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Kernel 2.6.31 To Speed Up Linux Desktop
Dan Jones writes "As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory-tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards, enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!"
Phoronix has published benchmarks of an ubuntu system with kernel 2.6.31-rc5
Actually the fault is split. 2D acceleration in Linux for most video drivers is shabby at best.
On the other hand, Adobe doesn't really put that much engineering force into X11 optimizations. Adobe Flash on a non-accelerated Mac OS X (hackintosh using the included Vesa 3.0 driver) is still faster than on X11/Linux.
I can't really blame Adobe for this. There are quite a lot of ways in which you can accelerate SOME drawing operations, but they are not available on all desktops. Clutter comes to mind right now, but it's not really the best option for QT/KDE users. It's hard to create an accelerated, desktop environment independent piece of software.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
Linux isn't broken because Flash sucks, the "Ready For the Desktop" moniker is broken if people consider it to imply Flash support. Flash is a closed technology (the spec is only open if you're not writing a player), which puts any problems with Flash playback anywhere squarely into Adobe's hands. If being "ready for the desktop" implies "Adobe plays nice with you" and there is nothing you can do if they don't, something is really wrong. What is the Linux community supposed to do, hold Adobe at gunpoint until they fix Flash?
I'm not saying Linux is otherwise ready for the desktop (and complaints about issues with Linux desktops themselves are perfectly okay), but Flash brokenness is a silly example.