David Williams over at iTWire has done a comparison of Windows vs Linux. It is performed by doing functionally identical tasks in both the OSes. This comparison is not a fair one by any measure. The laptops running the Windows and Linux were different in the hardware config and the software used for the tests were comparable but clearly different (MS Office vs OpenOffice; IE vs Firefox 3).
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Member since:2005-07-06
Agreed, for the stats to mean anything the testing should have been done on the same machine.
Install the OS, do the timings, clear the machine, install the other OS, do the timings again.
Anything else is a waste of space. I am sorry I read the article, it was just one big Linux advert.
We Linux users neither need or like sites like this 
Member since:2008-04-18
"Install the OS, do the timings, clear the machine, install the other OS, do the timings again. "
You don't even need to wipe out one OS to install another. You can simply install both in the same time and dual boot.
Edit: on the same machine I mean (just to clarify things).
Edited 2008-07-22 19:24 UTC
Member since:2006-09-22
Member since:2007-09-06
But just look at how much discussion it's stirred up already. The real hotzones must be ablaze with Fanboi versus Zealot armagedon.
Think of the page hits; Ooh,.. won't someone think of the pages hits (er.. children.. think of the children.)
(keehee.. I had to find something amuzing to do with the discussion. the article pretty much cancelled itself at "did not use same hardware or software".)
Member since:
2006-01-06
Seriously, folks, how can you even *begin* to compare the OSes when you're not even running on the same hardware? The results are meaningless. Also, while comparing different apps is anecdotally interesting (if only because it highlights the differences in the apps), a more meaningful comparison would be to see how Windows and Linux handle RAM and disk usage for the same apps (eg. Firefox, OpenOffice, etc). It isn't clear to me why the author decided to go down the path of introducing too many unquantifiable differences in his analysis. It isn't that difficult to image a machine, install a new OS, image the new install, and then flip back and forth between the configs. Unless this was simply about being "different". But, quite frankly, I would prefer "intelligent" to "different".