Article

Commentary: Linux vs. Windows

Hardware issues, cost of ownership factor into decision.

June 17, 2007 by Brian Dusho — President, BroadSign International

Editor's note: The writer is executive vice president of BroadSign International.

The two operating systems most widely used for digital signage networks are Windows and Linux.

The purpose of this article is to help you get an idea of the advantages and the total cost of ownership of both in order to make an informed decision about choosing an OS for your digital signage network.

Many startup network operators, trying to minimize their upfront investment burden, choose Linux because they don't have to pay for the license. Some of them discover later that the resulting cost of running Linux is not necessarily lower than that of using Windows. When is Linux the right choice for your network? What are the real strengths and weaknesses of each OS?

In terms of functionality, the two operating systems are essentially equal. The common perception, however, is that Linux is "free", or cheaper to operate than Windows. Here are some thoughts on the subject that we have summarized based on our field experience and discussions with clients.

Microsoft Owns Windows. Who Owns Linux?

Each one of the major Linux distributions has a free version, however in this case support is usually limited to what the community can provide through online forums, and mailing lists. Some providers offer special enterprise versions for a fee that covers direct support from the vendor, and others offer support as an on-demand service.

Is Linux Truly Free?

The zero cost of licensing for free Linux distributions is often the most attractive aspect of this operating system choice, especially for large digital signage networks. But this may be misleading, as licensing fee is only part of the overall expenses that you have to project.

The most commonly overlooked cost related to deploying a network of Linux players is that of hardware support. In fact, hardware support service providers are the market to which enterprise Linux distributors are catering. All enterprise versions come with a list of officially supported hardware, and a support schedule (e.g. forward compatible for five years). This is similar to what Microsoft has been doing with new releases of Windows for well over a decade.

Such support is not usually available with the free versions, though notably the Ubuntu Linux distribution comes with a guarantee of forward compatibility for five years. This is why we at BroadSign have standardized our Linux offerings around this distribution.

However, in order to fix problems and bugs you may encounter in a free Linux distribution, you have to either wait until they are resolved by the open-source community, or invest (sometimes a lot) into custom development.

Standardizing on a Playback PC Configuration

Windows versus Linux has been one of the longest-standing debates among IT specialists. They argue about which system is more stable, more secure, or yields higher performance. We have discovered that there are no inherent overwhelming advantages in any of the two operating systems. The stability, security and efficiency of a system really depend on which environment your IT team is more proficient in: Linux or Windows.

One of the grave mistakes is to select a hardware platform and an operating system separately. Another one is not to test the selected hardware/OS combination for performance and endurance.

Most device drivers have been tuned and tested for standard desktop uses, not for usage in an appliance-style configuration. It is therefore important to test many configurations before standardizing on a playback PC.

If Content is King, then the Operating System is the Kingdom

Now in terms of content playback functionality, Windows Media is a major factor to consider when choosing between Windows and Linux for digital signage. The vast majority of digital signage software packages use Windows Media Player as their playback engine. This has the benefit of leveraging any Windows Media-specific hardware acceleration, and being able to play all the media types that are supported by Window Media Player.

There are downsides to Windows Media Player as well. The most obvious one is it only runs on Windows. One that is less noticeable is that it does not come standard with MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, which means that you must acquire licenses for these codecs (media formats) from an independent vendor, unless you plan on only using WMV and MPEG-1. These, among other reasons, are why here at BroadSign we developed our own playback engine that is independent of Windows Media Player. All the codecs we support (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4) come included with our software, and are the industry leading standard formats. If you need to play Windows Media Video, we can run this in our proprietary player on Windows as well, because in this specific case we will use Windows Media Player.

In all other cases BroadSign Player can run both on Windows and on Linux platforms.

Total Cost of Hardware Ownership

One of the biggest advantages of the Windows operating system is that it supports all the newest hardware. Because of market pressures, hardware manufacturers always develop device drivers for Windows. While some provide them for Linux, not all of many different distributions of Linux are covered.

Driver support in Linux is not really a problem for PC components that are in widespread usage, or that are a little older. The DIY-and-share philosophy of the Linux community and increased investments by corporations integrating Linux into their enterprise means that somebody in the world will eventually fix the problem and everyone will benefit. The shortcoming here is that you may have to wait until you get the required driver.

Another issue for hardware on Linux is that some hardware components are developed exclusively for Windows. An example of this is the WinModem (aka SoftModem). This modem is much less expensive than a hardware modem because it replaced the DSP chip with DSP software that runs on the PC's CPU; software that is written by the vendor exclusively for Windows. This trend seems to be spreading into the video card market, as market leaders like Nvidia and ATI are developing extensions specifically for Windows Media.

The above factors may increase the total cost of hardware ownership for Linux users.

Conclusion

From a digital signage operations perspective, there are more things in common between Linux and Windows than there are differences. What is important is that you select your hardware in conjunction with your operating system and digital signage software. While Windows has an upfront licensing cost, its costs are fixed and predictable. Linux has the potential of a lower total cost of ownership, but much investment must go into the expertise for selecting the hardware platform, otherwise costs can balloon out of control.

In the end, regardless of the operating system you select, the most important determinant of the total cost of ownership is the competence of the team behind selecting and configuring your playback platform, as well as that of the support team.

There is no magic bullet that will let you dramatically cut costs if you choose Linux. If you don't already have a Linux-savvy IT department, any cost saving on the license fee will backfire with the increased cost of training or hiring qualified people.