SphinUX OS Compared to MS-Windows and GNU/Linux

Transcription

1 SphinUX OS Compared to MS-Windows and GNU/Linux Feature GNU/SphinUX OS GNU/Linux MS-Windows Architecture Drivers Installation Backward Compatibility Upgrades Multi architecture (32bit/64bit) in one bundle Most modern hardware will be supported with no need for Drivers installation Easy, yet it requires minimum level of experience to partition your hard drive Backward compatibility seems to be a major concern for the community, the upgrades never takes place unless it's guaranteed that it will run same binaries with no trouble The system upgrade freezes after each new release, this means that a user can get updates for new applications, yet the OS specific libraries and binaries are kept frozen until there's a new release which would be optional for the user to perform the upgrade or not Requires installation of specific architecture (32bit/64bit) packages Requires experience to install drivers for hardware, most hardware drivers are provided via the hardware vendor as a binary file that might fail to work or requires experience It varies depending on the distribution, most common distributions have easy installation methods, yet sometimes it might be dangerous for the automatic file system creation which might lead to loss of data Backward compatibility is not taken into consideration by most GNU/Linux distributions, yet some commercial distributions might have long release schedules. 6 Most GNU/Linux distributions differ when it comes to the development cycles, yet they all have short development cycles and short support period 6 months mostly which confuses most new users about whether it's safe to upgrade or not 6 Requires installation of specific architecture (32bit/64bit) base system and software Drivers are provided by the hardware vendor's website, it's easy to install drivers yet there's no mechanism for the OS to detect and use the hardware automatically Easy, yet it gives minimal choice to the user when it comes to the partitioning process which in rare cases might damage the users' data MS-Windows has been famous for backward compatibility support, it has always been a goal for Microsoft as it's a business critical feature The OS is known for it's long term support, the upgrades doesn't have steady cycles yet Microsoft seems to provide constant updates for it's releases, the support seems to be longer and safe to do yet it might cause a problem or two Performance SphinUX OS has a decent balanced performance, although it's only capable of running *nix applications, yet it's really powerful when it comes to a power user that has lots of applications running at the same time, the memory consumption GNU/Linux has always been the best OS in performance until SphinUX OS was created, the performance varies as usual from distribution to another, it's satisfying enough but it seems to be a little bit slower when it comes to the number of MS-Windows is by far one of the worst operating systems when it comes to overall performance benchmarking, it requires high end machines to run the latest software in the market, it has a pretty much high system requirements, lots of multitasking requires lots of resources and there's no smart mechanism when

2 Security Support Quality Control seems to be more obvious with too much applications running at the same time, degradation of performance seems slight with too much processes running, CPU intensive applications seem to perform slightly better depending on the application and how much processing power it requires, there's an official burn in test called where a user starts as much applications as he could on the same box, comparing the number of applications and performance to other operating systems and how much applications can the box run with no or slight lag compared to other operating systems Seems to be enhanced and good, as much as any unix like operating system Community based free support, there seems to be no support in languages except for English and Arabic, yet if you are speaking a little English you will be able to get your issue solved with the help of the community The community seems to have high quality standards, lots of the integrated Linux applications have been refined, lots of bugs have been fixed and there seems to be a very active quality assurance team in the community that is constantly fixing any reported bugs, even bugs that were never reported by users applications running at the same time, the Linux kernel is becoming resource hungry in the latest releases and requires more powerful machines to run resource demanding applications with no lag, by far GNU/Linux has proved itself as one of the best performing operating systems in the market but it has to compete with the SphinUX OS's when it comes to multitasking Seems to be enhanced and good, as much as any unix like operating system Support for GNU/Linux differs from a distribution to another, there are large communities that can help you whatever your problem or language is GNU/Linux has a non-centralized development process, most applications are developed independently and bundled in a centralized repository with no detailed quality reports, too much choices make it hard for a new user to determine which application is better, freedom of choice is good but for a novice user things get unclear and choice becomes a curse it comes to resource management, this problem seems to be badly addressed by Microsoft as the system requirements seems to increase dramatically with each release without better performance when it comes to resource demanding applications Not secure at all 1 Professional support is paid but you can always get free support from the Internet, yet the official Microsoft support seems to work better as long as you keep paying them There's no central quality control for the MS-Windows applications, as most of the basic applications don't come bundled with the OS itself, yet quality might be assured by the 3 rd party applications vendors, as most of theses software are commercial, the quality is expected to be at it's highest levels, though it might differ depending on the software nature and what it does

3 Software installation Power consumption/ Thermal management Uses the dpkg package manager, applications are downloaded and installed with a single click, a good repository with about 37,000 packages available for download, the developers announced that there would be another software management solution in the future that would make things easier for the user, the developers are constantly supporting more applications which is a good thing for future releases The developers seemed confused at this point, they needed to get used of all resources yet they wanted to balance their power consumption and the thermal noise, I find their solution smart enough and working well as they created tools to control the power usage and the thermal noise generated by the machine, so it's always the user's decision whether he wants to make full use of the machine's power at the cost of power consumption and heat or consume less energy and generate less heat Uses package managers and centralized package pools named repository this approach is considered best as far, it proved itself especially when it comes to security issues and ease of use, the user doesn't worry about the dependencies or large archives containing redundant libraries GNU/Linux has a bad reputation of power consumption and thermal noise, most Linux distributions addressed this point badly and sometimes made it worse by creating tools that doesn't always work and the problem rises when using proprietary drivers for modern graphics card, the problem seems by far common for most Linux distributions and affects a wide range of hardware System Requirements Lowest Low (depending on your distribution) Boot time Documentation 1-2 Minutes depends on your machine considered to be high as the OS loads lots of pre-installed services 6 Not much documentation available due to the fact that this OS is relatively new, the developers seem to run an iterative development cycle that needs more discipline, they promised that they will provide better unified seconds depending on your machine and distribution Documentation seems to be solid and well written due to the FOSS model that is so much powerful compared to other models when it comes to free support and well documented products as a good competitor to the No unified installation method, the popularity makes it easier to find what you are looking for, yet there's no evidence that the application is fully secure and doesn't contain malicious hidden executables, especially when it comes to cracked software that mostly infect the user's machine with unwanted malware MS-Windows seems to have a low power consumption and generates lower heat, as it makes use of the ACPI features provided by the hardware vendors for the MS-Windows only, but it seems that the user has no control over anything, older hardware which don't have these features suffer from high power consumption and thermal noise that might damage the hardware itself, and most probably the user never knows how prevent that from happening Highest 1-2 Minutes depending on your machine 6 There's no much official documentation due to the fact that the product is proprietary and there's no real community supporting it, yet the popularity of MS-Windows is it's major power, with market being dominated by Microsoft you will always find documentation for what you are

4 source of documentation yet it seems that they will have a long way before being able to compete other well known, well documented older operating systems User-base A steadily growing world-wide user base the OS seems to gain increasing popularity among different user classes and will have a good market share in the future if the developers keep the current marketing strategy, the developers seem trying to reach out to the users and have better communication with them Flexibility Cost Total points 143/ % The OS is very flexible, the base is pretty much well maintained and the design seems modular, After contacting the developers to explain a few details about the source code I was able to see how modular it is, the system runs a minimal Linux kernel to be able to run Linux applications, that Linux kernel can be changed easily by replacing a directory in the source code with another version provided by the developers then recompiling the kernel with it's bundled configuration,but seems like they only provide Linux for now, they are scheduling another fast lane upgrade cycle for testing users 0 $ - no licenses required, no boundaries proprietary commercial applications supported by large corportations GNU/Linux has a better market share than the SphinUX OS yet it seems stuck at the 2% barrier and confined to dominating the server market as well as the smart phones market Android is the most popular so far the desktop market share has not significantly changed in years The GNU/Linux as one of the unix like operating systems seems to be very flexible as well, being completely free and opensource, it's thought to be a Hacker friendly OS, the only problem is dependencies that rarely cause trouble when trying to install applications, yet most package managers have a good way to solve that issue that you'll hardly ever notice Mostly 0$ - no licenses required, no boundaries but you might find some commercial distributions that might cost more 138/ % looking for MS-Windows is by far the most popular OS in the desktop market, it holds a tight 92.5% market share and it seems like it will take more time from competitors to convince MS-Windows users to switch to another platform MS-Windows doesn't seem flexible nor transparent with the user, the registry is confusing and gets corrupted easily, all customizations are GUI related and the system is not very informative, developers can't gain much information from the OS itself in order to create more advanced applications, and you'll always need to do something that is not doable in MS-Windows $ per license, the OS comes with no integrated applications and most basic user needs are mostly fulfilled by 3 rd party commercial applications 114/ %

5 Architecture Drivers Installation Backward Compatibility Upgrades Performance Security Support Quality Control SphinUX OS GNU/Linux MS-Windows Software Installation Power/Heat System Requirements Boot time Documentation User-base Flexibility Cost

6 SphinUX OS GNU/Linux MS-Windows Conclusion : SphinUX OS is still young in the market, yet it seems competitive, and it seems like in the next few years it will manage to obtain high market shares, it sets a new standard for the FOSS development.

7 I think what is really missing is a good source of documentation and some good artwork, also the user-base should be larger in order to increase the product's popularity, boot time is pretty much high, the developers need to work on that, I would also appreciate if there are more support for other widely spoken languages, as the current English/Arabic based community support will keep the operating system from reaching to lots of users. What I really loved is the hardware support, it's an innovative approach, also power management and thermal control seems to be addressed in a more successful way, I still can't believe how amazing the performance really is, I tried to open as much applications as I could and I noticed that memory consumption is nothing compared to the number of active processes. We still can't judge backward compatibility as the OS is young and the current release is the first stable release, yet the plan seems good if the developers managed to sustain a steady development cycle, this could open new opportunities for software developers who would like to invest their time and effort creating new software for this new platform knowing that it will always work on any version of the OS. My final thought is: SphinUX OS holds lots of key features hidden inside, you need to explore it, contact the developers when needed, it's a great experience with a new FOSS OS coming to live, and I think you should see it's birth, experience its childhood and enhance it with your experience.