View Full Version : Slimserver/SqueezeCenter on Windows vs Linux
I currently own a QNAP TS-109 running Slimserver 6.5.4, and I find it on the slow side. I was thinking of building a Mini-ITX system that would be much more powerful. I would very much prefer to install Windows (maybe Win 2000) rather than Linux. I'd feel much more in control of the system, as I have good knowledge of Windows systems and none of Linux!
People say that Slimserver/SqueezeCenter runs better on linux, but how big a difference are we talking about? Would the Windows version have 90% of the performance or 10%?
I know this doesn't answer your question but I also have a TS-109 and have started to look into building a homegrown server for the exact same reason as you.
This evening, for fun, I followed mick_w's instructions and installed ClarkConnect and SC7 onto an old desktop I had lying around. It was a total piece of cake and I'm a total linux novice too! I still am infact but I now have a working linux box running SC7!
I now feel quite comfortable that I won't be wasting my money buying a load of kit and putting together something myself. Well, I'm still light years away from speccing the hardware but at least I know I can cope with the software side ;-)
norman12
2008-02-14, 16:59
I've used a via MII1000 mini ITX for a couple of years with good results. I've tried XP, Ubuntu, ClarkC and win2k on it and they all work fine when using the remote, things can slow a little with the web interface especially under XP and ubuntu (7.10). CC was by far the fastest and I'd have stuck with it were it not for problems setting up printers and samba shares for the rest of my network.
I'm now on win2k running SC7 head-less and administered via VNC and I'm pleased with the performance.
I currently own a QNAP TS-109 running Slimserver 6.5.4, and I find it on the slow side. I was thinking of building a Mini-ITX system that would be much more powerful. I would very much prefer to install Windows (maybe Win 2000) rather than Linux. I'd feel much more in control of the system, as I have good knowledge of Windows systems and none of Linux!
People say that Slimserver/SqueezeCenter runs better on linux, but how big a difference are we talking about? Would the Windows version have 90% of the performance or 10%?
As long as you have resonable amount of memory (>=512MB), you won't notice the difference. On my X2 3600 machine, squeezecenter is only giving a 2% CPU load while serving.
Cost is the main concern. Linux is free. Windows will cost you another hundred bucks.
Thanks guys - I'll probably stick with Windows. It won't cost me anything as I have plenty of licenses available (MSDN subscription :) ).
I'll just be happier running Windows, since I'll feel far more comfortable if I need to 'play' with the system or set up other applications and services.
norman12 - what sort of difference did you notice with the CC version compared to the Windows one?
norman12
2008-02-15, 13:14
gcogger,
When running XP I was getting occasional delays via the remote causing me to press a button 2 or 3 times only to find I'd advanced further through the menu than required once the server had caught up. I didn't find this a major problem though.
I often choose music through the web interface with a laptop, while not unusable with xp it didn't feel as responsive as I'd like.
CC completely removed the double button press and the web interface felt almost like an application running on the laptop.
As I've said I'm running win2k at the moment trading ease of administration with slightly slower web, but the remote is very good.
I do like the idea of using an open source os on the server and I intend to give Xubuntu a go shortly.
You may consider Windows Server 2003, rather than Xp, if you have many licenses....
I have always been running Windows Server (2000, then 2003, perhaps 2008) on my laptop because I find XP functionality to be just irritating.
There are some setup tricks, but Windows Server 2003 works beatifully as a slim server (if you got the license) and it's a much better OS than XP.
Still, I have converted to Suse Enterprise.....
Regards
Harald N
Thanks for all the info guys :) I think I'll start out with a Windows 2000 system (hopefully it will run better with 1GB RAM than 2003 would), and keep the option open to try Linux at a later date. Maybe I'll set it up as dual boot...
Might be an idea for comparison ;-)
My experience is that SC is much more responsive on my Linux server than on my WinXP Systems even though the latters have much more power, my guess is that unix scheduling is still superior. I use Ubuntu server (7.1), that is quite slim on overhead yet has most of the stuff you want and the rest can be easily installed through the packet management (via apt-get).
I have done some measurements on my Dell Latitude D810 running Suse Enterprise Desktop and Slimcenter 7.0
Using the linux top command....
Slimcenter never ever tops more than appr. 1% CPU time, while, for instance, the X server idles around 5%.
Regards
Harald N
bobkoure
2008-02-20, 22:10
If you've had MSDN for a while, you probably have both the Win2K Pro and the Win2k Server.
Go for the server - it's setup to give priority to services right off, and you can run multiple simultaneous remote desktops to it.
One word to the wise - do not install symantec anti virus. I had a bunch of problems, and, the thing is, the problem kept up until I reinstalled the OS and all my other apps (not symantec). It doesn't seem to uninstall completely with any action less drastic than that.
If you've had MSDN for a while, you probably have both the Win2K Pro and the Win2k Server.
Go for the server - it's setup to give priority to services right off, and you can run multiple simultaneous remote desktops to it.
One word to the wise - do not install symantec anti virus. I had a bunch of problems, and, the thing is, the problem kept up until I reinstalled the OS and all my other apps (not symantec). It doesn't seem to uninstall completely with any action less drastic than that.
Thanks for the advice - that gives me another option. I think that, based on haraldo's post and some other things I've read, I might try Server 2003 (Standard Edition) first. I guess I should really try and set up some sort of multi-boot system (if that's even possible!) for 2k, 2003 and Linux so I can test the differences, but that sounds like too much hassle. I agree with you about the Symantec stuff - I wouldn't touch their products with a barge pole!
I've ordered the parts, so will be trying this out soon :)
It all works out surprisingly cheap.
Intel D201GLY2 board (1.2GHz Core 2 solo Celeron processor)
2GB RAM
Noah 3988 case (nice Mini-ITX case) with 80W PSU
Western Digital 500GB AV-GP low power, low noise drive
All that comes to £224 :)
Windows Server 2003 is the best, most stable Windows ever....
Including Vista and Windows Server 2008....
I'm running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition in Dual boot with Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop on my Dell Latitude D810.
You may have issues with drivers and some software that doesn't run on Windows Server, other than that... It's fine
Standard Edition is also fine, be careful with Web Edition, because that doesn't have a firewall.....
One way to go:
If you want to try dual boot, Install Windows first, and make sure you have enough unpartitioned space for Linux, and then afterwords install Linux
Then you get the Linux Grub loader that easily handles the boot selection
It may possibly work the other way around too, by installing Linux first, but I'm not sure how well behaved the Windows boot loader will be with Linux.
Regards
Harald N
Windows Server 2003 is the best, most stable Windows ever....
Including Vista and Windows Server 2008....
I'm running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition in Dual boot with Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop on my Dell Latitude D810.
You may have issues with drivers and some software that doesn't run on Windows Server, other than that... It's fine
Standard Edition is also fine, be careful with Web Edition, because that doesn't have a firewall.....
Sounds promising :) I've been told that the Standard edition might be better on a lower powered machine that's performing simple tasks (i.e. just replacing the QNAP for now).
One way to go:
If you want to try dual boot, Install Windows first, and make sure you have enough unpartitioned space for Linux, and then afterwords install Linux
Then you get the Linux Grub loader that easily handles the boot selection
It may possibly work the other way around too, by installing Linux first, but I'm not sure how well behaved the Windows boot loader will be with Linux.
Regards
Harald N
Windows first sounds like a good idea, especially as it lets me be lazy - I can put off the Linux install until later. Possibly MUCH later :)
I think server 2003 should be OK on your machine, especially because of so much memory.... you may possibly want to disable some services to try to reduce the footprint of the OS. I'm not sure how large the differences between the OS editions are, but I'm not sure it makes a difference, because: You can anyways disable the services you don't want.
What I also have done is to set a whole bunch of services to 'manual' and then I'm scheduling a batch file that starts the needed services some 7 minutes after boot. This way the system boots WAY faster !
I won't be surprised if you realize Linux running faster on that machine....
IF you're interested in the "delayed startup engine" then I may provide something.
regards
Harald N
I also have some setup tips
There are some VERY IMPORTANT tasks you have to do or the system will not be nice to you, it will slow down if you don't do this:
- You need to set the pagefile initial and max size to the same number! This is extremely important as otherwise the pagefile will fragment and this slows down the system significantly
- If you're having issues with a fragmented pagefile you can do as follows:
a) Completely remove the pagefile, reboot
b) Defragment over and over and over and over again
c) when the disk looks fine, create a large pagefile as stated above
- You need to defragment, defragment over and over again, like 50 times, when the disks are almost empty and you must do it often thereafter because the Windows defragmenter is not always clever when the disk is fragmented and the disk is getting full
There may be lots of fragmented files in windows after it's installed and if that's the case the OS runs slower
This stuff seems like a pain in the neck and it is, much of this you have to do because Microsoft has done an incredibly poor job with the installer.
-Harald
bobkoure
2008-02-21, 06:50
If you're planning to eventually go with multi-boot, make some small partitions at the beginning of your disk, put your current OS in the first one, and dropping another OS into a different partition becomes pretty easy.
BTW, Win2K can't read disks bigger than 133M (or was it 137?) until you've installed service pack three (or four) - and then you add an "enable LBA" key/value pair to the registry. Either way, when you do this, the installer (the code that runs when you startup from a CD) can't deal with partitions that extend beyond the 133(or 137)G point.
Then there's file system compatibility: If you are going to be using W2K, and other NT versions and NTFS, format your drive from W2K. The NTFS used by WinXP/2K3/X64 is a bit different - they can read the newer one and the older one, but W2K can only read the older one.
There was an NTFS file system driver in the works for Linux. The last time I used it (Knoppix) it was read-only, so it might be wise to check to see if there's a read-write version.
I don't know about linux file system drivers for windows. Anybody know? BTW, if there's a windows fs driver for the reiser fs, I'd avoid it as you're using this system as an archive, and rfs introduces fragility for the sake of speed...
So, maybe your best choice is FAT32. FAT32 mostly sucks because the partitions are so big (and you're wasting, on average, half that partition size, on every file).
The file system thing is an annoyance, there's a space limitation with FAT32, the volumes cannot be larger than 32GB, which means you cannot use FAT32 at all.
There are some other users in the forum using NTFS with write access on Linux, I'm not sure that I would rely 100% on these drivers.... Probably more reliable with ext3 or reiserfs on windows
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/08/14/ext3-file-systems-in-windows/
http://www.howtoforge.com/access-linux-partitions-from-windows
Regards
Harald N
The file system thing is an annoyance, there's a space limitation with FAT32, the volumes cannot be larger than 32GB, which means you cannot use FAT32 at all.
NO. The maximum size for FAT32 is 2TB. The limitation is just that you cannot format a volume larger than 32GB with Windows, but you can do it under linux, with GParted Live CD for example.
Fat32 is a thing from the stoneage; I would never consider such a file system for anything serious, it's not even close to what we require from a secure filesystem today.
- It's a dumb old filesystem, not a logging filesystem like ntfs or reiserfs
- There's no security whatsoever, which means that if anyone could get access to your PC, like through a backdoor with an anonymous user, they could delete your whole music collection, and you can't stop it by applying file level security to anything anywhere
Today, we need to use a more modern robust filesystem, ntfs, ext3, reiserfs...
-Harald
norman12
2008-02-21, 13:13
gcogger,
I've set up a D201GLY2 based slimserver for a friend.
The board only has driver support for xp and we had trouble with graphics drivers under win2k server.
Win2k pro was fine though.
Once working it makes a great server although power consumption at 40w is 30% higher than the Via MII.
Hmm... hadn't spotted that :( That'll teach me to make assumptions. Thanks for the info. I guess I'll start with Win2k Pro - at least I'm pretty familiar with it :)
Hope I'm not rude here, it's certainly not my intention, but I speak from the heart.......
The problem is that Win2k is a "dead" operating system
- There will be no updates
- You may risk having issues with Microsft s/w because the OS is too old
- It's not nearly working as well as 2003
My bet would be to try Windows Server 2003, and if it's a dead end, try something else....
but of course, it's your choice
I can't recall that I have heard of anything that works with Windows Server 2000, that doesn't work with Windows Server 2003....
I personally upgraded my laptop from Windows 2000 to the Beta 1 of Windows .NET server in 2001 (which eventually became Windows Server 2003)
The Beta 1 was considerably better! than Windows 2000 in all aspects of the OS....
Can't really see a reasoning why anybody would consider an 8 year old operating system that Microsoft claims is dead and buried and that will have no updates whatsoever....
There are differences between server and client OS, from driver point of view, and generally the server is more difficult, but it's worth the effort to get the 2003 working....
What is claimed as driver problems has nothing to do with windows but the fact that the hardware vendor choses to ignore the server version when providing drivers. This is not an OS problem but an issue with the driver. It's generally a fix somewhere....
If you go for an 8 year old Microsoft OS you will get into problems, guaranteed.
Cheers
Harald N
(Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer)
Why just don't you try to install Windows Web Server 2008 and see how it goes?
If it doesn't work, you've learned something....
-H
Actually I misread norman12's post. I thought he said there had been problems with graphics drivers under 2003 server. OK, I'll take your advice and go back to Plan A and see how it goes. I think I'd rather not install 2008 server on a relatively unknown system (I have at least _some_ familiarity with 2003).
While I accept that 2003 may well perform better, I'm not sure why you are so down on 2k? (I'm not trying to start an argument here, just attempting to understand your point of view).
I'm still receiving updates via Windows Update for the 2k Pro machine that I'm typing this on but, if I didn't, I wouldn't see it as a major issue. The server I'm building will very rarely be used to access the internet and is sat behind a firewall. It will be performing pretty simple tasks.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'issues with microsoft software' - I'm unlikely to install new versions of MS software on this server. I've been happily running 2k Pro (I'm not too keen on XP) on my PCs at home with no issues.
What sort of 'guaranteed' problems would you expect from running 2k? It was a perfectly usable (indeed, the flagship) OS when it was released, and improved via later service packs. I've never been one to update things just because they are not the latest thing, but I certainly would in order to solve concrete issues.
I'm not going to tell anybody what to do or not to do..... I'm just providing my experiences and what I would do :-D
I'm now working in a software development project for a larger insurance company where we are forced by policies to use Windows XP service pack 1, this is old software and we face it every day... There are issues with s/w being too old and plugins and features not supporting such an old O/S. Now Windows 2000 is much older....
Microsoft says directly that Windows 2000 is dead and buried and that you should forget about it
OK, Microsoft makes a living from selling software and they want you to upgrade, of course they want you to get something new...
But seriously, if you run windows 2000 and want to try something new from Microsoft, my bet is that with 99.9% certaninty, this won't work because they don't support this technology anymore. This may probably also be true with other s/w companies
Of course you could make a file server slim server from win 2000 and it will work, but there's so many things you could do and possibly want to do that doesn't work.
My strong advice as a professional software architect is not to pick some kind of software that the original software vendor does not recommend anymore.
Regards
Harald N
Fair enough - I was just interested in where you were coming from :) I'm probably more interested in this sort of thing than most people as I'm a software engineer, and have been working on Client/Server Windows development for years. We fairly quickly (and all too recently!) jumped from Windows NT4 to Server 2003 on most projects, so have only used 2000 as a server OS in a very limited way.
If anyone is interested, some of the bits have arrived but with problems. I had 3 packages - 2 from the UK and one from an ebay shop in Germany. The motherboard/RAM from Germany turned up OK, but the other 2 had oh-so-typical issues.
The hard drive from Novatech has turned out to be a slightly different (cheaper!) model than the one I ordered and paid for, so back it goes :(
The case was being delivered by CitiLink (groan) and they did their old trick of returning it to the depot without leaving a card through the door (although they claim to have done so). Now I'll have to try and collect it tomorrow morning without a 'failed delivery' card - wish me luck!
Good luck !!!!
Contact me anytime anywhere if i can be of any assistance
I'm a professional software engineer working with Mircosoft technology for more than 20 years. Right now I'm providing advice on mission critical software issues to a large company.
I just want to help :-)))
Thanks - I certainly appreciate the help so far :)
Just give me a yell, or send me a private message, and I'll do whatever I can :-D
Everything is up and running OK :) For anyone interested, here are a few thoughts about the process.
The Intel D201GLY2 board DOES support 2GB RAM sticks, despite the specs saying it only supports 1GB. This has been reported elsewhere, and my experience is the same. In fact I've not found any reports of people having tried and failed with 2GB.
The Noah 3988 case (got mine from http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11124) is pretty nice. Nice and solid, much heavier than I expected, and looks good. It's as well laid out inside as you could expect, given that there's barely room for the components. I weakened at the last minute and fitted a laptop DVD drive, which made things even tighter :) If you don't have one, you'll need a power adapter cable to adapt a standard (IDE) HDD power cable to a SATA power socket. You can hear the fan slightly (it's a fairly quiet slim 80mm one), but from what I've read these Intel boards NEED a little bit of forced air cooling. It's not an issue unless you want the PC in a very quiet listening area.
I'm glad I was persuaded to go for Windows Server 2003 (cheers haraldo), as I've not had any driver issues :) By default Windows installed a LAN card driver which works fine. The graphics driver is set to 'Standard VGA', but runs a monitor at 1280x1024 without any problems (which surprised me). You wouldn't want to use it for even 2D games, but it's fine for a server. I had to install the supplied driver for the on-board sound card, but that worked fine. It needed to be installed by manually running the appropriate setup file on the CD, as the 'Autoplay' installer refused to even try because of the OS I am running. I ignored the instructions that said to install the LAN and graphics drivers first :)
Performance wise, it's vastly better than the old QNAP NAS (and probably just about any other NAS). I've not used it much yet, but the web interface is way faster. The Squeezebox responds quicker as well, when dealing with large collections of music. Creating a shuffled playlist with many tracks (e.g. all songs by one of my favourite artists) used to be painfully slow, but now takes seconds. Overall it's thoroughly worthwhile and, for now, I see no need to try a Linux version. Maybe that will change when I've used it for a while.
The one downside is the 'Sleep when idle' mechanism. The QNAP would go into low power mode when inactive, only taking a few Watts and with the HDD in idle mode. When switching on the Squeezebox, it would take a few seconds before it was ready to play music, but it wasn't too bad. As far as I can tell, the only option on the new system is to use the Windows power settings to hibernate when idle. I've played around a fair bit, and it finally goes to sleep and wakes up at the appropriate times. Unfortunately, it takes over 30 seconds to wake up from hibernation, which is usable but much slower than the QNAP. It's a trade off, but one I'm willing to put up with. The only other option is to power down the HDD but leave the PC running, but I'm loathe to do that as it will take probably around 30W. If anyone has any ideas about how to improve the startup time, I'd be happy to hear them :)
All in all I'm pretty happy :)
Good on ya :-)
The issue with not being able to put the system into suspend mode may possibly be caused by some H/W somewhere that doesn't fully support acpi power management, or it could be a driver.... Could be difficult to resolve.
I even had problems with that on my laptop with Server 2003
If you give it a try to find a native driver for the video card, that could possibly be worth a shot?
Cheers
Harald :-)
Thanks - I'll try installing the (supplied) graphics driver and see if that helps. My initial thought was to leave well alone since things are working, but where's the fun in that? :)
On second thought....
I seem to remember there are some tools somewhere that may provide leads as to what H/W or driver it is that disables the suspend
I can't recall what it is, but there were something (perhaps in the Windows Server 2003 resource kit) that provided that info...???
Sorry that I can't be more accurate on this.
-Harald
Harald, you're a star :) I installed the 'proper' graphics driver from the supplied CD, and I now have a 'Standby' option as well as 'Hibernate'. It seems to work fine, and the PC wakes up in just a few seconds.
According to syburgh on this thread (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41044) the standby consumption is only 4W. Add in anouther 1 or 2 for the fan, and that's comparable to the QNAP TS-109 (which is very good for a NAS).
tyler_durden
2008-02-24, 20:41
I'm a little late in here, but when considering Windoze vs. Linux you need to consider the support required to run either OS. Win requires antivirus and antispyware programs running full time to keep it clean and operational, but they often lead to system slow-downs. Then there are the constant updates that want you to reboot the machine 3 times per day. If you decide to go without the updates you run the risk of someone turning your server into a spam-bot.
Linux is inherently more secure and rarely requires a reboot after an update. Antivirus and antispyware are less of an issue and most folks can live safely without either.
Finally, I have never had a windows install that didn't need reinstallation about every 6 months just to keep it running. I've been running Linux for about 1 1/2 years without any problems.
If you're building a dedicated audio server I think you should consider whether you really want to perform daily maintenance on it or whether you want it to just work and keep working without frequent reboots and even reinstallation.
I recently built a dedicated server using a PC2500e mother board with a Via C7 CPU. It runs cool, quiet, and with 1 GB of ram runs SC7 very quickly and reliably. I used old HDD, PS, and case so it cost me exactly $84 to put the thing together. I am using Kubuntu 7.10 on that machine. It has been running fine requiring just a couple minor adjustments to configuration since I turned it on about 2 weeks ago. It is now fully configured and I expect it won't need anything else to be done for maybe the next couple years.
TD
I'm a little late in here, but when considering Windoze vs. Linux you need to consider the support required to run either OS. Win requires antivirus and antispyware programs running full time to keep it clean and operational, but they often lead to system slow-downs. Then there are the constant updates that want you to reboot the machine 3 times per day. If you decide to go without the updates you run the risk of someone turning your server into a spam-bot.
Linux is inherently more secure and rarely requires a reboot after an update. Antivirus and antispyware are less of an issue and most folks can live safely without either.
I'll probably install anti-virus on this box, but it's not that important since it will not be used to access the internet. A good anti-virus program has negligible impact on performance anyway.
I've never used a constantly-running anti-spyware app on any of the PCs in my house, even though some of them are used for very frequent internet access. I'll occasionally run system scans using a couple of anti-spyware apps, but they never find anything (other than cookies).
It would be difficult for anyone to attack this PC, as it's behind a hardware firewall (in the router). Again, it's not something I've ever needed to worry about.
Finally, I have never had a windows install that didn't need reinstallation about every 6 months just to keep it running. I've been running Linux for about 1 1/2 years without any problems.
If you're building a dedicated audio server I think you should consider whether you really want to perform daily maintenance on it or whether you want it to just work and keep working without frequent reboots and even reinstallation.
I wonder what you're doing to your Windows systems? I've had one PC running Windows 2000 for at least 3 years with no need for any re-installs. My wife's PC (she's very non-technical!) has been running Windows 2000 for a couple of years. I'm no particular fan of Microsoft and Windows (it's just the system I know best) but to claim it needs a re-install every 6 months is just ridiculous!
The new system will only need rebooting if I update it, which I will do infrequently and manually.
I recently built a dedicated server using a PC2500e mother board with a Via C7 CPU. It runs cool, quiet, and with 1 GB of ram runs SC7 very quickly and reliably. I used old HDD, PS, and case so it cost me exactly $84 to put the thing together. I am using Kubuntu 7.10 on that machine. It has been running fine requiring just a couple minor adjustments to configuration since I turned it on about 2 weeks ago. It is now fully configured and I expect it won't need anything else to be done for maybe the next couple years.
TD
Good for you :)
A whole 2 weeks - wow! The Windows Server 2003 system that I use for testing at work has been running since about September. It's not an issue these days to leave systems on.
I guess I could have built my system more cheaply using left-over parts, but I wanted something small, quiet and with low power consumption.
By the way, your PC2500e motherboard may use little power, but a standard PC PSU that's used in such a low-power system will be grossly inefficient and burning a lot of unnecessary Watts. If low power is important to you (which, of course, it may not be) I'd suggest getting a high-efficiency lower power PSU. The PicoPSU units are very good for this sort of thing.
Linux is inherently more secure and rarely requires a reboot after an update. Antivirus and antispyware are less of an issue and most folks can live safely without either.
Finally, I have never had a windows install that didn't need reinstallation about every 6 months just to keep it running. I've been running Linux for about 1 1/2 years without any problems.
TD
I think it's nice to have a discussion on Windows vs Linux... However, I think that this is not describing a correct picture og Windows Server 2003
Do you have any experience whatsoever with Windows server 2003?
Experiences with Windows Desktop systems (XP or Vista) is not valid for Server 2003, because the server is a completely different animal.
I have close to 7 years experience with Windows Server 2003 (Including 2 years of beta releases and Tech Previews and Release Candidates). There's one thing I can say about the OS and that is that it's absolutely rock solid and just never ever fails. If setup properly there's no way to find a more secure reliable OS.
The core and memory management of Windows Server 2003 is similar to and based on the experiences of the OpenVMS operating system, it's actually an improvement of this. In many professional networks, OpenVMS is considered to be the best and most stable OS ever developed. The development team with Dave Cutler as project lead also had a whole range of years of professional experience with OpenVMS and brought this into the Windows Projects.
Linux has no security cerification, Windows Server 2003 has many!
I agree that most Linux distributions probably will run faster and make more out of the system, and that antivirus steal CPU, but then you should pick a proper antivirus that is targeted at server usage and that doesn't kill the system. Yes, Linux may make more out of your system, but there's more to it than that.
Microsoft has received a lot of improper bashing in many circuits, I see this as a sign of lack of knowledge about the Microsoft products. It' sad when false and misleading statements about Windows are brought into the discussion.
I believe most of the issue of systems slowing down is because of improper or lacking maintenance and use of 3rd party software that slows the system down. The system should have some simple automatic maintenance tasks setup and the system should be kept clean!!!
I believe that more than 90% of mishaps around the OS may be because of users failing to secure their systems properly, improper configurations, or improper security setup, Or poor 3rd party kernel mode software, like drivers. I have heard that more than 98% of all blue screens comes from poorly implemented 3rd party drivers that are not implemented and tested properly?
In our company we've had Windows server 2003 systems running for 4 years without reboot and without a hickup. You can easily set up a Windows Server 2003 system and forget about it for years.... And it will just be running....
I'm not a Microsoft or Windows “preacher”, I'm using Suse myself as the main OS now. I just wanted to try to bring some genuine balance into this.
Regards
Harald N
tyler_durden
2008-02-25, 17:58
So the OS is good, it's the users who are bad... Do you work for M$?
The issues with M$ OSes are many. The fact that all the useful software people want to use screws up the OS tells you a lot about the quality/stability of the OS. I wish you continued luck with your M$ OS. - you're going to need it.
I have Win XP Pro on a Lenovo laptop that I use at school. The keyboard and pointer randomly quit working upon bootup sometimes requiring 6 reboots (each reboot taking about 3-4 minutes) before they start working again. What sort of POS OS can't manage to keep something as basic as keyboard and pointer functioning at boot-up? How many years does it take them to get something as simple as that working reliably? It is called Win XP Pro because it takes a Pro to get it working and keep it that way.
I have had similar experiences with every other version of M$ OS that I have ever used. No, I have not used windows server, but based on my experience with their other OSes that have been forced on me over the years I would never voluntarily install another M$ OS.
If the server is so great, why can't they make their other OSes work as well? I remain deeply skeptical.
Setting aside the reliability issues there are also policy issues such as "upgrading" products by changing file systems to render older versions of their programs obsolete and force everyone to buy the "upgrade". Do you want to support that sort of nonsense? I sure don't.
I recently set up Kubuntu on the laptop and it, like my home machine running Kubuntu works perfectly, every time I turn it on. What a relief!
TD
Everything is up and running OK :) For anyone interested, here are a few thoughts about the process.
The Intel D201GLY2 board DOES support 2GB RAM sticks, despite the specs saying it only supports 1GB. This has been reported elsewhere, and my experience is the same. In fact I've not found any reports of people having tried and failed with 2GB.
The Noah 3988 case (got mine from http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11124) is pretty nice. Nice and solid, much heavier than I expected, and looks good. It's as well laid out inside as you could expect, given that there's barely room for the components. I weakened at the last minute and fitted a laptop DVD drive, which made things even tighter :) If you don't have one, you'll need a power adapter cable to adapt a standard (IDE) HDD power cable to a SATA power socket. You can hear the fan slightly (it's a fairly quiet slim 80mm one), but from what I've read these Intel boards NEED a little bit of forced air cooling. It's not an issue unless you want the PC in a very quiet listening area.
I'm glad I was persuaded to go for Windows Server 2003 (cheers haraldo), as I've not had any driver issues :) By default Windows installed a LAN card driver which works fine. The graphics driver is set to 'Standard VGA', but runs a monitor at 1280x1024 without any problems (which surprised me). You wouldn't want to use it for even 2D games, but it's fine for a server. I had to install the supplied driver for the on-board sound card, but that worked fine. It needed to be installed by manually running the appropriate setup file on the CD, as the 'Autoplay' installer refused to even try because of the OS I am running. I ignored the instructions that said to install the LAN and graphics drivers first :)
Performance wise, it's vastly better than the old QNAP NAS (and probably just about any other NAS). I've not used it much yet, but the web interface is way faster. The Squeezebox responds quicker as well, when dealing with large collections of music. Creating a shuffled playlist with many tracks (e.g. all songs by one of my favourite artists) used to be painfully slow, but now takes seconds. Overall it's thoroughly worthwhile and, for now, I see no need to try a Linux version. Maybe that will change when I've used it for a while.
The one downside is the 'Sleep when idle' mechanism. The QNAP would go into low power mode when inactive, only taking a few Watts and with the HDD in idle mode. When switching on the Squeezebox, it would take a few seconds before it was ready to play music, but it wasn't too bad. As far as I can tell, the only option on the new system is to use the Windows power settings to hibernate when idle. I've played around a fair bit, and it finally goes to sleep and wakes up at the appropriate times. Unfortunately, it takes over 30 seconds to wake up from hibernation, which is usable but much slower than the QNAP. It's a trade off, but one I'm willing to put up with. The only other option is to power down the HDD but leave the PC running, but I'm loathe to do that as it will take probably around 30W. If anyone has any ideas about how to improve the startup time, I'd be happy to hear them :)
All in all I'm pretty happy :)
The Intel D201GLY2 board is a really nice little computer. I was considering this as well. However, after getting the Kill-a-watt and measured the power consumption of my current computer, the saving in power doesn't seem significant enough to me. My current computer is only using 41W while serving and 1.5W while suspended. The Intel D201GLY2 board would probably save another 10-15W which will take 10+ years to gain back the cost. I was surprised that main stream computers are so efficient nowadays.
My current set up is:
AMD Athlon X2 3600 65nm
(undervolted to 0.9v at 5x and 1.1v at 9.5x)
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI
WD 1TB HD
2G RAM
Earthwatts 380 power supply.
Windows XP
Running squeezecenter is at idle of 41w. Max load when running other programs is ~72W.
I have heard that the new Intel 45nm cores are even more efficient. May be NAS boxes are no longer as attractive as before.
The Intel D201GLY2 board is a really nice little computer. I was considering this as well. However, after getting the Kill-a-watt and measured the power consumption of my current computer, the saving in power doesn't seem significant enough to me. My current computer is only using 41W while serving and 1.5W while suspended. The Intel D201GLY2 board would probably save another 10-15W which will take 10+ years to gain back the cost. I was surprised that main stream computers are so efficient nowadays.
My current set up is:
AMD Athlon X2 3600 65nm
(undervolted to 0.9v at 5x and 1.1v at 9.5x)
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI
WD 1TB HD
2G RAM
Earthwatts 380 power supply.
Windows XP
Running squeezecenter is at idle of 41w. Max load when running other programs is ~72W.
I have heard that the new Intel 45nm cores are even more efficient. May be NAS boxes are no longer as attractive as before.
Interesting - I didn't know they were that efficient either! For me, the mini-itx system was still the way to go though, for reasons of small size and low noise, and the low power is a nice thing to have. In my case I wanted a separate PC for Slimserver anyway, so there's no significant cost difference in using the D201GLY2 version.
tyler_durden
2008-02-26, 16:50
Holy crap! I knew it was bad but I didn't realize how bad- Windows Server 2003 sells for $750!
How did M$ ever sell a single copy of it? If everyone's experience were based on their bug-ridden, insecure, unreliable consumer products, how could they convince anyone to shell out 5X more money for Windows Server 2003? That's like buying a $50k Yugo because the salesman tells you "trust me, the $50K one's are MUCH better than the $3k ones". Yah sure, youbetcha! M$ must have some really great salesmen!
TD
So the OS is good, it's the users who are bad... Do you work for M$?
TD
Holy crap! I knew it was bad but I didn't realize how bad- Windows Server 2003 sells for $750!
TD
If you read my post....
1. I think Linux is better than Windows
2. more than 98% of all blue screens comes from poorly implemented 3rd party drivers, not users
3. Windows is incredibly cheap compared to some S/W out there
-H
2. more than 98% of all blue screens comes from poorly implemented 3rd party drivers, not users
Do you have a source for this information?
Do you have a source for this information?
These figures comes from a Microsoft Technical Manager....
Doesn't mean they are 100% exact, but the clue is that you can't blame Microsoft and Windows for a buggy 3rd part driver developed by someone else.
These figures comes from a Microsoft Technical Manager....
Doesn't mean they are 100% exact, but the clue is that you can't blame Microsoft and Windows for a buggy 3rd part driver developed by someone else.
Really? Who? Was this published or just mentioned to you personally?
While I'm sure that Windows receives blame for things that aren't their fault, I'm also sure that a "Microsoft Technical Manager" may not be a reliable, unbiased source when it comes to allocating blame for errors encountered while working under their OS.
The reason I question your statement is that I (and many others) have taken a hardware configuration that has caused nothing but fits in Windows and used it with a different OS and had vastly improved stability and performance. Both OS's have to make use of hardware drivers...
I'm not a Windows hater, I don't think they are automatically absolved of blame on issues caused by device drivers.
Jacob Potter
2008-02-28, 12:13
On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 1:59 PM, jsprag
<jsprag.35i8hz1204225202 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com> wrote:
> The reason I question your statement is that I (and many others) have
> taken a hardware configuration that has caused nothing but fits in
> Windows and used it with a different OS and had vastly improved
> stability and performance. Both OS's have to make use of hardware
> drivers...
Useful fact of the day: different OSes use different drivers. Amazing, isn't it?
- Jacob
Bizarroterl
2008-02-28, 14:34
I've used Unix and Windows for many years now. The newer variants of Windows are much more stable than the old ones were.
Win 2003 is plenty stable for Slimserver. I run a single Win 2003 server that acts as a domain controller (AD), DHCP server, DNS server, file server, print server, Exchange (email) server, WSUS server, as well as Slimserver. The system is rock solid and acts as most modern OS servers do, it just runs.
If you're using a server OS as a desktop and are continually installing/removing applications and devices you will eventually have problems, regardless of what the OS is, same as a desktop OS.
I am not trying to offend anyone by my posts, if anyone is offended, SORRY !
Really? Who? Was this published or just mentioned to you personally?
Can't provide you names, but these are published facts from a larger event.....
The thing with 3rd party software issue correlates with experiences from everyone that I have met proffessionaly for the last 10 years.
Still: if you would care to read my posts, I agree that Linux works faster and better than Windows on most platforms.
I have never ever had any of those issues with instability that you are referring to, and the reason is simple. You have to obey some simple rules:
1. ALWAYS use original Windows CD's never the ones from OEM's that contain added on software with drivers, nice goodies and stuff that may cause issues.
2. If you all the time add and remove 3rd party software you will get into a range of issues because of the following reasons.
a) much 3rd party software add nice stuff to Windows explorer, and windows explorer runs in kernel mode, do you know what happens when this Chinese software misbehaves? Windows crashes and you're all blaming Bill Gates
b) Also: Many 3rd party drivers cause instabilities and, you can't blame Microsoft if a Korean company maces crappy drivers for H/W that doesn't work. Lenovo is famous when it comes to non-working H/W. And everybody give Bill Gates the blame for Lenovo making bad H/W.
c) Don't install 3rd party software that you're not sure about and that goes into kernel mode.
I have never ever had any unstable windows systems ever because I obey those simple rules.
Any of the above will be exactly the same if you run any kind of Linux distro. If a kernel module misbehaves it will crash the whole operating system, You can't blame Linus Torvalds for that....
As I have said before, I'm not a Windows preacher, I'm using Linux as my main OS, but I don't think we're getting anywhere by going into the trenches and throwing hand granates
(I'm a real Ubuntu / Suse fan !)
regards
Harald N
On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 1:59 PM, jsprag
<jsprag.35i8hz1204225202 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com> wrote:
> The reason I question your statement is that I (and many others) have
> taken a hardware configuration that has caused nothing but fits in
> Windows and used it with a different OS and had vastly improved
> stability and performance. Both OS's have to make use of hardware
> drivers...
Useful fact of the day: different OSes use different drivers. Amazing, isn't it?
- Jacob
Really? You sound super smart! Can you help me find the "any" key that the computer keeps telling me to press?
While he's off googling that, here's some thoughts for everyone else:
In Windows you frequently have one group supplying the OS and another group (Logitech, Epson, etc...) providing both hardware and associated drivers. In many other OS's (Linux, BSD for example) it is not uncommon to have an OS from one organization running hardware from a second party using drivers created by yet a third group.
Why, with one less variable, shouldn't Windows have this problem absolutely licked? Is it because all the smart programmers are freely writing kick-ass drivers for Linux, leaving only the retards to get paid for coding code crap drivers that tarnish the good Windows name? Yeah, I don't buy it.
I think the OS bears some responsibility for the environment in which drivers are designed and run. Some OS's present a more hospitable, tolerant environment than others. Many would say that the driver instability in Windows is a by-product of the enormous range of devices it supports, but I've never been convinced that the two are mutually exclusive.
A clean install of XP is substantially less stable than an install of XP with all service packs and updates included, even if they are both using the same drivers. What does that tell you about allocation of "blame" for driver problems?
In the end, it can be really tough to separate device driver problems from issues in the OS that call and execute the driver. The 98% comment attempts to do exactly that, hence my suspicion.
Again, not a Windows hater. Just trying to keep things honest.
Can't provide you names, but these are published facts from a larger event.....
.
.
.
As I have said before, I'm not a Windows preacher, I'm using Linux as my main OS, but I don't think we're getting anywhere by going into the trenches and throwing hand granates
(I'm a real Ubuntu / Suse fan !)
regards
Harald N
Harald - Looks like you were writing this the same time I was writing post #51. I think we agree on far more than we disagree on.
John
Harald - Looks like you were writing this the same time I was writing post #51. I think we agree on far more than we disagree on.
John
I guess so, what I really dislike is when people have issues and blame everybody else than themselves, you can't blame Micorosoft for everything
I think the OS bears some responsibility for the environment in which drivers are designed and run. Some OS's present a more hospitable, tolerant environment than others. Many would say that the driver instability in Windows is a by-product of the enormous range of devices it supports, but I've never been convinced that the two are mutually exclusive.
I actually couldn't agree more......
If you read my post....
1. I think Linux is better than Windows
2. more than 98% of all blue screens comes from poorly implemented 3rd party drivers, not users
3. Windows is incredibly cheap compared to some S/W out there
-H
On number 2: You're right, bluescreens is not a user problem, or a problem with windows itself. "Foo isn't fast enough, let's hook it into the kernel" Then you end up with every buggy driver in ring 0, and the system goes down in flames.
I will admit, I do Linux work for a living, but I try and understand as much as I can about other systems. Although I know a lot less about dealing with windows these days than I used to.
Things like this are still annoying as hell.. I have an HDTV hooked up to a PC and a linux box. The [explicative deleted] TV overscans the HDMI signal, and I havn't figured out how to fix that. The windows nvidia drivers provide a simple GUI interface to adjusting the resolution to fit within the overscan. The linux drivers don't provide this simple a method to do the same thing.
But other things I am completely pulling my hair out on windows. Simple automation tasks that I do on linux that are a pain to deal with on windows due to the complete lack of good command line tools.
There are some significant architectural differences between Windows and Linux. One of the major ones is which subsystems actually run in Kernel mode.
Right here I certainly think it's advantage Linus / Linux.
At some point in time Microsoft chose to move significant portions of the OS from User Mode into the Kernel, I can't recall all the details, but now the whole Win32 GUI runs completely in Kernel mode, which means that if there's an issue here you will get into serious problems and probably get a Blue Screen, sounds familiar?
This move was to improve performance
- I don't think performance has improved as a result of this
- It makes Windows kernel fragile to any GUI instabilities
While as in Linux the Window Manager runs in user mode and so does a lot of other things... Any problems, just restart the Window Manager and off you go
A consequence of this architectural choice is that the headless Windows Server 2008 is a totally different OS than the regular Windows Server 2008, which means that if you want to cut out the graphics subsystem in Windows Server 2008 you have to reinstall from scratch.
A funny thing is that Microsoft now introduces headless Windows Server as something new and creative =:-O
Yes I'm getting more and more impressed by Linux and especially Suse Linux Enterprise, which is probably the next best OS I have ever encountered. (the best being OpenVMS)
Linux is here and Windows is here, both have their pros's and cons. From an Architecture point of view I believe it's advantage Linux, but that doesn't mean Windows is crap.... Windows Server is also sensational, but needs correct treatment, or it could blow up in your face.
Regards
Harald N
Here's quite an entertaining read on Windows vs Linux, not unbiased but a good read:
http://polishlinux.org/linux/windows-vs-linux-architecture-part-i/
http://polishlinux.org/linux/windows-vs-linux-architecture-part-ii/
This is a quick update on the PC, as I've just obtained a mains power meter to run some power consumption tests. The figures here obviously include the power 'brick' and PSU inefficiences as it's read direct from the mains socket. In descending order...
Power surge on startup (only for a few seconds).
- 54W
100% CPU load, heavy activity on both HDD and DVD drive (copying large amounts of data between the 2).
- 50W
100% CPU load, still with the HDD very active, but no DVD activity.
- 45W
Running Windows, or sat at login screen. Everything on, but system is idle.
- 35W
System in Standby.
- 26W !!!!!!
Hibernating.
- 3W
Power switched off on PC.
- 2W
The worry is that Standby figure of 26W! Obviously the figure I'd seen quoted for Standby of 4W is wrong - it was probably referring to hibernation, not standby. Now I'm not sure what to do - let the system hibernate (and take 3W) or leave it on standby 24/7, taking 26W. Unfortunately, it's very slow to wake from hibernation. I know 26W won't break the bank, but it's not exactly 'green'.
System in Standby.
- 26W !!!!!!
I'm no expert in this area, but could it be something with the memory, from what I understand memory to laptop computers are way different from memory to desktop machines, just for the sake of saving power....
I may be totally way off, and probably you don't want to switch, or perhaps it's not even possible, but what else could it be?
Look at the bright side, the PC will make it easier to keep warm in the winter :-)
Regards
Harald N
I'm no expert in this area, but could it be something with the memory, from what I understand memory to laptop computers are way different from memory to desktop machines, just for the sake of saving power....
I may be totally way off, and probably you don't want to switch, or perhaps it's not even possible, but what else could it be?
Look at the bright side, the PC will make it easier to keep warm in the winter :-)
Regards
Harald N
:)
I've tried researching what happens in standby and, from what I can see, the D201GLY2 is not very good at it! The article here explains the different low power states:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface
From a pdf I downloaded from Intel, it seems the D201GLY2 only supports sleep (G1) states of S1 or S4, with S4 being hibernation. Unfortunately, most of the power benefits from standby are realised by using S2 or S3 sleep states, which this board does not support! It's a strange omission by Intel, given some of the board's potential uses. I can only hope that it's possible for Intel to address this with a BIOS update in the future.
Thanks for all the info guys :) I think I'll start out with a Windows 2000 system (hopefully it will run better with 1GB RAM than 2003 would), and keep the option open to try Linux at a later date. Maybe I'll set it up as dual boot...
If, as you wrote earlier, you are more confident with Windows that Linux than that is the way to go. You will know which services to switch off to save resources. Therefor the system will be more responsive than an Ubuntu installation. Ubuntu is, though easy to install and use, aimed at the desktop market. There are high performant Linux-Server distro's but they all tend to be more fiddly. It all comes down of course on how much time you are willing to spend.
If, as you wrote earlier, you are more confident with Windows that Linux than that is the way to go. You will know which services to switch off to save resources. Therefor the system will be more responsive than an Ubuntu installation. Ubuntu is, though easy to install and use, aimed at the desktop market. There are high performant Linux-Server distro's but they all tend to be more fiddly. It all comes down of course on how much time you are willing to spend.
As it turns out, I installed Windows 2003 and the performance is in a different league to the old QNAP TS-109. It's good enough that I feel no need to try Linux (although I might some day just out of interest).
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