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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."
Can I mod this story as troll?
I'm a linux user but this story is anything but serious benchmarking.
From TFA:
Our test machine packed an Intel Core i7 920, which in layman's terms has four cores running at 2.67GHz with hyperthreading and 8MB of L3 cache.
(Emphasis added.)
Not sure what kind of laymen the authors hang out with, but all the laymen I know couldn't tell you the difference between a CPU and a hard drive, or the difference between GHz and GB ... much less figure out what "L3 cache" is!
I always just figured the speed was gained from not having to run virus software all the time.
With virus software installed on Windows 7 ubuntu would kill it even more.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
"Measured in seconds. Less is better." That would be fewer.
Grammar nazis asside, this is not real serious benchmarking. It doesn't even take into account WHAT Windows 7 installs and WHAT Ubuntu installs. Is there more default software in Windows 7? Windows 7 is a DVD, isn't Ubuntu still on a CD? One could argue that just means Windows 7 installation is bloated, but that still invalidates the benchmarking from a real "serious" perspective, other than the fact that Windows installs more. Great, now we'll say that Half-Life 2 is bloated because it takes longer to install than Half-Life?
And, were Ubuntu faster - which I don't actually doubt all that much - it still doesn't get over the usual gripes people have about switching to Linux. This or that application doesn't work on Linux or there isn't a comparable one (my favorite to mention is Sibelius's music notation software, aptly named Sibelius [or Coda Music's Finale, but I hate Finale]), it's not as easy to use, hardware, etc. Some are not quite valid anymore, some are still valid concerns. Either way, simple benchmarking isn't going to convince most "average users." What do they care, as long as it works and is easy to use?
I'd rather see some "average user usage" benchmarks. That is, see how easy someone finds Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu to use for actual normal tasks in an office. See if OpenOffice (all software, not just word processing) actual can compete with Microsoft Office (and see if it's slower, due to Java?). Web browsing, including using Silverlight and installing plugins and everything. That'd be a test that would help the "Linux really IS a good alternative," more than "My Linux machine boots 5 seconds faster - see, you should switch from Windows!" does.
Why would anyone care about install time? The only interesting part of the install is how much of your hardware works out of the box, and how much of it can be made to work easily.
Of course installation is the easiest feature to review, but this is 2009 - there is nothing interesting about OS installation anymore.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Value is an entirely subjective concept and it will vary wildly from person to person. For many people, a computer with a free OS that can't run their favorite program has much less value than a computer with a paid OS that can. The same could be said for people who don't want to learn a new interface or people who don't actually want to take the time to instal their own OS.
What if you took an Ubuntu release from about the same time period as that Windows system was released?
1&1 - Cheap domain and web hosting.
Is the gaming benchmarks.
I've been slowly switching from XP to Ubuntu on my work laptop, but I am still stuck with XP at home. I just play too many PC games to give up XP. I really don't care if it boots slower than Ubuntu, or takes longer to shut down. What matters to me is actually using the PC.
MS would get sued if they bundled too much software, and you know it. If MS included Office in windows the first people to line up for the digital lynching would be Linux fanboys.
Installation time? *Mouse clicks* to install? Seriously? Those have got to be some of the most useless benchmarks I've ever seen.
Startup and shutdown time are marginally more useful benchmarks, but still not really very important unless you're talking about embedded devices, which the desktop version of Windows 7 (obviously) isn't even designed for.
The file copy benchmarks really didn't find a clear winner either, and that was the only arguably significant benchmark. Or are there really desktop users that spend all day copying files between hard drives and USB drives?
I really didn't care all that much about the outcome. I don't have an emotional investment in Windows or Ubuntu, but this was nothing but a pissing contest from someone who wanted to make some poorly constructed graphs showing that their favorite OS beat another OS (and it didn't even do that! Windows won on a few of the tests!)
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
FTFA:
Let us take this opportunity to remind readers that Windows 7 is still at least nine months from release.
I am not a *blank*, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
On my old PC laptop, Ubuntu gets very unresponsive, even with every combination of ATI drivers I use. Both Windows XP and Windows Vista boot as fast, if not faster, on it than Ubuntu did. In fact, Windows Vista was generally more responsive during normal use. There were plenty of times where Vista could easily handle stuff like Firefox with Flash and some other stuff open, but Ubuntu would slow down to a crawl.
Mod me down if you want, but I've found Windows to be faster and more responsive out of the box, especially against modern Linux distributions.
People use applications, not operating systems.
It doesn't matter how fast it is if it doesn't run the software that people want. That's the biggest thing that holds up Linux on the desktop.
If Linux for the desktop is ever going to really be a viable option, someone needs to come out with a distro with the goal of, "absolutely, positively, 100% Windows Compatible" via Wine or similar technologies.
That distro would conquer the world.
(Cue people giving the argument, "but Microsoft will just change Windows". Yes, they might, but that doesn't affect the installed base of applications, nor does it affect the myriad third party applications, and if there was a viable target, third party companies would ensure compatability.)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
that Ubuntu runs benchmarks faster? A copy file is faster? Certainly things that the average user will never care about. Even my parents leave their machines on 24x7 so boot times matter?
Really, I don't care which is more efficient at booting or copying, if Ubuntu cannot run the software I want all of its performance benefits are lost
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I really like Ubuntu, it is fast, it's useful, and it's hugely effective on older hardware. But if you're a power user on Windows you're suddenly a newblet on Ubuntu. Even if you're not afraid of mucking around in text config files that doesn't mean that you can use your tablet as a notepad like you can with Window Journal, it doesn't mean you can connect your computer to the internet through your 3G phone when you aren't near wifi, it doesn't mean you can use the nifty fingerprint reader to login to your system, it doesn't mean you can login to the hidden SSID secure login encrypted access wifi network at your school or office, and it doesn't mean you can play Blu-ray discs on your brand new high tech system with Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, if Evolution worked 80% as well as Outlook, I'd have switched my work computer to Ubuntu months ago, just to spite Norton Internet Security 2007 and our IT guys who insist on not caring when NIS shuts down outlook, forcing it to restart. In the end, I just need a few things to get better in Ubuntu and I could see Microsoft cease to exist almost entirely, but it's just not there yet. Sure I'd love to help, but I'm a interaction guy, not a driver programmer. And if I was writing drivers, someone would surely kick my ass for doing it poorly.
Probably even dafter . Neither is finished, so you don't know what extra logging or debug they're running (well, with Linux you could but you probably can't be bothered).
You also don't know how tuned they are - the dev teams may not have finished all the performance tweaking in the beta, so yes, you get some numbers but unless you want to run the beta in production they are meaningless when it comes to production.
To be fair to TFA though they acknowledge this and are pretty clear that you can't read much into the beta numbers.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
The average GNU/Linux user is now getting better absolute performance from their computer as well as better value than the average Windows user.
Depends on what you value. I value not having to hunt down and configure obscure software to sync my phone. I value the ability to use third party software when it's released, not when they get around to making a Linux port. I value having drivers that are updated regularly, and a wide variety of quality software options, with actual support, and a user community that doesn't tell me I'm stupid because I couldn't get figure out how to connect to my WiFi network (the solution for which depends on what minor version of the windows manager I'm using, which affects which connection manager is installed by default, etc., etc.)
I also appreciate a uniform interface and application model, which Windows provides. It neither looks nor performs like a hodgepodge mix of new and ancient components, regardless of what may be present under the hood. I appreciate a clipboard which performs as expected. I've also had, by far, more success installing Windows on a wider array of hardware than Linux, including Ubuntu. Oh, the LiveCD won't work for that hardward. Oh, there's no wireless driver for that NIC, but you can wrap this other driver and then do this, and it will work most of the time, except when it doesn't.
A value to me is not saving 7 minutes on the install, or clicking 12 fewer times, (in what should be a one-shot deal anyway), or an OS footprint that saves me 0.01% of my available storage space. Value to me is reliability, choice and quality of software, and minimal fuss with configuring devices and hardware. With XP, Windows reached a level of maturity/stability that I now expect of any OS residing on my desktop (or laptop). That I have to actually pay for the OS and keep Avast resident is an acceptable tradeoff for those things.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Boot up and Shutdown times are equally irrelevant. I shut the PCs down on weekends. Am I going to notice or care that it takes a few more seconds for a machine to boot up or shut down. Also, these times are highly variable. Even on the same machine I suspect the variation is way outside the differences between the OS. 30 years ago we cared a little bit about boot up times. But then, we were reading from disk or tape, so these times were significant, and we might shut down a machine several times a day. When Apple made the Mac a super fast boot up machine, it was to solve a problem. Now it is just to win a juvenile contest. if there is not an order of magnitude difference, it does not really matter.
File copy time can be an issue, but not for everyone. I am going to make what may be a controversial statement. When I copy a multi Gigabyte set of files, and it takes a half an hour, that does not bother me. Neither do I care that for a large movie one OS might take a 30 seconds, while the next might take two minutes. What annoys me are those little daily copies of a small file that take a minute or so. Clearly there is some overhead. Sure, know how long to copy 1000 files is cool, but when does that happen.
What we don't have is how long it takes to set up a printer, something that I find I do way too often. Or how long it take to print to a printer, which has some OS dependence. Or how long it takes a save a file in MS Office versus OO.org. Or how long it takes to setup email. Or how long it takes to load a web browser. You know, the things that people do every day and tends to eat away at a persons limited time.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Dear Slashdot editors,
We understand perfectly your needs about traffic generation and advertisements.
But please, why publish another stupidity like this... when too recently you had a highly criticized "story" about some random guy that found Ubuntu downloads faster than Vista in his home PC's. Please avoid that kind of sh... (how to name it???), that only ends turning people away for your site in the long term.
Eventually, if you can't stop from posting about so called "comparative benchmarks", please do it in the "idle" section.
regards,
And about a month ago, I setup a dual-boot Ubuntu/Windows machine. Ubuntu was done in about 30-40 minutes. Windows on the other hand, I spent most of a day to install the OS, track down the necessary drivers, install office suites, anti-virus, etc..
This is why anecdotes are useless, for every anecdote that shows one thing you can find one that shows the opposite.
My example above was not fictional. The Windows install was seriously complicated by the fact that my CD (XP with SP3 slipstreamed in) did not recognize the SATA hardware and the system did not have a floppy drive installed (or even space for a floppy drive). This was not bleeding-edge hardware.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
No, it's not. Half the .docx stuff I receive formats incorrectly in OO.o.
I'm all for Ubuntu and OOo and all the rest--and I use them myself almost as much as I use MS products--but let's be honest: the vast majority of users simply don't have the time or determination to learn a new OS, productivity suite, and how to deal with a host of new quirks, bugs, and features.
I find these benchmarks a little disingenuous anyway; having used Ubuntu for years, it does not have NEAR the functionality of Windows 7 without heavy tweaking. Windows, for all its problems, delivers click-it-and-it-works better than anyone else. MS isn't top dog because they made a deal with satan, it's because they made their operating system the most idiot-friendly.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
...Ubunghole is only beta-quality...
Not too shabby for an alpha.
What a stupid article and even stupider summary.
#1 Install time and mouse clicks do not a benchmark make.
#2 If you really want a real word comparison that effects many people, then here is a real world benchmark. First get two timers and two identical machines. Second, go out and buy two copies of World of Warcraft and both expansion packs. Now have two people moderately knowledgeable people sit down next to each other. The test is to see who can install and play WOW first, and then who has better performance. One on Windows7 the other on Ubuntu.
I don't want to spoil it, but I would guess it takes the guy running windows7 under an hour from start to playing WOW. The other guy 3 days to 4 weeks, and possibly never when he gets sick and tired of trying to get it to work with Wine and just finds it infinitely easier and a lot more fun just to hang himself with his shoelaces instead.
I use Ubuntu, but I find comparing speeds between Linux and Windows silly, if not amateurish. Neither runs the other's software (without proper tools, and even then it's not nearly perfect), so what's the point?
I'm all for Windows and Office and all the rest...
Having used Windows for years, it does not have NEAR the functionality of any given Linux distro without heavy tweaking.
I mean, come on, I have to install office programs, compilers, editors, (non-DRM) media players, (real) CD/DVD burning programs, terminals, secure communication programs, (real) file transfer programs, etc., and that's just the top categories. Let alone all the crap you have to install, just because you're using Windows, like anti-virus and anti-malware programs.
And then there's the lovely day that a program simply... stops working. Why? Who knows! Time to format and reinstall!
Seriously. I have a Windows partition because I like PC video gaming. (Lord, help me, sometimes even I don't know why. I keep all my drivers up to date, but I still get BSOD's a couple times a month.) But I can't stand to try to use it for real work.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
I always get a kick out of this argument. Has it occurred to you that when Microsoft bundles those applications they get sued to pieces and end up paying billions in fines to the European antitrust extortionists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H regulators? If you approve of those verdicts and fines, then you cannot simultaneously criticize Microsoft for forcing you to install all those things. Approving of these fines means simply that we accept (or rather demand) the inconveniences they inflict.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
How much faster does Left 4 Dead run on Linux?
How about Photoshop?
Silly rabbits, an OS isn't supposed to be better or work faster, it's supposed to sell required graphics card and memory chips for your vendor partners!
After all, if an OS actually improved, people might get some work done instead of waiting for the cool graphics to indicate the OS was still not finished.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I have personally moved my grandmother and uncle, neither which know ANYTHING about computers. The only problem I have seen is opening horrendously formated word documents and running DX games. Please do not compare a bestbuy installed windows with a downloaded iso linux, they are not nearly the same. When bestbuy installs windows, they find the drivers, install antivirus, add tutorials, etc. When I set up an Ubuntu system, I do the same and they have NO problems!
Linux is just as easy, if not easier to use than windows. Just look at opening programs. In windows you go "start->all programs->adobe->photoshop->start photoshop". In linux you go "Applications->Graphics->Gimp Image Editor". Not to mention installing applications. In windows you have to google-hunt a program, pray it's clean, download, scan, install. In linux you open the package manager, select it and click "apply".
Please stop spreading this FUD that windows is easier simply because some joker being paid $8/hour set it up for you!
Install time? Clicks per install? Installed footprint? Does anybody care about those?
The file copy tests were marginally useful, but not exactly controlled. But it certainly looks like the Linux USB drivers and related I/O code is better than what exists in Windows.
Then again, on what is possibly the most useful and meaningful benchmark, Windows wins. The Richards thing is not disk I/O bound, so we're talking about memory allocation/deallocation and probably some underlying C library calls. Since we're on identical hardware, the difference is either due to the Windows memory manager, faster library routines, or a more optimized version of the python interpreter. (Which wouldn't really be a win for Windows per se.)
I'd like to see something like...oh...a standard database benchmark (e.g. TPC) run on a couple different databases (Postgres and Oracle would be fine) installed under both Ubuntu and under Windows 7 on identical hardware. This would, of course, be influenced by how well optimized these database implementations are on each operating system, but there's little we can do about that. The test would essentially be Windows+Oracle vs. Ubuntu+Oracle, or Windows+Postgres vs. Ubuntu+Postgres.
And then there's the lovely day that a program simply... stops working. Why? Who knows! Time to format and reinstall!
I don't think I've experienced anything like that in the last 7 years on Windows 2000 or XP.
On the other hand, after updating my Ubuntu box some time ago BackupPC stopped working, and it took few hours of digging to find out that the updated version of BackupPC needed a variable set in the configuration file, only the update didn't take care of that, and the error message was rather cryptic.
Neither runs the other's software (without proper tools, and even then it's not nearly perfect),
Close enough, though. Aside from Wine running similar tools on both platforms -- and, when Wine works, it's often faster than running the same app on Windows -- there's plenty of cross-platform development.
Let me put it this way: Suppose I'm a Java developer with Eclipse. That'll run fine on any platform I throw at it. But, even before I get to my own software, Eclipse is such a hog that I'll want every ounce of performance I can throw at it.
For that matter, if I'm developing a Java program -- or Ruby, or Python, or anything else sufficiently cross-platform -- I may well care when it gets to deployment time which OS is faster. If developing a new app, I may choose to support one platform over another for performance reasons.
It's probably not as useful as benchmarks within an OS (between Linux filesystems, say) or between POSIX-compliant OSes (but these benchmarks don't test the Windows POSIX layer, I'm sure), but it's worth mentioning.
Oh, and I like being amaturish -- a big HA HA to everyone who tried to convince me that Vista is fast, when you give it enough RAM.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Linux - Yay Yay! fast boot, fast shutdown, fast file copy, etc...
Windows - Boo Boo! slow boot, slow use, slow copy etc..
I'll pick Windows any day. I don't have to spend weeks trying to get my hardware working with it. I don't need to find some obscure driver, or sudo apt-get some library that only exists in Peru to make my tv-capture card work.
I am encouraged by the strides that these modern distros have made and I would use linux as my desktop machine if only (and I wish so much) that they would work without making a colossal waste of my time to set up.
I'll put up with the parasitic seconds of waiting in windows, for the hours of time it takes me to configure my system correctly in linux.
As a long time Linux user, I say let's be fair. Try running Photoshop on both Windows and Linux and see which is faster. Now let's run Final Cut Pro and do the test and now try Logic.
My point is "who cares" you buy operating systems so you can run applications, not bench marks.
I really do which Aperture, Logic 8, Photoshop and iTunes ran on Linux.
That said, I do software development on this Linux system but I'll be moving to a Mac Pro maybe this year or next when this dual xeon system gets replaced.
And from the Windows user point of view, who cares how fast Linux is if it can't run some game you want
But really, it does matter. If I am going to buy a netbook with a 1.6 GHz Atom CPU, 1 GB of RAM and integrated graphics, I'm going to want something that runs fast. On either platform I will have E-mail, basic games, web browsing, videos, music, etc, and whichever one runs the fastest (and the cheapest) is going to be the one someone usually picks. So when Windows 7 comes out and you can either buy the $300 netbook with Linux that runs faster, or the $350 netbook with Windows 7 that runs slower, the choice for any informed customer is obvious.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
There may be relevant performance differences between the operating systems and versions, but this benchmark mostly does not test for them in the general use cases.
* How long does each operating system take to install?
Typical home user installs neither, real IT shops use disk images and other automated deployment tools.
* How much disk space was used in the standard install?
This is only a significant concern for SSD Netbooks. Typical home users will use ad hoc unmanaged storage and fill any available space with porn/music/photos. Power users who need lots of storage understand multiple hard disks. Real IT shops do managed non-local storage.
* How long does boot up and shutdown take?
The benchmarks shows no significant differences for boot up times. Both tests require more iterations and controls to distinguish between clean shutdowns, and ones in which software, first run, and other updates also take place during shutdown.
* How long does it take to copy files from USB to HD, and from HD to HD?
Methodology is flawed because the installation of each operating system has perturbed the free and occupied space layouts on the hard disk. An unbiased test would be USB to/from other installed hard disk instead of USB to/from the boot disk.
Independent of the operating system in use, data located at the outside of a CAV disk can be read and written faster than data located close to the spindle.
* How fast can it execute the Richards benchmark?
Results do not indicate any significant differences in the set. Also, does the Richards benchmark reasonably simulate any particular home or enterprise task set in general, and if so, does the (undisclosed) version of the Richards benchmark employed in this test also reasonably simulate a particular task set?
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Because most people WANT TO RUN THEIR APPS and not dick around with Linux. When will people realise that vast majority of the mass market actually wants windows and will continue to want Windows for the foreseeable future.
Ummm... No, the vast majority of people wants a computer that works. For the tasks that a informed consumer will use a netbook for (browsing, e-mail, etc) Linux is perfect for it. Now, if I'm a big gamer, I'm not going to want Linux nor OS X for that matter, I'm going to have to use Windows. But there are almost no disadvantages to using Linux on a netbook if you are informed. Far too often the ill informed attempt to use the argument that "Its different" to address what they see as flaws. However, an informed customer (and by informed consumer, I mean someone reasonably intelligent, knows the strengths and weaknesses of Linux, etc) will almost certainly pick Linux unless they have an application that they can not live without and for a personal netbook, there aren't many applications that could fit that.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I have the same graphics card as you. The problem is obviously on your side and you're doing something wrong, because I have no clue what you're talking about.
This is the worst response to a bug complaint I've ever seen. This is on a fresh install with the newest nvidia drivers provided by Jockey... that's it. Using the X configuration present when my system rebooted with the new drivers. That is all. It even tears without Compiz. My Powerbook Pismo has hardware accelerated display and does not tear in Mac OS X like my brand new desktop-- maybe it has something to do with the fact that their windowing system was designed for the desktop!
However, an informed customer (and by informed consumer, I mean someone reasonably intelligent, knows the strengths and weaknesses of Linux, etc) will almost certainly pick Linux
Since when is the majority of the market an informed consumer? Especially the netbook market?
People are going to pick words that they have heard before. Marketing is a huge part of this and what it boils down to is:
Windows XP = good, Vista = bad, Linux = difficult. (Which is sad, mostly because Vista isn't that bad, and Linux isn't that difficult, but marketing is everything to the mass average consumer)
Why is it a flawed test to check the read/write speed from USB to HD using the primary HD? That's where (IMO) a very significant majority of users will be keeping their files, it makes sense to speed-test transfer rates from the most common file location.
Technically, windows version 7, is not a beta, it is vista under a new marketing scheme. So to claim windows version 7 as a beta is to say that vista as released to the public was only a alpha grade product and, as has been demonstrated in the past, M$ yet again used the general public as pay for the privilege product testers.
So the Linux kernel has a major advantage as it's development has not been distorted under some greedy, let's force everyone to upgrade scheme. The Linux kernel has been developed upon a much sounder incremental, test and evaluation basis, as such it is inevitable that it will out perform windows in every aspect.
So that Linux outperforms windows ain't that big a story, it is to be expected. M$ might have keep pace if they had simply continued to get the bugs out of XP and upgrade it in various areas but, greed for forced upgrade profits and future xbox style licensing schemes drove them down a destructive path (destructive as far as customer reliability, stability and performance requirements are concerned).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Agreed that Linux is at least as good or better on a netbook for browsing, checking email, and other simple net tasks. However, I think the (vast) majority of people have a more specialized application they wish to run, and in the (vast) majority of cases, it's a Windows app. That is as likely to be true for an informed consumer as an uninformed consumer.
It's not a case of a buyer getting scared of a 'different' operating system. It's a case of a buyer wanting a netbook that will run every program he might ever want over the next few years, without the operating system getting in the way. It doesn't and wouldn't matter that Linux was significantly faster and more capable.
Just because Microsoft has no reasonable way to ship a useful copy of Windows straight out of the box doesn't make it OK for Windows to suck (even more) straight out of the box, that's a corner they've boxed themselves into.
Unlike you seem to think, simply because Microsoft has no solution to the problem at hand doesn't make it a lesser problem, indeed, it makes it a larger problem (for Microsoft). Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised when someone points out the major pain inflicted upon anyone attempting to use a Windows machine (especially straight out of the box) when compared to a Linux machine.
In summary: Windows is irreparably broken, why would we avoid pointing this out when Linux is not irreparably broken?
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
We run almost exclusively system intensive high resource usage software. (100% CPU & 5GB+ of RAM, RAID arrays pushed to the limit when rendering.) Under these loads we've seen very little performance differences between OSes. Vista x64, Windows XPx64, Windows 7 x64. Across all 3 Windows apps it's effectively a wash.
Similarly I've seen very very marginal improvements while rendering on Linux.
The tests are kind of interesting in a "I suppose that's interesting" sort of way. But on a modern system how fast most OS features act is the split between milliseconds and who really cares?
The summary is highly misleading "Ubuntu as much as twice as fast!" At extremely short unnoticeable tasks which no human would care to measure except in a benchmark.
I've very very very rarely had the OS be a bottleneck. The last time I remember encountering a system slow down on a reasonably up to date system was when I was trying to run Shake on an OSX PPC G4. An older x86 system on Windows and Linux simply smoked it in every possible way. But that was far more to do with being a PowerPC chip than OSX itself. Oh yeah... and Vista's network transfer speeds when it was first released were embarassing. But those have been straightened out as far as I can tell from my experience.
Why is it a flawed test to check the read/write speed from USB to HD using the primary HD? That's where (IMO) a very significant majority of users will be keeping their files, it makes sense to speed-test transfer rates from the most common file location.
It is flawed because the test they conducted is next to irrelevant to the real world situation where it is next to impossible to determine or control where a particular user file will physically be located on a hard disk, due to the hundreds/thousands of free space holes created by OS configuration/install/updates, application installs/updates, temporary file caches, file system options, saved user documents, log files, etc. (ignoring all the other fun things that the disk/controller hardware can do at the physical layer). In other words, there is no "most common file location", just the some user files are on a particular logical volume at some particular time, which change in important ways in a very difficult to predict manner as files accumulate and are deleted, resized, etc. throughout the lifetime of the operating system installation.
Their test represents well what happens on that specific model of hard disk under those specific OS installs on that particular motherboard within the first hours or days of use, but it was not a good indicator of any operating system's general speed or ability to transfer files to/from the hard disk. (In reality, virtually no other system in use will have the same kinds of relevant user-created files at or near the physical hard disk locations the testers did for very long.) Conclusions about the general operating system characteristics, with respect to file transfer speeds, would require data obtained using far more controls than were described in the benchmarks. To start, they would need to at least know or approximate the locations of where their files are being written to or read from on the hard disk, but even then, the real world user experience (time it takes to make/copy files) will change throughout time as the hard disk is filled. (From their particular tests, I wouldn't strongly object to a conclusion such as: "this operating system is smaller or installs more compactly, leaving X GB more of free space at the beginning of the disk than that operating system, so this particular type of file transfer is likely to be faster until you use X GB of space with some type of file." But that kind of limited information is not particularly useful in most cases.)
If either operating system or file system has design or implementation issues with respect to file handling, such flaws will show up unambiguously by keeping consistent as many factors as possible. I proposed a separate disk because it would be easy to implement, but you could, with a bit more work, test while ensuring that the users' local document or desktop folder is physically located in a particular narrow region of the physical disk through partitioning, etc. but that may not be any closer to being a snapshot of real-world conditions.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
"Technically" is the wrong word. Versioning of software is not *necessarily* tied to having X new features or being X% not in common with the previous version. It technically *is* a beta, since Microsoft has deemed it so.
Using the word "technically" here expresses that although Microsoft calls Windows 7 a beta of a new version of Windows, it is not really possible for it to be so because of some inherent requirement(s) to be a beta that Windows 7 does not meet. Since software version naming conventions are arbitrary and only serve the convenience of the developers, there is no way for Windows 7 to "technically" not be a beta.
The reason I go through this is because your use of this word expresses a bias that causes you to commit a fallacy in order to exaggerate the inadequacy of Microsoft. It is important to not do this when you are in less sympathetc company.
A good alternative to "technically" would be something like: "If Microsoft were following best/usual practices in software versioning, Windows 7 would not be a beta, it would be a service pack for Vista" or something like that.
Besides that, I agree with your post :-)
Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon. -Orson Scott Card