Test Setup

Since this first part is more about the applications and the user experience than the performance, we’re going to keep the benchmarks short. Along with looking at 9.04, part 2 will focus on a greater level of benchmarking, particularly graphics benchmarking.

For now we’re going to be taking a look at general situations – encoding, compression, file operations, etc. Because there’s a lack of a solid benchmarking suite that’s compatible with both Windows and Linux (e.g. PCMark), we don’t currently have a way to benchmark multitasking scenarios. So this is largely a look at single application performance.

Due to some initial issues with the 64bit version of Hardy, all of the following testing is done of the 32bit versions of Hardy and Windows Vista respectively. Future articles will be done with 64bit operating systems.

Our test setup was as follows:

Software Test Bed
Processor Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850
(3.00GHz/1333MHz)
RAM G.Skill DDR2-800 (2x2GB)
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P35-DR3R (Intel P35)
System Platform Drivers Intel 8.1.1.1012
Hard Drive Seagate 7200.11 500GB SATA
Video Cards 1 x GeForce 8800GTX
Video Drivers NV ForceWare 186.18
Power Supply OCZ GameXStream 700W
Desktop Resolution 1600x1200
Operating Systems Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 32-Bit
Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron"
.

The User Experience CPU Benchmarks
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  • sheh - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link

    Also, it's "into", not "in to".

    Anyway, an interesting read. Thanks.
  • sheh - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link

    Also, it's "into", not "in to".

    Other than that, an interesting read. Thanks.
  • ssj4Gogeta - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link

    nevertheless is one "world"?
    :P
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link

    Noted and fixed. Thank you.
  • ClownPuncher - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link

    Web browsing page - Ariel should read Arial when talking about fonts?
  • pcfxer - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link

    Ease of use of Ubuntu is superseded by PC-BSD and its PBI packages. PC-BSD also takes MUCH less time to install than Ubuntu.
  • Souka - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link

    I use PC-DOS 1.0a

    Runs very fast on my Core i7 setup, and I haven't even overclocked it yet.
  • ap90033 - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link

    You probably can run more games in that than linux LOL...
  • Penti - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link

    You can run dosbox or dosemu in Linux just like in Windows...
  • superfrie2 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link

    I'm not quite sure I agree with your criticism of .iso mounting in linux. The mount -o loop command is very easy to use after you've done a couple of times. In fact, I think it is far better than using D tools in windows because you don't have to worry about unclicking all the gay-ware it tries to get you to install.

    Also, I'm not sure I agree with your pseudo dislike for some forms CLI. CLI is far more powerful than what its GUI based copies tries to accomplish. As a matter of fact, the more I learn about linux's CLI, the less I use the GUI. I find myself only using the GUI for web browsing on a regular basis.

    However, when looking at the linux GUI, compiz fusion is simply amazing. When I have a shitload of stuff open, compiz allows me to organize all of my windows and access them very efficiently. In fact, when I use windows for games, I feel handicapped.

    The most interesting part your testing was that windows applications running under wine outperformed linux native applications. I look forward to hearing more about that aspect like you mentioned.

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