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Ubuntu 8.10 Outperforms Windows Vista
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.)
What an accomplishment!
... doesn't a slug outperform Vista?
2009 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop!
Anything can outperform Vista.
When Ubuntu outperforms XP, then I'll complete my transition to an all-Linux house.
because Vista is a bloated mess, but Windows is still the predominant OS, and it will remain that way until the popular games & applications that real people/businesses use are available for Ubuntu.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Isn't almost anything faster than Vista? Seriously.... XP is faster, just about any flavor of linux is faster.... OSX is faster.. To me, it seems like the summary might as well read. "Atlantic Ocean hold more water than Lake Erie"
The above comments are not guaranteed to make sense to anyone other than the author...
"Ubuntu Outperforms Vista" is like saying "Ford Pinto Outperforms Amish Carriage"
I've always assumed that Linux outperformed contemporary Windows equivalents on the desktop which is why I run Linux on old machines that are too slow for Windows but plenty fast enough for Linux. Linux speed and faster boots have never been enough to win the desktop. For that you need to be adequate in the categories users directly experience and you need mindshare which requires good marketing and distribution. Mac has great marketing and Microsoft has great distribution.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Vista has already lost in the marketplace. More and more companies are skipping Vista to go from XP to Windows 7 because of all the performance and compatability issues with Vista. So comparing Ubuntu (or any OS actually) to Vista is fairly useless. If you want to make a case for business, do it against the OS's that business really uses - in this case Windows XP, or in the future, Windows 7.
great, can't wait to load battlefield2, CoD4 and Crysis on it.
of Ubuntu could outperform Vista in speed?
Hell a C128 is better than Vista! "Vista, how hard do YOU want to suck today?"
When it can run MS Office faster.
My father-in-law with a slide rule, graph paper and a mechanical pencil can outperform vista.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
A dubious distinction, to be sure. Hell, my Heathkit H89 running CP/M outperforms Vista, at least when it comes to boot time. It outperforms Ubuntu in that regard also, come to think of it.
Proverbs 21:19
Can it run Linux?
FTA:
2GB SDRAM... wait, what??
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?
It doesn't.
Wake me when it'll work on my laptop.
-Sleep/hibernation
-Wireless
-Softkeys
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
First and most importantly, I genuinely despise "speeds and feeds" metrics. It does nothing but harm the distro world when it's reduced to dumb metrics like this.
Second, money talks and specs walk. Right now, Microsoft is the failsafe meme for most PHB's. There are a million reasons for this. Over time this will change as Microsoft tightens the noose. Microsoft's customer is not the admin, but the buyer. The buyer is indifferent to almost all specs and usually overrules engineering with their "business case".
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
But does it run Linux?
I don't know if the Amish would appreciate the association with Microsoft. Yeah, they avoid modern technology, but don't they have something in common with Linux and open source, at least philosophically? Roll your own, DIY, emphasis on craftsmanship? My neighbor had a shed built for him by a Pennsylvania Amish craftsman, and the thing is beautifully made. Actually, it's a miniature replica of his (rather unusual to begin with) 1929 Tudor-style house.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
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.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
...Only when Ubuntu is several orders of magnitude better because it has to fight against the strong network effects of the Windows application culture.
thats' like comparing a chevrolet aveo and a lamborghini in terms of speed.
I guess thats what we get for commenting on an article where the natural response is "duh!"
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
In what workload would you include boot? Unless you keep booting up and down all day, boot time has nothing to do with performance.
It's just a BloJJ
The problem is - pretty basic stuff doesn't work on what is the slickest Ubuntu so far.
For example, Wi-Fi - The driver for a last-gen Intel card just doesn't work very well. Can't connect on 802.11a at all, and 802.11g runs at under 1Mb/sec. Not very good.
I understand that the limitation is probably in the kernel, but it doesn't change the fact that Ubuntu still isn't quite there yet.
FYI, if anyone has had a good experience with ANY WiFi chipset that's available on a Mini PCIe card, please let me know!
I know Vista hate is pretty rampant here, but as numerous others have pointed out -- how is this news? I, like others, run Linux on my older, slower hardware that doesn't or barely meets Windows minimum requirements (any Windows, 9x, XP, etc) already. So, how is it news that Linux boots/runs faster on the same hardware when it already does that on outdated hardware?
It could be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
Funny, because Amish people use computers. Seriously. They also purchase things from "the English."
Linux remains a huge fat mess.
Until someone seriously grabs hold of cleaning up the file system, making APIs that are worth a shit, and having some unified platform stability in things like package management, and decent developer links so people can make a product for Linux, not 999 flavours with all the nasty baggage, and when Linux starts being a user oriented OS, not something where you tell the user to go fix it themselves if they dont like your half broken borked software.
Seriously, its still badly lagging other desktop OSs and new Linux releases, while making headway, don't fix the underlying issues. And hint, if you can make the netbook market a hit, it should be a serious lesso in humility, because you should be beating the living shit out of MS here and are not. MSI have a Linux return rate that holds a lesson for anyone awake.
Did they fix Pulse audio, or is it still an embarrasing pile of dung?
"At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?"
Has there been a version of Linux that hasn't out performed Windows from the same era?
Has the market ever said, "Gee, it's zippier, let's move over en masse!"?
I think that might be your answer.
But will it play Crysis... This is the most pressing concern for the Linux community if they really want to expand their userbase. Playing the games right out of the box.
I'm a Mac guy but I've got a PC for gaming, running XP. I would _love_ to switch to Ubuntu but, unless I'm mistaken (and please! feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), in order to play my PC games I'd need to run an emulator or boot to XP which would defeat the entire purpose - the machine is used solely for gaming so why use a different system and then boot/emulate back to the system I already have? If Ubuntu ever enabled me to play my PC games natively, I'd ditch XP entirely and become a happy Mac/Ubuntu geek.
Riped version of XP that has been circulating as of late is surprisingly good. It is much smaller. It boots significantly faster than Ubuntu 7.10 on IBM Thinkpad T30 (512 RAM). It has base memory load of 40-60 megs. With all my apps running (Firefox, OOo, etc.) it floats at 200-250. Damn thing consumes less memory than my applications! WOW! Never thought I'd see the day. Funny thing is that it takes a bunch of pirates to strip all the useless crap in order to turn XP into a decent product. Arrrr!
Guess Ubuntu 8.10 would lose, once installed
on this one
My old mid-sixties double-sided slideruler outperforms Vista. Now what was your point again?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?
Never. Never ever. Not until there is one cohesive Linux distribution to rule them all. Even its measly 1% marketshare is spread across various distros that have no standardization across the board. People who actually want to get paid for their work don't look at Linux and say, "Damn, that's a platform I want to develop for!" Not until Linux community makes it less of a nightmare to develop and support their platform.
Similes are like metaphors
...even more quickly!
I love Linux, and I would kill to use it as a primary desktop, but at the end of the day I'm still tied to XP and some of its killer apps. I'd say the answer to "At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?" has a lot more to do with application selection and compatibility than it does with speed.
Word of warning ...
I run 3 64-bit boxes [two intel x64 and an amd64], and have been running them since the 7.xx stream, through 8.04 to now 8.10.
On the amd64 box it won't boot with the new 2.6.27-7 kernel [even with yesterdays update]. My laptop [one of the intel x64s] boots fine, but now when I come out of suspend the ath_pci device needs to be restarted [e.g. rmmod/modprobe] before it'll work again.
I'd make sure you keep your 2.6.24-21 kernels around if you plan on upgrading.
Other than that though, 8.10 has worked like a charm. I imagine these kernel snafus will be ironed out shortly.
Most companies I know either use SuSe or Redhat or if they don't care/want/need support they use Debian.
Primarily Ubuntu has gotten the node from admins and developers as the install of choice for their desktop not their servers. At least in everyone I have talked to.
I don't see a big corporate adoption factor for Ubuntu yet. But that begs the big question is what am I missing?
Someone have some links to business adoption of Ubuntu?
ACK
I use Xfce...light and fast.
In what workload would you include boot? Unless you keep booting up and down all day, boot time has nothing to do with performance.
I agree.
Using the same, custom-built PC test bed loaded with, alternatively, Ubuntu 8.10 and Windows Vista Business, Ubuntu proved to be a quicker installation, scored higher in benchmark testing, managed wireless connectivity easier and booted slightly faster than Vista.
It was a completely biased test. They were comparing Vista Business with Ubuntu! No wonder Ubuntu beat it!
Compare Ubuntu with Vista Home, then I will take the test seriously.
Not performance,
As in Windows 7 will suck less than Vista...
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A motorcycle accelerates faster than a RV.
Although I'm not sure which one Granny would rather ride in.
Let me be blunt: timothy's editorial observation shook me to my very core. An operating system released a few days ago with an advanced compositing window manager with hardware acceleration enabled looks prettier than a 7 year old OS with no compositing window manager, little to no hardware acceleration of the desktop, and no fancy 3D desktop effects. Unbelievable, who would have thought this would be the case?
I've thought long and hard about this, but I think I can deliver an observation almost on par with timothy's: Windows XP looks prettier than Windows 95.
Seriously, can we stop with the idiotic editorial comments appended to Slashdot stories? This story was stupid enough for a variety of reasons without the editor adding his personal touch.
Wait you mean people actually use Vista?
Wow..no thanks I'll stick with Windows M.E.
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?
When Mark Shuttleworth can invite the heads of corporate IT departments over to his waterfront mansion to kiss his ass.
Have gnu, will travel.
Windows 3.1 boot time blows Ubuntu 8.10 out of the water.
So what? Windows XP also outperforms Windows Vista. Windows 7 will ALSO likely outperform Windows Vista. Just about EVERYTHING outperforms Windows Vista.
What really would have made this news is if Ubuntu had performed worse than Windows Vista.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
than Vista on her current PC, she immediately fell in love with it and asked me to install it. She has converted everyone at her knitting circle to make the switch. They have collectively submitted 82 kernel patches so far. This is a true story.
Heck fire, a dead slug could beat vista...
Never. Never ever. Not until there is one cohesive Linux distribution to rule them all.
Or until they standardise on a package format, at least for closed binaries.
Although, I'd imagine there's a lot of people who'd be happy with just an Office + Browser combination.
Did anyone actually look at the article? No charts, no graphs, no real data. Just a few quotes of "boots faster", "this was quicker", and "this was easier". Oh, we have two mysterious numbers: 2838 & 3367. Well, I'm sold!
I think the only reason this article was submitted is because.... well.... it's Pro-Linux and Anti-Microsoft. It's an article that says Linux is in some way better than Microsoft, so god damit it MUST be true, and even if it isn't it doesn't matter, it's still GREAT NEWS!
I'm going to get boo'd out of the /. community for this, but here it goes.
For people like me, it doesn't matter whether which OS is the fastest (If this was true, Linux would of won the desktop a long time ago). It matters what applications it can run. I mean, I can't really play Crysis or CoD4 with wine...and I need programs like Itunes and winRAR daily that don't work on Linux even with windows program loaders.
I'm just giving my insight :)
Trolls and Linux fan-boys, you may now post.
"Mama always said life was like a box a chocolates, never know what you're gonna get" - Forest Gump
But once it's booted up it can actually play the games I want to play. Fast boot times are meaningless if you can't do what you're wanting to once it's started up.
"At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?"
When the average consumer (read: not computer savvy) can turn on their computer, install a simple game they bought off the shelf at Best Buy, and get their fancy flight-sim joystick working without having to hack the kernel or find 20 different software repositories.
Here's how I put it in one of my email .sigs: "I remember when people said Linux would never be more than a toy. Then they said it was capable of some neat things, but would never be used in a business. Then they said it could be used for small things in a business, but it'd never scale to the high end. Now, it's fine in a server role, but will never be any good as a desktop..."
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I am probably going to get flamed hard here, but I've been running Vista Ultimate on one of my boxes for quite a while, and it completely blows my other Ubuntu 8.10 box (ran Gutsy 7.10 through Horny Heron 8.04 and now this) out of the water, both in terms of overall functionality, the number of "boring" productivity apps that make me money and fun gaming apps, and the amount of time that I do not have to spend dicking with typical Ubuntu drivers and config problems. Vista has been more stable, less time consuming, and overall waaay more productive. I guess some people like to work on cars, I like to drive mine. And for discreet screwage around, there is the ultimate "quickie" Backtrack3 that gives you the stuff where Linux shines without the Ubuntu commitment.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
"At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?"
When games, wireless drivers, and productivity apps run natively.
And I certainly dont mean solitaire, the intel 3945s, or open office.
I want my power point (which is indeed a better app than the OO equivalent). My halo, CoD4, and Crysis, I want my liteon wireless card, and my sli'd 8800's with directx10 working flawlessly. That's when it will make a difference in the market.
I didn't RTFA, are they comparing the desktop rendering performance? Tell me when Linux support DRM...
No I cheated, I actually read it...
Merely 6 seconds and you declare that win?...The result could have changed if a different driver is involved. If an unpolished disk driver is in use which requires sleep for a few seconds during boot, the result would easily be flipped around.
Though I thought Vista takes much longer to boot...may be only when I have installed many startup program.
Noticeably faster when switching application?...how did they test that? On both machine it just takes a snap!
Hey at least give us more number and statistic. Like try some disk and network transfer, or may be automate the Firefox to do something.
I generally don't agree Linux is better in the area of hardware configuration. Like Display resolution - last time I tried doing dual screen was running some vendor (ATI) specified configuration tools to modify the xorg.conf, or WiFi WPA2 a year ago is still a very painful process, or Bluetooth Internet Gateway I still need to manually type a few command lines to get the interface and connection setup.
On the side notes, if the hardware works, it's perfect, no headache driver installation. If it does not work on the first boot, it then usually takes a day on average to make it work. I know that's the vendor to blame...but still the fact that Linux kernel and it's internal driver interface is evolving too fast might also be a problem. If DKMS was mature some more years earlier then I could have countless of hours saved...
Windows still have a more completed scenario and UX design. For example, say Printer configuration, it took me a few hours to share a USB HP Printers out on Ubuntu Hardy, surfing through the CUPS docs and alike, and if IIRC, the steps are totally different from what I learned in like 2 years ago. On Windows, it used to be the same steps for over 10 years. Right click -> Properties -> Share is all it takes, also making SMB shares just takes similar steps. On Linux? Will take another good hours to work with Samba...
Linux is doing great...but is still not a prime time. Lack of standard (like Desktop, Kernel Interface) is a double-edges sword. On one hand it will evolve faster, on the other hand no people can keep up with its speed.
Come on, silly machine... Wake up... Wake up!! WAKE UP, PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!
From TFA: "Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition easily ranks higher than any other Linux desktop OS we've looked at"
I have a strong feeling they've never tried DSL, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, etc... After looking through the first 5 pages of search results for "Linux", the only other distribution than Ubuntu was Linpus. I think Ubuntu is great, but if your looking for performance, there are better alternatives out there.
2009 is the Year of Windows 7 on the Desktop
The slowest and most bloated version of Linux to date beats the slowest and most bloated version of Windows to date? Hmm...
"Sure, if your only exposure to Vista is from slashdot. In the real world, most new computers are sold with Vista and people are perfectly happy with it."
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.
The switch is painless and transparent to the end user and they can do everything and run any piece of software they did before the switch. Same goes for large scale business roll-outs as well as the home desktop.
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...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I can't remember if this was posted on /. or not but this Youtube video demonstrates Vista's suckiness, compared to Linux *and* XP, with respect to decompressing a 17MB Zip file. ( Guess which OS wins ) Of course, you already knew this anyway.
jdb2
I am sure it will be excellent, now if only I could get the SOB loaded. I tried upgrading from 8.04 and screwed my entire system, ho hum. I still prefer it to vista, at least I am not paying microsoft for the privilege of a broken PC.
A nitro-fueled dragster outperforms my Toyota, so perhaps I should trade my Camry in?
Performance is just one variable in the equation, and probably not the most important in these days of 3GHz quad core boxes. Compatibility is probably more important. Windows runs the applications most people want and need, while Linux falls short in this area. It may be improving, but it's not there yet. Until there are native versions of Office, Photoshop, and other popular Windows applications, Linux is going nowhere on the desktop except in cases with extreme price pressure to keep the overall system cost as low as possible.
Linux has always outperformed windows...
AmigaOS always outperformed windows by a huge margin...
Performance doesn't count for very much in the market place.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
If it can't be done with Windows Three point One One, it isn't worth doing.
i have just replaced vista in my girlfriend's laptop (she doesn't know anything about linux) and she liked it greatly! only because it's pretty :)
the only software she uses is spss, which has both a version in linux and a gnu alternative. windows live mess can be replaced also with amsn.
Most of the hardware on my laptop works with Ubuntu out-of-the-box. Only the fingerprint reader doesn't, and Bluetooth isn't especially useful.
The only flaky part is the Atheros WiFi, which will hang the machine when connecting to some access points. That's clearly the fault of Atheros, not the Linux distribution.
I know to not even try Vista. Some significant devices won't work with Vista, and the 1GHz processor is far too slow to run Vista well.
Have you seen the state of IE lately?
Microsoft products are typically years behind their competitors in the most basic ways.... windows doesnt even have simple features like secure delete out of the box...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Tell me when such simple thing as turning off touchpad really works. I've tried 2 different methods and no luck, also it's magick that following official ubuntu 8.10 faq for turning on SHMconfig gives nothing.
How did it do in categories like connecting with Exchange? Processing large spreadsheets with VBA macros? Running company-critical active-X components? Running Photoshop, indesign or illustrator? Being updated by group policies. Who really cares how fast a machine boots? With any modern OS (OS-X, Vista, XP, or Linux) machines are maybe rebooted once a month (or less).
It's really about applications-- and for companies about fitting in with a corporate network.
Speed is rarely an issue for what most people use their computers for.
When I installed kubuntu on my laptop a year ago it was noticeably slower than both XP and vista (I have installed tablet XP, vista business, and another partition for whatever). The laptop is a 2.2ghz core 2 duo, 2gb ram, 7200rpm HD. Have their been major speed improvements within the past year?
Have I missed something. Since when is Linux outperforming Windows news?
> 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.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Don't forget drivers.
I use OSX!
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?
It will only make a difference when an option for pre-installed Linux system is provided by most major OEMs along side other non-Linux systems with these benchmarks highlighted.
In my opinion, 2007-2008 was/is the year(s) of the Linux desktop as far as the technology is concerned. What is lacking now is consumer exposure/education, specifically at the retail level (think Dell, HP, IBM/Lenovo, etc.). In the consumer's mind, the operating system is not separate from the hardware they are purchasing. Thus, unless OEMs and computer makers offer Linux on the same level as Windows or other OSes, all these benchmarks, usability results, user freedom, and other positives will only fall upon the ears of the technically brave or elite.
Of course there will always be the new user learning curve when switching to Linux. But, in my opinion, this learning curve in 2007-2008 became no worse than a Windows->Mac switch is today. I don't see a major *technical* problem preventing the *AVERAGE* user (read: email, web, word/presentation documents) switching to a modern binary package-based Linux distributions (read: point and click package and application installation). What is lacking is the exposure to the end user at the point of sale.
Perhaps what will hasten the year of the consumer Linux desktop is when/if cloud-based applications go mainstream and replace their client-side equivalents, in which case the OS running on the PC becomes nearly irrelevant.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
And whys is that Linux doesn't outperform Windows (and others) in the users base?
Long life to Mac OS X
My C=64 with a 1.02 MHz processor and 64K ram beats Ubuntu's hands down.
2009 is the year for CBM 64 Basic V2 on the desktop! Woohoo!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
when ubuntu performance w/wine exceed that of windows, I will be happy.
File format and other predatory lock in techniques are far more powerful than straight out application competition.
A boot time of 50 seconds for Ubuntu is not something to be proud about.
What does Windows 7 get in BogoMIPS?
I'm an linux only user since 2005, and I hate windows. After having presented my credentials, I want to say that I feel miserable to have to admit that Vista's GUI is prettier than both Gnome and (of course) KDE. Needless to say though, whoever sacrifices usability for beauty deserves neither.
It's not about performance or any other feature. It is about the freedom to run the program as you wish and the freedom to modify the software and/or share it with your neighbour. Of course this software also is very fast and stable, looks nice, and can play your videos. But this is only because there are still people who care to do the work and/or take the legal risk to make it happen.
Although, I'd imagine there's a lot of people who'd be happy with just an Office + Browser combination.
Exactly, and Linux market penetration will reflect that. Linux will be the free, least common denominator of the OS world.
Similes are like metaphors
The marketplace doesn't care about difference of seconds in boot time. They care about what they are familiar with.
Excuse the slight off-topic ( still on-summary though ;) )
Ubuntu 8.10 with Compiz Fusion is certainly prettier on my Eee than the Windows XP that it came with.
WHY would you even buy Eee with XP? You like paying for MS licenses you are not using?
In any case I cannot stress how great I find the work ASUS has done on the Linux distro the Eee comes with. Granted, out of the box is perfect only for casual users - I had to add the Etch repository since I am a developer (and switched to "advanced" gui). I only found one small glitch: on the 900 at least you could not set ext2/3 sd cards auto mount without the sync option, so I had to add a small script that remounts correctly. Otherwise it is a joy to use, everybody with an Eee should try it before resorting to Win or even Ubuntu etc.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
When you shopped for the computer did you take as a parameter the fact that the manufactured was openenough to provide details on how to do suspend to ram to anyone apart from MS?
How? Should I try asking the sales associate whether sleep works in Linux? I have, and the answer has invariably been "I don't know". There exist plenty of places in the United States where the only computer stores that sell computers optimized to run anything but Windows Vista are Apple stores. And if I go online to buy a PC with Ubuntu preloaded, I have to pay a 15 percent restocking fee if I find the computer's built-in keyboard unusable.
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
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I have a shiny new dual-core 3Ghz machine with 4GB of RAM sitting at home that I just built. Just for grins and to see the current "state of things", I threw Vista Ultimate on there with SP1 and all available updates. Ran well, was generally unimpressive, but then I discovered that Neverwinter Nights won't run properly. Known issues, not worth my headache, didn't plan on keeping Vista anyway.
I like Ubuntu, I really do, and I'd love to see how it would perform on this box, BUT... XP is currently king. I NEED to run Quicken, and I WANT to run Civ4 (with Beyond The Sword expansion). I know I could run Quicken in VMWare or Virtualbox, and I know that if I sacrifice enough chickens during a full moon, and stand on one foot *just right*, I can get Civ4 to run under Wine, but WHY???? Why go through all of that to be able to run two apps with reduced performance? I essentially do five things with my computer:
- Quicken
- Civ4
- Neverwinter Nights
- web (using Firefox)
- copy DVDs
Three of those can be done natively in either Linux or Windows - the other two require jumping through several, arguably complicated hoops. What's the point?
The manufacturer makes sure their mainboard works with Windows and does not give details to anyone. If OTOH Mircosoft would want data from the manufacturer they would be happy to supply it. But Microsoft doesn't give a rat's behind. Because customers will not complain to Microsoft if it doesn't work. They will just buy another mainboard. Monopoly is sweet.
And when you are trying to install a Debian .deb in Windows, talk about dependency hell!
There's a difference between trying to install a .rpm package on a .deb distribution and trying to install a .deb package on a .msi distribution. The .rpm distribution (e.g. Fedora) and the .deb distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) are both marketed as "Linux", while the .msi distribution is marketed as something different (Windows). If you write a Windows program now and package it as a .msi, it'll probably work on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista, and possibly even Windows 2000 if you're careful, with no changes to the packaging. But on Linux, you have to either maintain an Ubuntu PC and a Fedora PC (or a beefy enough PC to run both in virtual machines) or make your app popular enough that somebody will repackage your app for another distribution just to scratch an itch.
Seriously, dependency hell is something only people that have used linux last time ten years ago can seriously bring up
Or people who use applications that aren't yet widely used.
What are you going on about? I always delete Windows out of the box if I'm given half a chance.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Look, I like Linux. But if I want to install Truecrypt on OS X or Windows, I have to download one file. Linux is just not that easy. I was in a catch-22 situation for months where I had no internet access and had to rely on Wi-Fi at the library, but my wi-fi wouldn't work out of the box, so I couldn't install the files I needed to run Truecrypt, so I couldn't.... etc. You get the idea. I like Linux, especially Debian, but I'm not going to agree that there are no dependency problems. I've been defeated by them more than once.
I usually try hard to avoid discussions like this. Seems to me Ubuntu / Linux users are constantly trying to convince themselves of the value proposition of "free" software. Granted Linux is free but at some point someone needs to expend time and effort (with no compensation) to get the job done. It's my understanding that many OpenSource developers are beginning to rethink how they can make money in the current climate. Let's face it folks - EVERYTHING has a cost somewhere along the line. That said - I have absolutely NO problem with you choosing any platform you like but I would respectfully ask that you don't bad mouth MY choice. I spent a day at the PDC. I walked past one gentleman sitting at a table working on his laptop. I said to him "You using a Mac and the PDC?" and chuckled. He said "Yup." My take was simply whatever works for you is fine with me. Well folks Windows Vista Ultimate works beautifully for me. I won't bore you with the details of my day or why I love the OS so much but at 81 I deserve a little respect I think. I still spend most of my day developing MICR check printing software for my company dotnetchecks. Can Ubuntu provide me with an environment where I can write and sell my software? So folks PLEASE extol the virtues of Ubuntu for you but stop calling my choice crap.
People speak about responsiveness and that Linux is less responsive than windows, or at least thats how i understand posts above. But somehow i always see opposite, i run Linux for like 3 years and haven't seen almost any irresponsiveness except of course than i know that app need huge amount of power i.e. ray tracing and such. And windows... whenever im forced to work with them even if for only one hour ill get some irresponsive seconds.
(btw i use fluxbox, i guess this may be adding a bit to responsiveness but shouldn't be much, and i'm using it not for speed but for Real window management : )
Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death. - Major Motoko Kusanagi(Ghost in the Shell)
Get a laptop that's designed to run according to open specs, and your problems will go away.
Where can the median computer user try and then buy one of those? The only Linux laptop that I've ever seen on display in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was an Asus Eee PC in a Target store. (The Eee PC is a netbook that comes with a custom version of Xandros.) Is there an easy way to buy an open laptop more powerful than a netbook without running the risk of buying a laptop with an unusable keyboard and having to return the whole laptop for a 15 percent restocking fee?
Linux has always suffered from one (and only one) deal breaker in terms of gaining wide-spread popularity...usability: its developed, promoted, and taught to noobs by zealous technophile asshats who refuse to recognize that if users have to enter even 1 console command, compile 1 application, or edit 1 conf file, then the deal is off. Most Windows and Mac users are blissfully unaware that there machines rely upon such things. I, for one, personally cherish my ignorance of configuring X to work with my monitor. Why should I need to know that?
Linux has, through the concerted efforts of its 'community', ignored the impassioned cries of the less technically inclined to 'fix' the problems ... apparently in order to remain an elitist and exclusive platform from which the aforementioned asshats stand on to shake their fists at the Windows and Mac crowds for being stupid.
Such a troll-bait article and still no obligatory post about me sitting here and moving 17MB files???
But how does it compare running Photoshop CS3, or Adobe Lightroom?
And this is why all computers should have one of those alcohol interlocks like are installed on cars belonging to DUI convicts.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Does Ubuntu run Fallout 3? No? Then it doesn't perform in any way that I am interested in. News flash: Linux will never be adopted on the desktop without game support. Non-geeks and even some geeks will not put up with consumer-feature-lite OSes. It's not that hard to understand.
Provides drivers for Lexmark X1200 series or any other printer other than HP and THEN I'll be impressed. Other than that outperforming Vista is a no brainer
Seriously, dependency hell is something only people that have used linux last time ten years ago can seriously bring up
Or people who use applications that aren't yet widely used.
And whose developers do not care enough about Linux users to package their app for them...
"boot times"?
You really think anyone cares about boot times?
Shit, especially with Vista's sleep/hibernate stuff which has - as far as I've experienced over the past month - zero problems?
Linux geeks need to stop playing the damned fool. Linux has not, is not and will never be* a threat to Windows on the desktop. Concentrate on the server market, and Microsoft will truly be slaughtered there.
(* Without serious design changes and one thing that will never happen - true cooperation between the various UI groups.)
Huh? I'm missing what you're trying to say.... hehehhee
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
*** "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?" ***
Won't make a damn bit of difference until someone can go to the software store, buy a game, take it home, install it straight from the cd/dvd, and play it on their Linux machine without having to do anything else.
Until then, as I've said for years now, Linux won't mean jack or crap to the average home user.
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?
Never.
Why would you think that benchmarking would make any difference in the general populace? Benchmarking is of note to people with specific needs, and not to the majority of people using computers.
What *does* make a difference is ease of use. The ability to run programs that you want to run. Easily using the devices you want to use. The ability to easily accomplish tasks. These are the things that the majority of people care about - not that the OS was 6% more efficient in loading Application X.
Haha, well my EeeBox's Xubuntu 8.10 with Compiz-Fusion is prettier than Windows XP that it came with!
When will then be now.... Soon!
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Show me something that does *not* outperform Vista. Duh.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... don't choose operating systems, they choose applications. The de-facto standard office application is MS Office. Until office applications become web-based or Java-based, nothing will change as far as users using Windows. Notice that users downgraded from Vista XP and didn't choose Linux.
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
That'll have people switching to Linux in droves.
Also the "faster install" - because installing Vista is the first thing anybody does when they buy a new PC.
Is Linux really this desperate?
No sig today...
I am into digital photography and so far I found only one platform that is robust and good enough for photo processing. Yes, it is Mac OS X.
It is hard not to be a Mac fan when the platform is capable of supporting color profiles with ease. I run GIMP + plug-ins + color balancing software and while my setup cost me extra it is well worth it because I get my pictures just the way I see them on the screen. I will be honest with you. My friend's Ubuntu box is much faster and cheaper than my MacBook but I still refuse to move to Linux as long as I can't find any decent program that can help me with color synchronization. The lack of a united platform and color management is a real killer. It may not be significant enough if you print pictures of your pets and loved ones, but it is absolutely necessary when you start playing with colors. I guess I will keep my MacBook for photo editing and consider Ubuntu for my other machines at home.
There's one important fact that I've not seen mentioned here: the test box had 2Gig RAM because Windows Vista is well known to need that much for acceptable performance. Ubuntu is very happy with 512Meg, or even less. One of the reasons that Ubuntu was faster is that, unlike Vista, it probably didn't need to use any swap during the benchmarks.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
The (admittedly mythical) average personal computer user probably cares about these factors:
1. Will it die a horrible viral or worm-ridden death as soon as I attach it to the Internet, or turn into a zombie slave?
2. Are there enough useful applications on it?
3. Are the applications data-interoperable with other peoples' data files and similar applications?
4. Are the applications easy to learn and use, and do they stick to simple easy to remember and transfer user interface conventions. ...
9. Is it fast enough (all OSs are these days for most common uses).
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
My Debian GNU/Linux also outperforms it. Every GNU/Linux and BSD system does. Nothing special about Ubuntu.
Idiots.
My disabled mother in law performs better than Vista. Whats the news?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaLaptopBinaryDriverSuspend
Works on every version it seems, not sure why it isn't part of the distro... (have not tried 8.10 yet)
as a friend quoted in an IRC channel when this got posted. "I can outrun a quadraplegic but I don't brag about it."
Exactly. Get real, Canonical. How about a cheapjack $75 version that actually performs as advertised?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
"My general routine at the start of a day is to start the XP laptop booting, boot up the Ubuntu desktop, and then play around with the Ubuntu desktop while I wait for Windows to finally get to the point where it can slowly get Outlook up and going."
As much as i hate what a call my crap-ass win 2k work computer that is a 1.66 GHz, 785 MB RAM, Dell Dimension 4400, from cold-boot up to desktop (aside from AVG) can be under 2 minutes to desktop and opening Out... LOOKOUTTTT, and a few other things. What sucks about my work computer is the graphics are insufficient for some ACAD drawings, and my Gateway 2000 CrystalScan 19" (glass) display annoys the SHIT out of me.
Of course, my 1-year-old (by manufacture) Gateway P-6301 laptop with a cheap Intel chip, 1.44 GHZ, and 2GB RAM running VBox, AutoCAD, ViaCAD, Lotus SmartSuite, and other stuff still beats my ages-old desktop, but if YOUR desktop is slow enough to play around with Ubuntu (are you saying you can get in a game or 2 of Pysol or Frozen Bubble?), it must SUCK to have your windows computer...
(I NEVER want to post anonymously on /. ... HOW do i turn off that check box? It should be made user-option on/off...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
It begins to make a difference as soon as there is a large installed base of user applications to run on it that corporations will buy into. Open office and other similar packages are fine, but what fortune 500 company employs that as a standard corporate-wide?
But almost all of the slot machines in Las Vegas use RedHat embedded in the slot machine. On my last trip I caught one cyclically rebooting because of a hardware fault.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Sorry, I don't care if linux boots faster than windows vista. What I care about is whether or not linux has the tools and applications I need, and basically works out of the box. I've been wary of setting up my wireless on my laptop every time I try out a linux distro. X issues as well (letting me boot into a text screen because X failed to load a graphical screen). It are those little peeves that sometimes almost make me abandon linux on the desktop. Don't get me wrong. I'm been using linux for over almost a decade already (I'm still using linux for servers). But I've gotten a bit tired already of setting hardware up, looking at docs for tweaking linux to work on this particular hardware, etc. I can do this practically pretty quick in Windows or Mac (I have one) mind you, it's simple enough. But when you have to fiddle around doing a samba share or a printer in cups in linux, or have to tinker around with half-baked video/audio applications, I already have no more time for that, thank you.
The cold boot time on the laptop (and I've timed this) is about 5.5 minutes. I have no idea why it takes that long, but it does. I'm assuming that it's because of the corporate crap-ware installed on the machine, which is a longer list than I've given. (And thanks to the auto-update stuff, removing useless crap causes it to be reinstalled next time it runs.)
It wouldn't be quite as annoying if the wireless network card worked without requiring a reboot after suspend/hibernate or any change of configuration settings. Although that's a Dell problem.
Going through the startup services, I'm noticing that depressingly enough the printer has installed several services for some reason.
At one point I was dual-booting between Ubuntu and Windows XP on the laptop, and Ubuntu was still much faster. Sadly, corporate policy has changed to the point that Linux is effectively not allowed on laptops any more, so now it's Windows only.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
What matters is that I go to Dixons (UK electronics store), approach a shelf with subnotebooks and see a sign "Linux notebooks will not work with mobile Internet".
Go figure.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Beware those printer drivers... They may be embedded trackers. Either they log the printing in some special way, or they are not even printer drivers but something masquerading as them. I can't cite a source, but i seem to recall that a few years ago i read something to that effect. So, you THINK you need this driver, but really it's a security tool for those corporations needing it, or its an OS tool or a vendor tool.
What i *hate/d* is installing a printer and seeing the installer say it will/needs to/suggests installing some 300 MB of stuff other than a driver which i feel should be a driver under 25 MB in size, if even that.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I think big IT shops are starting to understand that each version of Windows differs enough in interface and internals that "familiar" really isn't an option from one decade to the next. Continuous retraining of the IT workforce is always necessary. You can't get the familiar no matter what you do because even Windows varies so much from version to version, or people would not buy the next version. You can't get hardware compatibility either, or we'd all be using Vista already. The hardware just changes too much too fast. Since that's off the table we're down to:
Since the answers to these questions are almost never Windows, it follows that more and more folks are looking around for another answer.
I'm glad that systems like GNU/Linux, BSD and OS-X carry the torch for a legacy of solid information theory and engineering that has been with us far longer than Microsoft. They give me hope that the sound foundation of real science gradually accumulating can rise higher than the frivolous fad of the day, no matter how well marketed. In the end I have to believe Knuth will win out over Allchin because Knuth is in it to discover the Truth and share it with mankind, and Allchin was motivated to get his and flee with it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Or people who use applications that aren't yet widely used.
And whose developers do not care enough about Linux users to package their app for them
The point is that if the lead developer uses Fedora, you aren't likely to get Ubuntu packages, and vice versa. This doesn't happen for win32, which uses a single package format called MSI.
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?"
This will make a difference in the market place when I can go to best buy, pick up a copy of the latest and greatest game, take it home, pop it in, click the install icon and then play the game. No fiddling with wine, no downloading the third party apps to maybe hopefully get it to work.
This will happen with I can, with 100% precision open office docs, and then save them without it changing anything (and no, open office makes subtle changes, so don't even go there)
This will happen when my professional page layout apps and photo editing apps work by clicking install (don't even mention GIMP, if you aren't using Photoshop, don't talk, and the page layout better be inDesign, or better, Quark Xpress).
This will happen when I can go to the nearest office superstore, buy ANY wireless card they have, bring it home, pop it and a CD in my machine and be surfing wirelessly in 5 minutes (and if it takes you longer ona windows box its because you don't use windows enough, because that is all it should ever take)
Ubuntu beats vista, BFD. I keep an XP box, and I use it for dev only, no funky shit installed on it, just my dev tools and a DVD player for the times I get to kick back (mp3s play fine in media player and its built in). I also own an identical machine running ubuntu, you think its faster that XP, bullshit! Your windows box is shit or hose if you think so.
I don't like MS as a company any more than anyone else, but they have the market, its a done deal. You can be compatible with any "standard" you want, but if you are not compatible with MS, it does not matter, you can just keep bragging to the other 10% of users). Microsoft matters. Windows matters. Right now, they are the king of the hill and you have to play their game to win, it does not matter if you think you have invented a new game that everyone will like better, until you are better at the existing game than the existing king, no one is going to listen.
So, at what point does this start to make a difference in the market place? even if Ubuntu proves 50% faster than Vista on identical hardware, it does not make any difference in the market place until I can do anything on it that I can under windows, and that includes playing the latest and greatest games, using specialty professional software, and being 100% compatible
Try and find something slower than vista!!!!
That would be news.
Choice of OS has very little to do with speed. If it did, we'd all have moved to the MIPS r3000 RISC chip (that the 1st version of Windows NT was developed on).
It's about two things, neither of which Linux does yet:
Compatibility with the applications people want to run. Note: this does not mean application compatibility. Open Office is almost compatible with MS Word. A few little things don't format right. Then, there's Visio and probably 100 Windows applications that some of our 25,000 desktop users at work need to buy off the shelf and run.
I can come up with a scenario for no Linux desktops in the fleet of 25,000 users and make all but the Mac users happy. I can't come up with a scenario where there's not 2,000-4,000 Windows users, so we're going to have to support it.
The second reason is that Windows runs on almost any hardware right out of the box. I don't need to download an RPM. I don't need to ask someone on IRC or the forums. It just *works*. And, if I need a driver, there's a Windows XP driver on the manufacturer's website if the hardware is less than 10 years old.
Unfortunately, desktop operating systems are a natural monopoly. See Wikipedia on Natural Monopoly and Network Effect.
Here's something I still sometimes find hilarious: My current sound card (an Aureal with all those fancy extras like 3D, equaliser and HW mixing - I found it in the trash) does not have drivers for any version Windows newer than 2000. Best piece of hardware I've ever had.
Though to Windows' credit, at least the OEM discs that came with my last prebuilt actually had a driver for the onboard sou- oh wait. No it didn't.
Hello. This is /.
Doesn't EVERYTHING mentioned here outperform Vista?
Migod, gentlemen! Move along!
Written with Vista SP1 and ONE gig of RAM (and 350+ meg of it free at the moment)
-
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- aqk
F U
So, you're saying that the OS is to the PC/laptop what gasoline/diesel fuel is to the vehicle; just a means of getting it to do something useful. Most people don't care about the brand of fuel, just that it doesn't cause a problem when they want to go somewhere.
While they are right not to care about the OS, only if their work is completed, it still is frustrating to those who like their machines.
Current OS's, either partitioned or VMed: OpenSuse 11, Slackware 12.1, XP SP3, Vista SP1, Ubuntu Hardy, Open BSD.
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." - Adolph Hitler
LOL!
See my "WTF..." message elsewhere in this thread.
Mind you, I only have Vista Basic on a Celeron with 1 gig. But it does what I need it to.
I have Ubu 8.04 also on it, but need I say that I've set Grub to default to its "Longhorn" option? -
And (choke) on my Win2000 384-meg system as well! /.
But, ah.. this is
I enjoy rubbing their noses in Windows...
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- aqk
F U
I saw a post on Engadget this morning proclaiming how great a new, specially tuned pre-beta of Windows 7 was for netbooks. After all, it only takes 450MB of RAM to boot to a desktop!
*sigh*
Startup times
A couple of quick fixes to improve Ubuntu's startup time:
edit /etc/init.d/rc and change "concurrency=none" to "concurrency=shell". This speeds up booting on multi-core/cpu systems and has no effect on single-core/cpu systems.
Install 'readahead'. Next time you boot use grub's editor to temporarily add "profile" as a boot option. Booting will take longer this time but should be quicker in the future.
You could also install 'bootchart' to get a better look at booting and find ways to pare things down further.
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
(and 350+ meg of it free at the moment)
This was written on Debian testing with 2GB of Ram of which 315MB is in use WTF does Vista need all that extra RAM for? Oh that's right, the constant disk drive access (annoying as hell) and the slow file copying algorithm and that shitty Aero interface...What a resource pig!
I could write my own OS on the back of a postage stamp, and it would out-perform Windows. My *amiga* was faster than 95, never mind Vista.
Now lets run Outlook, Word, Games....oh, what do you mean they don't work? It's not twenty years ago, when this would have actually made a difference.
So, when someone figures out how this is actually a news item, do let me know.
At what point does this start to make a difference in the market place?
It doesn't for the most part. Many users in the general populace don't buy Windows because it's fast. They freak out when they can't find the "My Documents" folder.
I run kubuntu - and while I think that nearly a minute is too long for a computer to be booting. I appreciate that kde does a pretty good job of setting up everything the way I had when I shut the computer down. Which basically means that I still go away and do something else while the computer is booting. but when I get back to the computer everything is set up and ready to go.
Ubuntu now is very popular in China I surf the internet using my ubuntu 8.04 haha