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Ubuntu 8.10 Outperforms Windows Vista

Posted by timothy on from the windows-probably-runs-more-windows-apps dept.

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.)

23 of 689 comments (clear)

  1. Of course by night_flyer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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  2. Is this news? by Old97 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
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    1. Re:Is this news? by D+Ninja · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Linux speed and faster boots have never been enough to win the desktop.

      Exactly. This isn't what users care about.

      A common myth among website developers is that, if your page takes longer than ~8-10 seconds to load, users are going to move elsewhere. However, repeated studies have shown that this is not the case. Extrapolating a bit, users don't really care *that* much about speed. I mean, obvious problems are...well...problems. But, the fact that Vista copies files more slowly than XP, or the fact that Ubuntu boots 10 seconds more quickly is not going to convince anybody.

      There's inherent costs with switching to a new operating system. Retraining, porting apps (or learning completely new apps), unfamiliarity and change. And, that last one is huge. People dislike change. They will typically go out of their way to avoid change. So, despite Apple's marketing, despite the excellent improvements in OSS, people will stick with Vista. Why? Because it's easy and most people don't care otherwise.

      What do users want? Well, I'm only guessing a bit here, but based on my usability work, they want: familiarity, ease-of-use, "prettiness" (yes...people are shallow...big surprise) and various other things that have nothing to do with a truly good app. Perceived "goodness" is far better than actual goodness. This is why, even though Linux applications tend to run faster, when they hold up the windowing system to do so (due to running in user space, from what I understand), users feel it is not as good as Windows which typically attempts to go out of its way to return control to its users.

  3. XP is what to beat - not Vista by SpuriousLogic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:XP is what to beat - not Vista by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But if Vista is such a turd, and Windows 7 is virtually identical to Vista('cept for a new taskbar and other useless fluff), what makes you think that people would switch to it?

      Microsoft had better develop a truly revolutionary OS and/or put more effort into supporting XP as people who are not already tired of Microsoft's crap will quickly become tired. After seeing Win7, I'm really starting to believe that XP will be the last decent OS from Redmond.

    2. Re:XP is what to beat - not Vista by not+already+in+use · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Vista has already lost in the marketplace.

      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.

      --
      Similes are like metaphors
    3. Re:XP is what to beat - not Vista by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      Yup - that's why they did The Mojave Experiment; to show people that they're happy. Because if you don't tell happy people that they are, in fact, happy they wouldn't know. And that means your happy people are unhappy. You don't want unhappy happy customers.

  4. Re:Faster than Vista! by electrictroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    HAHAHAHAHAHA! Well, I would be far more-impressed if I saw the headline "Ubuntu outperforms XP". Now that would be truly something.

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  5. Laptops by Scutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?"
    1. Re:Laptops by Scutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the distinction here is that YOU cannot get it to work on YOUR laptop. No problem with the OS. Problem exists between keyboard and chair!

      Yes. That's why I said "Wake me when it'll work on my laptop".

      The fact is that if Ubuntu in particular and Linux in general want to make headway against Microsoft, these kinds of problems cannot exist. Sleep/Hibernate has been a perennial problem in the various *nixes for years and it's always blamed on broken ACPI implementations, but the fact is that it works under Windows and that's what users care about. Yes, it's true that I can use ndiswrapper, but then why doesn't the OS offer to set that up for you during installation when it sees there's no driver for your wireless card?

      It's nice to sit there on your little pedestal and look down your nose at people who can't get it to work, but it doesn't do anything to help and ends up making you look like a douchebag. But since you posted A.C., I expect you know that already.

      --

      "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
    2. Re:Laptops by PitaBred · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If it doesn't work by default on your laptop, someone did some specific development work on Windows to make it work. The machine almost certainly doesn't conform to ACPI specs. When a computer does, Linux works quite well. Thinkpads are usually very good about it.

      Really, the issue is that you have hardware that was designed for Windows. Just like you wouldn't expect Windows to work completely flawlessly on a Mac, why would you expect Linux to work completely flawlessly on a machine that was only ever designed to run Windows? Get a laptop that's designed to run according to open specs, and your problems will go away.

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  6. It Doesn't Make a Difference in The Marketplace by mpapet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".
     

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  7. Boot time is not a benchmark by jmerelo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In what workload would you include boot? Unless you keep booting up and down all day, boot time has nothing to do with performance.

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    It's just a BloJJ
  8. Re:Faster than Vista! by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ubuntu after 6 months of use beats XP used for 6 months.

    That's easy. Windows get's clogged up with so much crap that in 6 months it's dead in the water. Hell simply installing webroot or another low grade Virus/spy service on XP and it's dog slow city. Most users also install every single crapware they can get their hands on, weatherbug, etc....

    Thankfully there is none of that crap for Ubuntu/Linux..... yet.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  9. Re:Faster than Vista! by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  10. that's all good, but by Khashishi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Windows 3.1 boot time blows Ubuntu 8.10 out of the water.

  11. So what? Not news, though the reverse would be by Crazy+Taco · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  12. Vista vs Linux? by sam0737 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I didn't RTFA, are they comparing the desktop rendering performance? Tell me when Linux support DRM...

    No I cheated, I actually read it...

    Ubuntu 8.10 was noticeably faster when opening or switching between applications. Boot time with the PC running Vista was 56 seconds; with Ubuntu 8.10 it took 50 seconds.

    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.

  13. It starts making a differnce when... by DaveCBio · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  14. Compatibility is more important... by Jerrry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  15. Re:Faster than Vista! by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People often compare a clean windows install to a clean linux install, forgetting that a clean linux install is a fully usable system that's ready to go, while a clean windows install is largely useless until you install a significant number of third party apps.

    The hidden costs of windows...

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  16. Re:Faster than Vista! by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which is nigh impossible to do on Windows because the entire software distribution system is centered around installing random unknown software off CD/DVD's or off the Internet.

    On most linux distros, all the software you'd need is checksummed, signed and can verified.

    On Microsoft Windows, you get a sweet hologram sticker... sometimes!

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  17. Re:Faster than Vista! by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps because Ubuntu 8.10 was just recently released?

    The real question should be... does Ubuntu 8.10 outperform the preceding release of Ubuntu?

    I.E. Is it worthwhile to upgrade?

    The very first thing a new release of a Linux distro should be compared against are other versions of the Linux distro, and of course other Linux distros.

    As this is more of an apples-apples comparison that indicates whether you should use Ubuntu 8.10, or whether you should use a different version or distro, instead.

    We already know Linux outperforms Windows... News would be Ubuntu 8.10 outperforms Ubuntu 8.09 or the latest Redhat/Debian/Gentoo by a factor of 30% :)