Ubuntu 8.10 Outperforms Windows Vista 689
Anonymous writes "By now a lot has been reported on the new features and improvements in Ubuntu 8.10; it also looks like the OS is outperforming Vista in early benchmarking (Geekbench, boot times, etc.) At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?" (And though there are lot of ways to benchmark computers, Ubuntu 8.10 with Compiz Fusion is certainly prettier on my Eee than the Windows XP that it came with.)
Re:YES! (Score:1, Interesting)
Not even close!
Being faster means little if the average person can not install an application and have it work! That is WITHOUT going to the command line, editing some script, coping some file, or hunting for some needed RPM.
Benchmarks dont really matter to most (Score:3, Interesting)
Outside of techies and geeks, people just want to know if it runs whatever program they are used too. They dont care about #'s really. Maybe the benchmarks for video cards matter to some people for video games that wouldnt typically know what a benchmark is, but most people dont even know what linux is really (less ubuntu).
Really, this news is that windows scored a 2838, ubuntu a 3367.
Vista boot time: 56 seconds.
Ubuntu boot time: 50 seconds.
While I give a big high five to the developers, I dont think this is a watershed moment.
it would be valuable to now claim "faster than windows" in marketting along with other features. Just that simple phrase will have more penetration.
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just more sensationalism.
I run Ubuntu 8.10 and yet I am somehow able to assess the situation pragmatically. As it sits, if I were to install Windows on my Ubuntu box, then I would probably make up the cost (aka "Micro$oft tax) with the annual power savings - Ubuntu *still* doesn't suspend-to-ram on my system (Biostar nforce 6150 motherboard with an Athlon X2 processor).
And while I try to shut the system down, when possible, I always find myself walking away for "just a moment" only to find myself not returning until the next day (or more). When Ubuntu can put up the functionality of Windows (including power management), then it becomes a proper comparison. Until then, it pains me to defend Microsoft...
Games (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:YES! (Score:5, Interesting)
2003 was the year of Linux on the desktop. For me, that's when I put Mandriva on it.
Now if you're talking about Linux on the average person's desktop, I fear we may never have it. [slashdot.org]
Yes, I'm quoting myself.
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:YES! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, my Core 2 Duo system, according to my UPS, idles @ 80W. .10 dollars a KW/h = $46.75
80W * 16 hours a day when I could suspend to RAM * 365.25 days / 1000 *
If you have you system powered off ten hours a day on average you'd cut that number in half.
I have no idea what the MS tax costs.
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:3, Interesting)
Suspend to RAM works out-of-the-box on my Dell Inspiron 9400, in Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04). I've found that the long-term-support releases are far more likely to support suspend and other commonly difficult features to get working.
For the first time ever, I'm strongly considering sticking with my old version of Ubuntu (8.04) until the next long-term support version. Are there any great features in 8.10 that would cause you to recommending the upgrade? Thanks.
Re:XP is what to beat - not Vista (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is this news? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey now - Don't Speak For Me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm running Vista x64 Ultimate Edition, and I'll speak for myself, thanks
It works fine. What can I say? I'm stuck with Windows or Mac because I've got a whole lot of pro audio hardware and software, and linux has always blown (and still blows, no matter what the ALSA folks tell you) in that arena. The great tools are just not there.
It's stable, runs well, and after I tweaked the settings a bit the latency on my Tascam FW-1082 is awesomely, consistently low. Can't remember the last time I had to fiddle with anything. I was dual-booting to XP for audio work until the last Vista x64 drivers for my gear came out, and I'll be removing the XP partition soon.
Much of the software I have is also available for the Mac. In the end I decided to go with Windows because of the Home Use Program from Microsoft.
I'll be the first to admit that Vista is an incredibly inefficient resource hog. Thankfully, hardware resources are getting pretty darned cheap. I wouldn't put Vista on older hardware.
I have exactly one complaint. After many patches the time it takes to shut down and restart the system is absurd.
Hate to be a depressing lump. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then Why does it seem to run slow?
Most benchmarks are based on server type functions. While it doesn't necessary test Desktop user functionality. Having honestly run Vista without the attempt to bash it. It actually isn't all that bad. And Ubuntu is still kinda lacking and slow for desktop functions. Taking too long to open Open office etc...
Re:Hate to say it, but (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah I've got my family converted over too. My wife's been a linux user now for 3 years.
One of the most entertaining events for me recently was watching my wife have to use her mother's computer (Windows XP) the other day to print out some directions and register for something online. After 2 or 3 minutes she was about ready to put her fist through the monitor and start kicking the living hell out of the chassis. "I can't believe I was actually used to using this trash before you put me on linux!". You know, after she walked upstairs to get on the computer, wiggled the mouse to wake it up, waited 30 seconds for the thing to wake up, waited another 15 or 20 seconds for the desktop icons to redraw, had to cancel the system virus scan that started itself up when she got on, waited for Internet Exploder to come up with all of the MyWebSearch and Yahoo toolbars that her mom installed because she has no clue about bundled crapware, and on and on and on...
After you get used to using a "decent" operating system (*nix, MacOS) - having to use a Windows machine is EXTREMELY aggravating. I feel my blood pressure rise the moment I sit down in front of a Billy Box.
Re:YES! (Score:4, Interesting)
When I use the package system, it's wonderful. And when something that I actually need or want actually *is* on another website, then Ubuntu turns into a pain in the ass for me. I'm looking at you, Songbird!
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:4, Interesting)
i'm running XP pro on a P4 2.0ghz with 2gb of ram and it takes my system on average less than one minute from completely off to comlpetely loaded desktop. but i pay attention to the software that runs on my system, and i use msconfig to make sure that nothing is loading that i don't want to load.
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:1, Interesting)
Ubuntu has ALWAYS outperformed Windows XP. Having rund dual boot machines with both of those installed for a number of years, It was always a breath of fresh air to switch from XP to Ubuntu, as XP was a dog. Only the advent of Windows Vista has made XP look good.
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ubuntu after a year and a half of use beats an OEM version of XP out-of-the-box. This is based on personal experience with my Pentium D machine (yeah, hard-de-har-har) which has been dist-upgraded since Kubuntu 7.04 and is now running KDE4 (which is slower than the stock Ubuntu Gnome install).
Re:YES! (Score:3, Interesting)
So something like "open Synaptic and check a box and you are done?" When did Windows start doing that?
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:3, Interesting)
But a greater part is that Ubuntu is just plain faster. It uses less RAM, it hits the disk less, and it just runs faster.
I'm not sure about that claim of hitting the disk less. At home I dual boot my P4 3.4 GHz (with HT) machine between XP/Ubuntu 8.04 (actually 8.10 as of this morning, but I haven't really used 8.10 yet on it). Granted, I only have 512 MB of RAM, but the old 20 GB IDE hard drive in there is always clicking and grinding away whenever I do anything. XP on that system is using a newer, larger SATA drive, so I can't really compare that directly, but previously I used the same 20GB hdd in a P3/600MHz machine running XP with less RAM, and the hard drive was still not nearly as noisy as it is now in Ubuntu.
The other annoying thing is that if I'm trying to do 2 things at once, especially if I'm using Firefox while updating my system with apt-get or Synaptic, then Firefox will periodically stop responding and get all grayed out. After an inconvenient wait time, it comes back and I can use it a little, but in the case of apt updates, Firefox is non-responsive much more than it is responsive. If there's any tuning I can do to fix that, I'd love to know.
The point it makes a difference. (Score:3, Interesting)
> At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place
Simple. At the point there are apps available for Ubuntu that people want to use.
As long as it works "well enough" and isn't too obnoxious (hello Vista) then, apart from hackers/researchers/coders, nobody really cares about their operating system. People only care about the apps they use. In fact a large proportion only care that "I click on that little icon and get on with my stuff".
e.g. Personally I'll make a full time switch to Ubuntu when there is an integrated music program (audio/MIDI sequencer) that either performs as well as, or hopefuly outperforms, my aging copy of Logic Audio (i.e. must have full VST integration or plugins of the quality of NI Massive, NI Battery etc. etc.) Until then I'll be running XP as my main OS.
For other people it's probably stuff like Photoshop, some CAD program, Outlook etc.
Ubuntu's great. I run several Ubuntu desktops and an Ubuntu server but to gain market share it needs some "must have" app(s) that people want to use.
Once that happens then the side bonus is people will start getting used to Linux as they go about their daily comuting.
After the first 10 minutes of spinning cubes, fading menus, whizzy animations etc. etc. who really cares what their OS is doing ? Get out of the way and let me get on with work/play that's what I say.
It's all about the apps.
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista is so slow as to be utterly useless - it came with my laptop, and after waiting 10 minutes for it to boot up, I reformatted and put Ubuntu on it.
If you're doing processor-heavy work (for example, recoding a DVD), I've yet to find anything faster than an N-lited copy of XP. You can slim down Ubuntu, but I'm not Linux savvy enough to do this yet.
And if you're playing games, the drivers in Ubuntu are so piss-poor that you'll see a 10-20% drop in framerates (this is an Nvidia 7900 GS, benchmarked in Unreal 2004 max settings, same hardware). ATI drivers don't even fucking work, so I can't even compare them to the XP ones on my laptop (if anyone knows how to get an X1250 working in Kubuntu with ATI's proprietary drivers, respond. Machine crashes on resume, games crash on screen resolution change or exit).
So it breaks down like this, in my experience:
Out of the box XP gets it ass handed to it by Ubuntu.
Ubuntu gets beat (slightly) by an N-Lited XP.
Everything beats Vista.
Startup times vary based largely on RAID array type (hard drive speed if you're in a laptop) and processor speed, but always go (slowest to fastest): Vista, Ubuntu, XP, 2000, N-Lited XP. Installing more programs slows this down in XP, but not enough for Ubuntu to beat it.
Also, (this is settings related) torrents seem to run about 25-50 kb/s faster on Ubuntu than they do on Windows. I suspect this is related to half-open TCP/IP connections, but I don't know.
Feel free to correct me if your mileage varies.
Re:Faster than Vista! I'm usually one who rags (Score:2, Interesting)
the hell out of microsoft, especially with regard to their business practices. But, c'mon, people.
I use vista inside VirtualBox, and give it 1.5x GB of my 2GB of RAM. Mandriva 2008.0 PowerPack gets some 4.x GB of the remainder. About the only thing lately that's been a problem seems to be some Korean-encoded mp3 files i listen to in Amarok (haven't tried RhythmBox...)... or it could be some recent surfing with a down/misconfigured firewall in which during Amarok playback my whole KDE goes black, no keys respond, and I cannot toggle into a console to kill my X/KDE session. Could also be related to some recent upgrades/downloads from Mandriva related to the FREE, magazine DVD-based PPack, and for which i think there is no free upgrade, just add-ons and maybe security fixes.
But, to what i am driving at: I am using:
-- Delftship (not graphically intentensive
-- Lotus Smart Suite (in vista, obviously)
-- Occasionally OO.o 3.0 (in vista)
-- Occasionally OO.0 2.4 (in Linux, as the rpm install has vexed me... why did they de-simplify the RPM install?!!)
-- Punch! ViaCAD, using a 14 MB file i created
-- Amarok,
-- KDE's slideshow program on (which changes b/g images of 10 desktops)
and while i utterly (almost murderously toward mshaft's execs) despise that vista (notice the lower-casing/deprecating of "windows vista"), most of the time it just "runs". I really so much despise ms that all i want vista to do is run its damned self and STAY OUT OF MY WAY. I wish it could/would without having to go to their site get the patches to vista and hopefully NOT break my install inside VBox. But, i'm contented to "leave well enough alone", ESPECIALLY since i never let the beast/bitch go live on the Internet(s). Yep, so far, neither my wireless (for which i've utterly failed to enable NDIS wrappers for this laptop by Gateway... P-6301) nor the NIC have been seen by the native and not by the VBox-contained vista. Unless someone writes an app that traverses VBOX into Linux and out of my CAT-5 connection (which i only rarely connect to the Net), i hopefully won't have any networking security problems with vista, either to it or because of it.
DS
Re:Faster than Vista! (Score:3, Interesting)
No, I never said it is a hardware problem. The hardware probably works fine. But the hardware manufacturer has not told anyone apart from a select few *how* exactly one has tointeract with the hardware in order for it to do its wonders. That's quite a different thing.
You are pretending Linux developers to get a crystal ball which will tell them what particular incantations they need to do in order for the hardware to do what's needed... and you do not see how absurd is your demand!
Re:XP is what to beat - not Vista (Score:3, Interesting)
7 is to Vista as XP was to 2000.
So, same thing but slower, with higher system requirements, and a much uglier interface? and you're saying that people will embrace it, instead of Vista?
People skipped 2000 for the same reasons they say they're skipping Vista.
Not really. People skipped Windows 2000 because it was advertised as a business OS, like WinNT, instead of a "home-friendly" one like 98 and XP. People skipped *ME* for the same reasons they're skipping Vista, and ME was the end of that line of OSes, if you don't remember.