79 Comments so far

1. devnet on May 6, 2008 1:03 pm

   “In my opinion, I also get the perception, that perhaps the development of Linux is guided by people who seek to maximize performance. It does not appear to be developed predominantly by those who seek to maximize profits”

   Excellent point my friend. :D

   I’ll be using this quote later…it’s a great one for anyone using linux.
   

   Read more from devnet

   Google News Redesign is Horrible

   So, what do you think of the Google News redesign?
   You like it???  Tell me where you live so I can come hit you on the head a couple of times with a tack hammer…we’ll see if that jars any[...]

2. Anonymous on May 6, 2008 1:04 pm

   Another reason is the filesystem design:
   Although windows features the robust ntfs, it is inappropriate for i/o bound operations (such as video editing, database etc.) because its file locking mechanism doesn’t realize the full hard disk bus bandwidth.
   Add to that the puzzling rationale behind not fully using free memory for cache and the odds are against windows.
   Let’s continue digging! linux also features an optional direct access to files and device files, which means that for random i/o tasks (again, video editing, database…) when caching data read from the disk is not efficient because it’s randomly accessed (before the application processes the data it is copied to the system cache, than copied again to the application’s cache) it is possible tell linux not to make that kind of double-caching and copy the data only to the application’s cache.
   Ok, dug enough! :)

3. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 6, 2008 1:18 pm

   @devnet – Ha ha… Cheers! :) The two perspectives are a world-apart! ;)

   Also (edit) , I learned a few cool things from your blog (especially the “Linux@Work” section). Particularly about FISH being a good replacement for SCP. It’s nice when other’s include links to their blogs, because I get to learn more neat stuff. Thanks. :)

4. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 6, 2008 1:31 pm

   @Anonymous – I think those are some great points. They do spell out other very specific issues (that I wish Windows developers would address). ;)

5. nfm on May 6, 2008 3:33 pm

   Windows XP is still faster in GUI mode compared to Ubuntu. I used Ubuntu for a while but It’s bloated and heavy on ram. I don’t like the Ubuntu’s kernel, there are always little problems so you end up compiling vanilla one. I moved to Arch Linux because of simplicity, slackware like design, one config file, only necessary modules, vanilla kernel, always up-to-date, perfect for program complications, faster than anything. It kicks Gentoo’s unstable a$$. I also moved away from GNOME, it’s too much I/O dependent. I tried over 20 Windows Managers, Fluxbox seems perfect for me. With Arch it’s easy to recompile kernel or xorg-server using gcc-4.3.0 with -march=core2 -mtune=core2 -O3 -pipe optimizations for great speed. Now I will never say that that Windows XP is faster in GUI mode.

6. Boycott Novell » Links 07/05/2008: 3 More SDKs Come to GNU/Linux, Intel’s Crime Patterns Further Exposed on May 7, 2008 12:29 am

   [...] Why is Linux Faster than Windows? [...]

7. Jeffery on May 7, 2008 5:56 am

   I believe the problems with memory usage started back when MS broke away from IBM on OS/2. There were big delays in the development of OS/2 Warp 3, and MS got impatient. They took their tech and went to market with a product that did not include all of the powerful parts of OS/2, but working under the assumed constraints. OS/2 was designed to work with machines with as little as 4MB of RAM, and so used a file SWAPPER.DAT to a great extent. It did, however, include several features that never made it into Windows 3.0: “lazy write,” pre-emptive multitasking, object-oriented desktop. MS went to market with a half-complete project, and then kept patching and patching and patching. Even when they came out with Windows NT 3.1 the MS folk were using borrowed ideas from the IBM engineers who had many years of experience with AIX, as well as with memory constrained mainframe systems. Greed and impatience is what led the MS Windows systems astray.

8. Mike on May 7, 2008 6:46 am

   AV software would be a massive hit where it is used. NTFS is very slow also – a major issue.Still, I use a box at work with no av software, and no memory limitations (it has no swap file on either linux or windows – 4gb of ram) … and XP still feels very sluggish compared to a full gnome desktop on any of the 3 distro’s I installed on a spare drive (identical hard drives too).The gui is sluggish, the filesystem is extra-sluggish, starting apps is slower, switching desktops is much slower (using a 3rd party app mind you), multitasking doesn’t scale at all (2 cpu bound processes almost kill the machine), even maximising windows is slower. It’s just rubbish.

9. tz on May 7, 2008 6:54 am

   I remember a comparison – I had an infrequently used set of programs, both using the same GCC compiler (cygwin for windows) that would basically suck megabytes of text into memory and search for ways to compress it.

   Under Windows, my processor’s temprature alarm would never go off.

   Under Linux, I’d have to keep pausing the program to let the processor cool down. And it would run much faster.

   What I believe is happening is during the clock tick, Linux very quickly and efficiently says “nothing else to do, go back” without using much of the processor cache or time. Windows needs to do the same thing, but probably causes most if not all of the entire cache to have to load Windows code, then reload my user code.

   So my theory is that under linux, the on-chip (and if used off chip) caches stay full of my user program and data so run at the processor clock. Under windows, they run at the external ram speed because the system handlers are larger. Perhaps not bloated in the sense of Office 2xxx, but not minimalistic – and Linux is extremely well refined here.

   I would look for a cache-hit cache-miss benchmark.

10. PeterKraus on May 7, 2008 7:17 am

    @ the article:
    Well written. I like the style, that you don’t pretend to be guru, and you clearly state the sources.

    nfm:
    Just have 2 questions for you – firstly, why do you think Gentoo is unstable (honestly, cause I am new to Gentoo and it looks much more stable than Debian, mainly in terms of preserving user config…); secondly, do you know, that kernel is compiled with O2/Os optimisations, and if you try to compile it with O3, it just ignores it?

11. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 7:50 am

    @PeterKraus – But I wish I was the guru! :) Hee hee hee… (I also use this blog to keep some of my “How to” notes so I can go back later – And of course others can read too, that way it helps everyone). ;)

12. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 7:54 am

    @tz – This makes a lot of sense to me. I’m not the expert, but I do know that Windows relies much more on the disk cache than Linux. So it seems to me that what you’re saying could possibly be right. I never thought to look at the temperature issue (to get an idea). If temperatures get hotter with the same PC, but a different OS, common sense would say that’s a clear sign of what you’re saying above. :)

13. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 8:01 am

    @Mike – Windows with no paging file? I thought that was no longer an option, so I was going to say… but, look here: http://www.extremetech.com/art.....901,00.asp Seems it can be done with XP. Sweet! :) I was just so surprised when I saw the Cedega and Wine benchmarks showing how in several instances Windows native games ran faster in Linux. I do prefer Linux. ;)

14. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 8:08 am

    @Jeffery – I remember OS/2 Warp! I several-disk-box for the install, with blue installation screens. That was a while back. :) I even remember the television advertising for it, the one with the Nuns. :) Fond memories. That was before I ever tried any Unix/Linux. I think I was still on Windows 95 or 3.11, something like that.

    I liked reading your historical summary, in many way’s it’s too bad. In my opinion, they would have done better to stay (100% focus) on the NT track and REALLY improve it. Now it’s coming to fruition with the unfortunate Vista disaster. (If I recall, ME was another “flop” as well).

15. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 8:12 am

    @nfm – Hmmm… I’ve heard a lot of noise about Fluxbox, I’ve not actually tried it.
    Have you tried Fluxbuntu? http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/ubu.....then-some/ – It’s the first one listed under the video. :)

16. JJ on May 7, 2008 9:15 am

    I love the summary – Very well thought out and a couple powerful statements. One thing you might also have pointed out is the sheer number of Linux distributions and forks compared to the very small number of Windows distributions. Why? Because Linux is better designed for improved performance, the sheer number of variations of Linux on different platforms and in different environments helps to ensure the increased performance. Because it’s open source, good code, efficient code, ideas, improvements, etc. are all shared and themselves improved upon.

17. sen8tion on May 7, 2008 9:19 am

    Nice comment there JJ.
    We are Linux, your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile!

18. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 9:20 am

    @JJ – Cool, thanks. Actually that’s a very interesting perspective. At leaste it makes sense to me.

19. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 9:23 am

    :)

    @sen8tion – Hee hee hee… Okay, that was funny but… Umm… no no, it’s:

    Linux, live long and prosper.

    :) Hee hee hee…

20. Ed on May 7, 2008 10:10 am

    There are a great many reasons why Linux is faster. The most dominant (and probably most meta) is that there are many Linux programmers highly concerned about performance, as those of us in the real world who have these concerns have an opportunity to be key developers. In the Windows world, there are developers, and there are users. The only possibility that Microsoft has for developers with access to real-world behaviors are their own systems administrators – but I have the impression these people are not developers. Even if they were, there are far more heavily used systems out on the Internet than within Microsoft; the admins at Amazon, for example, could certainly tell Microsoft a thing or two about performance needs.

    Beyond that, you have a few heavy hitters – memory, AV/AS, maybe filesystem, and a huge host of 0.x% differences. I’m sure people will list scores of them in your comments here, and I’m sure that they won’t all be listed.

    Note: I do run AV on my Linux box. However, I’m running an open source AV that appears to me to have better performance than its proprietary counterparts – if it really does have better performance, that’s probably also because of the fact many of the people who develop it make real-world use of it, rather than just focus on writing that one product all day.

    Incidentally, that the OS makes the CPU run hoter does not indicate that it’s actually running the application faster – it could be heating the CPU up on its own. However, to really heat up the CPU, you need to utilize most of the CPU, and most OS code doesn’t. But back in the day, when there was less specialized circuitry on CPUs, I was aware of a number of OSes which raised the CPU temperature on their own, while slowing down the actual evaluation of code.

21. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 7, 2008 10:25 am

    @Ed – I understand (and agree with) your points about real world “users” able to participate as developers and how Windows based is developers and users. The amazon comment had me smiling. :)

    One question, I don’t clearly understand this part (I think): “…was aware of a number of OSes which raised the CPU temperature on their own, while slowing down the actual evaluation of code…” – Please can you help me (us?) out and clarify a bit more on that part?

    Does it refer to productive use of the CPU – Meaning the CPU could be running a lot of code (temperature increases) but does not produce as much output, as opposed to running less code (cooler) with more productive output? Is that what you mean? (I know the grammar here is bad, but I’m just thinking out loud.
    Thanks! :)

22. eric76 on May 7, 2008 3:13 pm

    It used to drive me crazy to read all the claims about how innovative Microsoft was with MSDos and Windows.

    For example, if I didn’t know any better, I would have believed that Microsoft invented virtual memory. There was all this talk in the media about how Microsoft had introduced virtual networking and how great it was for computers.

23. David A on May 7, 2008 3:51 pm

    I started as a developer using Unix back in 1992, only moving to windows coding a few years later on W3.1. I was amazed at the backward step this seemed to be, with dreadful memory handling and the amateurish ‘cooperative’ multitasking model.

    The real problem is that Windows started simple (as a bolt on for DOS) and only had the other bits added on later – in ways that sometimes conflicted with the legacy software.

    Windows started as a ‘small’ OS for simple personal machines that lacked networking, security and multiple users. Unix and Linux were built from the start with multi use, networking and security in mind.

    There are ‘new’ aspects of Windows (i.e. implemented in the past couple of years) that were present in other OS’s in the ’50s.

    This is the major reason why Windows has always limped forward, pushed by aggressive marketing rather than technical superiority.

24. ZiggyFish on May 7, 2008 7:35 pm

    I can confirm that Windows is hard disk bound.

    A while ago, I had Windows XP installed on a computer (plenty of ram at that time (720 MB)) and I had a faulty hard drive. The hard drive would just power off (littoral power off, you could here it power down). Once that happened, the whole system would halt (no mouse, keyboard).

    As a test I installed Linux on the same computer. When the hard drive powered off, The only thing I lost was the ability to store data to the disk, (i.e it was fully functional).

25. Don Watkins » Blog Archive » Is Linux faster than Windows? on May 7, 2008 8:07 pm

    [...] This article came by way of the Groklaw RSS feed that I’m accustomed to reading everyday. I think the author, who is certainly not a Linux fanboy has made some very good points and it appears that he has had an epiphany with Ubuntu Linux. Read more here. [...]

26. oiaohm on May 8, 2008 7:38 am

    Ok Linux is not always faster than windows.

    First thing under windows run two direct X programs 100 percent the same in windows. One active 1 not. At this point you spot the windows bias system. The active program will run faster than the non active one. This is a 3 to 1 bias. Linux does not have this bias at this time can make Linux appear slower. Next X11 rendering this has the annoying effect of making applications appear slower but if you time them the Linux programs can be up to 5 seconds faster and still have windows users saying they are slow.

    CPU is really not the factor. The factor is caching. Commonly what windows users think linux is being heavy on ram. Yes its heavy on ram but its because its has huge caches. Caching also speeds up turnaround. So this can hammer poorly cooled cpus into the ground.

    Windows always have as much free ram as able causes it to perform bad. Linux is have as much ram allocated as able even if it means dumping cache. Windows does perform better without a swapfile completely.

27. foo on May 8, 2008 12:33 pm

    I’ve always thought the superior performance of linux had to do with superior memory handling. Typically, a machine running linux is twice as fast and smooth as a machine running windows. There are also no strange hitches under linux the way there are under windows. Set two machines side by side, one slower and running linux, and run some screensaver. You will notice much smoother performance under linux.

    Another point is how closely Microsoft is connected with hardware manufacturers. Follow the money.

28. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 8, 2008 12:42 pm

    @foo – You’ve certainly got a valid point (in my opinion). I’m sure that development motivated by profitability versus that motivated by quality will provide very different results. I do give Microsoft some credit in the sense that it must be a fine and very difficult line to walk, keeping investors and consumers alike happy. ;)

29. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 8, 2008 12:48 pm

    @oiaohm – I’m not sure if I understand you correctly. The first statement says “…Linux is not always faster than Windows…”, but the content of your post seems to support that Linux is faster than Windows? Is that right? Or did I not understand correctly. Let me know. Thanks! :)

30. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 8, 2008 12:51 pm

    @ZiggyFish – The first time (years ago) someone told me Linux does not need a hard drive, I was pretty surprised! When I actually saw it, I wanted to try. ;)
    More recently, someone sent me this link: http://www.davinciplanet.com/b.....ows-cddvd/

31. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 8, 2008 12:56 pm

    @David A – Oh gosh… I remember that Windows had to have DOS. I couldn’t install it without the DOS component. You’ve mention a couple very pertinent issues in the sense that perhaps, it may be harder to improve an OS with “afterthoughts” as opposed to initial inclusion.

32. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 8, 2008 12:58 pm

    @eric76 – They didn’t invent virtual memory!!!!!!!!!!????????????? OMG!!!! OMG!!!!!! No!! Say it ain’t so!!! :) :) Ha ha ha…

33. Jon on May 8, 2008 4:40 pm

    To the few of you talking about how much RAM Linux uses- you’re absolutely correct in that observation. What you’re wrong about is the conclusion. Linux, by design, uses most to all available RAM at all times, because *why not*? Unused RAM is wasted RAM. The Linux FS is designed to appropriately allocate RAM to the apps and modules that need it. While you might have the Windows System Idle Process eating up CPU cycles and RAM, Linux says, “Hey, you’ve got three apps open- lets allocate the resources to those three things”. It makes sense to me, and as you open/close programs, the FS allocates RAM pretty damn efficiently. The idea is “Unused RAM is wasted RAM”.

    I think that is one of the big reasons Linux (speaking for GNOME, KDE, and Xfce- the only DEs I’ve tried) is much snappier than Windows.

34. Sulfura on May 8, 2008 5:12 pm

    The priorities in Linux are handled in a different way than in Windows (I think Linux has about 20 levels of process priority and 3 stats for every process).

    As for the memory, we were taught in school that Linux keeps as much in the RAM as possible, only writing to the Hard Disk if really necessary.

35. coloradosprings on May 8, 2008 7:54 pm

    Unless I read it wrong, you need to review preemptive vs cooperative. Win98. Cooperative. NT. Theoretically preemptive.

36. Pol Danilov on May 8, 2008 11:58 pm

    One thing that allows GNU/Linux operation speed to trump that of Windows is the extensive amount of configuration options available.

    For example, setting the ‘noatime’ flag for the root(/) file system in /etc/fstab will allow the system to save CPU cycles as well as prolong the HDD lifetime.

    http://www.faqs.org/docs/secur.....sec73.html

    * Please e-mail me if you know of any other useful /etc/fstab option flags.

37. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 9, 2008 7:08 am

    @Pol Danilov – That’s some good input! :) Based on this I found some good info on TuxFiles here: http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxh.....fstab.html I’ll probably find more later today.
    When I’ve the time… ;)
    Thanks.

38. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 9, 2008 7:20 am

    @coloradosprings – I went back to TecWeb and they said “…Mainframe operating systems have employed preemptive multitasking for decades. Desktop operating systems began to utilize this architecture starting with Windows 95 and Mac OS X…” Here: http://www.techweb.com/encyclo.....ltitasking
    But… I wonder, is that accurate? Because you mentioned this, I really tried to remember back, I’m beginning to think I’m losing my memory… :) So, surfed to about.com and found “…Microsoft Windows 95 employs preemptive applications for 32-bit applications, but not for 16-bit applications…” Here: http://linux.about.com/cs/linu.....emulti.htm

    Ah ha! So we are both right! :) ;)

    Windows 95 uses cooperative multitasking for 16-bit applications and preemptive multitasking for 32-bit applications.
    I never thought I’d be writing this in a Linux based blog. Hee hee hee…
    :) Cheers!

39. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 9, 2008 7:30 am

    @Sulfura – Funny you would mention that. In another comment posted on http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/doe.....-software/ , “yochai” wrote:

    “…To further exemplify the inherited process argument, lets give an example:
    You open firefox as a normal (ie non-root) user. No matter what you do from here, any program or file executed by firefox will only maintain your permission set; ie if you downloaded a nasty executable it STILL couldn’t hurt your machine as it only had the rights of the program that downloaded it— namely firefox, which is being run by you, the normal user…”

    So it seems to me that this “priority” concept is total throughout the design. Perhaps I’m a bit off-topic here, but it seems to me that consistency (such as this), helps to ensure faster quality systems. Not to mention that open source is powerful because the developers can see the code and work more effectively with it. A case in point, when we buy a car, don’t we want to look at the engine? – I think so. ;)

40. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 9, 2008 7:36 am

    @Jon – Oh crap, hee hee hee… :) That further reminds of one issue I was originally having. I was wondering what’s wrong with the system as it was using up too much RAM. :) I originally thought that something was wrong and was trying to “fix” it. Must have been a Windows leftover thought. Go figure. Hee hee hee… :)
    But you’re right. Communication with RAM is faster than the HDD, no question about that. Therefore common sense would suggest to use more RAM and less of the swap file.

41. Argos on May 9, 2008 10:18 am

    “Unfortunately Windows only has one desktop, that’s it. No negotiation, you’re stuck with it.”

    I’m no guru, so I’m not quite sure how deeply that “desktop” concept goes… but I’ve been a happy user of bbLean for years now. It is an alternative shell for Windows, based on (if my memory serves me), your beloved FluxBox from the linux world.

    It’s a complete replacement for the Explorer shell, and if you go for an alternative file-manager, you can run your Windows without a single Explorer.exe process.

    Saves some memory (depends on how many plug-ins you use, of course) and renders you pretty much immune to any explorer-related problems.

    Takes some time getting used to, but it sure is worth it in terms of workflow efficiency, in my humble opinion. The default settings might feel a bit strange, but rest assured, you can make everything act pretty much the way you’re used to… with a little help from the community :)

42. IP on May 9, 2008 6:04 pm

    Hi, I was about to say exactly what Argos has just said. The only difference is that i don’t use bbLean. I know I haven’t tested it much, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I noticed using bbLean you actually loose the Desktop itself (i mean, being able to throw files/folders to the Desktop). I insist, I might be wrong, but if I’m right that’s enough to me to keep with explorer.exe which, on Windows XP it is taking around 20mb ram.

43. matt on May 10, 2008 5:37 pm

    I’m going to have to test this out now. I had installed ubuntu the other day – but stopped playing with it after messing up the install with KDE (it went from using 500 megs of ram to 2.5 gigs of ram). So its time to scrap that and start over.

44. Bill on May 11, 2008 8:27 pm

    All MS products were designed for marketability first. Enhancements were added only to fix problems that were causing a lot of bad PR for the OS. Windows (any version) has always put sales ahead of technical quality, the whole upgrade scheme proves that.UNIX and Linux were designed for performance and stability and, especially, longevity. Linux went even further and removed any consideration of marketing, depending entirely on technical excellence and flexibility.

45. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 13, 2008 6:47 am

    @matt – Please let us know if you get the chance. Would be interesting to read your experience. ;)

46. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 13, 2008 6:50 am

    @Argos – Oh? I’ve never heard of bblean. I’ll take a look. For those interested, here is the link to bblean: http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/.....bblean/ and here is the Wikipedia info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.....bLean

47. compwrite on May 16, 2008 4:54 pm

    nice article, i really appricate it

48. Yoda on May 20, 2008 11:48 pm

    I don’t think that Linux is faster than Windows. Look at an unbiased judge, the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. SPEC has a suite of tests that can be used to determine what the relative power is of disparate computer systems.

    Look at the systems in the now-obsolete spec2000, for example. I chose the HP BL25p with an Opteron 275. The test run with Windows Server 2003 is 1515 and 1443, while the test run with SLES 9 on the same hardware is 1508 and 1374. A higher number is a better (faster) result.

    You can repeat this for almost any model that has both windows and linux results and find the pattern is rarely broken.

    http://www.spec.org/cgi-bin/os.....00;op=form will give you a search form.

49. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 22, 2008 2:54 pm

    @Yoda – Thanks for the interesting input (and link to a read). There are a ton of readers (with other stat’s) who would disagree. :) ;)

50. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 22, 2008 3:04 pm

    @compwrite – Appreciate the compliment. Thanks. :)

51. Colin Wilson on May 23, 2008 6:39 pm

    Darn, all this talk about preemptive multitasking is bringing back happy memories of my Amiga – it did more (and faster) in 2Mb (which was shared with video ram) than my 48Mb (IIRC) 486DX2-66 – and it booted in seconds flat…

    As soon as I can get Steam working properly i’m making the move permanently – as it is, the new release of ubuntu seems to suffer from severe flicker in wine for some reason. 7.04 works better, but i’m still plagued by random crashes in a Half-Life mod I play :-/

52. kmashraf on May 24, 2008 10:10 pm

    The performance difference I bet my business on with GNU/Linux is it’s ability to run almost forever. Even if it runs out of disk space. It does not crash! UNIX, GNU/Linux are by design meant to be stable. My view is that when Unix was developed the developers were dealing with computing in it’s nascent stages. They were not pressured by profits and deadline. And they only released the stuff after extensive testing and peer review. The only thing I miss in GNU/Linux is the ‘shine’. But that after all is only skin deep. As the inevitable windows crash shows.

53. MeneerR on June 5, 2008 12:16 pm

    The reason wine runs faster is easy to see when executing a game from a the console.

    [Stub] Feature X: Not implemented yet!
    [Stub] Feature Y: Not implemented yet!
    [Stub] Feature Z: Not implemented yet!

    As the article by Phoronix showed, the speed of wine decreased with every new version. Why? Because less calls are being ignored.

    What is interesting is how many calls aren’t needed for correct behavior 99% of the time. Yet the programs still make them because of corner cases. Corner cases that likely don’t work correctly with wine yet.

54. UbuntuLinuxHelp on June 18, 2008 7:25 am

    @MeneerR – That’s an interesting observation. I’m also wondering how the new release of Wine (yesterday) will address some of the issues. For those interested the release announcement said:

    “…Wine 1.0 is now available. This is the first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development and beta testing…”. We can learn more here: http://www.winehq.org/

    I switched to the new Ubuntu Linux (Hardy – 8.04) about a month ago – Wow, it’s great! So I’ll be giving the new Wine release a go to see what has changed. (I last used Wine 3 years ago, or so).

55. www.theadda.com/stamp/ on July 8, 2008 4:07 am

    Why is Linux Faster than Windows?…

    have plenty of access to laptops to use as I please. The problem is they are all 4 years old. So I took a discarded laptop and installed Ubuntu to see if Linux really is “ready for prime time”. I had zero Linux experience and I just learned as I we…

56. web design on July 9, 2008 6:16 pm

    why is DOS faster than Linux

57. Yonah on July 10, 2008 9:12 pm

    Garbage. I also ran a quake server, and there is no way the program would crash just because the number of players went “too high”. Overall latency for each player would get progressively worse, but in to way would the OS or the Quake Server itself crash, unless there was some sort of hardware failure. You are a liar.Also, it’s worth noting that even the multitasking aspects of Linux haven’t been refined. If you were paying attention to the kernel development, you would note they recently changed schedulers, and multiprocessor granularity still remains a problem.You not only don’t know your facts, you have a warped concept of how things really work. ****** for lying to people. EDITOR NOTE: Bad language is not allowed and has been edited out of your comment.

58. me on July 29, 2008 3:34 pm

    I love Linux and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I just wanted to point out that while Linux does not have a registry that is A) binary and B) gigantic like Windows, it does load its configuration from /etc which would resemble something of a non-binary registry.

    I also thought you should touch on the better file system and partitioning in use in all modern Linux distributions.

    Also to the nerd that posted why is DOS faster — it’s not!~

    Great article BTW!

59. UbuntuLinuxHelp on July 31, 2008 10:38 am

    @me – Oh, the file system! Yes, you’ve a valid point! I should have explored that too (and I know I’ll learn a lot!) :)
    Thanks for the input – Appreciated!

60. Thomas on August 10, 2008 11:14 am

    Damn good article.

61. chiron613 on August 24, 2008 10:32 am

    The benchmark shows that XP was better than anything else in 2 out of 3 tests, so it’s not quite accurate to say that Linux was faster than Windows. Everything was faster than Vista, though.

    The reason for this, I believe, isn’t so much the memory or other stuff. It has to do with the so-called digital “rights” management (DRM), which I prefer to call digital restrictions management.

    Vista spends an incredible amount of time and resources checking to make sure you aren’t making an illegal copy of anything, using your own computer to police you to protect big business. Your games don’t matter as much as that, so you get shorted.

    The benchmark shows how much effort is given to DRM. Microsoft probably thinks it’s doing you a favor by leaving you 75% of the computer for your own use.

62. adzik on September 8, 2008 5:35 pm

    I certainly agree with the DRM, chiron613.
    Probably should have been a major point in this post. DRM uses far too much system resources. The very fact that a so-called business tool (Vista) is eating up 1/4 of functional response is despicable. The main component of Vista’s DRM implementation is all about monitoring your video input/output to watch for unlicensed HD. Retarded.
    XP on the other hand does not have this, so the response is very noticeable compared to Vista.

63. UbuntuLinuxHelp on September 10, 2008 9:13 am

    Oh yes! – That’s a good point too! One perspective I never thought to think about…

64. UbuntuLinuxHelp on October 7, 2008 10:11 am

    @Yonah – A couple of points:

    1) When the server fails to respond, that means it crashed. It does not matter if the issue is hardware or software, when it does not respond, we call this a crash. In our case the server failed to respond at all, which means it crashed. You were not there when the server crashed, as such it seems rather moot (and misguided) to suggest otherwise.

    2) The purpose of the post was to elicit discussion. It was an exploration to try and figure out why Linux appeared to operate faster than Windows? After all, I am not a Linux guru or professional, by any stretch of the imagination. As such, personal attacks and bad language was unprofessional and certainly not appropriate in a public environment.

65. How to Deter Scrapers and Hotlinkers | BloggerSavvy on November 5, 2008 5:56 pm

    [...] Why is Linux Faster than Windows? [...]

66. kane taker on April 15, 2009 5:06 am

    I agree with the first comment and will use the same quote

67. enli on May 3, 2009 1:41 pm

    That was a very well written article but kind of long.

    I think you should condense the few points readers pointed out in the article, that would make it a lot better and in-depth.

    Thanks for wonderful read.

68. UbuntuLinuxHelp on May 3, 2009 2:15 pm

    @enli – Point well taken. Thanks for taking the time to comment (and make suggestions). It’s appreciated. Also – I liked your MAC Fonts post very nice!

69. Robert on June 21, 2009 3:51 am

    Warcraft III, a game with openGL support, runs much better on Linux than on Windows using wine. It’s got about 30% more frames per second. When running in DirectX mode, it’s slower.

70. M.J on July 24, 2009 4:24 pm

    What, I have been using both Windiows and Linux, and I can say that Windows is far more faster than Linux.

71. aibras on August 8, 2009 7:02 am

    @Jon
    off topic.
    I think that’s why for servers; Linux is better. This is because usually the servers -ex web server- are standalone for a limited number of processes; unlike the desktop.

    Keeping all the RAM allocated for all the available processes is a clever design decision which totally archive the dedication nature of the servers.

72. UbuntuLinuxHelp on August 21, 2009 9:37 am

    @M.J – Please provide your test results? :)

73. MMA on December 13, 2009 6:25 am

    Well I know one thing for sure. XP starts to run very slow once its been installed for a while and becomes loaded with tons of programs that try to start themselves when windows starts.

    Then theres the whole spyware and adware thing.
    

    Read more from MMA

    Kenny Wayne Shamrock’s next fight set for Oct. 16 vs. Jonathan Ivey

    Quote:

    Ken Shamrock’s next fight has been signed and it will be against Johnathan Ivey for the USA MMA promotion on Oct. 16 in Lafayette, La.

    MMAFighting.com learned Wednesday from sources[...]

74. microsofting on February 11, 2010 4:44 pm

    [...] what I was reading wasn't with Wine or Cedega, it was with games that were coded for Linux. Also… http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/why.....n-windows/ __________________ November 2010…A change we can believe [...]

75. jhacks23 on April 5, 2010 9:36 am

    This is a great article, I have ran various version of windows and they are all the same crap, it is like college textbooks every year same book with new cover. Like my tech professor used to say, just eye candy! I have also ran Linux on my laptop and it runs so much smoothly. That it, i am done with windows :-)

76. UbuntuLinuxHelp on April 10, 2010 1:49 pm

    @jhacks23

    What’s the model of the laptop you’re running Linux on?

77. geneqew on June 5, 2010 12:53 am

    nice post..how i wish i can still use nix @ work again(my company uses windows)

    btw here’s a qoute from a friend of mine on windows and linux:

    “the more that i use windows, the more that i realize how good windows is in terms of marketing”

    cheers

78. Pradeep on June 13, 2010 10:23 pm

    many of us are stuck with windoze at work. a follow up post on how-to-reduce-bloatware-on-winX would have helped many readers

79. UbuntuLinuxHelp on June 29, 2010 7:19 am

    @Pradeep

    That would be helpful, but alas… this is a Linux blog. :) ;)