Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: sharetheroad on January 23, 2012, 02:46 pm
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ok, so i switched over to using my linux machine for security reasons (i don't like how windows spreads files everywhere, writes shit in places i don't want it to write, etc)
i've noticed that SR/forums are at least 2-3x faster when using linux. anyone else experience this phenom? anyone know why? both machines are HIGH end machines (quad cores @4ghz+ w/ ddr3-1600+) so what gives? any clues?
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Less operating system bloatware. Better IO scheduler. Better networking stack. Better/faster filesystem. And so on....
Here's just one simple example. With any common flavor of Linux, there's only *one* process that checks for software updates, and odds are that it runs via cron, once per hour or once per day or something like that. You can install all kinds of programs, but there's still just one updater. With Windows, every program outside of the OS itself that has check-for-updates capability has to install its own version checker. Each one typically starts up at boot time and stays resident in memory for the entire time your machine is on, sucking up valuable resources. Just a couple of days ago I was looking at the output of windows' task manager, and there were like 10-15 of these "update service" bastards running. adobe, itunes, quicken, java, etc, etc.... (Yes, I could turn them all off, but I shouldn't have to deal with them at all.)
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Simple, Windoze and Internet Exploder have always been resource hogs.
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well, TOR doesn't use IE, so that's a mute point.
i keep my shit clean in windows 7 - i keep those schedulers to a minimum - i even have 2x intel sdd drives raid0 os drive that pumps 500mb/s and makes my box scream. i guess it does come down to the network stack i suppose.
i'm loving linux though, i've been laid off and working for myself doing web design / pc repair so i was like ...hmmm... i think i'll set myself up a host box - ubuntu + ehcp = the shit btw. went a little more crazy and fired up a 6 drive 5tb mdraid5 in the same machine, that's fast as hell too. now i'm in the process of consolidating all of my computers, laptops, wifes pc 'personal documents/critical' data onto encrypted drive shares on my redundant array and running a local backup + cloud backup nightly (via encrypted offline files) and am amazed at the performance of everything. oh, and gigabit ethernet is the tits.
it'd been several years since i'd messed with linux but gdamn, it's gotten pretty tight.
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...compare firefox on windooz with firefox / aurora on Linux..
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mainstream linux distros like Ubuntu, or even backtrack which is based on ubuntu, still will write your data unencrypted in swap file on the hard disk. i would better stay away from such linuxes. if you have modern computer with USB 3 then linux from pen drive working same fast from harfd disk. install Liberte linux on pen drive and keep it in save place and that way your comp always clean.
main security breach can happen in two places first physical access to your data, second your local network including ISP, or your WIFI can be hacked WIFI, if you on WIFI then it is have to be WPA 2 minimum 64 bit password and better use WIFI router made in China or Taiwan. SISCO and other US made routers are not G2G.
if any, main concerns always on your local network. you are going to TOR your ISP can pickup TOR traffic and you are suspicious one kind of client at least.
if possible I would always use hacked WIFI, It is not difficult and any (who has brain) can learn in one week how to hack any WIFI, WPE and WPA too.
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Too bad every program on linux looks like its from the 90's. Thats an exagaration but you know what Im talking about.
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Too bad every program on linux looks like its from the 90's. Thats an exagaration but you know what Im talking about.
wat! :o
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Too bad every program on linux looks like its from the 90's. Thats an exagaration but you know what Im talking about.
have you seen backtrack linux, it is pretty cool looking and very stable OS. I think it is one of of the best linux to run as replacement for windows desktop. pretty much everything is there, even I was able to print in color from laser printer. it is not for games sure, but rest is there music movies, open office.
in 90s there was unix with just black screen and command line cursor.
performance wise 64 bits windows 7 and ubuntu are the same, some guy running CUBA cracking servers on both and performance bottleneck in software. progress in developments related to OS and hardware goes far ahead, problems is there is no software to squeeze all that power out. same problem for windows and linux.
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mainstream linux distros like Ubuntu, or even backtrack which is based on ubuntu, still will write your data unencrypted in swap file on the hard disk. i would better stay away from such linuxes. if you have modern computer with USB 3 then linux from pen drive working same fast from harfd disk. install Liberte linux on pen drive and keep it in save place and that way your comp always clean.
main security breach can happen in two places first physical access to your data, second your local network including ISP, or your WIFI can be hacked WIFI, if you on WIFI then it is have to be WPA 2 minimum 64 bit password and better use WIFI router made in China or Taiwan. SISCO and other US made routers are not G2G.
if any, main concerns always on your local network. you are going to TOR your ISP can pickup TOR traffic and you are suspicious one kind of client at least.
if possible I would always use hacked WIFI, It is not difficult and any (who has brain) can learn in one week how to hack any WIFI, WPE and WPA too.
- i don't know whats supposed to be in the windooz swap file, under Linux the usage is virtually null if there are enough resources and when running low usage apps
like a Tor station; there are ways to not use a swap file or make it so small there's nothing in it of use, or perhaps ways of blanking it on every reboot.
also this swap file phobia is perhaps taking it too far its the least of your anon worries.
or encrypt the Linux swap file (dm-crypt)
- don't use wireless if security is a concern ! {don't say you want security then fallback to wireless.. = laziness = means you get caught }
- liberte is just another choice of Linux.
- "90's looking Linux" - there are a choice of desktop managers - gnome / kde / fvvm ....plus appearance themes for customisation.
yes, Linux does do the minimalist look but then thats partly why Linux is a higher performance setup as "looks" are less important than security & performance.
if users can't use Ubuntu then perhaps there's a user problem rather than functionality issue.
- hacked wifi ?!
- its all relative, why use a stolen laptop or mobile if a pay-as-you-go would suffice, why complicate your illegal position by borrowing someones wifi if you don't have
to? this is also not practical from the regular users standpoint.
using Tor is not illegal as such !
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Wow I had a long typed up post and I lost it. Oh well.
I am just gonna repeat everything I said, and some of it applies to the previous post.
When I said 90s look I am not talking about the desktop, but the programs. I understand that functionality is the priority but Windows aero is so pretty lol.
As far as backtrack, I actually use it quite frequently via live cd. It does pretty much anything I would want a machine to do that windows cannot. I have used alot of distros, openSUSE is nice for office style work. Knoppix is a great recovery tool. I feel like ubuntu is a little bloated, but the app manager is really nice so it kinda makes up for it. Red Hat is good but not free so that rules that out. I really like how linux handles installations, and as was mentioned earlier the updates. FreeBSD is boss, but that isnt linux.
I like windows for the fact most things work right off the bat. All to often I find myself on linux forums asking some obscure question, getting a response that basically mimics what I have already done, then getting the 'well it should work' response. I realize this is more than likely due to user error, but sometimes its nice to just glide freely. Thats why Apple has done so well for itself.
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The argument that linux is faster because of a better scheduler is just silly. The arguments are based on so many fallacies it's hard to know where to begin.
Before I start, let me say I use linux daily, I have 12 linux machines that I use to process data 24/7/365. Linux is my data processing platform of choice, and I have run linux desktops many times over the years since the late 90s. I started with linux back when you could run a program in dos (not windows) and it just blow away the current running environment and load linux on top of an already booted dos system. I am not a linux hater, I am a linux lover. But I am not a linux zealot.
Foremost, Linux is not a better desktop and is not faster. I've done this test many times with linux zealots at work. Try opening excel in windows and gnumeric on linux and time it. The difference in time is astounding, windows is faster by 3:1.
The reason isn't surprising, Microsoft has quality control issues to deal with so they have teams dedicated to things like user experience. Linux developers are not as organized. In the past it was a matter of whomever wanted to work on what, these days most code is contributed by companies and is thus based on their agenda. It's simply that until their agenda becomes desktop performance linux will continue to fall behind in this area. The same is also true for many areas of desktop usability, but that's not the topic here.
Besides that, the argument that linux is faster due to a better scheduler is ludicrous on two counts:
a) Arguing that a web browser is faster because of the scheduler is akin to arguing that a honda is faster than a nissan because of the spark plugs. In order to browse the web you only have to juggle about four items (tcp stack, web browser, interrupt handler, video redraw). It is simply not a challenge for the scheduler for either linux or windows.
b) Linux's various scheduler options are good, but not as good as windows' scheduler, particularly for desktop use. Linux has a stick up his ass and is resistant to a scheduler that tunes for desktop operation. Instead linus requires that the scheduler work for hundred plus core systems even though this hurts desktop performance. Check out the brainfuck scheduler for a great discussion on this. The author's whole point is that he spent a dozen hours writing a scheduler designed for a few cores and it outperforms the mature one that linux had at the time (I forget what it's called, it was the predecessor to CFS).
Besides this, linux isn't as mature in other scheduling aspects for example I do not believe linux has a low priority IO mechanism nor a forward only logged file system (which has to do with getting good performance out of spindle disks by morphing random IO patterns into sequential IO patterns). Who cares what the cpu processor scheduler is doing when processor time is not what's limiting performance?
There are other technologies that matter more. Windows prefetching is an example. Linux now has an equivelent, I think they call it dynamic lib preloading. They both do the same thing, make a list of which files need to be read with each application and preload them so that they can get rid of disk latency, but windows' is better because it integrates with the defragger so that the items can be preread without disk head moves.
Windows has many recent optimizations to better utilize SSDs, which is also important.
Simply put, linux is not faster on the desktop or the server (though certain linux tuned apps are much faster on linux than windows, such as hadoop and apache).
I am not disputing that linux is faster in the OP's case, but it's likely due to something unexpected - a better tor client, better name resolution caching, differences in the tcp handler. Certainly not the scheduler.
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Linux is not faster on the desktop or the server? Are you running one process at a time or something? You're definitely playing fast and loose with your terminology - switching back and forth between discussion of IO scheduler and cpu timeslice scheduler. But I never said anything about process scheduling, which is what you're referring to with brainfuck. I'm talking about IO - and under any kind of nontrivial IO load, Linux absolutely performs better than Windows that it's not even funny. With the exception of JFS, *every* Linux filesystem is faster than NTFS.
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Oh boy, here we go ._.
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I am not disputing that linux is faster in the OP's case, but it's likely due to something unexpected - a better tor client, better name resolution caching, differences in the tcp handler. Certainly not the scheduler.
You helped me find the cause... It was the DNS cache... this machine is a DNS server and my local machines were using the ISPs, now I switched my windows 7 pc to use the server and TOR is just as fast.
I didn't mean to start a windows vs. linux debate, I like them both, and I use them both - but this thread is making me lul. Please continue.
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Red Hat is good but not free so that rules that out. I really like how linux handles installations, and as was mentioned earlier the updates. FreeBSD is boss, but that isnt linux.
- if you like redhat try fedora or centos, they're the development and free versions of "redhat".
there are other distros based on redhat but most get quite obscure, for instance asianux is redhat enterprise based...but aimed at asia with "better" language support
but can still be installed in english etc...
- bottomline, choose something mainstream / commom unless you have a special requirement for security or PowerPC hardware.
{without this being another Linux distro thread war, whatever works for you, you're the one who will have to manage the admin and the frustration with adding
apps, compiling apps and patching....there were around 130 distinct Linux distros a few years ago]