I can only say that the 4MB RAM version of Linux is exactly the version that runs on most Linux web-servers and on my Desktop PC.
It is correct, that I cannot run my X-Windows on 4MB RAM, but it definitely consumes less memory than Windows 2000.
I only have 256MB RAM on my home PC. With Windows 2000, the harddisk runs all the time, also when I use Microsoft Internet Explorer for surfing, although I have minimized disk cache and history (I have a proxy-server at home). With Linux, the harddisk doesn't run when I surf. This leads to extremely much better surfing speeds with Netscape/Linux than MSIE/Win2000.
Here, the performance benefit of Linux comes in, because MSIE/Windows 2000 doesn't perform well with only 256MB RAM, and needs to activate the harddisk.
The point in my previous post was, that with increasing CPU/Memory speed ratio, Code size and Data size will be the biggest problem for Windows software, simply because it is bigger. Software that uses COM will have the biggest performance problems, because COM objects increase in size.
Windows NT embedded is of no importance to desktop PCs. I have never heard of anyone using Windows NT embedded on a desktop or server. In fact, I haven't even heard about it in embedded devices, but that's another story. |
