49 AM

In article <8P2Yk.1215$jZ1.389@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com>,
As long as we're being pedantic, those commands you're talking
about aren't Linux.  They're the Gnu software suite, and not part of
Linux at all.  Linux is just the actual kernel and drivers.

Don't believe me?  Google "Richard Stallman".

BTW, it's exactly this modular approach that makes Linux
thread:  to run a Linux compute node you strip out everything you don't
need, tweak the resulting kernel, and you're done.  To run a Windows
compute node takes a fortune 500 class development team to coerce the
monolithic desktop operating system into some semblance of efficiency.

29-Nov-08 02:33 AM

SNIP

Yes, for everyone with an $133,000,000 computer, OK.

But for people with PC's (even high-end $5000 ones), they are running Vista
or XP.
So its really a moot point.

29-Nov-08 05:49 AM

(That's the punchline to an old joke BTW)

29-Nov-08 03:23 AM

I do not get it, BTW.
Maybe its a linux gamers joke ( linux gamers-LOL )

29-Nov-08 05:49 AM

The Lone Ranger and Tonto are camped out on the prairie one
night when they're suddenly attacked by a band of hostile Indians.
The pair take cover behind some rocks and give a good account of themselves.
The Lone Ranger says to Tonto, "Well, old friend, we've certainly given
a good account of ourselves.  It looks like we've driven the savages off!"
Tonto replies, "Ug, yes, Kemosabe."  But no sooner have the adventurers
reloaded their Winchesters then over the hill rides a fresh band of Apaches!
The Lone Ranger looks at Tanto and tells him,"Don't worry, old friend.  We'll
serve this bunch just as we served that first batch of vicious savages." Tanto
replies, "Ug, yes, Kemosabe."  And sure enough the pair drive off the second
attack just as they did the first.

But as the sun rises a hundred shattering war whoops fill
the morning air and over the hill rides half the Apache tribe brandishing
bows, tomahawks, and stolen rifles!  Tanto and the Lone Ranger turn to their
horses to make an advance to the rear only to realize that over the hill
behind them rides the OTHER half of the Apache tribe, brandishing stolen
rifles, tomahawks, and bows!  Caught between the two hordes of vicious,
angry, and heavily armed savage Indians, the Lone Ranger turns to Tanto and
says,"Well, old friend, it looks like we're done for this time."

Tanto looks the Lone Ranger right in the eye and replies, "What
you mean 'we', White Man?"

So the point of my reply was to inform you that when you say "They're
all running Vista" you have mistakenly included me in with the forces of
Righteousness.  In fact, I'm with that horde of attacking savages over there.



I never ran a Quake server on Windows.  Wouldn't even know how.

29-Nov-08 07:24 AM

You can get one for less than 10 grand now and the price is falling.


As if you know what is on every high end computer.

Alias

29-Nov-08 08:23 AM

I don't know personally.
But, think about this.
You really think someone looking at a $5000 PC is gonna install linux ?
Maybe a few of course, but generally speaking they are running games or CAD.

Saying Linux is faster on a supercomputer costing $130,000,000 is like
saying the Space Shuttle is faster than a Volkswagon.
You won't find many people dumping their VW for a space shuttle, like you
won't find many dumping Vista for linux.

29-Nov-08 08:32 AM

I know a man who bought a 5000 *euro* HP laptop and the heaviest thing
he uses is Word. He runs no games and doesn't know what CAD is. He just
had to have the best and, being as he's filthy rich, he can afford the
best. He told me it looked cool on his yacht.


No, it's like saying that Linux is faster than Vista on a supercomputer.
Did you fail analogies in school?


I have personally nuked Vista on dozens of machines and replaced it with
Ubuntu. I have done the same thing to computers with XP. *Most* people
don't know how to keep Windows of any flavor clean of malware and, guess
what, they are sick and tired of having to pay to have it removed.

With this economic crisis, people are not opting to buy new computers
but repair the ones they have. Most of the computers out there today
will crawl with Vista on them but fly with Ubuntu. It doesn't take a
NASA rocket scientist to connect the dots.

Alias

29-Nov-08 08:48 AM

Excellent example ... not.
Rich people also eat fish eggs on crackers.


No. Did you ?



You weren't in Best Buy on Friday !
People were buying brand new PC's with Vista by the truckload.
The Mac counter was the only dead part of the store.
Nothing new there !

29-Nov-08 08:59 AM

Read what you wrote and then apologize if you're man enough to admit you
made a mistake.


You sure failed it here.


No such thing as a Best Buy in the country where I live.


Bullshit.


So what?


You lying is not new, it's true.

Alias