as Delivered

We know that Linux has a lot of advantages. We speak about performance, about design, about freedom to choose the provider that better match our needs. Sometimes we speak about the goodness of linux`s open source nature... But this goodness is something more than check the code, download and play it easily.


I remember that some years ago, I install at home a box for see films and play music. I use a light distro that has only the programs that I need for entertainment. I don’t remember the name of the distro (at this moment we can choose between several distros, sure), but the idea was use a customized distro for my purposes. Windows Media Center appears some years later. It was so late for my experiment. Really, the fact that we could have the possibility of specialize a Linux distribution is a key feature: you can customize the operating system just for the tasks that you need where a general purpose box will be not so much appropriate.


Another example of a customized linux distribution is Agnula. Agnula is a project that born on 2002 and was financiered by the European Commission and Red Hat. Agnula project is a linux distro tuned and used for music production. But Agnula involves more than applications. The kernel was patched for low-latency and other special features specials for make music. Now the link is down, but you can find its work in another kind of distros. Agnula is an example; the promise of Ubuntu is another.


We know other examples at the enterprise world. We use Oracle Enterprise Linux or Red Hat for Oracle Databases or high performance systems. I don’t remember any Java or Oracle based system that I design where I use a Windows Server for production. Why never a Windows box it`s my first choose? The answer is easy: we can only tune few aspects of a windows box, while with Linux we can control every aspect related to the implementation easily. Of course, the freedom to choose a provider, the other components of the ecosystem and the customer`s preferences are keys for choose the operating system. But thinking clearly, only in the technical stuff, a Linux flavor will be my first choose. If it`s vanilla flavored, better :)


The absent of tuning means less flexibility and less specific use. Sometimes we make a conceptual mistake: tuning is not only a performance question. Probably, tuning a Linux box will not represent more than the 5% of performance. We know that play with the limits, open files, by example, can define the frontier where you have a constraint at your system or an issue. If we can`t tune this limits, we have a constraint for serve pages even if the hardware could, by example. Other good example is play with the journal of the file system. At home or at a simple system this will don`t worry us. Imagine a System with Tb of documents…


Of course, the boys of Microsoft do some work in this aspect. I’m writing this post from one founder mini-note, with an XP tablet edition, and at office we have vista media center at the meeting room. But, really, is not enough.


Some days ago, I test a windows distro: WindowsUE. The author says that he close his page because the actions of Microsoft. You can read it in Spanish under http://www.windowsue.com/. Of course, you can find more versions out there from another people. There are a lot of modified windows such SuricataOS, VelenoOS ,biowindows or Angelical. This and other windows distributions have more or less the same features such less drivers, tweaks in the registry for stability and performance, the default programs are removed, and some of them has a special install GUI for unattended installation and some options.


We can analyze this situation. I have a lot of licenses of different Microsoft operating systems. Even I have some of this licenses that I don’t use because in some of my boxes I have installed Ubuntu. Why, if there is a good Windows tuner, that makes a really good Windows Distro, I can`t use it? This distro has an incredible performance, only the basic features that I need for some uses, and the better: you can find distros about 150 Mb each iso that can run comfortable on 64Mb pII boxes.



For test and show products to my customers, for example, I use virtual machines. This represents for me a lot of space (we speak about Gbs). Some many Gigabytes mean to me time and money: Time for copy, install and move the virtual machines. I spend money for RAM , harddisk space and, of course, time. I have low performance because I use a general purpose windows XP box. If I use the classic virtual machines, I have three options: use windows 2000, use this kind of tuned windows distros or use linux boxes. In a lot of scenarios, use a tuned windows distro will be the better option: easy, light and with the sufficient performance. I don’t need to carry so much unuseful binary (we speak about Gb) that I don’t use. If I don’t have this option, then better use linux.


This will be piracy?

But use a tuned distro of a Microsoft product isn`t a estrange practice for Microsoft. At windows mobile world, this is a common practice. At xda-developers.com we can find distros for our HTC machines that match exactly what we want. The result of this practice is that there are a lot of cookers that cooks its own distro. Now, by example, for my HTC TYTN, we can use the Faira32 ROM with Windows Mobile 6.1: Faster, tuned and with more performance that the original from HTC. Probably, without this option, I would move to another kind of operating system.



The guys of Microsoft must evaluate if this way of understand an operating system is a piracy or really is a new practice that the market demands. I don’t think that this is an option. A kit for make your custom distro of windows and a more permissive license would make that a lot of people that now use other operating systems in specialized cases continue using some of the great features and products that relay on Microsoft Windows. Microsoft give us an option: windows XP embedded. But this option is more focused on the machines than targeted in our needs. I have the same feeling about the license, not suitable for follow the c2c and web 2.0 patterns focused on users.



Anyway, I will continue using my favorite’s linux distribution for my production environments. Every element at nature is tuned for a special purpose. Why not our systems? If Darwin were a Software architect probably wouldn`t use Windows: It`s only prepared for survive in a limited ecosystems rather than in complex environment.


Eva, my partner, toll me that in Cabrera, a Little Island near Mallorca, were living a special kind of goats with only frontal vision and short legs. They were happy while not other components were living there. And then the humans come… What happens when arrives to a homogenous Microsoft architecture some new components (requirements at all) or load demands? The goat is there…

Windows Vista comes with one new feature. It’s called ReadyBoost and its concept is very easy. It uses a SD, MMC or USB Drive like a second memory for use it like cache, optimizing their performance by pre-caching their files and data and allowing faster access speed and reduced delays. The result is very amazing when we speak about the hibernation or launching applications.

Even so, I use windows XP… and I really don’t like Vista so much. Well, I don’t want reinstall my operating systems. However, there are solutions for all. For a XP user, like me, there is one product called eBoostr that do the same work. I tested on my UMPC with 2Gb RAM and a 900MHz Celeron and at this moment I’m convinced.

The first thing that you must do is seek one SD or USB Drive. It must be a faster one. The card should have more than 3 Mb/s at least. You can use a fantastic tool called HD Tach or HD Tune for check the speed. And, of course, the card must have more than 1Gb of free space if you want to do something useful. If all goes well and the experiments results, then the driver needs something embedded in the machine for don’t destroy my box line. For this reason, I decided to steal the SD from the Eva’s camera (my partner). This action has some risk, but if it hasn’t risk, it will not be an authentic I+D.

The second step is downloading from eBoostr one evaluation copy. Install it. Insert your recent stolen SD and then you must create a new cache device pointing to your SD. At this moment, you can go to drink a coffee or start configuring one Oracle Application Server. This means that the creation will take some several minutes.

After the installation we can start to play. The first thing that I do was test the hibernation on windows XP. Furthermore, eBoostr improves the speeds: from 45 seconds to 15 at startup. No relevant change when you switch to hibernation the box. Good. This for a UMPC is really interesting. You can open from a hibernated stated in about 15 seconds and start to write in a meeting. 14 seconds more than a PDA :P

Talking about launching applications, before I install eBoostr, I was spending around 15 seconds for open one document with Microsoft word. Now the same task spends about 8 seconds. It seems the same percentage with Microsoft Visio.
In general, I don’t see a spectacular increase in speed and responsiveness in tasks that are not launching or hibernating the system. But, effectively, I have the feeling that eBoostr does something good.

We know that the micro, the ram and hard disk are key issues for a box performance. This cache really helps. However, my hidden objective with this test wasn’t the performance. My target is to improve the battery life of my box. I suppose that this feature is more theory than practice, perhaps because I have a special way to use the laptop. When I only use the laptop for writing documents, truly, it seems to use less battery than without eBoostr.

At summary: at first glance, eBoostr is a tool that really improves the performance of a windows XP box when we speak about loading programs and data. This is a cheaper way and a good compagnion to our UMPC.

PD: This article was writed from Port Andratx, a wonderful place to visit in Mallorca.

Some years ago I made some experiments with metacrylate , mini-itx and my Dremel. Of course nowt to compare against ben's pieces of art. However, is one world where I would like to spend more time. It needs time, of course. One of my experiments was take an old ceramic turntable and refactor ( yeah, I'm a Java Developer over all the things) and convert it into a Media Center. Was a terrific present...


If you like this kind of stuff, look at mini-itx too. The most part of the boxes are made on a mini-itx (17x17). Last year, Via introduced the pico-itx ( 10x7). About 75% less than a mini-itx and with the same features ( VGA, Ehternet 100, eSata, up 1Gb).

Imagine how many unuseful things we can do with this x86 board ? We only need one excuse..