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>Windows and Linux are general purpose OSes. The same kernel runs on high throughput servers and low power tablets. The apps are written with little focus on ba

>Windows and Linux are general purpose OSes. The same kernel runs on high throughput servers and low power tablets. The apps are written with little focus on battery life. What are you saying? That Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? Come on. >But both Windows and Linux are more than capable to get this all sorted. Bingo. So the questions stands, given that the consumer market is a huge priority for Microsoft and that iPads and iPhones and Android devices represent some of the biggest competition for Microsoft, why haven't they done this already?

jrajav 13y ago
> What are you saying? That Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? It's more the drivers than the kernel. Apple has a lot more control over OS X drivers.
- herge 13y ago
  Microsoft picks all the hardware, and corresponding drivers, that goes into the surface.
- hdevalence 13y ago
  Right, but the original post said the same about Linux. With very few exceptions, Linux drivers live in the kernel tree, so the Linux community has absolute control over them. The claim doesn't really seem to make sense. It's not like power management is unimportant in a server rack. In fact, there's a really nice talk somewhere by (I think) the LWN guy, about how running the same kernel on mobile and on big iron gives huge benefits to development -- it turns out that the needs are really not so different after all, and power management work intended for the mobile space helps big iron (and vice versa, cf. PowerTop from Intel).
  - blinkingled 13y ago
    Nothing is free - everything is a trade off. Hardware isn't magical. There is cost to how fast you can switch between various C states on Intel CPUs for example. There is hardware that explodes if you play too hard for another example. Servers need maximum performance and low latency - guess what aggressive power management will do to that? You talk about drivers but what about firmware? Have you looked at how kludgy and unreliable ACPI implementations across hardware are? What about the in kernel drivers being mostly reverse engineered - how many hardware vendors care to provide power management docs for their hardware? Everything is possible of course - it's just that it is way harder to do when you support everything from toasters to big iron in case of Linux and Phones to gazillion varying PC hardware combinations in case of Microsoft.
brudgers 13y ago
Suppose Microsoft rewrites Windows to optimize for the Surface platform. How long would it take for Microsoft to stand accused of unfair business practices in the press? How much risk would they run of being hauled into court in the EU or US? They just paid a billion dollars for failing to provide browser options in the EU last year.
- macspoofing 13y ago
  Who says that Windows need to optimize only for Microsoft hardware?
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  They paid a billion dollars for disobeying a direct court order. You phrase that as if they paid a fine for randomly not doing something. Your suggestion that they are equally vulnerable to the same thing for solving a difficult, market driven technical challenge seems like a stretch to me.
blinkingled 13y ago
> Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? Not only servers but they need the same kernel design to work well across a ton of different hardware/firmware combinations, form factors (Phone, Tablets, Laptops) and they do an OK job. But to excel they need to put in a lot more effort (working with OEMs, working with SoC makers is another challenge - everyone optimizes for Android now a days including Qualcomm and Nvidia). So yes, they can do it but it is exponentially more challenging for them due to their legacy and current market position.
- Sheepshow 13y ago
  Funny, the Linux kernel performs excellently on my $35, 800MHz, 400mA ARM RaspberryPi embedded machine, my x86 desktop, and some of the world's largest supercomputers with who knows what architecture. For a company with hundreds of millions to spend on R&D, you'd think Microsoft could match a bunch of hobbyists.
  - blinkingled 13y ago
    I am as big a Linux fanboy as anyone - but Linux doesn't do power management across different set of hardware consistently and when it does it is with mediocre results. In fact you'd be hard pressed to find a PC Laptop running Linux that gives you great battery life. It's largely a miss. So performance yes, great power characteristics no - that's too hard due to sheer number of variables.
Someone 13y ago
My bet: backwards compatibility. Better power management requires changes in behaviour of the OS and it is very hard to change behaviour without breaking things. Suppose the USB sleep state handling code is suboptimal. Is that because programmers paid less attention to power usage a decade ago, or because some devices implement a power state incorrectly? If the latter, which devices? If Microsoft isn't 100% sure they know of all devices for which it is needed, they may choose to leave the less efficient code in place regardless of whether a deficient device is plugged in. An example might be a pet peeve I have with Windows: its tendency to 'discover new hardware' when one plugs a bog standard mouse or keyboard into a USB port for the umpteenth time. That in itself is baffling, but it can take Windows half a minute or so to figure out that it has a driver for the device and start it. I do not have the faintest idea what it does in that time, but it must be unavoidable within the constraints microsoft sets itself, since it hasn't been fixed in a decade or so (but it has been improved quite a bit) and I bet it must have itched quite a few engineers. Whatever the cause, plugging in a USB mouse must use way more power on Windiws than on a Mac.
- jodrellblank 13y ago
  An example might be a pet peeve I have with Windows: its tendency to 'discover new hardware' when one plugs a bog standard mouse or keyboard into a USB port for the umpteenth time. That in itself is baffling It's not baffling, it's manufacturers implementing USB standards improperly, and Windows doing the least-bad thing. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/11/10/255047.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/11/10/25504...

jrajav 13y ago

> What are you saying? That Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? It's more the drivers than the kernel. Apple has a lot more control over OS X drivers.

herge 13y ago
Microsoft picks all the hardware, and corresponding drivers, that goes into the surface.
hdevalence 13y ago
Right, but the original post said the same about Linux. With very few exceptions, Linux drivers live in the kernel tree, so the Linux community has absolute control over them. The claim doesn't really seem to make sense. It's not like power management is unimportant in a server rack. In fact, there's a really nice talk somewhere by (I think) the LWN guy, about how running the same kernel on mobile and on big iron gives huge benefits to development -- it turns out that the needs are really not so different after all, and power management work intended for the mobile space helps big iron (and vice versa, cf. PowerTop from Intel).
- blinkingled 13y ago
  Nothing is free - everything is a trade off. Hardware isn't magical. There is cost to how fast you can switch between various C states on Intel CPUs for example. There is hardware that explodes if you play too hard for another example. Servers need maximum performance and low latency - guess what aggressive power management will do to that? You talk about drivers but what about firmware? Have you looked at how kludgy and unreliable ACPI implementations across hardware are? What about the in kernel drivers being mostly reverse engineered - how many hardware vendors care to provide power management docs for their hardware? Everything is possible of course - it's just that it is way harder to do when you support everything from toasters to big iron in case of Linux and Phones to gazillion varying PC hardware combinations in case of Microsoft.

brudgers 13y ago

Suppose Microsoft rewrites Windows to optimize for the Surface platform. How long would it take for Microsoft to stand accused of unfair business practices in the press? How much risk would they run of being hauled into court in the EU or US? They just paid a billion dollars for failing to provide browser options in the EU last year.

macspoofing 13y ago
Who says that Windows need to optimize only for Microsoft hardware?
erikpukinskis 13y ago
They paid a billion dollars for disobeying a direct court order. You phrase that as if they paid a fine for randomly not doing something. Your suggestion that they are equally vulnerable to the same thing for solving a difficult, market driven technical challenge seems like a stretch to me.

blinkingled 13y ago

> Microsoft can't build a consumer OS with great power-management because the kernel also needs to work on high throughput servers? Not only servers but they need the same kernel design to work well across a ton of different hardware/firmware combinations, form factors (Phone, Tablets, Laptops) and they do an OK job. But to excel they need to put in a lot more effort (working with OEMs, working with SoC makers is another challenge - everyone optimizes for Android now a days including Qualcomm and Nvidia). So yes, they can do it but it is exponentially more challenging for them due to their legacy and current market position.

Sheepshow 13y ago
Funny, the Linux kernel performs excellently on my $35, 800MHz, 400mA ARM RaspberryPi embedded machine, my x86 desktop, and some of the world's largest supercomputers with who knows what architecture. For a company with hundreds of millions to spend on R&D, you'd think Microsoft could match a bunch of hobbyists.
- blinkingled 13y ago
  I am as big a Linux fanboy as anyone - but Linux doesn't do power management across different set of hardware consistently and when it does it is with mediocre results. In fact you'd be hard pressed to find a PC Laptop running Linux that gives you great battery life. It's largely a miss. So performance yes, great power characteristics no - that's too hard due to sheer number of variables.

Someone 13y ago

My bet: backwards compatibility. Better power management requires changes in behaviour of the OS and it is very hard to change behaviour without breaking things. Suppose the USB sleep state handling code is suboptimal. Is that because programmers paid less attention to power usage a decade ago, or because some devices implement a power state incorrectly? If the latter, which devices? If Microsoft isn't 100% sure they know of all devices for which it is needed, they may choose to leave the less efficient code in place regardless of whether a deficient device is plugged in. An example might be a pet peeve I have with Windows: its tendency to 'discover new hardware' when one plugs a bog standard mouse or keyboard into a USB port for the umpteenth time. That in itself is baffling, but it can take Windows half a minute or so to figure out that it has a driver for the device and start it. I do not have the faintest idea what it does in that time, but it must be unavoidable within the constraints microsoft sets itself, since it hasn't been fixed in a decade or so (but it has been improved quite a bit) and I bet it must have itched quite a few engineers. Whatever the cause, plugging in a USB mouse must use way more power on Windiws than on a Mac.

jodrellblank 13y ago
An example might be a pet peeve I have with Windows: its tendency to 'discover new hardware' when one plugs a bog standard mouse or keyboard into a USB port for the umpteenth time. That in itself is baffling It's not baffling, it's manufacturers implementing USB standards improperly, and Windows doing the least-bad thing. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/11/10/255047.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/11/10/25504...