On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 3:14 PM, JM Ibanez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: .. > - A Linux server usually runs headless, so resources do not go to > maintaining a GUI. Not so with Windows Server 2003, which still runs > a GUI subsystem even as a server;
Not anymore. I've never seen a headless Linux box in ages. I mean it has no monitor, yes, but the GUI is still running. This is true of all the client deployments I've seen. .. > Is the application multi-process (i.e. the application consists of > multiple coordinating independent processes, and not threads which have > shared state)? If it is, Windows pays a heavy context switch penalty for > switching between processes as the kernel is more geared towards > thread-based programming; conversely, *nix has been historically geared > towards multiple coordinating processes, so fork() is cheap and > switching between processes is also cheap. Not necessarily true. Solaris distinguishes between full-blown processes and Light-Weight Processes. But on Linux, everything is a THREAD. fork() is just a wrapper around the thread-creation routine. Also, in my experience, equivalent apps run faster on Windows than on Linux, simply because better compilers are available on Windows. Very few Linux binaries are compiled with a "decent" compiler like Intel's. _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
