To those who run Linux or BSD does the machine you now run Linux or BSD run faster than with Windows

[liberaldemocrat7]

To those who run Linux or BSD does the machine you now run Linux or BSD run faster than with Windows?

Yes for those who have not switched to a faster machine, does Linux or BSD with their applications run faster than with Windows?


Do Linux or BSD applications and system take up less memory than Windows? You can answer the memory question as a reply.

The only problem with Linux or BSD for me comes from not having good video conferencing software for Linux and it won't run the good stand alone program cuseeme that I use with other people, which lets us avoid signing up for some video conferencing community and paying through the nose for a years worth of video conferencing. Also Linux or BSD does not recognize my video capture board nor my usb video camera.

I did use Ubuntu for awhile but it did not run faster than Windows XP.

[cyborg_jim]

1. Metrics?

One cannot possibly begin to make a sensible comparison without a sensible way of measuring things.

I did use Ubuntu for awhile but it did not run faster than Windows XP.

So how did you measure this?

[lvx35]

2. It totally depends on what you are doing.

Desktop-wise, I think modern windows is better. X windows needs a lot of love its not getting, somebody has to bring it up to par.

As far as server, I'd go Linux BSD any day.

[thereismore]

3. That's a silly question. Depends on the software. nt

[MazeRat7]

4. What they said... plus some details.

My servers (database, http, mail, firewall, etc) are all Linux (Fedora Core6 to be exact). My everyday "get work done" client is Linux (Firefox, Evolution, Eclipse) and my "fun/hobby" client for audio/video editing/production + my "day gig - corporate client" are both Windows XP.

Ms. MZr7 uses only Mac. (But she is a punk-rock chick that works at a bookstore... what does she know) - I'm so going to get owned for that statement....

Its an interesting network here at the MazeRat house.

MZr7


DOH... Edited to answer the initial question. I choose a box for a task at hand based on ease of use, performance, and security. What I listed above is best in class for what "I" am doing.

[Solon]

5. Depends on what you are talking about in relation to "faster"...

I use Ubuntu Linux myself, and I found it booted faster than Windows XP, in addition to being faster at loading programs and having better "separation" of programs. If I have a program hang in Windows, that's a "rebooting" event, in Linux, I kill it and the rest of the system runs just fine. As far as hardware or software complaints, ask for Linux drivers or programs, or better ones if you wish, the fact is that, just like Windows, Linux is almost as good at hardware support, however there are still limitations because of hardware manufacturers who don't support some operating systems.

In addition to this, Linux isn't comparable to Windows in some forms, for example, if you ran Damn Small Linux, which is a version of Linux that runs off of a total of 50 Megabytes of data, it runs a HELL of a lot faster than any Windows OS. Ubuntu Linux isn't as fast as DSL in booting as well. Besides that, regardless of operating system, programs only run as fast as they are optimized for your system. Most programs, being "compatible" with the 386 standard, are usually NOT optimized for your system, both in Windows or Linux. Generally in Linux, you can get certain programs, and the Kernel, optimized for your CPU, 586, 686, AMD-k7(Athalon and the like), and AMD64. Some Windows programs also have some of these optimizations, or take advantage of them, like MMX and other caching or execution shortcuts.

I used to run Windows XP as my preferred platform for games, however, it ended up hosing my system, preventing it from booting up, and wouldn't even let me reinstall it, it just wouldn't boot. So I finally just abandoned Windows XP altogether, and now run Ubuntu Linux exclusively. To be frank, it runs better, and, oddly enough, has better hardware control and compatibility than Windows did on my system. For example, Windows refused to let me use TV-Out to play DVDs on my Television from my computer, it would "black out" the screen. In addition, it behaved oddly when I couldn't use my own desktop settings for the TV that are different than my monitor, like different resolutions. In addition, program execution was on one screen or the other, but not both.

So I gave up on that, under Linux, my TV has its own X-Windows session, with independent resolution settings, and I can launch any program from within the TV screen, rather than piping it from my main monitor. I can now play movies from Archive.org some classics like Night of the Living Dead without problems. You can't beat that, in addition to games and other programs.

As far as specs, my computer sucks, frankly, but runs better under Linux than Windows, here's the specs:

1.25 GHz AMD AthalonXP
256 MB RAM
128 MB Nvidia Graphics card
Sound Blaster Live! Value card
Via chipset motherboard

That's about it for specs, as you can see, it kinda sucks, but then again, I can run Compiz-Fusion at full speed. Hell, I even ran Project Looking Glass as a desktop manager, of course, its not even a beta yet, and my system didn't have the minimum requirements for it, so it didn't exactly run at full speed. But then again, it was working just fine, just a little "jerky".

For example, here's is my system running XGL(Beryl, now being called Compiz Fusion) from a while ago:

[Sgent]

6. Linux is optomized for servers

in how it divides up the cpu cycles. The change over to CFS (Completely Fair Scheduling) should significantly improve the desktop experience. CFS is in the main kernel tree as of about two weeks ago, so it will take 1-3 months or so to filter into most distributions.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. The hardware runs at exactly the same speed.

And then you are off comparing apples to oranges as the software is all different. There are standard benchmarks for measuring system performance at specific tasks, but they are generally focused on database performance.

[skids]

8. How would I know?

I haven't run Windows on any of my machines in over a decade.

As far as conferencing, Skype has a VC client now I believe, for a premium but that could be combined with a telephone service switchup.

Cuseeme is only one of many VC suites. If you need support for more OSes, switch to another program. There are dozens.