Is Linux faster than Windows?
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- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- Comparing Lubuntu 15.10, a lightweight version of Ubuntu Linux, with Windows XP Professional with the unofficial Service Pack 4 update (both 32-bit) on a 10-year-old PC with all original hardware to see if the oft-repeated claim that Linux is "significantly faster than Windows" and "breathes new life into old hardware" is true. Various tests were conducted using a stopwatch to keep score, as well as a highly scientific graphics benchmark to test framerates. Also, the PC's power consumption was measured to check Lubuntu's claim to be "energy saving".
- Наука та технологія
If you came here to the comments to tell me that I used the wrong versions of Linux and/or Windows, and that ______ Linux is *definitely* _much_ faster than Windows ______, feel free to make your own comparison test video and I'll be glad to link it in the description. :-) p.s. Windows 10 only takes 18 seconds to start up on this PC!
+vwestlife I would love to see a video with you trying out a puppy linux, or a varient of that
+vwestlife Windows 10 hibernates on shutdown. it doesnt shut the hdd down all the way. I think Linux will be more effective in the long term. Thought it looks like that windows install may already be modified for speed. Seeing as Ccleaner was installed. Personally I think it doesnt matter. I love my linux, but the default kernels stopped shipping with the drivers to run my older hardware. So I ended up going back to Windows XP on that machine till it died. Simply because I know the drivers and kernel wouldn't change and I could (at least at the time) still get updates and security on Windows XP.
+vwestlife Windows 8/10 is fantasticaly faster than almost all of desktop Linux variants. I was able to get a descent speed out of old Atom N270 CPU with integrated graphics and 1GB of RAM, where almost all of Linux distributions was nearly unusable. You might try latest Debian with LXDE as well. It usually faster than Ubuntu flavours. Maybe not comparable with XP, but fast enough to work comfortably.
+vwestlife Are you a brony?
+David Tatlisu No, that's just the only graphics benchmark I could quickly find that would run on both IE8 and Firefox.
I'm not sure you should pit Firefox up against IE8. They're not even comparable.
+Paianni not to mention that many components of Windows depend on mshtml.dll, so the rendering engine of IE is usually already preloaded when the computer boot.
In the web dev world, no one even supports IE because it is so behind. It always has been.
They made a decent try with windows edge and with some tests edge beats firefox or chrome, but in the long run people want compatibility. Chrome and firefox work on almost every os or device.
Edge is already behind...
pretty much, its built into the os. its already half ready.
+Dillon Burnett IE is actively supported by many frameworks and so on. I also know of one big public agency in germany wich uses IE. That's not to say that I like that.
Edge has been a big improvement and my company does now test edge, to make sure stuff at least works.
One can run a modern web browser , one runs IE8, whist the figures hold true that is not exactly a fair comparison.
I expected the latest version of Firefox to have better graphics performance and UA-cam playback capability than an old and outdated version of IE, but alas, it did not!
Strange, was firefox using flash or HTML 5 ?
+Andrew Joy IE8 is not obsolete yet, there is a December security update for it, which you can get running 'SP4' or POSReady 2009.
IE8 was obsolete when it came out.
Andrew Joy Well in a way, yes...
In the end, use the operating system you like. I use Windows at work and Ubuntu at home. The only thing I use my home computer for is watching videos, Web browsing, and writing documents. It does great with that.
As long as the operating system runs, it is good enough for me. I use Windows, Ubuntu and mac OS X. With my three main separate computers they all manage nearly the same. The windows computer is a 4th gen i7 with 16 gigs of ram, And the other 2 are i5's each with 16 gigs of ram. The OS of your computer should accommodate your needs, not the needs of others.
With the hardware that you mentioned (such as the 16 gb of ram), I feel like unless all your doing is bottom of the barrel basic webbrowsing and checking your email, most computers should come with 8gb ram and at least an i5 3.2 ghz cpu with a 128 gb ssd or hdd minimum.
I hate to be "that" guy, but you're essentially comparing a up to date modern OS with a old one.
But yeah. Linux is more for the enthusiast, and memory management in the long term has been better for me. It's just fun to tinker around with a CLI that actually makes sense, it feels like CMD after they went to NT it just a neat add on with no special functions on Windows
+TheHareidGamer That may be true, but the "up to date modern OS" specifically claims to be faster than the "old one" so I think it's fair to test if that claim is true, don't you?
It is, can't argue with that.
+TheHareidGamer Linux isn't for the enthusiast. I use Linux daily in my work as a web/software developer, and thats after using Windows full time. Like Windows if you know what you're doing with Linux then you have an OS that will do anything you want.
CMD is ONLY for Windows NT. DOS-based Windows has command.com
+thomase13 I
Talk about misinformed. Every version of Windows from Windows 2000 on is based on Windows NT. That includes Vista, XP, 7,8,and 10.
I ran windows for decades. The usual scenario is that Windows starts off fast, after an install, but progressively takes longer to boot and shut down. I have observed that for years. People I know periodically wipe out Windows, and reinstall to get the speed back
In contrast, i run a half dozen Linux machines (Linux Mint), and a year or more later, the boot and shutdown time is still much faster than windows.
Keep up with maintenance and no speed will be lost.
+FCFordLord Not.
Why Linux Mint? I find that distro quite unstable no matter what PC I run it on.
linux on my machine shuts down like in a second or two!
Then your PCs or installations are unstable, not the OS itself.....many thousands of satisfied users.....; maybe you have a crappy stick of memory?
If you want a linux machine to completely destroy any version of Windows in its own battlefield, you should try manipulating some tens of GB of data on NTFS filesystems. It's like kicking puppies.
I stopped counting the amount of hours a linux live ISO booted from a USB dongle saved me.
+BodyKnight It's saved me a lot of time when Windows fails to detect hardware, especially when it's network hardware and there's no other PC in the house
+BodyKnight Not really, and last time I tried that it does not support ReFS which I also (used to) use.
Considering that Microsoft itself doesn't support NTFS standards for paths, namespaces and file names length, i will pass on Linux support for ReFS.
I cannot enumerate the amount of times Windows' own APIs prevented some nested file from being moved.
My old Pentium 4 PC with windows xp needs like 4 minutes to startup
+Banana Lord yep, and i bet it doesn't even have automatic update enabled. Otherwise it used to be swapping time for 15 minutes....
+Bob Pony (MERRY XMAS!! Oh wait.) Bob!
***** well it hasnt been cleaned in any way for few years
+Banana Lord Yeah, that system needs a cleanup, and badly. I've run Windows XP SP2 on the minimum requirements on laptops and it still doesn't take quite that long. XP SP3 did though.
*****
im not using it, so there is no real need for that
I have windows 8 on my laptop, and Ubuntu 14.04 on my desktop. I have much less trouble with Ubuntu.
You're going to make a *lot* of people very unhappy. :-P More seriously, I am surprised by some of the results, especially on the graphics front. (I would have figured on them being much closer if not equal, although differences in browser efficiency and implementation may factor in here. A good question might be "What does Firefox on Windows XP manage?")
(Thank you, by the way, for pronouncing SATA as SAT-UH and not SAYT-UH. And what with being unwisely curious as usual -- why the FBI web site?)
I don't know if I'll try any of this myself. Of the exactly one system I've got running Lubuntu, it's single-booted and I really don't think I want to tear into that configuration.
Those who continually insist that you have somehow "deliberately" chosen hardware that works poorly under Linux should consider trying a Firewire anything, just to see how deep the hurt goes. Never was there a more suitable time to say "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
+uxwbill The FBI web site was just a goofy choice of something that would not likely be affected by congestion slowdowns over my tin-can-and-string Verizon DSL connection.
+uxwbill Linux graphics drivers tend to be significantly slower than their Windows counterparts, which may partially account for the difference in browser performance.
+uxwbill The graphics test was done using a Flash Player widget. Flash Player tends to be a resource hog on any platform other than Windows on x86 architecture. I expected this obsolete software to be replaced almost entirely by HTML5 before 2011, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere for another decade.
+Jack Durrant You can be sure I'm well aware of all this.
If anything, what I've seen of HTML5 video so far puts more strain on a computer than does Flush Player, especially on non-x86 hardware. I'm hopeful the situation will improve.
+uxwbill Mostly off-topic, but is there an actual official pronunciation of the acronym "SATA?" I thought it was like the word "data" and was acceptable either way.
(Look who's talking, though. I say data with a short A and SATA with a long A. Go figure.)
The idea of Linux on old machines is that you you run a fully supported modern OS. XP often uses older software which most users don't care for any more, whilst a modern OS can run the latest browsers and give you all the chromey, cloudy stuff people have grown accustomed to, as well as full security which XP cannot. I'd be amazed if you could get results like that with an up-to-date version of windows.
XP can run the lastest versions of many browsers, including Firefox, Maxthon, Pale Moon, Slimjet, K-Meleon, and SeaMonkey. Opera will also continue to provide security updates to its browser for XP users. No operating system has "full security", but when properly updated and protected, XP can be very secure: ua-cam.com/video/7DTki7mclRs/v-deo.html
Most people I know use none of those browsers. Chrome support has stopped for XP and Vista, an Microsoft's own browser has not been updated in xp for ages. Also to make XP as secure as Linux, it would need to run additional software that hinders the performance anyway.
Jason Collins Slimjet is based on Chrome and continues to support XP.
What about the security? XP still needs additional software to keep it as safe as a modern OS and those programs use system resources thus reducing the computers speed for other things, and making your results null and void.
Jason Collins MalwareBytes and HitmanPro do not run constantly in the background and thus do not use up any RAM or CPU power. If you want full-time anti-virus, I recommend Panda Free Anti-Virus, which uses only a few MB of RAM and its CPU usage is so low that on the task manager it stays at 0% when the computer is idle.
First, it was an interesting comparison. I'm currently commenting from a 10-year-old machine. Using Lubuntu 14.04.3.
You are doing this comparison WITH fresh installs. It would be fun repeating this video after a month.
Others have already commented that XP is practicaly dead. Okay, you can still use it, but it is not an official OS anymore.
Anyway, you compared two OS in term of browser speed, Flash FPS (very scientific) and turn off speed (the turn on part had some good points, it shows that the XP on a fresh install is really fast, but after a month or so, turning on will take about 5-10 minutes). This install of Lubuntu is about a year old (if not older), yet it takes about a minute to boot, stil running as fast as the first day. I admit that the XP was a good OS, but is WAS. Deal with it.
See my video "Does Windows slow down over time?"
vwestlife Well, it is still annak XP, still a dead OS. Yeah, if you can defend it yourself, than maybe okay, but as you sad, avarege users don't want to change, and yes, they don't want to maintain their machine, because it is troublesome. If an avarege user won't change for another OS, tren he/she won't go through the trouble of maintaining his/her OS. And that's my opinion.
I made a change almost 5 years ago, and still using Linux, because it can do everything I need, with much more speed than any Windows OS
vwestlife sorry for my bad autocorrect
+Aggacac Most people never change their operating system until it is time to buy a new computer.
vwestlife Then I'm very happy that I'm not most people :-)
It's a disappointment about Linux that it doesn't breathe new life into old hardware nearly as well as it used to. Back in the '00s you could run Ubuntu 5.04 or 6.06 or something on a Pentium II and it would run and be useful, but since I'd say the start of the current decade, Linux has become less friendly towards older hardware. They've even depricated a lot of the older graphics drivers for obscure chipsets, like SiS for example. It is true that Linux can breathe life into old hardware, but it really depends on how old that hardware is now. I think it can keep a Core 2 Duo based machine running quite well for a while, but anything below a dual-core it's hard pressed to get it running nicely. I struggled with that when trying to run it on a Pentium M based machine. It would run, but rather sluggishly.
My Core 2 Duo laptop is still running fine in Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit... I do all of my video editing on it now. Even 1080p HD video is no problem for it.
+vwestlife Same with my Thinkpad T61
Core Duo and Core 2 Duo/Quad are still fast enough to effectively run Windows 10, and run it quickly. So installing Linux on these machines doesn't make much sense either.
@VWestlife did you get anyone to take you up on repeating the test? I might like to try, I have a 11 year old dell laptop that works perfectly. The only issue is I don't have a clean windows installation. If we could get that worked out I'd publish a test on youtube. By the way I think you did a great job on the tests.
I regularly use different versions of windows and different versions of linux. There is no question in my mind that linux is faster than windows. But that doesn't mean that I want to live in a world without windows. Both have advantages. I have some programs that only run (properly) on windows.
I had Win 7 and LM 17.3 on my pc, before it broke..
The Windows install contains the PC manufacturers optimum drivers for that PC, the Linux distribution does not. Boot time comparisons should be on defragmented HD with all temp files and caches cleared. since a clean Windows install optimizes file placement. Chrome on both platforms would provide a more level playing field.
Cool, but 1 thing I want to re-mention. You should've used the same browser. Firefox has much more things to load up than ie8 has to. And that is a probable case. About fps test the same, browsers have different renderers and it doesn't represent an actual speed. And if you say that it's not fair because 1 uses pre-installed browser, then install chrome/chromium on both
+The Diamond Games i think he was going for the "stock" browser, i agree though
+The Diamond Games - Channel closed so what you're saying is that IE is a way better browser than firefox?
+theitatit no, I'm saying internet explorer has less features to load after start up. also, many applications require ie to be installed so ie is most likely launched at boot.
I've always wondered how it was to have compared Linux from Windows XP in 2005. Unfortunately i had very very little interest in computers, and was in 3rd grade.
What i should do is try web browsing on Windows XP with the version of 360chrome with the telemetry removed, and browing on the same PC with Lubuntu and the latest Chrome version for it. And if that's not a fair test, which version of Linux 𝘥𝘰 i use?
I wonder if these results would still be the same 6 years later on the same kind of hardware using an operating system which still receives security updates and can be considered fit for everyday tasks like online banking, doing your taxes, secure messaging and encrypted data exchange aka. web browsing
Hi , the only problem with windows XP is that is not maintained anymore , but it was an excellent OS for those old pc , so now if you want something nearly as quick as XP but with modern features (and security patches ^^) you have to go to linux or nothing :)
+L' Elektrongeek With the SP4 update, Windows XP continues to get Microsoft security updates through 2019.
+L' Elektrongeek If you can find a copy of Windows POS-Ready 2009, it's basically XP for ATM's and Checkouts. The support will continue for years to come.
+Ben J Yes , i know , but this os has no support for my native langage (french) , so i stick with a windows xp with the unofficial SP4
+L' Elektrongeek That's a shame, maybe it might be possible to install the language pack from XP onto POS 2009.
+vwestlife Where can I download this official SP4 update package?
This is an interesting test, but freshly installed OSs rarely represent the full speed.
See my video "Does Windows slow down over time?"
I never knew people get picky about loading times. I myself have my desktop set up for Windows xp still getting updates. And here's the funny part it's a amd sempre 1.8 ghz single core. It zooms along pretty good for 8500 gt graphics and 500 gb satanic hd. Mind you sat in my desktop is sata 2 and 1 gb ram . Ran Linux on separate hard drive had issues with wifi card net gear pci wifi adapter. Could not get drivers or find any. Unless there is. Also had question is there a program to run on 3.5 floppy to do a boot select for operating system vs hit f10 and select the hard drive I use?
You should do a comparison between Windows 10 and The latest full version of Ubuntu. I'd be curious to see how both modern versions compare.
now try it with 8 hours of use without restart
I'm typing this from a Windows XP machine which has been running 19 days so far without a restart.
*TL;DR:* I think some of your tests are unfair and don't tell the full story. I think you might have a bias against Linux due to your bad luck with it, although I probably have a bias _for_ Linux because of my _good_ luck with it. This comment is 10 paragraphs, so I might as well be honest and admit that I mainly wrote it because I'm pissed off with your results.
*Full comment:*
My first computer came with Windows XP and because of various problems I encountered, it originally lasted less than 2 years. However, it is now running Debian with the GNOME 3 desktop environment and, considering its Pentium D CPU and 4GB RAM limit, it's an absolute pleasure to use. I've also installed Linux on other people's computers and they've had a better experience too. Here are some reasons why Linux might be faster than Windows, or better in general, in certain situations:
Most people who still use Windows XP don't have a fresh installation of it like what you used for this video. They'll have various programs installed on it that they may not know how to remove, and for most Windows XP systems, there's a good chance that there will be malware; this is especially true since Microsoft stopped releasing security updates for Windows XP over a year ago.
Windows tends to slow down as new software is installed. However, if you find the right Linux distro, installing new software shouldn't have as much of an impact on system performance. In my experience, Ubuntu-based distros these days tend to be just as bad as Windows in terms of stability; Lubuntu, Linux Mint and Zorin OS are all based on Ubuntu. I think it's a shame that Ubuntu is still the go-to distro for new Linux users and if you have time, I'd recommend trying Fedora and Debian, if you can figure out which ISO to download.
I think some of the tests you did were unfair towards Linux. In the browser launch tests, you tested Internet Explorer 8 against a recent version of Firefox, without taking into account that IE8 has been obsolete for years. The difference in launch time is only about 4-6 seconds and I think the significantly improved security and general browsing experience is worth the wait. I'd also like to point out that your graphics test is done using a Flash Player widget, so aside from high-resolution video playback, I don't think that's a fair test either.
I'd like to point out that I have a general dislike towards Windows, as I've tried to use every version from XP onwards and have consistently had a frustrating experience. Because I couldn't imagine myself using Windows on my own computer for recreational use, I probably have a bias towards Linux. I realise that it has its own problems that really need to be solved if people are going to start using it seriously. I've already got 5 paragraphs so far, so I might as well discuss some of these problems:
At the moment, if you're gong to use any Linux distro as your primary operating system, you need to be comfortable using the command line for certain tasks. While I don't have a problem with this and believe people in general should know more about computers, I realise that most people just aren't going to spend hours messing about with the command line. I like how Google's implementations of Linux with Android and Chrome OS essentially eliminate the need for a command line, but for obvious reasons, neither of these systems can replace Windows or OS X.
I mentioned earlier in this comment that Ubuntu is very unstable these days. While you can simply use Fedora instead, what if that becomes unstable as well? While Ubuntu became so unreliable for reasons that don't affect other distros at the moment, we can't just assume that it'll never happen again, and users shouldn't be expected to switch operating systems every few months/years to stay up to date.
In my opinion, Linux isn't very good with multimedia. On some distros, you have to do a lot of messing about to get the computer to play DVDs, and while most people don't use their computers for that these days, you pointed out that Lubuntu requires extra software to import CDs; you also mentioned that importing CDs takes forever on Linux, compared to Windows. A lot of these problems are because of closed codecs, probably being reverse-engineered with open-source software, but that just shifts the blame of a problem that still isn't solved.
I'm glad you pointed out that Linux is only proven slower than Windows in your specific configuration; you can't prove that every version of Windows is faster than every version of Linux using just one version of each and one hardware configuration. I hope to see your Windows 10 vs. Linux Mint video soon, as I'm interested to see your tests and the results.
+Jack Durrant Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon is rock solid for me with great performance and all the programms i need.
+Alex Psy Same here. New to Linux. Love Mint 17.3 Cinnamon!
+Alex Psy I hate Mint for the only reason that I never managed to have DosBox installed on it.
It's weird how it feels like these videos belong on 2008 UA-cam rather than 2015 youtube
Hey! do you have a Zenith MiniSport? you should make a video of it, because its a rare computer that used 2 inch floppys.
No, I don't.
I also have to complain about Linux, especially Lubuntu. I recently tried to install Lubuntu on my old ThinkPad T61, and the installer wouldn't let me proceed with installation. It complained about not having at least 1 gig of RAM, which was what I had installed in the laptop. I suppose that the integrated Intel GMA graphics take up some megabytes of RAM, bumping it down to 900-something megs. I installed Windows XP Professional SP3, and it recognized the amount of RAM, correctly. And Windows XP barely takes up any amount of RAM, a mere 320-something megs.
Actual mileage tends to vary. The biggest use of Linux on old hardware is having a more modern platform to run software on, in my opinion. It's not necessarily faster in my experience. If it ever is, it comes down to more memory being available and the DE being more lightweight than Windows Explorer could ever hope to be. For my own uses on my poor old S478 Pentium 4, XP is still king, though I did dual-boot it with Arch for that inevitable day when modern web browsers stop supporting Windows XP. After that, I'll keep XP around for all those games I have installed that are either problematic, too slow or entirely non-functional under WINE.
You know, for a S478 Prescott chip at 2.8GHz, I was shocked to find my FPS count lowered to less than 24 at only 751 Derpys. Then I remembered that this poor old thing also has a bunch of stuff running in the background (Skype and Steam are what immediately come to my mind as resource hogs, though I do have other things like Catalyst, a lightweight sticky notes tool, Daemon Tools Lite, Teamviewer 11, a tool that handles tiling of windows with a key combination, and a syncing tool for OneDrive) and this chip is the weakest of the already rather weak Prescott lineup, the 2.8/533 chip which on my motherboard (the exhumed remains of an HP Evo d530, i865 chipset) does not have working hyperthreading. Going up to a 3.2/800 Northwood very soon, and supposedly my motherboard DOES in fact support the Northwood's way of doing hyperthreading.
could you do windows xp vs windows 10 on this machine please? I want to know if I am crazy for preferring xp or not.
I'd be interested to see a Vista or 7 vs. a Linux flavor :)
And this would be way harder to test, but I wonder how a 'fresh install' vs. 'heavily used', for both Windows and Linux distros, would do (so four comparisons total). The updates and added clutter from usage might sway the results differently ... might!
See my video "Does Windows slow down over time?"
A much fairer test (in my opinion) would be to compare either the lubuntu from the same time as windows xp's release, or run the latest and greatest of both
As someone who loves Linux, I love that you are a critic of Linux. The results were con terry to what I would have expected.
Bit of a problem with your framerate test in Linux, Flash for Linux isn't GPU accelerated (yes, there's a checkbox for HW accel in the settings panel, but it doesn't actually do anything). Google chrome (not chromium) would give more accurate results, as Google uses their own compiled-in version of Flash which does support HW acceleration. I used the game FPS test as you did and it ran much better in Chrome. Also I'm not familiar with Lubuntu, but from my experience anything Ubuntu-based is rather heavy.
The big differences between the GX520 and GX620 are that the 620 has the PCIe slot and 4 DDR2 RAM slots instead of 2. Too bad they don't support Core 2 Duos. I couldn't count how many boards I had to replace in internet cafes when they were in service (the SFF versions of both, they overheat)
On brightside for Lubuntu, its not horrifically insecure and running out of date software (IE 8....)
+Sean Metivier Insecure? Just a few days ago, there is a security patch for IE8. Of course, you need the 'SP4' or an actual POSReady 2009 machine to receive it.
***** Lol UAC,like the first thing I disable after installing/reinstalling Windows.Still virus free right now(maybe except for the NSA malwares).My cousin did not disable it,but hey he got cryptowall'd.
***** Exactly,beginners who goes to Linux will just add sudo to everything,"dumb ass".I fail to realize why you think "sudo" is so hard to type,tantamount to climbing a mountain.
And of course,a payload will not show itself directly to UAC,it is usually masked in another program.Most people who sees something along the lines of "internet downloader" or some nonsense like that will NOT think it is a virus,even though it is obvious to the more experienced.
In this case,UAC did nothing to stop the virus,except requiring a "yes" from the user.This is just basically pushing the blame onto the consumers,and does not actually improve security for the less educated.Only power users and enthusiasts might benefit from it.
+Giggity Goebbels It is insecure. Yes it may have had a update, but IE8 definitly is out of date.
It doesn´t support modern things like HTML5.
SP4 for Windows XP is there, but it isn´t offcial. It does not make Windows XP safe to use. It is (almost) a 15 year old OS now. Support has ended for 1,5 years.
Also, asking a user is still safer than just running everthing as an administrator, like XP does. (Linux doesn´t do that)
Mike Van Pelt While I agree that IE8 is pretty bad for newer sites,security updates are still security updates?If there are other loopholes in IE8,Microsoft still need to fix them.Maybe less content filtering stuff,but that is about it.
Well,if "SP4" does not make XP safe,then Cash Registers and Information Displays running POSReady 2009 will be in big trouble.Heck those running XPe and WES2009 have been in trouble since the day of their installation--because of the vast combinations of images buildable with Target Designer,Microsoft decided not to provide frequent updates to Windows Embedded Standard(Exception being 7 and 8,this lineup have since been discontinued since 8.1 to favour IoT editions).These devices such as ATMs probably run only a coporate security software and that's it.
Also keep in mind, that most Linux distros are using open source graphic drivers, which are worse than the original. I'm pretty interested in how would the fps test perform on original graphic drivers on Linux.
I wish we could see some raw number crunching. Just something that uses a ton of CPU.
Interesting comparison, my dubt is only one, after a year of daily use of the the two Os the data will be the same? In my personal experience Linux remain almost the same in terms of speed, while XP become much slower. But I'd like to see on others configuration.
How about after *nine* years of use? See my video "Does Windows slow down over time?"
+vwestlife thank you.
So do you like windows the best? I saw you weren't having good luck with Linux in some of your other vids... Thanks for the cool videos!
I used Lubuntu on an old Acer with nearly the same specs, and also did same tests with windows 7 on an old Laptop with a i7 740Q cpu and 8Gb. I did upgrade memory on the Acer to 4Gb, yes windows XP came out the winner on the Acer and Lubuntu was the winner on the laptop. With the browsers I tested 4, Firefox, Opera, Chromium and Chrome, Chromium won there. I also compared several Distro's of Linux as well. Mint with Xfce desktop and Peppermint where amoung them, They both beat XP, Windows 7 and Lubuntu. Mint with the Cinnamon desktop even beat XP on the Acer after I upgraded the ram from 1Gb to 4Gb..
Peppermint is a Distro to watch, its new but some real good things happening with this distro., I run Mint with Cinnamon Desktop on my personal PC, But Peppermint made it as a second operating system on my PC.
My son and me are putting together a Video after we finished a couple of builds using old Xeon CPU's comparing performance between some Linux and windows versions and will be doing these tests again on the old Acer and on several old machines built from old server bits and pieces to show how to put together good performing systems for little $$.
It comes down to Distro's and Desktops. I have found Lubuntu is great but there are better light weight Linux Distro's out there. Also I am trying to put together some stability tests, videos on what we doing will be out when my son and I launch our Channel next month (sometime May 16).
Would love to see thst video
why did you test windows xp with a machine that's easily capable of running windows 10?
because I don't like windows 10 at all, it is good I have a dual boot tablet with windows 10 and android 5.1, I have windows 10 if I need it, but I found I don't need it, even on my laptop I just don't use windows, but if I do I just prefer older versions of windows. I mainly run Linux mint my main operating system and android on my mobile devices.
Lubuntu it's light, but I prefer Ubuntu Mate (-;
I very much prefer arch linux :)
+Marco Rebhan Install Gentoo
maybe next time i reinstall linux
...or in a VM
+Marco Rebhan Arch Linux is best GNU/Linux
+Tulir293 have you ever used arch?
maybe you should compare windows 7 and linux, will it be worth upgrading to win 7 to "breathe new life" or not
CD-ROM only PC in 2005?? That's strange because DVD was a must back in 2005. Heck, even the DVD burners were becoming popular by 2005.
+MegaBojan1993 these machines were business boxes, for spreadsheets rather than Space Jam.
***** Oh I see. Now I understand why these PC's didn't have any DVD-ROM drives in them.
Comparing Windows XP, an End-of-Life operating system that isn't even currently supported for _security updates_, with a modern operating system running recent versions of software, isn't really a fair comparison. If you're going to be using a computer on a daily basis, you _need_ the security patches that come with an actively-maintained OS, such as Windows 7/8/10 or a Linux distribution. It really isn't feasible to run Windows XP on a daily-use computer that will be accessing the Internet, just based on the security risks alone. Linux is more useful on older computers when compared to _modern_ Windows releases, which would have been a better comparison.
+InitialBurn With the SP4 update, Windows XP continues to get Microsoft security updates through 2019. In fact, I just installed the lastest security updates on it this week, before making the video.
+vwestlife Is that right? They seemed pretty serious about dumping XP support, but they still haven't done it eh?
+ElectricTriangle SP4 is an unofficial update and includes a registry modification to make windows update think Windows is Point of Sale 2009. Point of Sale 2009 is based off XP so uses the same code base but is supported till 2019 to ensure it gets 10 years support as it is designed for embedded use (especially in shops) as the name suggests. The updates seem to install fine on normal XP with very few issues too.
Jak
Ah, alright. I remembered the PoS version, but I didn't know about that unofficial update. Neat.
Even if XP is fully updated, it's still more outdated than (L)ubuntu, especially the non-LTS version that you used and IE8 compared to the latest Firefox, so Linux is doing a pretty good job of running new versions decently on older hardware.
Also, older computers tend to have a lot more crap on them that has slowed them down a lot over the years, which can be fixed simply by re-installing Windows, but these days people recommend Linux instead because it's more updated, supported and with a very low chance of getting infected.
I still really liked this comparison, it can't get more accurate than this. (BTW I'm not a Linux fan, I only use Windows 10 and Mac OS X 10.11).
Hi TCG96!
+TheComputerGuy⁹⁶ HDD fragmentation is also a big factor, Linux is far more resistant to fragmentation though fragmentation can still occur if the drive is nearly full
NTFS rarely if ever fragments to any signficant extent. The claims about Linux never needing to be defragmented were mostly first made when most Windows systems were still using FAT32 and people have never bothered to consider how much better NTFS is.
+TheComputerGuy⁹⁶ The POSReady 2009 updates make it as updated(security wise,not feature wise) as Vista,7,8.1 and 10. You are basically saying Lubuntu is always more updated than Windows which is not necessarily true.
You pointed it out yourself: Windows XP is updated security wise only, which is better than nothing, but still not as secure as fully updated Linux where you don't even need an antivirus the vast majority of the time.
vwestlife mentioned that Windows 10 starts up a lot faster on this computer. I'm curious to see how fast everything else runs. I tried Windows 10 on my 2005 Acer laptop with a 2GHz Pentium M 760 and 1.25GB of RAM. It was 100% usable and started up quite fast, but not as fast as XP.
Last but not least: Linux is *free*. It may have more cons than Windows, but you can't beat it for the price (except a better Linux distro).
Just curious (and I may have missed it if you mentioned this info), but was the XP install the stock, no updates or service packs install? Because if so, then it would be interesting to see if the startup and shutdown times were still comparable with XP fully patched up to it's fullest. I would also question how fast the startup and shutdown times would be after a few months to a year or more of daily use. I think we would all agree, Windows always starts off pretty speedy but then gets slower over time due to the constant creep of updates and program installs and registry modifications. Linux will pretty much always remain pretty constant in it's startup and shutdown times (although I have noticed that even the lightweight distros will eventually become 'heavier' as the kernel gets patched and added to but this usually takes a couple of years to notice).
Just my experience and pretty worthless 2p. :)
+raydeen2k The XP installation was fully updated with the unofficial SP4 and all of the Microsoft WEPOS security updates, including the latest updates released this month (December 2015).
Cool then. I'd still argue that several months/years down the road, that install would take much longer to startup and shutdown, but that's indicative of any OS. A few months ago I did a clean install of OSX 10.10 on my work MacBook and it was nice and speedy but now it's slow a dog to start up and shut down. I honestly don't notice this with Linux but it could very well be that I'm not doing as much modification to my Linux boxes as I do with my Mac and Windows machines. I tend to install just what I need in Linux and it kinda stays that way except for some Steam or GOG games and I don't think they mess too much with the base config. What I have noticed is that Xubuntu has considerably more bloat than it had years ago so while it used to be good for older hardware, I now use Lubuntu for my ancient relics.
Still good video and I'm glad you're on the up and up. :)
One thing that makes me be a little bit critical of this test is the physical location of the OS in the hard drive. Was XP installed 1st, then Lubuntu afterwards? Wouldnt the 1st installed OS be located closest to the center of the disc platters making it slightly faster loading to memory? I mean, the difference may not be significant enough but it can be a factor when doing an identical hardware test comparison. Also, having the advantage of being able to see HD and CPU usage at the moment of startup can give us better understanding of the results obtained. I have installed 3 or 4 distros on older hardware that originally ran XP and I didnt see much improvement to warrant the conversion of the OS much less the time that took doing such labor intensive task.
In any case I enjoyed the video and I hope my comment isnt taken as a useless offensive rant!
Watch my new video. Myth busted!
800 derpys at 94%
damn my video card sucks already
+1marcelfilms 5000 Derpys here at 58
+EpicLPer AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
I got this video card back when i was little so i didnt know better. this card seems to be more oriented at multi monitor than one
+1marcelfilms That "benchmark" is anything but. The performance you get in that is going to be limited by the browser in that the browser can limit the amount of resources that the flash application can use. So it's worthless as a benchmark.
Secondly, the 6900 is still a good GPU.
"this card seems to be more oriented at multi monitor than one"
That statement doesn't make any sense. I doubt the hardware is going to perform worse on a single display as opposed to multiple displays.
You think that's bad? I got 500 and it already dropped below 20fps on my ATI Mobility Radeon X300 graphics card.
FaultyWarrior I'm tempted to see what my GeForce FX 5500 256MB card can do.
Is spoon better than fork?
+tty Indeed, spoon is better. Try to eat some soup with a fork! You damn fork fanboy.
+Guillaume Gelin Let's all concede that knife is in fact the best utensil. Try cutting bread with a spoon! You damn spoon fanboy!
+Guillaume Gelin what about the spork??
Awesome video :)
I might test this on my other computer and see what the results are :P
I see Windows was installed on /dev/sda1. I'm going to assume you didn't install a second hard drive, so that would mean that Lubuntu was installed in partitions in the slower areas of the drive.
Didn't you see my video busting the myth that dual-booting makes Linux slower?
ua-cam.com/video/Pb_VRXyIZes/v-deo.html
I just installed Linux Mint 18 cinnamon on my 5 year old HP laptop and EVERYTHING works out of the box. I did not do any coding or other fancy stuff. This old i5 computer with an SSD and 4 GB of ram runs almost as fast a my MacBook PRO early 2015.
Install Windows 10 and it will be even faster, and everything will work out of the box too. What is your point? Windows is still faster on modern hardware
Windows 10 is no faster than Linux on my old HP. I think Linux (a clone of Unix) and MacOS X (Proprietary layer of code over Free BSD Unix) are way better for a laptop than Windows. Unix based systems are more secure, more stable, virtually no malware, and once you initially setup the system you don't even need to restart the laptop for months. My Linux machine, just like my MBP just go to sleep. Windows on the other hand runs fast at the beginning but in time the hard drive starts to degrade. I don't know if Windows 10 solved that issue or not.
Majinga Zetto that was already fixed in Windows 8 in 2012
I dont know about that. But both my MBP and my Linux laptop are rock solid machines. I don't worry about viruses and spyware anymore. i dont need windows anymore than to run steam games and many are already available in linux.
Majinga Zetto I don't know about that. But both my Surface Pro 3 and my Windows desktop are rock solid machines. I don't worry about viruses and spyware anymore since Windows XP in 2001. I never needed Linux to run anything, everything is on Windows.
Would love it if I could still use Windows XP but sadly even with the registry key (Updates) modern software often isn't supported anymore.
Chrome isn't supported and Firefox just isn't my cup of tea.
However when it comes to STEAM Windows XP X64 runs like a charm.
Also a small notice, wouldn't it be more fair to test Win XP against an LTS of Lubuntu?
You should probably avoid using Chrome if you can help it. There are many browsers based on Chromium that aren't tied to Google and actually respect your privacy and freedoms.
For those who are not aware, the Dell OptiPlex GX520 is the GX620 minus some features, including two RAM slots, and the PCI-Express slot. I have both types (two GX620 MTs and one GX520 DT, all were free). They're pretty nice machines to an extent, with their largest disadvantages being the inability to run Core 2-architecture processors, and, in the case of the GX520, significantly less upgradable. These machines are also known for having capacitor issues.
i have a hp desktop and i was wondering how you did the updating linux and doing the hard drive wipe (it has a password i dont know and i got it from a garage sale for 10$ and has the windows xp sticker)
If you don't know how to install Linux, there are many tutorials covering that process.
i was even wanting to reinstall windows xp but i dont understand how because im only 13
Thanks for making this video, I knew, have tested and confirm that Linux is slower and people bashed me that I just picked the wrong version and stuff, now we have solid proof.
+Mike Fox it varies depending on hardware, in my case Linux ran faster than Windows 7 (1389 VS 1291 on peacekeeper.futuremark.com)
also there's more reasons than just speed to use Linux, I personally use it because I can make it look however I want and it is very modular so I can add and remove stuff I don't use/need, also I don't need to deal with all the bloat-ware
Viper That's great for you, I haven't had that experience and think I never will. Windows is just the best OS for me right now and MacOSX comes after.
+Mike Fox its a qustion about the Linux Distribution all *buntu arent very fast (they need 500 MB RAM) but in Linux there Distributions which take only 16 MB RAM.
in Linux are 300 Distributions for sure one will Make u happy ;)
eins uwei I've Tried all of those that people said were amazing and, eh.
+Mike Fox You don't have solid proof, because the software that has been used wasn't equal.
Lubuntu is a modern full packaged distro with modern up to date and full featured software, while Windows XP (I know it was awesome I liked it very much back then) is outdated, hasn't nearly as many "up to date libraries and drivers" and so on to load.
Also, the comparison Firefox (40+) vs Internet Explorer 8 isn't fair either, because 1. it's not a browser that can hold up to any new web technology or features, because -> it's obsolete, not updated, the same as above and 2. the FPS comparison was made with a Adobe Flash Widget, which doesn't have say anything, because Adobe dropped Flash support for many OS (also for linux) years ago when they said that they want to kill the Flash standard themselves and 3. Everybody knows that firefox doesn't load fast... On any OS.
If you wanted to have a fair duel, install Windows 10 on that PC, and not Windows XP. Because we want to compare to new, up to date and fully featured OS right?
+Ross Moutell With a simple registry patch, Windows XP continues to receive Microsoft security updates through 2019, and it supports a wide variety of modern, up-to-date web browsers. And of course, Windows XP continues to have more desktop market share than all versions of Mac OS and Linux combined!
A workaround is not support. Good luck with that "patch"
But with linux you have to edit a bunch a shit everyday to get the fucking thing running what you want right?
Actually no, that is not correct. Most modern Linux Distros work "right out of the box". Just install, run updates and done. Wanna add new software? Open their software center, pick the category, and the software, click install and done. Been on Linux 2 weeks, only had one software that didn't run. There was 3 alternatives though, and the first alternative I installed ran no problem. Never been in the command lines once and everything from how my PC looks, to how it runs is pretty much how I want it. Not a single Windows software needed as there was working easy to use alternatives to everything I wanted and needed. Been running rock solid since I installed. Running Peppermint OS as my flavor. Also got an old Dell Dimension 2350 back to working order with Linux Lite, and it's just got a Pentium 4 and 640 megs of RAM with the factory 30 gig hard drive. Has all the software you need including 2 web browsers. I still got 21 gigs of free space on it. I get that 128 meg stick switched for another 512 and I'll be cooking with that thing.
Michael Cox Cool, now try running any game or program made in the 2000's on linux "out of the box"
Well I would if this computer's hardware was capable of it. Between Steam and PlayOnLinux I wouldn't even need the disc to install it. Just choose it out of the repository, click install and done. Sadly as this computer has no upgrade-ability and only an AMD E1-1500 APU at 1.3 gigs. It's worth pointing out that my version of Linux is based on a version of Ubuntu with known issues with AMD support and still works better with the built in open source drivers than the proprietary ones.
Ubuntu does this weird thing out of the box where it shows a black screen or a screen that says, "Scanning for BTRFS filesystems" depending the distro. This makes boot times really long. You can turn it off somehow. It's not necessary, unless you're using BTRFS.
The default file system for an Ubuntu install is ext4. You won't be using the BTRFS file system unless you manually chose it during the installation process. It's still too experimental for prime time, IMHO. You can get rid of the boot up BTRFS scan by opening a terminal window. Copy and paste the following command without the quotation marks into the terminal window and hit enter: "sudo apt-get remove --purge btrfs-tools". Follow the on screen instructions. After the removal is finished, reboot your machine. The BTRFS boot scan will be no longer there. Have a good one.
Andy Mitchell Thanks!
I have a Dell Optiplex sitting next to me right now, but it got infected with a virus 5 years ago.
I'm an IT Network Admin. 100% Linux user. But... I use Windows in my work. These are my opinions about this test.
(1) Linux compared with non-supported Windows XP is not exactly what the general public is comparing. Windows XP is designed for this hardware. You are comparing a relatively new Linux distro vs the 15 year-old Windows XP. Let's see if comparing Linux with Windows 7, 8 or 10 will get the same results on this hardware. If you are a Techie, you can still get the under-the-table patches for Windows XP until 2019. But for the average user, this is beyond their capabilities. It is dangerous to still be using XP, these days, for the common user!!!
(2) You browser comparisons should have been with equal browsers. IE has never been liked by anyone in the Windows community. You should have used Firefox or Chrome for comparisons on both sides. Remember.... Microsoft got into trouble with the government over integration of IE into the OS. Though... That integration does give IE a speed boost at the cost of major vulnerabilities!!!!
(3) You missed one important base software necessity for a Windows install: ANTI-VIRUS!!! You don't dare run Windows without it, especially Windows XP!!! And since Linux does not need a resource-hungry hog running in the background, I would like to see these tests redone with Anti-Virus running on Windows.
(4) I assume this hardware had at least 2GB of RAM installed, minimum, since you said this was a Windows Server in another life. In the days of this particular hardware, most home PCs would not have been able to afford memory upgrades of this extent. Since Linux can run with less memory installed, please redo this test with 512MB and 1GB of RAM installed. I know for a fact Windows XP with less than 1GB of RAM will run like a dog.
(5) The Ripping Test. You need to compare Apples to Apples. Even different CD rippers on Windows will have different ripping times, just like in Linux. Find something equal that will run on both platforms for the test.
(6) This test needs to redone with a fresh install by each OS. No dual-booting. On this older HD, where the OS is running from on the platters makes a difference! Generally, data is stored on the inner parts of the platters 1st and then work their way out as the HD fills. It takes longer to access data from the outter parts of the platters. Each OS should be given equal rights to the full extent of the HD. Newer HD's don't have this problem because they use more platters and have more read-write heads.
Any OS with a ton of RAM will run A-OK. Any OS with a good-fast HD should operate A-OK. Where these Linux/Windows comparisons come into play is on aged standard home PC hardware.
The Windows XP I'm using here is not "15 years old". The XP SP3 kernel is from 2008, and with the WEPOS patch, it continues to be supported with Microsoft security updates through 2019. I have several machines running XP with 512 MB of RAM and they are perfectly usable.
Antivirus protection is not necessary to have running all the time if you have a good firewall, practice safe common-sense web browsing habits, and reguarly run anti-virus/anti-malware scans. I don't have anti-virus on my main XP web browsing machine and it went 6 years without getting a single infection.
I don't understand point 5. How is ripping the same CD in each OS not "apples to apples"? And I debunked your point 6 myth in my video "Does dual booting make Linux slower?"
+vwestlife Hey... I'm just pointing out issues here.
(1) You have up-to-date security patches for XP. That's all! The average user will not know how to get these patches. So, they will be stuck with XP SP3.
(2) As for memory.... if you just surf the Internet and only use Cloud Software, I'll agree with you. But... If you use MS Office, antivirus or other installed software, you'll see that HD getting hit hard and the system running slower.
(3) If you are a Tech Savy person, you might be OK to run without antivirus running 24/7; I would never recommend this kind of action considering there are many ways to catch viruses without an Internet connection. But, we are talking about the average user here. Anti-Virus is a must!
(4) Ripping CDs. Nero software will rip a CD faster than what is built into Windows. This is why you need to use the same software on both OSs. Apples to Apples. Just like you need to do with the browser test.
(5) I'll agree with you debunking my Point 5 if you can prove the make and model of the HD installed. If the HD is as old as I think it is, my point is valid! The older HD's had way-fewer platters and read-write heads. That's why defraging was so important back in the day. It's still important with today's HDs but only when the drives get beyond 3/4 full.
+vwestlife And just like in Windows.... Once a Linux distro is beyond support, I upgrade. I still recommend Windows 7 for people who still want to use Windows. 8 was a bad design. 10 is still just a Beta-Mess; and that's forgetting the privacy issues!!!! Now I will say.... I would keep an eye on Ubuntu. They are falling into bed with Microsoft and starting to use the same privacy tactics!!!! Not Good!!!
The WEPOS patch has been widely publicized and is as easy as downloading and click on a .reg file. (No terminal commands!) I was comparing bundled software to bundled software. And if your hard drive is so slow that putting data on the second half of the platters makes it several _seconds_ slower than the first half of the platters, then it is defective! On a properly functioning drive, the difference would be in milliseconds -- an imperceptably small amount.
+vwestlife You know that. I know that. The average home user knows nothing about WEPOS. They won't even know that the majority of ATM's in the country still use XP without updates!!!
I disagree with you about the HD. On older HD's (like 10+ years older), big difference in performance over drives even just 5 years old. Older drives = less-cache/no-cache, fewer heads to access data, slower rotation speeds. That's why it was important when a computer was built 10+ years ago it would have the OS installed on a dedicated drive for performance. I build servers and PCs all the time. Drive access time is a big factor when needing performance. Heck... Just between drive formats makes a big difference in performance. NTFS is roughly equal performance with EXT3. EXT4 is faster that EXT3 and is the default standard of most Linux distros these days. Once your OS (Windows, Linux or Mac) runs out of RAM to run in, drive access time is very crucial with the swap-file!!!!
Everything I just stated is on older hardware. Now days... Performance issues are of course fixed with more RAM and SSD and/or RAID setups. Doesn't matter which OS is in use! Except for 32-bit XP!!! Can't use more than 3.2GB of RAM. And 64-bit XP never got legs to walk on. XP can't be installed on a drive larger than 2TB.
Face it!!! XP had a good run! It's time to let it go! Windows 7, the last good MS OS, will have the same fate when the time comes. Hey.... I loved my Commodore 64 and Amiga 500 back in the day. Their time has passed to!!!!
But windows xp is now not supported when ubuntu is :v
+Rynboł Jutuby Windows XP is still supported until 2019.
+GTAGAME lol, really?
+GTAGAME I checked it, windows xp is no longer supported and it will only get security updates but because xp is no longer supported by programmers it becomes more obsolete every day
+GTAGAME sorry for my bad English, i hope you can understand me :v
+GTAGAME Microsoft has discontinued Windows XP, at least the desktop version, and so are making no more official security updates for it.
Have you ever tested a Mac boot time as compared to Windows? I find it is much faster, at least from my Mac running Yosemite as compared to Windows 7. Perhaps Windows 8 or 10 would be faster? Never used Linux, but your tests seem very logical and conclusive.
+The8BitGuy did
Out of curiosity how long did it take you to install (drivers and all) both OSes? I'd be somewhat surprised if the WinXP installation media actually included the necessary drivers for that PC.
The necessary Windows XP drivers were easily found on Dell's web site. Also I just installed Windows 7 on it, and it automatically found all the drivers.
+vwestlife
I would hope Win7 would include the drivers for hardware dating back to 2005, otherwise there would be a serious problem. :P
Being that the PC you used has Intel hardware I'm guessing Lunbuntu also worked right out of the box?
Yes, it did.
I tested Windows 7 versus full-blown Ubuntu on a netbook a while back and achieved similar results.
i now have ubuntu installed on my old compaq presario cq62 which used to run windows 7, and i also achieved similar results. i installed ubuntu because in 2020 i upgraded to windows 10 but the thing was so slow so i installed ubuntu a few days ago.
So Windows XP for those particular uses is faster than Linux... for now. Now try to do this test again in some months and disk fragmentation will degrade windows performance much more than Linux.
Not to mention Linux does a better job in memory management, you get an up to date, virus free and secure OS, and a modern desktop environment. Those things can't be said about XP.
I think that to be fair you should have had to compare Lubuntu with windows 10. In the end you can always find a faster loading Linux than Windows (puppy linux for example)
Neither NTFS nor the Linux file system suffer from fragmentation to any significant extent under normal use, although both certainly can become fragmented under extreme conditions, such as running a file server. And Windows 10 is even faster than XP. On this machine it takes 18 seconds to start up and only 10 seconds to load IE 11 the first time.
NTFS file fragmentation isn't so extreme like FAT32 file system, but it is certain that it exists. Here you have a MS article that advises you to defragment NTFS file systems : technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.11.desktopfiles.aspx
Anyway it is surprising that such and old computer is still supported by most used operating systems and can be useful (to some extent).
People shouldn't have to throw away computers so happily before trying to optimize the OS they're running, but that is another story.
+kanopus06 Disk fragmentation(non severe) will not make a big difference, at least in my experience. Also if you run POSReady 2009 or 'SP4', XP is as up-to-date(security wise) as Vista,7,8.1 and even 10.Even IE8 get security patches every now and then. Also, if your machine can run Windows 10 smoothly, I do not see why you should run Lubuntu instead of Xubuntu or even the regular Ubuntu.
I'd rather use Lubuntu or Xubuntu than regular Ubuntu. I prefer a light polished desktop environment over the resource consuming (and ugly IMO), default Ubuntu desktop.
Besides, if you have a machine with 1GB of RAM Xubuntu and especially Lubuntu will let you use most of it for your applications.
Another thing I didn't mention is that to be fair you should run the tests with an antivirus loaded on Windows XP, you don't need any in Linux.
Once you install everything on an XP machine, or any windows for that matter, load time can be quite higher than was with the plain initial install.
kanopus06 Well Linux gets viruses/malware too, and there seems to a lack of antimalware for it.Also, if you need to run an antivirus, you need to run an antimalware too(which is actually more important). If you are fine with OS reinstalls,just antimalware will do such that your private information will not( or less likely) get into the wrong hands. Finally, getting another GB of RAM from Gumtree or eBay isn't that hard, nor is it expensive. They are usually single digit prices to begin with.
Thank you for doing this test. It was useful since I can't decide if I like windows or linux better. It is useful to point out that windows xp is many many years older than ubuntu but this test has proven that on older hardware windows xp is still king because it is older software. I think I will go put xp on my latitude E6500.
Arch is going to be way faster, trust me. I tried this test on a $300 laptop.
Looks like you made your point. So where can i download a free version of windows XP?
www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-windows-xp-for-free-and-legally-straight-from-microsoft-si/
It would be interesting to add windows 7 on this machine to this comparison.
Win XP is an obsolete OS, so it should not be used anymore.
I think that's the reason why they claim to "breath new life into old hardware". They assume that you don't use XP anymore because of the lack of security fixes.
I DO have one complaint about this video: The framerate test is more a Firefox vs. IE than linux vs. XP.
The whole "This OS makes your PC run so much faster" is bullshit anyways. If you run the same software on the same hardware it's very unlikely to have any significant difference in performance because of the OS. Unless the OS occupies most of the RAM or some drivers aren't working properly.
Cool. I've tested linux in 1999 in quake2 and it performed worse than in windows 98 at the time. Already in 1999 there were rumors that Linux is somehow faster and better, while test results proved that wrong. I didn't expect linux to be faster than winxp and I was right. Good video and undeservingly it has many downvotes. Probably because there are many linux watched the video. >:)
+Jkep Ihanc Maybe you should have installed 3D drivers first
Also a lot has changed in the last 16 years
No, actually nothing changed pretty much - linux still lags behind. And yes, I did install 3d drivers and linux version underperformed by 5-10%.
+Potato MustLive Good. I know linux is useful stable system. But it isn't faster for games or commonly used apps.
can you give me the link to the fps tester
That was a really fast xp. My years with xp NEVER ran that fast even when it was brand new. I'm talking about a lenovo 3000 from 2006. Now I run Zorin OS and I couldn't be happier. This 10 year old computer is faster than most anything I've seen. People are amazed!!
About 4 months ago, I bought a cheap windows 8.1 tablet. I like it but I have to baby it all the time and reinstall the entire software every six weeks. Pain in the backside. I"ve had Zorin on my lenovo for six months. No loss of anything, no maintenance, no time waisted (like to day - the entire morning taking care of windows 8 issues). I can run windows programs with no problem. I just installed Libre Office 5 which is BEAUTIFUL!!!
Well linux is more secure and is much cooler than windows :P
How is "being cool" a factor when comparing the OS?
Lihaciu David But once again, how is design a factor of comparing OS?
Teaze The most cool thing is you can do what ever you want with linux: design, packages, opensource, etc..
Massimo Giardina But once again, HOW THE HELL IS COOLNESS A FACTOR WHEN COMPARING OS?
Lihaciu David Yes this is what I meant
Of course linux loads slower than windows, Linux has to load in a bunch of crap that its bundled with. The problem is not with load times but yet with stability, Windows is a crash happy OS, Sure it may load faster because it is optimized by a horde of programmers at Microsoft where linux is open source and normally comes with a ton of applications.
So dated hardware vs new linux release vs outdated windows xp release...
I give thumbs up to latest Ubuntu for running stable on out-dated hardware as well as it does but then again back to what I said above, Linux does not have an army of devs and programmers like Microsoft does to tailor properly, SO for what it is the Ubuntu project is doing damn good in comparison.
Now, on to modern hardware.. I have the latest release of Arch Linux installed on a 512gb SSD on an MSI x87 mainboard hosting an intel i3 cpu, 8 GB ram and an MSI branded R9 390x video card and it loads 8 seconds faster than windows 10... And YES the video drivers are working properly.
Now to be fair, Windows 10 does load in fast and runs app fast on non overkill hardware BUT windows 10 fishes personal information and shares it on "the cloud" where Linux does not, Yes you can turn all that off in the settings but Microsoft does some dodgy stuff when an update is pushed to turn it all back on without informing you.
+ElfNet Gaming Agreed 100% except I run LinuxMint XFCE 17.2 64bit.
+ElfNet Gaming On this computer, Windows 10 takes 18 seconds to boot up, and 10 seconds to load IE 11 the first time.
shaurz This is true.. Servers running Linux are a lot more stable than anything windows related
+ElfNet Gaming Is it a H87 or Z87 motherboard? It actually matters, because for some situations, the higher end the motherboard, the more problems it have with Linux.
Z87 sorry I had the x99 on my brain all morning..
Picking your operating system based on how fast it boots up is a poor way to pick your operating system. There are many other considerations to picking your os.
Great video, by the way. Thanks for taking time to do it.
I hope you don't think this is a troll comment, or that I am a Linux fanboy. However, what's the point in saying Windows XP is faster? (and by the way, we can all agree I think, that performance of a fresh install of Windows is very different from one you've been using for a while) The Lubuntu OS is upto-date, and able to run all the latest Linux programs. Windows XP on the other hand is 15 years old, horribly obsolete, and not supported anymore. I also don't care if Internet Explorer 8 loads faster than Firefox on Linux, becasue I know which I'd rather use!!
I frequently use Windows 10 (as well as 7), and Linux all the time, so I have no particular bias. The reason I suggest why Linux breathes new life into old hardware, is that it allows you to run upto the minute software with reasonable performance.
+jedw Agreed, I was to able pass down my old AMD Athalon tri-core system to my aunt in her 70's, and after 8GB of Ram, an AMD R7 240 up GPU, and PSU upgrade running LinuxMint 17.2 XFCE I was able to give her a system that will be usable, stable, and fast enough for everyday task for the next 5-6 years without all the worries of Windows like Viruses, Malware, updates that totally break your machine, the OS becoming sluggish, etc...
+jedw The claims that Linux is "significantly faster" than Windows have been made for over a decade now, so it's entirely relevant to compare a version of Linux aimed at older PCs to the operating system that it is most likely meant to replace (as the various videos claiming that Lubuntu "makes an ideal replacement for Windows XP" state). And with the SP4 update, XP continues to get Microsoft security updates through 2019, and is still widely supported by a large variety of current, up-to-date web browsers and anti-virus/anti-malware software.
+jedw In reality it is all down to the individual's use case,
For games and Photoshop you use Windows (it's the only reason I even use Windows any-more though there are more and more Linux games available and Krita is always an option for artists),
For your average user who just browses the internet, emails and watches videos Linux would suit them just fine as it is relatively low maintenance and the threat of malware infection is really low, I switched my neighbour to Ubuntu several months ago and she loves how fast it is (she originally ran Windows Vista).
and honestly I have never seen the appeal for OSX, the only features on OSX that I actually care about I already have in Linux, plus I don't like all the glass/glossy look.
+Viper I agree with ya, and for people who don't play AAA games, or use a program that works only on Windows, Linux is the way to go these days, although GPU drivers could be much better. Far as OSX it's just Apple's own flavor of Unix, and FreeBSD, which is why you see things in OSX like Terminal windows with a lot of interchangeable commands to Linux. Hell there is a small dev. team working on trying to get OSX programs to run under Ubuntu based Linux at the binary levels with no emulation, yes the progress is slow, but it will get there eventually.
vwestlife I agree with you that the claims about Linux being faster are not true. However I would not want to use Windows XP these days. Windows 10 is almost certainly faster than Linux for the tests you did. I don't need to make excuses for Linux, but part of it this has to do with inferior drivers. Another thing I wanted to bring up was your "derpy's" test; if I am wrong please correct me, but I think that test is written in flash? The Linux version of Flash is widely known to have always been crappy and slow, so it's not really a fair test of the operating system.
If you will compare 2 different OS system, do it serious, not like a joke..
i thought you didn't pick up old dell pcs
I would say this might not be a fair comparison honestly. Do these still perform the same with all their updates installed? It looks like a clean bare bones install of both. Not to say that I care too much about the outcome, I only suggest this for reasons of science.
See my video "Does Windows slow down over time?"
I'm well aware of that, but that's exactly why I suggested the default updates. I know updates take more resources and all, but for 'new life' and whatever, that's because one can't run after all the needed updates to keep going safely.
Great video fair tests i hate linux would rather use windows xp any day
Adam Fletcher How do you hate Linux?
I just hate the way it works like installing programs from command line and stuff like that I just love windows
Adam Fletcher That's cool!
youre a noob
SK Linux Him or I?
Look, there's a million and one issues with these tests, I imagine you know this perfectly well. What this video showcases is confirmation bias.
I have a laptop which boots from firmware to "linux" in 3 seconds. Beat that. If you're willing to discuss the idea that your tests are flawed then I'm willing to discuss how I arrived at that time of 3 seconds and whether my comparison is fair.
How can stopwatch tests have "confirmation bias"? It's not like I was able to warp the space-time continuum to purposely make Linux slower!
+vwestlife The stop watch tests have nothing to do with that, the results may as well be perfectly legitimate, the issue with this is that your video is titled "Is Linux faster than Windows?" and your attempt to answer this question involved asking the question "Is Lubuntu on this computer faster than Windows on this computer"
If subset of A has qualities a subset of B does not have, it does not mean that all A has the same qualitues that all B does not have.
Your test limited the testing only to a single distribution of linux and a single version of windows.
The confirmation bias here is that you seem to be trying to say that because you did all of a few small tests on ONE distribution of Linux vs ONE version of Windows, Linux is slower than Windows.
First of all, I imagine the reason why firefox is taking so long to start up versus IE is because the Mozilla Foundation doesn't care about making a fast and lightweight browser, they care about making a web browser which competes with Google's chrome (I'm not saying this is a good thing, I do not personally use Firefox or Chrom{e,ium}). This means that Firefox is most likely not optimised for a low memory / slow cpu / slow disk environment as much as IE would be.
The time it takes for a web browser to load has nothing to do with the actual speed of the web browser, and your web test can be discarded as it takes into consideration network speeds which can change rapidly.
Next, you use Lubuntu, my general experience with distributions like ubuntu or mint or anything which boots to a display manager is that they all seem to love to start up every thing, and I have no idea how these distributions manage to get boot times so slow. It does not surprise me that something like lubuntu would boot slower than XP especially since XP, initially, boots up quite fast (because, once again, XP was designed for times where things had less RAM, slower CPUs and slower disks, and lubuntu has probably moved on from then (Once again, I am not saying this is a good thing.)
This is not to say you can't get distributions which are user friendly which do boot quickly, but who cares at this point.
If you want a fair test use Windows 10 (yes, windows 10) turn off fast startup (Linux doesn't have this feature because unlike windows, kernel configuration at boot is incredibly fast) and see how fast it runs on this machine. Then turn on fast startup and compare it to running a freshly configured install of archlinux, I imagine archlinux would still be faster.
And sure, you might complain this is not a fair test, but consider this:
On my old machine, after 2 years of usage, my fully configured desktop operating system install of archlinux running all sorts of crap at startup boots up in 20 seconds from GRUB (originally booted in 15 seconds fresh). My server PC running lots of servers (obviously) at startup boots in 20 seconds (originally booted in 8 seconds fresh). My laptop, with an SSD boots in 3 seconds from systemd-boot (EFI Stub loader) (1 year of usage) (This shows you how much of boot is disk bound, so the processors, although slightly more modern than your pentium 4, make no real difference).
Both the PCs which start in 20 seconds now are actually running old SATA HDDs (multiple power failures mean the disks are probably slightly damaged at this point, I've had such problems with them in the past), and they still boot fast.
Is this enough anecdotal evidence to counter your anecdotal evidence?
You should be using objective tests, different distributions, different windows versions, etc. Once you collect this evidence, it then makes sense to work out why it is how it is, see if some fundamental feature one operating system provides is missing from the other. Analyse your data.
Chucking a video like this out there seems like obvious trollbait, and your comment on "doing your own comparison video" with a smiley face further confirms this.
Please be serious about this and realise that your tests are flawed.
So you're basically saying that we should just believe Linux fans when they say Linux is faster than Windows, because any tests we try to do to verify that claim are just "anecdotal evidence", therefore it is unprovable... but isn't that a good reason to *not* believe those claims?
+vwestlife That is basically not what I'm saying in the slightest.
I am saying that you should consider that "linux" is not one distribution, one test does not constitute proof and that in every case, every part of this test is unfair. I am also telling you that from *my* tests, I have found much better results.
Firefox is far more advanced than IE and designed around modern systems with more resources (not that I think this is a good design methodology, but oh well) and therefore not a good comparison against linux.
LUbuntu is not all of linux and LUbuntu is most likely far more feature-full (in terms of base operating system features, programs do not count towards this) than XP.
I imagine if you actually checked how long it took just the kernel to start vs the whole system, you will find the kernel probably started in about 5-7 seconds, unless lubuntu really screwed something up. The rest of the boot time is ubuntu crap, once again, until you try comparing two equally matched systems running equally matched tools, you will find things like this.
In the end, it's really simple, you can configure linux in many more ways than windows and linux therefore will give you various results in terms of speed. Testing available applications is absolutely unrelated to the speed of the system.
+vwestlife
How can you compare an OS that was created 2001 and optimized for that time's hardware with an OS that was created fourteen years later (2015) when the hardware that could be found in mid-range PC's back then is the hardware that can be found in mid-range SMARTPHONES today and still claim it's a fair comparison?
If you wanna compare lubuntu 15.10 with windows the it should be with windows 10. Not with XP.
Or you could have searched for the fastest version ever of linux and do the same for windows and then try to 'answer' your question.
I've got a Slax linux on a USB drive since 2012. It boots up in 8 seconds on a machine from 2006 with 2GB RAM and a Intel Celeron 2.3 CPU. Try to beat that with XP. Not to mention that, after it boots, it runs completely from RAM which means that every software will run faster than in XP.
This is note meant as a mean comment but a real question. From what I've seen on your channel and experienced myself Linux is only useful if you have old hardware lying around. Wouldn't make sense to use it on a new computer and drastically minimize the supported programs. Hmm. Should install it one of these days on one of the old Core2Duo Notebooks I have lying around. Well but that's it's main purpose or am I missing something?
Linux is best for people who mainly only need web browsing and e-mail, or who enjoy tinkering with their computer and experimenting with open-source software. But for more advanced things like video editing, graphics design, and serious office work, Linux just can't compete with the commercial software available for Windows and Mac OS.
I thought so. I worked at a store that ahd refurbished hardware and sometimes Linux people came in and they always went for very slow but dependable hardware. Still, sounds like a lot of fun. Considering I started with A Commodore 64 and had everything in between it's actually a shame I've never tried linux. And there seems to be a large community if there are any questions. Thanks for the reply.
What were the screen resolutions? Same?
Linux doesn't support anything higher than 1024x768 on this monitor, so I used that resolution for Windows as well.
Why are there 802 dislikes on this video? It seems a lot of Linux fanboys are triggered.
Freedom is better than being forced to use some kind of method because the company wants you to.
Freedom to me is using a fast, reliable, easy-to-use operating system that supports all of my hardware and lets me run all of my favorite software, both commercial and free/open-source.
VWestlife
Bro, Windows is 70% like that.
Linux is 75% (not 80, 'cuz not all software are made for Linux, and that sucks.)
***** I have no interest in using an OS that forces me to use only FOSS because it's not compatible with any of the most popular commercial software.
VWestlife
Wine is your friend.
I hate Linux. Every bit of it. I love it when you tear it apart like this, next time somebody tries to lecture me on its supposed godliness I'm going to link them right here! :D
I hate you and every bit of you ;-3
I fee your pain.
I hate windows because it just does spoon feeding
Greta video comparison. In this scenario i would choose Linux as it is a newer OS with updated apps. efficiency works on the laptops. Do a test and see
what's the name of the framerate page?
edit: nevermind
I wonder where all the other tests are? Like, opening a word document, opening a spreadsheet, opening a pdf file, playing an x264 video file etc. I wonder what will happen to XP when you install all these stuff. Will it slow down at all or not?
See my video "Does Windows slow down over time?"
+vwestlife But you are answering a different question. When you install applications you also install libraries and sometimes services that are loaded on start up. So if you install any of this software your boot time will increase. My point is that you are comparing a barebone system with a system that has quite a few applications preinstalled. Your loading times, memory consumption and everything else are different.And I won't even get into the discussion about the difference in age between the two OSes. You could for example install TinyCore linux and get to a desktop significantly faster. That would have been an equally biased test. Also, I've got another question about the cd ripping test. Did you use the same settings for the output file?
I found a small flaw in your benchmark and I did some tests to see if I was right. The flaw is that you dual booted on the same hard drive so the reason it took Linux longer to boot was because it had to load the Windows files as well.
So I went out and got two of the same exact hard drives and benchmarked them both to confirm that they were in fact where the same speed. I dug out a Dell Optiplex GX520 out of my computer bin and ran the startup/shutdown test only because I couldn't get the newest/safest version of Firefox installed on Windows XP.
*Startup Time*
Windows: 36 Seconds
Linux: 29 Seconds
*Shutdown Time*
Windows: 12 Seconds
Linux: 6 Seconds
See my video "Does dual booting make Linux slower?" in which I bust that myth. :-)
i just found my old pc on the garage, it has xp sp3 running kind of slow, show i put lubuntu on it or keep xp?
it is a Emachines athlom 1gb ram 2.3 ghz
Do a disk check, disk cleanup, and defrag, run CCleaner and Malwarebytes or HitManPro, then I bet it won't be "running kind of slow" anymore. :-)
+vwestlife so keep xp? u having both u think xp is better than lubuntu?
thanks I'll do it tomorrow. I having promblems dowsloading some stuff, i keep getting error windows 32 not found or something like that
Raul Velasquez Set up a dual boot, then decide which one you like better.
+vwestlife thanks
throw out windows and put puppy linux if you can manage its like bullet fast os and if you are less techy put peppermint or lubuntu,,, but puppy runs like bulllet fast and has most of the built in features for a normal user, xp people are just brainwashed like a frog in a well doesnt know about the outside world.
Why don't you install those same versions of Windows and Linux on a laptop, and for the energy saving thing, time how long the laptop can run before it displays a 'Battery Critically Low' message.
I have a craptop intel celeron without GPU and 2 gb ram, i had windows and it ran perfectly, but when i changed to linux, it went apeshit and lags when i even open the app box, takes 5 seconds to open the file manager.
I have to admit, I have a late 06 2ghz c2d iMac with 1gb ram and 512mb vram and it could not play a UA-cam video on OS X snow leopard and couldn't even go on google on Windows 7 but I installed Ubuntu 14 on it and man... That thing is dang fast now, it even does some light gaming now!
I'd say my main gripe with this video is you're running *really" modern hardware...
Allow me to relay my case: at work, one of the computers is a 655MHz Celeron with 256Mb of RAM. Running WinXP Pro, SP3 it slowed to the point of being unusable. Given Lubuntu is supposed to be able to use shared resources on a Windows SBS server I tried installing that, but, due to an issue with the onboard graphics, that didn't work out. The graphics chip oscillated between modes and didn't display a thing, so I ended up using Wary Puppy Linux on it, which, partially due to the fact the HDD on this machine is dying, takes about 15 minutes to load, but, once loaded, it is fairly usable. The default browser, Seamonkey, loads most sites pretty well. Your video conveniently glosses over the fact IE8 is quite a bit behind the curve in terms of displaying modern sites correctly.
As an aside, before you say "what kind of old junk are you running?", the oldest computer on our network is a first generation Pentium100, with 64Mb RAM, running Win98 and it still works fine in the role it's supposed to perform. Only problem I've had with it was the original CPU fan developing a vibration which physically vibrated the CPU out of its socket.
You can also buy an adapter that plugs in to the motherboard if you need PS/2.
I did a film of myself in a Gumby suit talking about the typewriter would you like to see it? you may think.oh my word Gumby in Australia? TheNewStoryteller seems an entertainable guy.
For some odd reason, linux booted alot slower on an SSD. A 5 second difference with win10 at the lead.
It's hard to say which OS is faster, I think it depends on how you use your computer. I think the 'power saving' is talking about laptops.