During my 8 years of Linux on and off usage I have tried more distros than I have chocolate bars. Each one of my previous encounters meant that I had to spend at least 2 days configuring before I have a desktop that I was somewhat comfortable with. With Ubuntu Feisty Fawn's latest test beta --for the first time ever-- this was not the case. I was up and running with all the niceties I wanted within 2 hours.
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Member since:2005-09-01
I have different experiences on my poor 256M/800Mhz machine. This may have something to do with higher memory consumption or different architecture (more usage of file based data, and executables instead of libs).
Agree CPU interactivity is better on linux, but it's all killed when disk contention appears (between swap, cache dump, excessive seeks during app startup). Windows handles that much better from what I see.
The fact is that while Gnome usability definitely surpasses that of XP it's performance lags in a way that makes a difference to me. (not enough to switch to XP but nevertheless frustrating).
Member since:2005-07-07
well, there are indeed a lot of relevant differences. For one, Gnome uses more memory compared to KDE (approx 25%) so KDE would be more performant on that system. Still, it might need swap - and XP is even less memory hungry, so it works even better at 256 mb. Also, Qt, having a company & money behind it, has better painting performance than GTK. Then there is the linux kernel - versions after 2.6.18 (if I'm right) have a new IO scheduler, giving better performance. Last, as you said, Linux apps use more libraries than a comparable windows app (more duplication on windows, decreasing mem usage of 1 app, increasing it if you start many apps - windows still is a single-app-single-user OS...). And the linux dynamic linker is slower as well, giving longer startup times (a lot is being done in this area, btw). Last, GCC is slower than the compilers used with windows.
Yes, linux has several big disadvantages to windows, in the performance area. But those disadvantages lie in a few area's, and it's better in most areas. Fixing the few problems will speed up linux beyond Windows - and these area's are being fixed, that's why every new linux release (+ libs + X + KDE/gnome combined) is faster than the previous one, while MS can't pull that off.
Member since:
2005-07-07
Showing menu's and other actions in the applications, switching between apps, and responsiveness on high load - all better in linux. Menu's often don't respond in Windows, and are generally slower than linux. I often click the taskbar menu twice, waiting for a response!
Windows also quickly shuts down when you try to use many apps concurrently, esp if some off them are heavy. Loading several files at the same time (select 10 files, hit enter. Explorer even WARNS you it's not smart to do that - no problem on linux...)
Filebrowser performance differs for several reasons. Explorer seems faster, but just does less - showing previews is much slower, and it doesn't get the filetype right in many cases (linux looks IN the file to determine it's filetype. So for example Konqueror will pretty much identify files correctly, explorer relies on their extension - I hate this when copying files from my linux to windows, as I don't add extensions on linux - why should I?).
But reading this metadata takes time. I know KDE is working on this, I'm actually preparing a blog about this - the new strigi-based KFileMetaData replacement is anywhere between 25% and 80 times (!) faster (depending on cold vs warm cache)...
Also, windows apps themselves freeze much more often than linux apps do. Try adding somebody's agenda to Outlook, and wait until you can use the app again... If the server takes his time, it can take minutes!