# Testing on Linux VM on winXP 3 times faster than XP **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 8, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796 "2009-02-08T22:47:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/itsastickup)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796/1 "2009-02-08T22:47:21Z")
Hello, Informational post in case any windows developers are interested. I had heard that ruby on a linux VM running on windows can be faster than on that same install of windows. I recently got fed up waiting 1min & 30secs for my unit and functional tests to run for a small project (no integration tests yet), and the big lurching pause that happens when running rails in development mode on my Pentium-M 1.7Ghz laptop, I decided to try a linux VM running in the free VMWare player, specifically those provided by [jumpbox.com](http://jumpbox.com) (debian/ubuntu I think) which are supposed to be production ready linux VMs. I probably should have tried a different VM as I had a lot of hassle installing and configuring postgres instead of the supplied mysql: I’m a bit of a newbie at this linux business and installing rails would have been easier. In anycase it was a waste of time since switching the linux VM rails project to use my windows postgres server just for fun turned out 20% faster?!?! Note, don’t use a netbios name in the rails database config: use the machine’s ip address else bizarre behaviour. All in all “rake test” dropped from 90secs to a mind blowing 30secs. The actual tests themselves run between 2 and 3 times faster, but it seems to be initialization that takes the bulk of the time. I prefer my windows tools (specifically Notepad++, even though it still doesn’t understand rhtml and haml files) and windows explorer, so I am now developing with my project folders on the windows computer but ‘mounted’ to a folder in the linux VM running rails, configured to use my windows postgres server. The VM uses about 250 megs of RAM having disabled mysql and other stuff. If you have zero linux experience and want to try the above then I would recommend finding a VM that has all that you need already installed (recentish version of rails requiring some simple gem updating and the database, for example). Learning linux from scratch in order to setup a system, as I have done, is a lot of hassle. Otherwise prefer apt-get over manually installing, and learn linux security before all else. And download winSCP. ---
**Author:** ![itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/itsastickup)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796/2 "2009-02-09T01:26:42Z")
itsastickup wrote: > I had heard that ruby on a linux VM running on windows can be faster > than on that same install of windows. You should try Vista. I experimented with Qemu and Puppy-Linux recently, and everything was faster. Microsoft has nobody to blame but themselves for their market erosion and incredibly bad software. (I’m posting this from Kubuntu now, thank you.) > The actual tests themselves run between 2 and 3 times faster, but it > seems to be initialization that takes the bulk of the time. Right - the program loader is pathetic. It assumes we want to load MS Office, once, and live inside it for a while. It can’t comprehend scripts that call many small executables. – Phlip ---
**Author:** ![itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/itsastickup)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796/3 "2009-02-09T04:14:01Z")
Phlip wrote: > Right - the program loader is pathetic. It assumes we want to load MS > Office, once, and live inside it for a while. It can’t comprehend > scripts that call many small executables. Is it just the loader that is slow? Or is there something that can be done in the way of passing extra information (such as fully qualified paths or something) that would help. I don’t want to start a discussion about the “better OS” or “quit Windows”, etc. but given the install base of Windows, it would be good to know if there are things that one could investigate to speed up Ruby on Windows. Cheers, Mohit. 2/9/2009 | 11:13 AM. ---
**Author:** ![itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/itsastickup)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796/4 "2009-02-09T16:38:23Z")
> Can you please elaborate on the setup you mentioned? I am ashamed to. > > You should try Vista. I experimented with Qemu and Puppy-Linux > > recently, and everything was faster. I like some of Vista’s toys. Things like a functional Hibernate mode. So I tried qemu-puppy on a USB drive. It worked great, but SeaMonkey, the only functioning browser, instantly died with a silly .so file error as soon as I ever tried to do anything. So, instead of dedicating the rest of my career to learning how to mix and match puppy sfs files (with the usual impossible online forum support), I just switched to a dual-boot with Kubuntu. It will do fine with half a hard-drive. When puppy, in qemu, possibly with kqemu, was doing things like building Ruby in less than a minute, instead of 15 minutes or so. Of course the Kubuntu is faster. Any volunteers to go work for MS? To help them clean up their codebase? I didn’t think so… (-: – Phlip ---
**Author:** ![itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/itsastickup)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796/5 "2009-02-10T17:31:41Z")
So in the end you gave up on the virtual machine and are running Linux directly, is that it? Cheers, Sazima ---
**Author:** ![itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/7feea3/32.png) [@itsastickup](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/itsastickup)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/testing-on-linux-vm-on-winxp-3-times-faster-than-xp/159796/6 "2009-02-09T13:56:47Z")
Phlip, Can you please elaborate on the setup you mentioned? > You should try Vista. I experimented with Qemu and Puppy-Linux > recently, and everything was faster. Cheers, Sazima