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Ubuntu Download Speeds Beat Windows XP's

Posted by timothy on from the aggregated-circumstances dept.

narramissic writes "Doing a download speed test of his Time Warner cable connection, James Gaskin discovered something odd, something that he is quick to note isn't a rigorous benchmarked lab test. The discovery: His Ubuntu machine 'returned a rating from the Bandwidth.com test of 22-25mbps over several tests' while the same test done from a Windows XP PC returned a rating of 12-14mbps. The two computers used in the test are 'almost identical: both off-lease Compaq small form factor D515s, part of the very popular corporate desktop D500 family. Both have Pentium 4 processors running at 2GHz. The Ubuntu machine has 768MB of RAM, while the XP box has only 512MB of RAM. Both run Firefox 3 as their browser.' Gaskin's question: Can a little extra RAM make that much difference in Internet download speeds or does Ubuntu handles networking that much faster than Windows XP?"

9 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Linux on the desktop by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you can prove to people that you can download pr0n faster using Linux, they WILL switch!

    I'm kidding! I'm kidding!

    (or, am I?)

    1. Re:Linux on the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      all i saw was "download pr0n faster" and i'm compiling a stage1 right now!!!!!

    2. Re:Linux on the desktop by wsanders · · Score: 5, Funny

      Especially if you have had to drop out of college because an evil computer company sold you a Linux PC instead of a Windows one, you are at least not stuck with slow pr0n downloads.

      --
      Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
    3. Re:Linux on the desktop by peragrin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually OSX is superior to Linux in Pron browsing. you only have one mouse button to worry about.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    4. Re:Linux on the desktop by WasteOfAmmo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Brings a new meaning to the saying "if you build it, they will come!"

      Sorry, someone had to say it. Besides I had to do something while waiting for the compile to be done...oops, gotta go!

    5. Re:Linux on the desktop by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Except that to right-click on OS X, you need ctrl+mousebutton, which means you need two hands instead of one.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    6. Re:Linux on the desktop by sharkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Be sure to use "-march=female -O69 CFAGS=no -fundo-bra -fomit-shemale-pointer" for optimal pr0n performance.

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  2. It's the bot net by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 5, Funny

    His window machine's contribution to a bot net is probably hogging some bandwidth.

  3. Re:Even if the answer is no... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 5, Funny

    There are many good reasons to criticise Virgin, but they don't fuck around

    Well, to be perfectly honest, that's always been my number one criticism of Virgin.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!