“We have compared the 32-bit and 64-bit performance of Ubuntu and started a performance comparison of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu, but how does the performance of the upcoming Feisty Fawn release compare to that of Fedora 7? In this article we have enclosed benchmarks from Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft, Fedora 7 Test 2, and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Herd 5. In gaming and desktop benchmarks, which of these Linux distributions is faster?”
as I remeber we had an articel about Windows Vista (XP vs. Vista Perfomance) last week. And I said that my ideal OS is getting faster with every new version and not just slower than Vista.
And I think this artical shows that it is possible.
I can’t see the point in these benchmarks and the previous ones comparing Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu vs. Xubuntu. The things they’re benchmarking are mostly kernel and drivers related, and all the systems compared have those things in common.
They should compare time to boot, time to load each desktop, memory used on a default install, time to open applications,…
What they do would be interesting if they were comparing Linux vs. Solaris vs. *BSD, but Linux vs. Linux is a dumb comparison.
But the distros do patch the kernel, and compile with different options. They also run background programs like yum-updatesd.
Indeed, these benchmarks at least where a bit more usefull compared to the earlier ones which really where stupid… If they continue to improve, their second next benchmarks might even be very interesting…
>They should compare time to boot, time to load each desktop, memory used on a default install, time to open applications,…<
for me personally i couldn’t care less about most of that. I almost never reboot my computers and when i do i really don’t care about the boot time….. if it takes 2 minutes……. so what…. it’s not like i have to reboot every time i install something like you have to do in windows so often.
and …… well……. the memory……….. linux uses all your memory all the time………….. what does your memory do if you aren’t using it?
i am a hell of a lot more concerned with with how fast an app r uns after the system has booted then i am with boot time. I would rather have a slow boot time and a secure fast user environment myself.
Since these tests don’t appear to be run more than once (or at least the article text doesn’t indicate more than one run) the variation between the test results would be considered normal. I don’t see the point of the tests at all.
for me, speed is not as important as stability. But then, I am not a gamer.
Looking at the tests they performed it looks like the difference is minimal between the distrobutions. A few seconds and a few frame rates. I’m not sure if that makes a lot of difference to people.
notice that almost every test had a different winner?
In the news to Fedora 7 Test 2 the Developer said, the many Debug Stugg is active so that the system is slower than the final.
What about Ubuntu at this point?
Benchmarking for me should focus on
Time to fire up a browser window (epihpany)
Time to fire up a text editor (gedit sucks in this arena, lefpad isn’t to shabby though)
Time to fire up a media player or document viewer
“Feel” (small things lika latency between mouse click, visual feedback and actual effect feedback)
Browser open on click, gedit, a great editor, open on click, evince open on click and rhythembox need one second. OOo Writer or Calc also open on click.
compress, encod etc. are betetr benchmarks.
Here, on Athlon 3500+ with 1GB of ram, it’s way longer to open Firefox or Gedit. Subjective feel of speed is more based on responsiveness, I don’t really care if encoding an album will take 10 or 12 minutes because I’m going to switch to another task anyway.
My applications typically run for months (using software suspend). Why should I care about the startup time?
I wonder how many years it will take until the majority of users is freed from starting up their working environment again and again and again…
yeah, many windows users aren’t really used to multi-tasking, as it doesn’t work very well under windows. I experience that every day at work, having freezes and crashes – other ppl don’t. They tell me ‘you want too much too fast’. Well, if I want to search through several pdf’s, I’m used to opening them at the same time – preferably in tabs in konqueror (select 10 files, richtmouseclick -> open in tab). Don’t even think about it in windows.
And if it wasn’t for the performance issues, the window management sucks as well. If you have a word file open (working on it, you know…) and are looking for another – you open an explorer window with some files. Open the first word doc. No, not the right one. close. What do I have on top? The first word window, instead of the explorer window which was supposed to be there! WTF???
And what about shortcuts? Often, alt-tab doesn’t work – I can’t get out of a word window to the next window. Why? Aaaah – a floating toolbar!!! Brings me right back to the window I was working on! WTF?!?!?
Sorry, but until Microsoft gets the basics working, I can’t comfortably work in it, so I prefer to work at home – in a decent Desktop Environment (and no – in this regard, even though I prefer KDE – Gnome kicks windows ass as well – anytime…)
Agreed, after having had to use Windows(tm) all day, when I get home, I fire up this Linux box and chill out using KDE.
It is the same feeling you get coming home from work, slouching on the sofa wearing your favourite slippers.
Comfy !
Clearly you know what I mean. Windows users here most likely don’t even understand what I’m talking about, used as they are to working around all the quirks in windows. Many don’t try to properly use the scrollwheel anymore (like, for scrolling – in windows, it only works in the active application. Not over tabs, not over the taskbar, not over the volume icon, not in non-focused apps, and often not even in the focused app – esp in dialogs, you often have to click the scrollbar first. WTF does microsoft think the scrollwheel is made for???)
Don’t even think about it in windows.
What’s problem in doing that in Windows? I usually have upto 30-50 windows opened, switching is instant.
If you have a word file open (working on it, you know…) and are looking for another – you open an explorer window with some files. Open the first word doc. No, not the right one. close. What do I have on top? The first word window, instead of the explorer window which was supposed to be there! WTF???
I wasn’t able to reproduce that. After closing the document, explorer window is on top.
And what about shortcuts?
They work.
Often, alt-tab doesn’t work – I can’t get out of a word window to the next window. Why? Aaaah – a floating toolbar!!! Brings me right back to the window I was working on! WTF?!?!?
I wasn’t able to reproduce that. Floating toolbar doesn’t prevent switching from Word window in my case.
well, all of it is pretty reproducable here at work. Office 2003, MS Windows XP Media Center edition.
and having 30 windows open is of course horrible on a single desktop, but yes, that can be done. What IS horrible is that it takes word several minutes to become usable after you selected and opened 5 files at the same time… let alone 10 or more. Same with Adobe acrobat.
And the lack of Focus stealing prevention is horrible as well. If you open 5 word files, and word is ‘working’ on that in the background, it’s pretty annoying to read a website – every time it has finished loading a word file, word pops up on the foreground, even when you’re typing in firefox or whatever. At least KDE has proper window management – as long as you’re actually WORKING in a window, another window doesn’t pop up in front. But when you start an app, it DOES. Hard to describe to a windows user, I guess, let me just say it DOESN’T ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF ME. Like windows does.
and having 30 windows open is of course horrible on a single desktop, but yes, that can be done.
Why use single desktop?
What IS horrible is that it takes word several minutes to become usable after you selected and opened 5 files at the same time…
Still cannot understand what’s problem with Word? Never heard any complaints from Word power users (myself I’m not) who work with multiple documents.
And the lack of Focus stealing prevention is horrible as well. If you open 5 word files, and word is ‘working’ on that in the background, it’s pretty annoying to read a website – every time it has finished loading a word file, word pops up on the foreground, even when you’re typing in firefox or whatever. At least KDE has proper window management – as long as you’re actually WORKING in a window, another window doesn’t pop up in front. But when you start an app, it DOES. Hard to describe to a windows user, I guess, let me just say it DOESN’T ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF ME. Like windows does.
Tweak UI -> General -> Prevent applications from stealing focus
Many don’t try to properly use the scrollwheel anymore (like, for scrolling – in windows, it only works in the active application
My mouse driver has this option, and scrolling in inactive windows does work.
Not over tabs, not over the taskbar, not over the volume icon, not in non-focused apps, and often not even in the focused app – esp in dialogs, you often have to click the scrollbar first. WTF does microsoft think the scrollwheel is made for???)
Well, this features are available with freeware tools, but overall I agree with you that scrolling could be implemented better in explorer.
I really believe you can work around the many annoyances windows has. By installing freeware (and hoping it doesn’t contain spyware), or more-or-less official tools from microsoft, or specific driver options etcetera.
But actually, this is another thing I don’t like about Windows – EVERY piece of hardware has it’s own options and settings. Some can easilly do things, others have horrible dialogs. Some printers can print 2 to 8 pages on 1, others can’t. Apparently, some mouses can scroll inactive windows, others can’t.
Well, that won’t help me. First because I don’t want to spend hours looking for obscure software to fix BASIC functionallity in my OS, second because I don’t want to spend hours keeping all these tools up-to-date, look for security fixes etcetera, and last – because I CAN’T do any of it anyway, as I only use windows at work (eg I don’t have any rights, I can barely use it…)
Microsoft should fix their operating system, instead of having their users spend their time hunting for tools fixing deficiencies in Windows.
At least software management WORKS on linux, I do remember the Windows 98 time with all these custom tools and all the time spend on managing them and the instability and performance problems they cause… Thank the FOSS community for Package Managers (and some decent operating systems).
You, stare, seem to be a power user (most users just live with these problems, instead of spending time to fix them). Give linux a try, apart from the ocassional annoyances (mostly because microsoft spends a lot of time making interoperability a mess) you’ll see it is a lot more mature compared to MS… Just different (it took me a long time to switch, but now I can’t even imagine how I could stand the limitation to your computer that is called Windows).
By installing freeware (and hoping it doesn’t contain spyware), or more-or-less official tools from microsoft, or specific driver options etcetera.
At least there are tools which implement funtionality I wasn’t able to achieve in Linux at all. Like mouseImp, for example — scrolling pages by moving mouse with the right mouse button pressed.
But actually, this is another thing I don’t like about Windows – EVERY piece of hardware has it’s own options and settings. Some can easilly do things, others have horrible dialogs. Some printers can print 2 to 8 pages on 1, others can’t.
What you are saying seems like a KDE description for me 🙂 Really, I don’t have any problem with hardware in Windows (man, at least there is decent GUI device manager, contrary to mess in Gnome/KDE)
Well, that won’t help me. First because I don’t want to spend hours looking for obscure software to fix BASIC functionallity in my OS
I don’t spend hours looking for obscure software, why should you?
At least software management WORKS on linux
Personally I couldnt care less about software management on desktop. I already have established set of tools I work with.
I do remember the Windows 98 time with all these custom tools and all the time spend on managing them and the instability and performance problems they cause…
Windows 9x is a mess by itself, you shouldn’t have used it in a first place.
Give linux a try
Well, my first Linux experience on the desktop was RH6 and since that I had been trying almost every major release. Not to say I use Linux and FreeBSD on my servers at work. So I’m not exactly a Linux newbie
apart from the ocassional annoyances (mostly because microsoft spends a lot of time making interoperability a mess) you’ll see it is a lot more mature compared to MS…
My experience is opposite. Until last 1-2 years Linux on desktop was horrid. Too slow, too many visual glitches, too many interface inconsistencies, after all just unstable. It gets significatly better, but even in current state it’s barely usable — still feels slower, still looks amateuristic. In addition there is lack of professional apps like non-linear video editors, image editing software, some other specific tools. And did I mention games?
Edited 2007-03-08 15:04
> What you are saying seems like a KDE description for me 🙂
Hell, NO, every KDE application has the same print dialog, NO MATTER what printer you use. So they can always print to PDF etcetera. On windows – you can only hope the printer has a decent dialog, and every app has it’s own (yes, you have several dialogs, in many cases giving overlapping functionality – like printing 2 pages on 1 – depending on the app and printer, you can do it in the app dialog, the printer dialog, both or none…)
Every KDE app has the same ‘configure toolbars’ window.
Every KDE app has the same ‘configure shortcuts’ window.
etcetera.
In windows, apps even have several totally different visual styles – compare office, msn, media player… each version looks different from the previous and the other software on the pc.
>Really, I don’t have any problem with hardware in Windows (man, at least there is decent GUI device manager, contrary to mess in Gnome/KDE)
??? What do you mean? There are tools for pretty much all hardware, unlike windows, where you often first have to install it… I can configure my touchpad ALWAYS from the KDE control center (provided ksynaptics is installed). In windows, every laptop has it’s own different tool, each providing other functionality.
> I don’t spend hours looking for obscure software, why should you?
You know where to find it… I don’t. In linux, start Synaptic and use search. On windows, you have to use google, which often takes a lot more time (not counting the fact you often find shareware, can’t trust freeware due to virus/spyware stuff etcetera).
And I don’t get the ‘linux is slower’ thing. Sure, windows redraws faster, and seems to start faster. But as soon as you do something, you have to wait until it is done. Try Outlook, open someone else’s agenda. Until the server has send the info and the app is ready with it, you can’t do anything – it just freezes. Kontact, on the other hand, does things like these in the background.
Try to open 10 word files by hitting enter when having them selected in explorer, compare that to KDE with Koffice or even openoffice… Your windows system won’t be very usable…
I wouldn’t say Linux is perfect, but windows desktop users (and you clearly haven’t used KDE more than a few hours each time) don’t see how windows is limiting them, used as they are to being limited.
Did you ever try to drag’n’drop a file to a input field in a webbrowser? Hell, no, drag’n’drop rarely works in windows. Of course it works in konqueror.
In konqi, you can drag’n’drop tabs. In firefox, you have to install another extension. dunno about IE 7, but I guess it doesn’t work either.
typical: basic things *just work* in linux/KDE, while on windows, you have to find and download stuff to be able to do it (hence 99% of the ppl don’t even bother trying).
Hell, NO, every KDE application has the same print dialog, NO MATTER what printer you use. So they can always print to PDF etcetera. On windows – you can only hope the printer has a decent dialog, and every app has it’s own (yes, you have several dialogs, in many cases giving overlapping functionality – like printing 2 pages on 1 – depending on the app and printer, you can do it in the app dialog, the printer dialog, both or none…)
It seems you’re using some different Windows. Almost all software use basic print dialog, some complex software (like Office) do extend it with additional options, but it still looks consistent.
In windows, apps even have several totally different visual styles – compare office, msn, media player…
Compare Abiword, gaim, amarok, mplayer…
You are blaming windows for different visual styles?! At least on Windows there is one standart widget set which actually looks consistent! Can’t say that about the Qt/GTK mess.
each version looks different from the previous and the other software on the pc.
No it doesnt. My media players (VLC, MPC) doesnt look different between versions, the same with my pro tools – Sony Vegas, Sonic Stage, Photoshop, email client, etc.
I don’t. In linux, start Synaptic and use search.
You should know what to search, and chances you’ll get huge list of obscure-named software you somehow need to choose from anyway.
which often takes a lot more time (not counting the fact you often find shareware, can’t trust freeware due to virus/spyware stuff etcetera).
I’ve never had any virus/spyware on Windows, but I’ve seen rootkited Linux boxes which can be fixed only by wiping the whole system and reinstall.
And I don’t get the ‘linux is slower’ thing. Sure, windows redraws faster, and seems to start faster.
Exactly.
But as soon as you do something, you have to wait until it is done.
Not really. For instance, when I work in NLE, I have to wait only on the final rendering stage. I’m so used to fast GUI in Windows I cannot stand even small interface lag. This problem is solved by accelerated window managers, though, but they are still in alpha state.
Try Outlook, open someone else’s agenda. Until the server has send the info and the app is ready with it, you can’t do anything – it just freezes.
Don’t know about outlook, probably this feature is single-threaded, anyway such issues can be seen in FOSS software as well. Just yesterday I had similar troubles with Gnome Art Manager.
Try to open 10 word files by hitting enter when having them selected in explorer, compare that to KDE with Koffice or even openoffice… Your windows system won’t be very usable…
Absolutely usable, corresponding number of Word instances has opened.
I wouldn’t say Linux is perfect, but windows desktop users (and you clearly haven’t used KDE more than a few hours each time) don’t see how windows is limiting them, used as they are to being limited.
I’ve yet to understand how Windows is limiting me 🙂
Did you ever try to drag’n’drop a file to a input field in a webbrowser? Hell, no, drag’n’drop rarely works in windows.
Drag’n’drop works like a charm in Windows. I’m not sure why would you drop a file to a input fiend in a browser?
In konqi, you can drag’n’drop tabs. In firefox, you have to install another extension. dunno about IE 7, but I guess it doesn’t work either.
No, drag’n’drop tabs work by default in Firefox and IE7.
> It seems you’re using some different Windows. Almost all software use basic print dialog, some complex software (like Office) do extend it with additional options, but it still looks consistent.
Windows XP media center edition or something, I think. Anyway, the print dialogs of my most used apps, MS Office and Adobe are wildly different, again text editor has its own… and each printer in the office (xerox & hp’s) have a totally different dialog with advanced settings, including quite some duplication with the app’s settings. I can handle it, that’s not the point, but you can’t honestly say Windows is consistent in this area…
I used to do a lot of networking setup on laptops in my previous job, each had it’s own tools, which I painfully had to disable to get them to work with the school’s wireless network. Sometimes it didn’t work at all, even on new and very expensive laptops… On the other hand, the Mac laptops all had the same settings, and the students could just use the instructions to get them working.
The look’n’feel problems aren’t big if you only use KDE apps (like me) but then again, you say windows apps look consistent – look better. The GUI toolkit windows is build upon only has what, 20 default widgets? Maybe just ten. So all apps have their own, or share a few. The media center interface I have at work even seems to mess up some ‘old’ apps, showing the toolbar with white rectangles around the menu items.
> Absolutely usable, corresponding number of Word instances has opened.
yeah, but takes a long time here, while I can’t work in any of them until all are opened… Worse, they all seem to jump to the front, even when working in another app, each time one is opened.
Lets skip the rest, gets a bit long
> I’ve yet to understand how Windows is limiting me 🙂
There are a huge amount of features and things that ‘just work’ in KDE which I miss in Windows. You either don’t know these features, or where able to find tools (scattered over the web) to add them.
Look, I don’t want to bash windows, but for someone used to KDE, it’s a mess. I mean, ppl complain about the config dialogs in KDE… check the config settings of MS Office!!! I can’t stand the weird, tabbed interface, where tab’s just jump up and down while you try to look for something. And Kcontrol at least has a decent, tree-like interface and a search function – MS’ control panel is awfull. Three places where you can set network settings… Aargh…
You’re used to it, you don’t notice it anymore I guess. But if you would be able to compare them on even grounds (and I admit, I can’t either, after 4 years KDE), I don’t think Windows would be that much better than KDE.
BTW I have nothing against windows – well, I wouldn’t if it would just open specs like exchange, word doc’s, and fix the problems in their webbrowser… Now I’m annoyed by MS even if I don’t use it. If they would just honestly compete, try to be better instead of beating others by playing games, all the love to them and their users. But now, I try to promote linux wherever I can, because I feel Microsoft tries to take away my freedom to use whatever I want by trying to annoy the hell out of me. I hope you can understand that frustration… Nothing against you or other Windows users, though it would help us (and yourself, by improving competition thus pressuring MS a bit more) if you would at sometimes think about how MS is hurting others who just happen to not like to use windows but something else, be it Mac OS X, linux or some obscure OS…
I’ve never had any virus/spyware on Windows
All common forum software should be configured to auto-replace this phrase with “I am a lying cocksucker”.
It saves a lot of time.
Damn, that web site is full of ads. Anyway, the end user doesn’t feel any difference between 1% faster or slower.
They have the same results.
What a surprise, it’s not like they are sharing the same kernel, binaries, etc …
They aren’t.
Fedora and Ubuntu use different kernel versions, and they have tweaked the stock kernel to fit their needs.
And, a lot of the software in the repos have distro-specific patches, which would change things some.
However, I still doubt there would be MAJOR differences. The one major difference I can think of in Ubuntu is Upstart, instead of sysVinit. They didnt test boot times, so that wouln’t show up.
Fedora and Ubuntu use different kernel versions, and they have tweaked the stock kernel to fit their needs.
So it proves that ‘tweaking’ the kernel doesn’t change anything and is more a geek stuff than real world optimizations.
They should have run the unix byte benchmark +q3 test or whatever is in use now under these two distro using 5 variables and all with firefox, thunderbird and something like xmms or amarok playing an internet stream (let say a tipical session for anyone)
with gnome eyecandized
with kde
with a light windowsmanager like blackbox or e16
with x11 and an xterm
and on init 3 (without q3 or if it exist a text version, libcaca or something)
Djamé
None of these ‘bench marks’ mean anything to me I only care about the system running 24/7 and loading applications correctly without to many hassles.
This was geared for a Windows review with games who cares…
people who use linux as something other than a server.
… that the author probably ran the default desktops on each system, with xyz whizzbang?