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Comparing Windows and Ubuntu On Netbooks
Barence writes "With the arrival last month of Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, PC Pro has revisited a familiar question: which operating system is best for a netbook?. The magazine has run a series of benchmarks on a Asus Eee PC 1008HA running Windows XP Home, two versions of Windows 7 (with and without Aero switched on) and Ubuntu Netbook Edition. The operating systems are tested for start-up performance, Flash handling and video, among other tests. The results are closer than you might think."
Can you even buy a netbook without windows?
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Some distros may be better than Windows, but not Ubuntu. It's a bloated buggy hog of a thing that is overkill on netbooks, and Windows will beat it everytime.
Bye bye karma.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Maybe if you were the crackhead that broke into a truck and decided to keep the laptop and take the route to Enlightenment rather than pawning it off?
Just a thought...
Testing wasn't done very fairly in my opinion. On my netbook, Ubuntu works faster, probably because Windows is bogged down by a bunch of programs which open at startup.
For a start, its not always the underlying operating system which makes the difference.
They compared -
1. Bootup (which is mostly fair)
2. Opening using OpenOffice. I'm pretty sure that the Windows version of this program is not the exact same one as the Ubuntu version. So you're comparing two different programs on two different operating systems.
3. Web performance - again, he used Google Chrome for one, and Chromium for the other. See above - the windows version is not the exact same one as the linux version.
4. Flash performance - this part was very funny. Anyone who's used flash on linux knows how crap it is. When adobe start supporting it properly...
So the testing wasn't very fair. It does not answer "but the key question is how each one performs on low-powered netbook hardware". If they wanted to answer that, they could have written a pair of programs in C to benchmark it - exact same code, exact same program.
Thats because a Mac Book Air A) Isn't cheap and B) Has specs that aren't bottom-end. The Air is simply a light laptop, not a cheap laptop.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The way I read the graphs is: XP and Ubuntu win on almost everything (Ubuntu loses once on Flash on iPlayer but that's hardly surprising), maybe only by a small margin by they do, and Windows 7 takes twice as long to boot as they do. The article doesn't recommend bothering to upgrade to Windows 7 if you already have XP on it, and suggests that Ubuntu would be just as good.
Now, let's look at *value*: Assuming you can get them all for the same price, they all provide roughly equal value (it could be argued that 7 is worse value but only by a small way). However, if you have to pay *any* extra for XP or 7, then you're just as well off with Ubuntu. So, it's all back to the old question: who wants to sell me a netbook with an operating system that's just as good as the others but which is FREE for life? In the early days, that's how netbooks became so cheap and so popular - I know, I worked with the original EEEPC's because a school could afford them but MS wanted about £50 a license to "upgrade" them to XP. Now it seems either Microsoft are giving people Windows for free, or Microsoft are stopping manufacturers from supplying netbooks with only Linux on them. I vote for the latter given previous history.
All this article confirms is that, basically, all the OS's are roughly the same now. A bar chart here or there but on average there is no winner. Thus, the free ones should represent infinitely better value. Strange how the manufacturers don't reflect that in their pricing / OS availability any more.
Well, I can only answer this for myself. I have a desktop at home, which for all sorts of reasons (CPU, GPU, memory, dual monitors, full size keyboard+++) is where I like to do anything serious. When I want to go mobile, I want something small, light and cheap I can bring almost everywhere. I'm not a road warrior, so I don't need a powerful laptop. I'm not hauling it from site to site so I don't need a desktop replacement - I did have one of those as a consultant though. I just need a real computer to go and the 10" screen, cramped keyboard and anemic performance are acceptable tradeoffs.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I think the real test should be done after six months of regular use and service packs and updates installed. At this point the windows machine will have its registry so bloated that it will take twice the time for most operations. After one year to one year and a half, the best way to go is to reboot the machine.
This doesn't happen to Ubuntu installations.
Also, when your applications are fighting for CPU cycles with virus and malware, your machine feels much slower... and we know a hight percentage of windows installations end up in that situation while exactly 0% of the Ubutu machines do.
That is not the netbook segment. It's the ultraportable segment, which has existed for a long, long time but at prices that made you cringe.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I bought an HP Mini that ships with Quickweb - a highly optimized Linux-based alternative to the Windows Starter also installed. It handles email, Skype, media, Web-surfing (Firefox "lite"), and it boots in about 10 seconds. It has a pretty painless "integration" with Windows too, so even novice users can choose what suits them best for a given task. For many netbook customers, all they really ever need is something like this. Supposedly, a ChromeOS netbook will drop any day, and Android tablets have been popping up on the radar. If HP gets its' act together and drops a netbook/tablet with an SSD and WebOS, it could undercut the iPad and the become the darling of the low-priced, entry-level set. Dual-boot takes care of any enterprise requirements, such as a Citrix client, W32 apps, etc.
Which is indeed possible. Not only possible, it turns out they have some similar properties.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Actually a netbook is broadly understood to be a cheap low-performance computer for a limited set of common computing tasks, inaugurated by the Eee PC which was explicitly a commercialised equivalent of the OLPC's "cheap but useful" approach to hardware design.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Orange is making computers again!?! I haven't used an Orange in years. Are they POSIX compliant yet?
Not true. The reason why a netbook is called a NETbook is because it's designed to be a cheap and mobile interface to a network (such as the Internet) similar in concept to a thin-client. Cheap being the key word.
A notebook is a small laptop, a netbook is an inexpensive notebook.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Can you even buy a netbook without windows?
Yes. Next question?
Ahh, the mathematician's answer. The next question is as follows: Which make and model and which seller do you recommend?
...but TFA fails to mention anything to do with user experience. How are well suited is the OS to small screen real estate?
For example, On Ubuntu, ccsm, doesn't fit on the screen (Image). Little like things like that crop up often with Ubuntu and it's really annoying.
I've no idea of Windows has similar issues because I don't have it installed, so perhaps somebody else will comment.
I'm with you on checking out LXDE-based Distros, although my previous experience with Lubuntu was not overly pleasent on my old laptop. Long story short it just wasn't polished enough and had stuff that just didn't work - namely wireless. I have found Kubuntu + LXDE pretty much the sweet spot between speed and usability. Although I will say I much prefer Opera to Chromium. Twice the features and just as fast.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Do they have included an anti-virtus application that needs to be installed and constantly running in the background for Windows XP and Windows 7?
Do they have included in the benchmark that in Windows 7 Starter edition the user can't even change the desktop background and the Visual Styles? Furthermore, if you are a small business user you have to buy the more expensive Windows 7 Professional edition so you can use your Windows in your network.
Not only you don't need the constant performance drain anti-virus but all Ubuntu versions are Enterprise versions.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Actually, they did. Windows is a virus.
there's no such thing as "an eePC". There have been 30+ models, from 7" to 12. Strangely, keyboard sizes vary accordingly, from maddeningly small to normal size or quasi-normal (98% IIRC)
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I think "netbook" has become one of those terms like "Web 2.0" or "the Cloud". It's a term that's pretty vague and unclear; lots of people think that they're well-defined terms, but if you ask 2 people you can get 2 very different answers.
Originally the term "netbook" was used to describe laptops that were designed to be as cheap and small as possible, which was accomplished by making them underpowered and usually lacking internal storage, and they were called netbooks because they couldn't be used for anything more complex than web browsing. Like you said, it was like a thin client.
Netbooks became popular in concept and a marketing gimmick, but it turned out that people were actually dissatisfied with the idea because they still wanted to use the netbooks for other common computing tasks for which they were underpowered. Manufacturers started beefing up their netbook line to include more capable processors, gigabytes of RAM, and hundreds of gigabytes of storage, also increasing the price. The line between "netbook" and "notebook" has become a bit blurred.
I think it's mostly been settled for the time being by saying that netbooks are small laptops that use Atom processors. I'm not sure it's an important distinction anymore.
my dual-boot Acer Aspire runs 3.5 hours of XP, or 2.0 hours of Ubuntu netbook edition. Linux power management sucks. The laptop is now the "desktop," so until Linux gets serious about power it's going to be relegated to a beige/black box under your desk/in your server closet.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
If people are going to write comparison articles and start the Windows vs Linux battle please compare them on fair grounds.
That bloatware is what allows the Windows netbooks to reach the pricepoint they do and push out the Linux netbooks.
They made the bed, they have to lay in it.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I picked up a new Samsung netbook recently and installed the Ubuntu Netbook Edition. I've been less than thrilled with it.
First- Windows 7 Starter sucks too. I'm not going back to it, and am not happy with either of them. My main complaint about Windows 7 Starter is the notion I have to pay Microsoft to use an external monitor or set my desktop background. I expect those to come in the stripped down OS and I'm absolutely unwilling to give MS one more cent. In fact, their policy on Windows 7 means my next game console will be a PS3 instead of an Xbox (and I'm tempted by Kinect, have owned several Xboxes and enjoyed them).
Ubuntu issues in the first two months of use:
* right click just stopped working. I have to click and hold left click to access those functions. I didn't mess with anything related to X, and kept things as default as possible. spent a fair bit of time googling without luck.
* nm-applet network manager just stopped working. all interfaces show "disabled" when I resume after suspending. then nm-applet disappears completely. I'm forced to use my crackberry browser to find a solution since I'm on the road. It was painful.
* update manager locks up all the time.
* Many applications put dialog controls out of sight on this tiny monitor. I can't directly fault Ubuntu for third-party apps, but it still seems like the OS ought to detect this condition and offer me some kind of workaround.
That's not all, but those are the biggest complaints that have me looking for an alternative.