Unix and Linux → Linux vs. Win98 Pings

I have two dual boot PCs with Win98/RedHat 6.2 connected through a Linksys DSL router to my SDSL modem.

The thing is that I can consistently ping the gateway at 13ms (the first few are sometimes longer) from Linux on either box, but under Win98 I get pings in the 30 - 40ms range.

Is Linux just that much better than Win98 or is it likely that my Win98 configuration is screwed up?

The short answer is that any Unix type of OS will give better performance that W95 or W98. On the other hand if you get Win2000 you will probably get much better internet performance than either 95 or 98, don't know if that is true vs. Linux/Unix/BSD. And yes, Linux is a lot better than Windows although that's not saying much.

I think the windows98 timing sub-systems leaves a lot to be desired.. and it is also likely that the progression of the packet from the NIC to the application level is also delayed. Although that much difference is surprising!

i read somewhere that linux/unix handles TCP/IP stacks better than Windows, so you will definitely see improvements. Also, most of the servers you go to are probably running on some flavor of unix running apache.

Yes, Unix/Linux/BSD is that much better than WinBlows (TCP/IP stack). Unix was developed at AT&T, so you can pretty much guarantee that Unix sets the standard by which all other OSs strive to acieve. That is why most of our major telecommunication firms still use Unix/Linux/BSD to interact with our routers, switches, and do network management.