Slashdot Mirror
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.)
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.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Well, I would be far more-impressed if I saw the headline "Ubuntu outperforms XP". Now that would be truly something.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
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
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.
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?
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.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
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...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
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!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!