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.)

Comments

Re:Faster than Vista!

[dsginter]

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...

Re:YES!

[mcgrew]

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.

"Like I told Leila, just download Open Office. It's free and will read and write MS Office files."

"Well," she said, "I did..." I doubted this but whatever "...and it was a ninety day trial version!"

"I don't know what you downloaded," I said, "but Open Office is free. Just go to..." I fired up a browser and googled. "Openoffice.org and click the tab that says 'download'. It's a full version and it's free."

"But... isn't downloading illegal?"

This, my friends, is why Linux and Open Office haven't taken over the desktop. The non-nerd media (and I daresay, quite a bit of the nerd media) have non-geeks thinking that "downloading is illegal".

Yes, I'm quoting myself.

Hey now - Don't Speak For Me!

[Petersko]

"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.

Re:YES!

[Rude Turnip]

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!

[skywiseguy]

of course almost any linux distro is going to boot faster than XP. but if you're running XP from a clean install and you have all that bloatware after 6 months of use, then maybe you should try using the custom options when you install the software you're using.

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!

[thepotoo]

OK, it really depends on what you're doing. Also, a lot of the stuff I do (games) is not dependent on OS at all, but on the drivers.

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.