[Freeswitch-dev] Linux or Windows?

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On 11/4/07, Derek Smithies <derek at indranet.co.nz> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On Sun, 4 Nov 2007, M Matijas wrote:
>
> > Windows is far more inefficient on the same hardware configuration
> compared
> > to Linux.
> Can you elaborate more on this please?
> What is the inefficient bit -
>     thread launch time,
>     memory management
>     cpu usage
>
> You answer might indicate a code problem in the windows build.



The largest inefficiency I have seen is that be *default* windows comes with
everything enabled, and people dont bother to disable it.  I have taken XP
and shut off all the services (or daemons for the unix folk) that I dont use
and have seen the memory drop to below what I can do on a linux system with
X running at the same resolution (below 64M).  I really dont need "remote
registry" ability, since no one should be playing with that if they arent on
my box, I dont need a bunch of the other stuff that ships by default
enabled.

Efficiency could also mean how efficient it is to accomplish a task, and in
a 'windows shop' I would suggest that windows is far more efficient since
that is what is known.

I am by no means a windows person either, but I see operating systems as a
tool to an end not the end itself, and realize that there are needs for
them, recurring costs (ie admins and the like) in a 'windows shop' are far
lower if they have windows systems than if they have to manage 2 different
platforms.  FreeSWITCH[tm]'s ability to allow the admin to select the
platform that would enable the best return on their investment over the long
run is a good feature.

Now I could be wrong, he could be talking about FreeSWITCH[tm] itself being
less efficient, I dont know, but my guess is that the comment is about the
operating system itself and not what you happen to run on it.


As for the original posters question regarding which platform to choose, I
would give the following advice...  First see what hardware you need to use
is available.  If drivers exist for both platforms great, not all telephony
stuff does, for example I dont think there are zaptel drivers for windows
(openzap relies upon kernel drivers its just an interface lib to various
different kernel drivers in a standard way so the userspace app doesnt have
to know what hardware is there).  Once you know what hardware you want, and
you have a platform list, then select the one you are most comfortable with,
or the one that the customer is most comfortable with.  If you are doing IP
only then its really easy, it doesnt matter which platform from a hardware
perspective.

Some of the MS operating systems (XP SP2 at least dunno about vista or 2003)
cripple their network stack to limit the spread of worms, but there are many
many pages on the net about how to deal with that.  In effect they hard
coded a rate limiter into the network subsystem so that 1 box cant send
packets fast enough to infect like blaster and what not.  I do not think
that the server operating systems have that "feature" added to them only the
desktops which are largely used for games and often that is the biggest
motivating factor in removing the limit.

FreeSWITCH[tm] is about choice, not just the choice of that product or
another, but also the choice in what platform you run it, how you configure
it, how you control it, etc.  That is why there are often so many different
ways to accomplish the same task.  Granted there are trade offs in that
choice, but the choice is there none the less.  For example, XML-RPC v Event
Socket, both provide remote control of a FreeSWITCH[tm], one is
query/response based (XML-RPC) and the other is event based, you may not
want a realtime system relying on a query to see if something happened, so
you may trade the standards ability of XML-RPC for event socket.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!
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