Very Computer

Given exactly the same spec server, is it possible to say which
operating system, NetWare 5.x/6.x or Linux would perform better if I am
just concerned with disk reads and NIC throughput?

The reason is that I use NetWare as a server to store my images on. I'm
just wondering if Linux would be any quicker..?

Thanks,

Nick
--
N

I've been running both but I can't honestly say that Linux is faster or
slower.  My gut feeling is that Netware would be faster, given that MS
software works faster on MS Windows then other software and given that
Netware kicks Windows and Linux's *in File transfer benchmarks.

Did you know there is a free 250,000 user eDirectory license?  I got mine
the day it came out!

Cheers,

Rob

Quote:> Given exactly the same spec server, is it possible to say which
> operating system, NetWare 5.x/6.x or Linux would perform better if I am
> just concerned with disk reads and NIC throughput?

> The reason is that I use NetWare as a server to store my images on. I'm
> just wondering if Linux would be any quicker..?

> Thanks,

> Nick
> --
> N

Quote:>I've been running both but I can't honestly say that Linux is faster or
>slower.  My gut feeling is that Netware would be faster, given that MS
>software works faster on MS Windows then other software and given that
>Netware kicks Windows and Linux's *in File transfer benchmarks.

>Did you know there is a free 250,000 user eDirectory license?  I got mine
>the day it came out!

Yep, I've got mine. I was thinking about putting it on our Linux
mail/dns/proxy servers, but I'm not sure what the point would be. What
objects would I get in NDS?
--
Nick

That's the funny part... eDirectory on Linux doesn't have NLS / LSP.  I have
not been able to install the license cert as hard as I've tried.  Of course
you would need the DirXML license I imagine to use that product.  Oh, and
you do need the NFK file to do the installation.

Other then that no PHYSICAL need for the license. It's just nice to know
that I'm "legal"!!!

I used my license to setup a website where users can register (creates User
object in tree) and store Geographical waypoint data in the tree.  In
addition I included the ability for them to request a new password if they
forget their old one.

Then I used the skills I learned to create a workorder / trouble ticket
system using Edirectory objects. In both cases I DID NOT use any external
databases.

Cheers,

Rob

It is unlikely that it is the least bit easy to generalize about this.

Performance will depend jointly on what operations you're performing,
what filesystems you're using, which NIC drivers you're using, memory
configuration, and such.

One /big/ difference to dispute over is whether you should be using
the same overall set of hardware.  

Suppose, for instance, the NetWare license would cost $2K for your
favorite server.  It might be regarded as either "fair" or "unfair"
to:
  a) Keep the hardware fixed, for both OSes, or
  b) Spend the extra $2K on extra RAM and faster disk, for the Linux
     option.

It also all begs the question of whether a throughput difference, one
way or the other, would lead to differences detectable by users.

I'm not sure that an abstract evaluation can be done without having
pretty exact information about what the environment is to be like, and
it is quite likely that the act of doing the analysis would cost more
than the price of adding an extra server powerful enough to overcome
/any/ likely difference in performance...
--

http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/multiplexor.html
Rules of  the Evil Overlord #110.  "I will not  employ devious schemes
that involve the hero's party getting into my inner sanctum before the
trap is sprung." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

Quote:>unlikely that it is the least bit easy to generalize about this.

I agree 100%.. Another point you forgot is CIFS(samba)/(NFAP) vs NCP.
Assuming that you had 2 identicle servers with manufacturer supplied drivers
for all hardware (what if my linux driver is 3rd party and slow?) the you'd
need to test as follows:

Netware        vs     Linux
NFAP(cifs)            SAMBA(cifs)
NFS                      NFS
NCP                      SAMBA
NCP                      NFS
FTP                        FTP
HTTP(apache)      HTTP(apache)
HTTP(novonyx)    HTTP(apache

As you can see it's not completely clear based on JUST hardware!.  Based on
the above tests it would be useful to see what sort of senario would work
best, depending on what you were wanting to do.

Cheers,

Rob

Just imaging, that's all. Take a workstation, boot with a floppy,
connect to a server and pull down an image file. No apache, no ftp etc
etc. I'm currently using Novell's IPX to connect to a NetWare 5.x
server. The server licence doesn't cost as it's an MLA educational
licence. The server hardware is nothing fancy, just a cheap Intel clone,
I was just wondering which was quicker.

FWIW, I started wondering because it is getting harder and harder to
find dos NIC drivers for new workstations. I spent a good couple of days
sourcing a dos driver for the last lot of machines we just took delivery
off. Look at most manufacturers web sites and Linux drivers abound, but
no dos ones! I think by next year I'll have to be using a linux boot
disk to boot to a linux server because I'll not be able to connect to my
Netware server any more....
--
Nick

Do you have to use Dos drivers?  And/or can't you get a newer NIC card?
Tom

Part of the answer to the question would be the following.  Is Unix/Linux
optimized for file-server activities?  On the face of it, I would say it
isn't.  I believe the generic Unix/Linux is a time-slice type cpu resource
allocation.  I strongly suspect that Novells servers use something more
adaptable than that.  So on the face of it, Linux "oughta" be slower for an
identical process/setup.
Tom

Quote:> Given exactly the same spec server, is it possible to say which
> operating system, NetWare 5.x/6.x or Linux would perform better if I am
> just concerned with disk reads and NIC throughput?

> The reason is that I use NetWare as a server to store my images on. I'm
> just wondering if Linux would be any quicker..?

> Thanks,

> Nick
> --
> N

On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 19:55:11 -0600, Tom Miller staggered into the Black
Sun and said:

Disk reads and NIC throughput, eh?  These things are most dependent on
the disk controller support your OS has and the quality of its NIC
and general networking modules.  I wouldn't expect huge differences
between Netware and Linux on those things.  Typically, if you want
better performance for these things, you load the fileserver up with
RAM so disk caching can come into play.

Quote:> Part of the answer to the question would be the following.  Is
> Unix/Linux optimized for file-server activities?  On the face of it, I
> would say it isn't.  I believe the generic Unix/Linux is a time-slice
> type cpu resource allocation.  

Optimized for file-server activities or no, lots of people are using
Linux/Unix for that purpose.  AFAIK, *every* OS worthy of the name uses
timeslices somehow--it's somewhat difficult to do multitasking
otherwise!  About cooperative multitasking, we shall not speak.

Quote:> I strongly suspect that Novells servers use something more adaptable
> than that.  So on the face of it, Linux "oughta" be slower for an
> identical process/setup.

Linux, at least, can have the length of its timeslices adjusted through
recompiling the kernel.  Of course, the only way to tell which one is
the best is to run some kind of benchmark/real-world test using both
systems on your hardware.

--
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Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /
http://www.brainbench.com     /  "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/    penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL

Not really.  I've used quite a few kernels that do multi-tasking w/o
timeslicing.  Even wrote one once.

Quote:> About cooperative multitasking, we shall not speak.

OK, we won't.  We could still talk about pre-emptive multitasking w/o
timeslicing.  That's the way most real time OSes work.  (Some will also
allow you to enable time-slicing if there are multiple tasks with identical
priorities).  However, most general-purpose OSes do time-slicing, since
there's little hope of assigning priorities in a reasonable fasion.

--
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Quote:>Do you have to use Dos drivers?  And/or can't you get a newer NIC card?
>Tom

I do have to use dos drivers unless you can think of a better way of
booting a workstation quickly and connecting it to a NetWare server.
Although, to be fair, I have never played with boot roms.

Oh and these are brand new NIC's, just not your main brands like Compaq
etc (it's college, we have to be tight with our money :)

Nick

--
Nick

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003 20:03:28 +0000

What are you _running_ on the workstation?  If it's something that runs under DOS then going to Linux on the server isn't going to help you a whole lot.  And if it runs under Linux then run Linux on the workstation and connect to whatever server you've got--Linux can deal with NCP just fine as long as you are not using 2.4.19 or some distributions of 2.4.18, which have a known bug in the NCP support--that's supposed to be fixed in 2.4.20.

As far as your brand new NICs go, if the manufacturer doesn't have drivers either in the box or available for download, then they weren't a good choice no matter how cheap they are.  Aopen has NICs that go for 8 bucks a shot and they have drivers for just about anything.

A boot ROM isn't going to help you--it just loads a disk image off the server--the disk image still has to have the right drivers.

--
--John
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