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Ubuntu Wipes Windows 7 In Benchmarks
twitter writes "Recent and controversial benchmarks for Windows 7 leave an important question unanswered: 'Is it faster than GNU/Linux?' Here, at last, is a benchmark that pits Ubuntu, Vista and Windows 7 against each other on the same modern hardware. From install time to GUI efficiency, Ubuntu beats Windows and is often twice as fast. Where Windows 7 is competitive, the difference is something the average user would not notice. The average GNU/Linux user is now getting better absolute performance from their computer as well as better value than the average Windows user."
RTFA it was tested agains Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04. In both x32 and x64 flavors.
"Ubuntu 9.04 we used the daily build from January 22nd."
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
What's wrong? I mean the summary leads you directly to the conclusion you need to be coming to here:
"The average GNU/Linux user is now getting better absolute performance from their computer as well as better value than the average Windows user."
Seriously, that's good enough for me. Don't even need to read the article now...
I'm guessing the real root of both of your problems is old graphics drivers, unless you really seariously prefer IE over Firefox?
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Its ok, the article's first half is a bunch of benchmarks that are utterly meaningless on Windows anyway. Who cares if Window's takes twice as long to install as Linux? I mean seriously, I'm waiting. Are operating installs a frequent event? I can count on my hands and feet the number of times I've performed them.
Its all well and good that Ubuntu can install itself faster, but it doesn't matter, because it is by definition an infrequent workload. This is theoretically true for Ubuntu to. After all, wasn't the infinite in place upgradability something that has long been touted as a strength of Debian and co. Thats even more important with Ubuntu, because I sure as hell don't want to reinstall and OS every 6 months.
Same goes for startup and shutdown. Windows Vista was explicitly designed with the idea that in general, the OS is going to be suspended/hibernated, not rebooted. I'd be much more interested in seeing benchmarks of a comparison between the speed with which Windows and Ubuntu are able to hibernate/unhibernate. I've always been curious about this, as subjectively, an older Ubuntu installation hibernation seemed faster than in Windows. Alas, I guess in order to give us that benchmark, the reviewers would have to actually find hardware Linux could suspend on. How does one plot a hard lock on resume anyway, time for the system to reboot and come back up?
The other thing they failed to mention on the I/O benchmarking side is whether or not the drives were set to write cache mode or not in Windows. AFAIK the default for removable media to disable write caching in Windows, but to enable in Linux.
Oh, and why the !@#$ are they benchmarking compute intensive tasks in Python? Is it to exacerbate differences, because the chosen runtime is so absurdly slow? But, in reality, there is no reason for compute intensive tasks to vary on the same hardware. This test is highly dependent on the system services running and the python version. I would consider this more of a benchmark of python instead of Windows/Ubuntu.
Seriously, and if it takes more that 1 GB of my 500 GB hard drive then there's something wrong.
Why don't they benchmark some more important timings like how long it takes to shutdown, how long it takes to paste text in an email and how long it takes to run a disk defrag.
Boot-up/shut-down are there. I was focused on the Windows 7/x86 & Ubuntu 9.04/x86 'cuz that's what I run. Windows 7 boots about 13 seconds faster and takes about 4 seconds longer to shut down.
Disk I/O is there too. For moving large files around, the numbers were more-or-less comparable. For moving small files (probably comparable to running a disk defrag), Windows 7 got its ass handed to it. Hopefully Microsoft is aware of this and does something about it before subjecting users to it.
Everything took more than 1 GB of hard-drive space installed, but Windows was 3-4 times as big (7.9 GB rather than 2.3 GB).
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I wouldn't mind if they bundled everything they make, and everything they don't make as well! Just put a price tag on it and let the market sort it out. What I can't stand is that they essentially GIVE the software away through bundling deals with the OEM's, but tell them that they can't install any other software that competes with their products, essentially causing the OEM's to eat the difference, and pass the savings on to their customers. THAT'S anti-capitalistic. Unfortunately, government's only answer is to do what they've done, which includes forcing Microsoft to GIVE MORE of their software away to schools, further entrenching their monopoly. Gah!
Microsoft's making all their money from corporate sales, who are basically beholden because of the Office monopoly. All I want is for Microsoft to sell the same piece of software for the same price to everyone. Let them have 42 editions, for all I care, but just box it and price it and let the market sort it out.
How many individuals do you know have paid full retail price for either Windows or Office? If I could go buy either one for what they cost the OEM, the tier-1 Select customer, or the college student -- or if THEY had to pay what -I- pay, then I would consider that competition. I'd even consider it fair to meet in the middle. If Vista Ultimate cost what a new copy of OS X cost, that would seem to be about right. Have you seen what it actually retails for? Scary.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."