Benchmarked: Ubuntu vs Vista vs Windows 7

[pooch]

In depth: A lot of people have been chattering about the improvements Windows 7 brings for Windows users, but how does it compare to Ubuntu in real-world tests? We put Ubuntu 8.10, Windows Vista and Windows 7 through their paces in both 32-bit and 64-bit tests to see just how well Ubuntu faces the new contender. And, just for luck, we threw in a few tests using Jaunty Jackalope with ext4.

More;Benchmarked: Ubuntu vs Vista vs Windows 7 | TuxRadar

 

[napilopez]

Interesting. I'm not sure how effective those benchmarks are in representing real world usage though. I mean, I don't copy files that often. I found the boot time thing surprising. I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 x86, Vista x64, and 7 x64, and 7 clearly boots quicker than the rest on my system. Same for install. Seems to vary, but yea.

 

[Dragor1]

Nice read and a clean and unbiased one at that too! hard to find such unbiased ones now-a-days!

Thanks, pooch!

 

[ittech]

very nicely done report. that pretty much falls into line with my own much less exhaustive notes I've made to date. the only proviso I would suggest is the boot up time. coming to desktop is a lot different from being at a usable desktop while the unit continues to suck it's teeth for a bit.

nevertheless, an A+ effort on that report.

 

[davehc]

Interesting.
Quite early in the days of the forum, I began throwing dispersions on the wild claims being made about 7's superiority over Vista.
I was (am) a Vista lover, and had tuned it to the hilt. Most of my amateur benchmarking came out similar to those in these charts.
I think I was going overboard, as a critic, and got heavily flamed and even a threat to be thrown off the site. Well - there you go.
But this is still a beta, although Microsoft say it is functin complete. Unfortunately (?) I am a Windows lover and will not abandon it for any linux product. I will inevitably move on to 7.

 

[pooch]

Interesting.
Quite early in the days of the forum, I began throwing dispersions on the wild claims being made about 7's superiority over Vista.
I was (am) a Vista lover, and had tuned it to the hilt. Most of my amateur benchmarking came out similar to those in these charts.
I think I was going overboard, as a critic, and got heavily flamed and even a threat to be thrown off the site. Well - there you go.
But this is still a beta, although Microsoft say it is functin complete. Unfortunately (?) I am a Windows lover and will not abandon it for any linux product. I will inevitably move on to 7.

Hey everyone to their own It would be a pretty boring place otherwise

 

[LordTakyon]

I have tried Linux on and off for years, Ubuntu many times, but it is just not as easy to keep running.

People slate MS for so much, but a tuned system, such as mine, is secure, responsive and stable. Linux is just a constant stream of work unless you have the perfect hardware. Even with the 8.10 Ubuntu release, I spent pretty much a week solid performing 'workarounds' to get supposedly supported hardware to function correctly.

Linux is not beyond me, far from it, but I like to be able to get my system how I want it and leave it at that, bar standard maintenance ofcourse. I do not wish to spend all my time keeping things going.

If I had to rate them, 64bit editions anyway, Vista was by far the slowest in pretty much every aspect, then it would be Ubuntu 8.10, and Windows 7 is currently the fastest.

Not even the fastest, it also just feels smoother to use, almost zero bottlenecks when I push it hard, the whole package just feels better.

I am not a MS fanboy, I just want to use the OS that is best for me. I am old enough, ugly enough and experienced enough to tweak the hell out of my Windows machines, no overclocking though, and side by side with identical hardware mine far outperforms 'standard' set ups.

 

[napilopez]

I think this may also have to do with the system you're running on. The system they reviewed on was a very powerful, top of the line one. From what I've heard, Seven runs better, but not humongously better, on top of the line systems. For folk like me however, with cheap and basic power computers, I think the performance gains are much more apparent

 

[dmex]

You should read all the comments, his "benchmark" tests are absolutely disgusting :shock:

He has no idea how a genuine benchmark is conducted at all, at one point he says DRM affected copy copying speeds :shock: thats a complete lie and total bull**** DRM has nothing todo with anything unless your playing a drm protected song or video :huh:

He also didnt mention for the test "disk space used after install" that the hibernation/swapfile where using 6GB each for the size of his installed memory so it skewed the results towards Ubuntu :shock:


I can go on and on for awile about the amount of mistakes and things he did wrong but its not worth the effort, that benchmark is a disgrace and insulting to benchtesters worldwide

 

[JerzeyLegend]

Just my opinion, but the test clearly states that Windows does benchmark test for the Windows Experience Index while it is installing. It could take over 2 minutes depending on your hardware.


I think Windows Explorer is flawed somehow. I am having issues for Windows 7 on my laptop. The sleep function and hibernation mess it up entirely. I have to shut down if I travel with my laptop, because if I sleep or hibernate, Windows Explorer gets way messed up afterwards. Someone told me to do something with the wake on network function, but it didn't change anything.

 

[glitch]

been trying vista win7 and ubuntu for some time now, and personaly i prefer win7 and ubuntu.
although benchmarks are a good test for performance,but there's one thing i still miss in these tests.
and that is how easy it is to use for normal homeusers with little computer knowledge, how easy they can use and install software , security etc.etc.
because thats whats really important.
and i think Microsoft scores good on that

 

[darkassain]

Interesting. I'm not sure how effective those benchmarks are in representing real world usage though. I mean, I don't copy files that often. I found the boot time thing surprising. I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 x86, Vista x64, and 7 x64, and 7 clearly boots quicker than the rest on my system. Same for install. Seems to vary, but yea.

yeah i dont agree that this tests Real-world testing, i think it just tests performance...

Interesting.
Quite early in the days of the forum, I began throwing dispersions on the wild claims being made about 7's superiority over Vista.
I was (am) a Vista lover, and had tuned it to the hilt. Most of my amateur benchmarking came out similar to those in these charts.
I think I was going overboard, as a critic, and got heavily flamed and even a threat to be thrown off the site. Well - there you go.
But this is still a beta, although Microsoft say it is functin complete. Unfortunately (?) I am a Windows lover and will not abandon it for any linux product. I will inevitably move on to 7.

like pooch said everyone has a opinion...
thats what a forum is here to voice your opinion

I have tried Linux on and off for years, Ubuntu many times, but it is just not as easy to keep running.

People slate MS for so much, but a tuned system, such as mine, is secure, responsive and stable. Linux is just a constant stream of work unless you have the perfect hardware. Even with the 8.10 Ubuntu release, I spent pretty much a week solid performing 'workarounds' to get supposedly supported hardware to function correctly.

Linux is not beyond me, far from it, but I like to be able to get my system how I want it and leave it at that, bar standard maintenance ofcourse. I do not wish to spend all my time keeping things going.

If I had to rate them, 64bit editions anyway, Vista was by far the slowest in pretty much every aspect, then it would be Ubuntu 8.10, and Windows 7 is currently the fastest.

Not even the fastest, it also just feels smoother to use, almost zero bottlenecks when I push it hard, the whole package just feels better.

I am not a MS fanboy, I just want to use the OS that is best for me. I am old enough, ugly enough and experienced enough to tweak the hell out of my Windows machines, no overclocking though, and side by side with identical hardware mine far outperforms 'standard' set ups.

YES try getting wacom tablet to work on a HP series with ubuntu 8.10 and Opensuse....
i was out the linux scene because my laptop was not supported at the time....
*overheating* issues it said

I think this may also have to do with the system you're running on. The system they reviewed on was a very powerful, top of the line one. From what I've heard, Seven runs better, but not humongously better, on top of the line systems. For folk like me however, with cheap and basic power computers, I think the performance gains are much more apparent

yes at some point there wont be a big difference on which OS when you have high end hardware...

its the medium and low end that you see the improvements...

You should read all the comments, his "benchmark" tests are absolutely disgusting :shock:

He has no idea how a genuine benchmark is conducted at all, at one point he says DRM affected copy copying speeds :shock: thats a complete lie and total bull**** DRM has nothing todo with anything unless your playing a drm protected song or video :huh:

He also didnt mention for the test "disk space used after install" that the hibernation/swapfile where using 6GB each for the size of his installed memory so it skewed the results towards Ubuntu :shock:


I can go on and on for awile about the amount of mistakes and things he did wrong but its not worth the effort, that benchmark is a disgrace and insulting to benchtesters worldwide

so what im thinking is that he left the linux swap partition out...:shock:
if he did then his tests are way off but also unbiased
and yes the pagefile+hiberfil are the same size as a your ram so just there you can cut
a bunch of disk usage....

well he does state this...

And, of course, there's the most important proviso of all: it is very, very likely that a few tweaks to any of these operating systems could have made a big difference to these results, but we're not too interested in that - these results reflect what you get you install a plain vanilla OS, like most users do.

Just my opinion, but the test clearly states that Windows does benchmark test for the Windows Experience Index while it is installing. It could take over 2 minutes depending on your hardware.


I think Windows Explorer is flawed somehow. I am having issues for Windows 7 on my laptop. The sleep function and hibernation mess it up entirely. I have to shut down if I travel with my laptop, because if I sleep or hibernate, Windows Explorer gets way messed up afterwards. Someone told me to do something with the wake on network function, but it didn't change anything.

you prove a point....
he should have provided a mean score....
booted a few times (not counting the first time...)
and find the average score....

been trying vista win7 and ubuntu for some time now, and personaly i prefer win7 and ubuntu.
although benchmarks are a good test for performance,but there's one thing i still miss in these tests.
and that is how easy it is to use for normal homeusers with little computer knowledge, how easy they can use and install software , security etc.etc.
because thats whats really important.
and i think Microsoft scores good on that

yes this is what w7 is geared for...
the OOB end-user...
for that user that just wants a computer already ready...
i mean linux has come a long way from supporting niche hardware (or hardware where the whitepapers were avaible and someone with coding knowlegde can work it out...:shock
i have seen an article where it says that linux has the most hardaware support out of any OS....
Slashdot | Linux Supports More Devices Than Any Other OS
there is a catch though which a commenter touched on...

That's true, but Linux isn't where it could - or should - be. There are many antique 3rd part drivers for Linux for embedded devices and busses (COMEDI doesn't get updated often, DDC's Linux drivers for $1000+ aviation buses haven't been updated in years, VME drivers are equally badly maintained), where comparable drivers for Windows are nice, shiny and up-to-date... even though you know damn well that's not where the market is. It seems to me that some hardware vendors release Windows drivers because they know it'll look good to PHBs, but neglect Linux drivers because they don't give a rat's ass whether the hardware is usable or not after it's out the door.

 

[avet22]

Well I read the article 3 times, I read the replys and my conclusion is ....


HORSE FEATHERS !

 

[ittech]

well, remember its not a test bench rollout trial, any benchtest is subjective, and given enough stats, you can make just about any conclusion you want with some statistic to support your conclusion one way or the other.

personally, without going into that much detail on mine own, better than vista, moderately better and more useful than any flavour of linux i would expect, different but not really "better" than xp, but no where near windows 2000 which i still like to use as a comparasin system, now sadly put to bed except in some hold out enterprise installations and on two machines still in my home which perform blindingly fast with relatively modest processor and ram configurations.

i think that was pretty much what he was attempting to get across. it all depends upon how carefully you select your "benchmark" criteria.

 

[Crunchy Doodle]

For what it's worth - I just set up another small system with Win7 and happened to copy over a bunch of large (1-2 GB) and small (1-5 MB) files from a USB HD to the internal HD. According to the copy dialog box speed report, all transfers to and from this USB HD pretty much averaged 30 MB/sec. The reported speed varied from 78 MB/sec down to 26 MB/sec. I think that's pretty decent.

Bye.

 

[darkassain]

well, remember its not a test bench rollout trial, any benchtest is subjective, and given enough stats, you can make just about any conclusion you want with some statistic to support your conclusion one way or the other.

personally, without going into that much detail on mine own, better than vista, moderately better and more useful than any flavour of linux i would expect, different but not really "better" than xp, but no where near windows 2000 which i still like to use as a comparasin system, now sadly put to bed except in some hold out enterprise installations and on two machines still in my home which perform blindingly fast with relatively modest processor and ram configurations.

i think that was pretty much what he was attempting to get across. it all depends upon how carefully you select your "benchmark" criteria.

lmao
my win nt 4.0 machine will smoke it your win 2000 machine same with singularity in vm...


jokes aside...

what i see with those OS is that there is no optimization or uses any of modern day resources efficiently...
the server 2000 line maybe but the workstation...
windows vista family is trying to use it resources so that it makes it more usuable for the enduser not the Tech...
the tech should might as well use win server workstation (which i do)....

 

[napilopez]

Oh man, I forgot about 2000. Was that thing blazing fast or what? Lolz.

I miss having a high end system :'(

 

[davehc]

I think this may also have to do with the system you're running on. The system they reviewed on was a very powerful, top of the line one. From what I've heard, Seven runs better, but not humongously better, on top of the line systems. For folk like me however, with cheap and basic power computers, I think the performance gains are much more apparent

I support your last sentence 100%. But remember, the tests between the OS's are comparitive, using the same, or similar, computers..

 

[davehc]

You should read all the comments"

I did. I saw several pros and cons. You obviously concentrated on the cons.

"He has no idea how a genuine benchmark is conducted at all, at one point he says DRM affected copy copying speeds thats a complete lie and total bull DRM has nothing todo with anything unless your playing a drm protected song or video "

Cant argue with that, but obviously he was examining ALL the possibilities of the new OS and, again, it was comparitive with other OS's, not an isolated test on 7 alone.

"He also didnt mention for the test "disk space used after install" that the hibernation/swapfile where using 6GB each for the size of his installed memory so it skewed the results towards Ubuntu "

Totally irrelevant, given the size of even lowly hard disks today.


"I can go on and on for awile about the amount of mistakes and things he did wrong but its not worth the effort, that benchmark is a disgrace and insulting to benchtesters worldwide "

Please do so. Benchmarks are always arguable. It has even been suggested, somewhere on these pages, that Microsoft put design technique into 7 to overcome some of the benchmark tricks! My earlier posts did not have any high class tag such as "benchmark", they were merely conducted, on two similar computers, and in one case in a dual boot, with a stopwatch in my hand. Unfortunately, I can see that I should have left well alone as I did not have the expert knowledge apparently available to you.

Fwiw. Referring to the testers remarks on tweaking each OS. This is the biggest flaw in his tests. In my very early adverse comments on 7, I did point out that my own Vista installation was well customised, without bloat. I also remarked that my first impression of 7 (still a beta) was that it appeared to be very similar in performance to my (well tunes) Vista. In other words. 7, out of the box, was more like Vista, already expertly customised by Microsoft. I still conduct my amateur speed tests between the two - I am unable to change that opinion with this beta product.

I will be moving forward to 7 with the final release, as it will undoubtably be better supported than was Vista, by both the small software people and hardware manufacturers.

 

[smarteyeball]

Lets not forget the bigger picture here:

Both OS'es have strong areas and weak areas, but the speed difference between the two isn't what you could really call a vast difference. Kudos to both MS and all those who helped create the Ubuntu distro.

At the end of it all, what really matters is that people have a viable alternative to Windows if they wish.

For die hard "Windoze" haters, you have Linux or Mac.

For die hard Mac haters, you have Linux or Windows.

For those uninterested in Linux, you have Windows or Mac.

A few seconds here or a few MBPs there, isn't really worth worrying about.