Linux vs Windows XP

Matthew Faulkner
m.faulkner@lancaster.ac.uk

Edd Hannay
e.hannay@lancaster.ac.uk

Rob Hooper
r.p.hooper@lancaster.ac.uk
 Introduction
• Comparison of;
– Lunix vs Winblows, with media centre bias
• Focus on;
– Conceptual Architecture
– File Systems
• With practical elements, code 
– Process Scheduling
– Miscellaneous rambling
 Media Centres
• PCs used to control the TV
– Receiving TV signals
– Scheduling recordings
– Playing music from the network
– Pause/Rewind Live TV!
• A la Tivo

• Home Theatre PC News:

– http://www.htpcnews.com/
 Linux [1/2]
• Many distributions
– Suse
– Fedora / Red Hat
– Debian
– Knoppix
• All based on the same kernel with various
additional software
– Latest stable kernel is 2.6.11
• Considered stable by kernel team, although not by
Debian
 Linux [2/2]
• Open Source Software!
– Contributed to by the community
– Overlooked by kernel team
• Maintaining some small amount of order
• Spatially distributed
• Free
– Within the rights of the GNU License
• Highly portable
– x86, x64, PoperPC
– iPod, mobile phones, Watches, Psion 5
Psion 5
Devices
 MythTV
• Linux application
– Free!
– 15mb download!
• Not the only such software for Linux
– E.g. Freevo
• Distributed
– Back end for storage, scheduling
– Front ends can run on many machines
• Homepage:
– http://www.mythv.org
MythTV Screenshot
 Windows
• XP Variant: Windows Media Centre Edition
– Same core functionality
– Home Theatre oriented GUI
• Slideshow, TV recording & Viewing etc
• More features than Tivo
– Higher Initial Cost

• Current version is Media Centre Edition 2005

• Homepage:
– http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/
Media Centre
Screenshot
 File Systems
• Windows
– NTFS
– FAT 16 & 32
– …
• Linux
– EXT 2 & 3
– ResierFS
– ….
• Both can support additional file systems
– Linux CAN read NTFS, but not write to it
– GmailFS!
 NTFS v EXT3
• We have used EXT2 and EXT3 as the
Linux FS due to their popularity
• NTFS is the primary XP FS
– Not backwards compatible with Win2k
 NTFS vs EXT3
• EXT3 adds journalling to EXT2
• FAT16 and 32 were deprecated
– Lack of features
– Slack space

• EXT3 has no path size limit

• EXT3 has a 2tb file size limit
– NTFS limit is 16 exabytes
• That’s a million million million bytes
• BOTH support journalling
• NEITHER store metadata!
 FileBenchMark
Applicatiobn!
• A file system bench marker
– Written in ANSI C
• Which performs these tests
1. Time taken to create 10,000 files
2. Time taken to delete 10,000 files
3. Time taken to create 10,000 folders (flat)
4. Time taken to create 10^4 folders (depth)
5. Time taken to search 10,000 folders
6. Time taken to write a whole file - 2GB
7. Time taken to read a whole file - 2GB
8. Time taken to seek to a position in a file - 2GB
9. Time taken to a copy a file - 1GB
 GoTo Code
• Corresponding to those tests are functions
– CopyFileTest
– CreateFilesTest
– CreatesFoldersTest
– DeleteFilesTest
– GoToPosition
– ReadFromFile
– RemoveFolders
– SearchFolders
– WriteToFile
– WriteToFiles
– getresult (actually used to get the time taken)

• Prize for spotting the problem in the code!

 Tests….
• Tests were run on
– Amilo L1300
• 1500Mhz Intel Mobile CPU
• 512Meg RAM
• 40GB Total Hard Drive
– BUT a 2GB Partition was used
• Results of the tests and source code is
available online
– http://www.matthew-faulkner.org/MSc/WinTech/
• Rob’s poo
 Process Management
• Threads represented as processes
– pThreads are user-level!
– Process can be monopolised by thread
• Priority based on:
– Priority stack - Array of 140 linked lists
• Accessed by a bit map
• O(1) access!
– “Niceness” value of -19 to 20
• default 0
• Literally how nice a process is to others!
 More process
management
• Finer grained priority control!
– 140 to Windows’ 32
• Pre-emptive
– like windows

• I/O bound processes are boosted

• CPU hogs are punished
– Like windows
 So which should I use?
• Willing to work for free?
– Debian + MythTV
• Can use existing hardware
– Tweaking configs blah blah rob smells

• Want it now?
– Windows XP Media Centre Edition
• … as bundled with a new PC
– It will be configured straight out of the box
 References and stuff
• Linux: http://www.linux.org
• MythTV: http://www.mythtv.org
• Windows Media Centre:
– http://www.microsoft.com/
– Not part of the MSDNAA 
• File Systems:
http://www.answers.com/comparison%20of%20file%
• Matt’s crap:
– http://www.matthew-faulkner.org/MSc/Benchmark/FileBenchMark.zip

• Any Questions?