Using JkDefrag

JKDefrag is an open source Windows disk defragmentation tool. It uses the Microsoft Windows native defragmentation API, so it should be as safe as the Windows defragmenter. It is very easy to use, fast and efficient tool for recovering your hard drive performance.

JKDefrag comes as a ZIP archive, containing a number of non-installable files, which are various editions of the software:

• JkDefrag.exe – this is the normal Windows version. Execute it and it will start defragmenting your drives right away.
• JkDefragCmd.exe – this is a command line version, which you can use in scripts and such (usually applies only to system administrators and other advanced users).
• JkDefragScreenSaver.scr + JkDefragScreenSaver.exe – These are a screensaver version of the JKDefrag. Copy them to your Windows folder and set as screensaver, if you wish JKDefrag to work on your disk every time the screensaver is activated. In most cases I would not recommend this method though, as hard drives do not typically fragment so fast that you would need to process them daily. Once a month or so should be quite enough.

Installation and usage could not be more simple. Just extract the .ZIP file and launch JkDefrag.exe. It is however wise to review your hard drive content before processing – empty your trashcan, delete unused files and folders before defragmenting the drive.  This will free up space and make the defragmenting more efficient and the process faster.

Using PageDefrag

PageDefrag is a freeware tool originally developed by SysInternals, but now seems to be owned by Microsoft. It supports Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Server 2003, but no Vista support is mentioned on the Microsoft website. PageDefrag perform additional optimization by defragmenting Windows system files, the paging file and registry files. Such defragmentation cannot be performed online, so it must be done during system boot.

PageDefrag comes as a ZIP file that contains a non-installable .exe file. Extract it to any folder and launch pagedfrg.exe. Using PageDefrag is very simple – it has a single dialog where you can set PageDefrag to perform optimization on next system boot, or optinally on every system boot. After making your choice, click OK and reboot your PC.

Final words

After performing these two steps you have performed a thorough Windows drive defragmentation for your PC, using only free software. Run JKDefrag and PageDefrag every now and then (once a month, or every two months – depening on your PC usage) to keep you hard drive performing at it’s best.

Again we immediately run to the problem of defining that what are we actually comparing. As said before, Linux actually refers to the kernel of the operating system and that Linux comes in all kinds of shapes as sizes from mobile phones to super computers. To narrow things down we focus on modern desktop oriented Linux distributions. I have personally tried most of them, and have experience in openSUSE, Ubuntu, Mandriva and I am currently writing this using PCLinuxOS 2008. Windows also comes in various versions and editions, Windows XP being the market leader and Vista (various editions) being the most recent. I have very little Vista experience, so I will only touch that in this article, and focus on XP.

First of all I have to say that Windows XP is actually pretty good. It has been matured, service packed, patched and updated for seven years or so. That is actually an incredibly long life cycle for the operating system, and even today XP can tackle basic desktop needs very well. If good quality drivers are available for your hardware, it will be solid as a rock, unless You ruin it yourself by installing low quality software. Windows is the dominant operating system on the market, so you are likely to get good drivers for the hardware, or at least updates if defects are found. The quality of the software one installs on top of Windows defines the overall stability experience for the end-user. My desktop PC has Windows XP that I installed some 1,5 years ago and it has served me flawlessly.

Modern desktop Linux distributions have a furious development cycles releasing new versions once or twice a year. This means that the beta and release candidate testing periods are very short, usually only matters of weeks. Unfortunately a fresh Linux distribution on release date tends to contain a lot of bugs. Linux distros, like Windows, have on-line updating features and patches and updates are usually released a lot right after the release. Download and install Ubuntu 7.10 (from October 2007) today, and a huge load of fixes are available via the updater right after install. So Microsoft is not the only one pushing out service packs to improve their product quality. And the bugs of Linux distros can be very visible ones too: My Ubuntu suddenly lost all theme and icon settings, the Start button equilavent of Mandriva was visually broken, and openSUSE opens unnecessary Xconsole window if I enable clock synchronization via NTP Internet server.

Drivers and hardware support is a whole another story under Linux. Unfortunately hardware vendors are not keen on the idea of releasing their drivers open sourced, which has lead to the fact that Linux driver support is far worse than on Windows. I cannot use a native ATI driver on my Thinkpad T41, since none is available, so I have to use a 3rd party developed open source equivalent. And speaking of my ATI card, all Linux distros except Mandriva incorrectly configure this laptop for 3D desktop usage, so I have to manually edit the settings to make it work. Even with everything configured properly, 3D games seem to be a bit unstable on this computer and tend to crash or jam occasionally – I am not yet 100% sure what the issue is, but based on what I have learned from the net is that the problems are in the drivers.

So if one thinks that “I will intall Linux over Windows and never have problems again”, then one will most likely be disappointed. But there is a different side to this story as well. Linux at the core is rock solid. We here have been running our own web server for few years, and not once it has crashed, jammed, booted or had any issues with it. I haven’t checked recently but I think we around 500 days of uptime on this server since we did a complete reinstall due to mandatory update. And all the time the server is working, serving millions of database queries and sending the content to thousands of readers. In server usage, such stability simply does not exist in the Windows world, and that is why Linux has conquered the server market.

Just as I am writing this, our tech admin Xfiler dropped in to brag about his new Lenovo Thinkpad. He said it had Vista preinstalled, and it had crashed on him on the first day of use. I don’t have enough Vista experience to make conclusions myself, but based on the stuff I have read and heard, it has some maturity issues. So did Windows XP several years ago, but most likely Vista will mature after one or two service packs, just like the Linux distributions will mature after receiving a few months worth of updates.

So is the myth busted? To some extent I think that it really is. A user installing XP or a modern desktop Linux is more likely to find bugs on the Linux distro. Keep in mind that I am talking about basic desktop usage here, in other environment the situation can turn around completely. No matter what operating system you run, it is also a matter of configuration. At my work we have a customized Windows XP installations made by the IT department, and they are far less stable than my home setup made by myself. So your mileage may vary.

In making a Windows vs. Linux comparison we have to be distinct that what are we actually comparing. Linux comes in all shapes and sizes, and actually Linux only refers to the kernel itself, while various Windows editions have been released as well. Therefore we are comparing performance of systems designed for similar use cases, focusing on modern desktop Linux distributions in comparison to Windows XP and Vista.

When Linux fans are ranting about Windows XP’s performance, they tend to forget that it was released back in 2001. This means that it works with the hardware of that time,which of course were very modest in comparison to the PCs today. Minimum system requirements were 233MHz CPU and 64 megabytes of RAM. From my first hand experience I can tell that you can run XP on 233MHz CPU, but the 64MB RAM is not enough. 128 MB is sufficient however, I have installed and used XP on several occasions with such hardware.

On system boot the WinXP consumes around 60-80 MB of RAM, and with a little tweaking you can go below 70. Now if we start comparing to modern desktop Linux distributions introduced in 2007, their average memory consumption after system boot to Gnome or KDE desktop seems to be around 120-170 megabytes. No matter how much you like Linux, don’t come telling me that your fancy desktop distro is easier on the resources than Windows XP. Of course there are special light weight Linux distros that can achieve this goal, but that is not the point here.

So obviously Windows XP will fly if you use it with modern powerful hardware. Of course you can make it slower by installing crappy software like Norton’s security suite, and making every possible application to start on system boot and stay lurking in the system tray, but that is your fault and not Windows’. On the other hand, if one has processing power and memory to burn, Linux is much better at making use of these resources, especially RAM. Linux consumes all available RAM for useful purposes such as caching, which improves the performance.

Windows Vista on the other hand is a different story, and I have very little experience using it, as I try to avoid it as long as I can. The system requirements have grown to 800MHz and 512 MB of RAM, but the figures are seriously optimistic. I have installed Vista to a brand new budged PC with 1GB of RAM (can’t recall the CPU speed) and it was crawling. My friend had it running on a HTPC with only 512MB RAM, and I can’t say it was comfortably usable. In order to get fancy 3-D Aero desktop running, you really need a modern and a rather high performing computer. Now if you compare Vista to modern desktop Linux distros, it really makes the latter look good. With Vista’s minimum requirements, you can get nice performance out of Ubuntu, openSUSE, PCLOS or whatever comparable distribution, and you most likely can even enable the fancy 3-D desktop visuals. After system boot you will still have more than half of the 512MB RAM available for the applications.

So definitely Windows XP is less resource hungry than typical desktop Linux of today. On the other hand, Linux can make better use of your system resources if you have plenty. Vista is a different story as it has turned out to be a resource hog, and is easily outperformed by Linux distros.

So what is the verdict – is it true that Linux is faster than Windows? Yes it is, especially when we are comparing the latest editions, which means that we are looking at Vista and not XP.