Is Linux faster than windpows XP

[retrochoir]

My laptop spec is 1.5Ghz Intel Celeron M 370, 1Gb DDR2 RAM, 40Gb Hard Drive.

I am considering a dual boot XP Home and Ubintu system as I want something faster than XP.

I want to speed up boot times and get rid of the annoying pauses that happen whenever I ask XP to do anything. I will be using Linux for Internet access, email and OpenOffice.

Will I notice an increase in speed?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TonyGroves]

Unlikely with a default installation of a mainstream distro like Ubuntu.

You would get better performance with a distro like Gentoo, which is designed to be customised to bits and closely matched to your hardware. Debian might also suit, since it has such a big choice of packages from which you can pick the fastest alternatives.

 

[geirendre]

Verry hypotetic... you might!
XP uses a technic to preload some apps to make them
start faster.
AFAIK the Celeron pros have no L1 or L2 cache,
and this shows in big apps like the one you list.
If you opt for a Distro with a lightweight desktop
environment like Xubuntu

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=xubuntu

You get all the new bells & whistles that Ubuntu has
without it eating up all your RAM as Gnome(Ubuntu)
and XP does.

 

[elsenorjose]

If you want something faster than XP, why are you keeping XP and dual booting?

The answer to your question is: It depends on the application. Clearly, there are some applications that simply will not run in ANY Linux distro (QuickBooks is probably the most notorious) so the question shouldn't be 'is Linux faster?' but rather 'is Linux faster for X task?' For example, for my daily 'net use, email, etc. I use Ubuntu but I need to use Windows for Crystal Reports and MS SQL.

For Internet browsing, Swiftfox is an optimized build of Mozilla Firefox. Swiftfox has builds for both AMD and Intel processors and is based on the most cutting edge Firefox source code available. Since it's optimized for your processor, it tends to run much quicker than the comparable version of Firefox on Windows.

Try this: Determine what you will use Linux for and take this test:

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Best of luck!

 

[xwb]

It is debatable whether you will notice a difference in speed. I'm running on a 500MHz Celeron and there is absolutely no difference. They're both as slow/fast for similar applications. Firefox and IE both seem to eat up memory like there is no tomorrow. StarOffice and MS Office are equally bad. Don't know about open office.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I'm dual booting XP Pro and Centos 5 on a 2.2GHz P4/ 1G/ 40G.

OpenOffice seems to run about the same on both OSes.

Firefox is noticeably slow and memory- hungry on both.

Opera is noticeably faster than Firefox on both.

XP seems to be eating up its (much larger) partition faster than Centos is... and I use Centos more. I probably need a bigger hard drive in any case.

You _would_ notice an increase in speed if you used Puppy Linux, thanks to its lightweight but excellent applications and running from ram. It even boots fast from a CD.

 

[retrochoir]

Thanks to everyone for your help.

It seems like a missed opportunity that a stripped down OS is not available for users who only want to surf the web and read their emails - probably the majority of PC users.

 

[LawnBoy]

There are many "stripped down" versions of linux, several of which have been mentioned in this thread. Ubuntu is not one of them.

Have you bothered to read the advice given?


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[retrochoir]

Please don't insult me Lawnboy. Please don't reply to any more of my threads.

 

[LawnBoy]

OK, no problem.


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[thedaver]

LMAO!

D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting

http://www.dermanagement.com/

 

[geirendre]

Not sure what you meen with "stripped down", but in Linux,
speed has nothing to do with amount of applications on
the system.
What do affect performance is memory and CPU hogging
applications and desktop environment (the GUI-bit).
Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird
are good candidates to avoid in the quest for a fast system.
If you check out lightweight distros like:
Puppylinux:

http://www.puppylinux.com/

DSL:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Xubuntu:

http://www.xubuntu.org/

Fluxbuntu:

http://fluxbuntu.org/js.html

VectorLinux:

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

You get the picture

 

[retrochoir]

OK thanks. I've just checked the Puppy Linux website and that seems like a good starting point.