ubuntu/kubuntu is sloooooooow!

[Joel Goguen]

On 8/15/07, Denis Witt <abuse at hausundhof.com> wrote:
> Mario Vukelic schrieb:
>
> > What are the specs of the machine? What does "slow" and "fast" mean? Can
> > you give timings for specific tasks?
>
> I'm running Ubuntu (Gutsy with GNOME) on my Z61m Thinkpad (Core 2 Duo
> 2,0GHz). A friend of mine is using Archlinux (KDE) on his HP Notebook
> (Core 2 Duo 1,8GHz). I've not exakt timings but in most cases ArchLinux
> is about twice as fast as Ubuntu. OpenOffice startup is about four times
> faster but i'm unsure if it is the same version.
>
> I've even done some testing using Ubuntu with KDE, same result. Ubuntu
> speed is ok for me, but compared to ArchLinux i feel like using an
> really old machine and i may switch to ArchLinux soon. But thats only
> because Ubuntu exists, i don't think i would had switched to Linux as my
> main OS without it.
>
> Bye for now!
>
>
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If you aren't sure if they're the same version, how do you know there
aren't enhancements made in the ArchLinux version?  Maybe there's
processes not running on Arch that free up additional resources.  Has
he prelinked and you haven't?  How much RAM does he have?  how much do
you have?  How much RAM do you each have used?  How much swap do you
each have?  How much is used?  What are your load averages?  Without
all of that to start with, the only responses you should expect are to
be told that Ubuntu has more included and so of course it's a little
slower, or to be told that you can't do anything approaching a valid
comparison unless your environment is identical (same filesystem, same
services running at *exactly* the same version, same hardware, same
available resources...).  Even with all that, it's still not the same.

I can install Ubuntu on my box with a dual-core Athlon64 X2 2.8GHz,
2GB DDR RAM, ~750GB hard drive space, install OpenBSD on my other
Athlon 64 1.8GHz, 2GB DDR RAM, ~60GB hard drive space, and say that
OpenBSD is clearly faster (which it is BTW).  But that's not a valid
comparison, since Ubuntu has a lot of stuff that OpenBSD doesn't have.
 Also, OpenBSD is leaner and has their own versions of everything
enhanced for security and, if it doesn't impact security and the
developer has time, performance.  OpenBSD and Ubuntu and ArchLinux all
have different goals.  Ubuntu's goal is to provide Windows users with
everything they need to walk away from Windows, which requires
installing the entire mansion, and for a desktop I want up and running
quickly, I wouldn't think twice about pulling out my Ubuntu discs.
OpenBSD focuses on security, and for a server or firewall/router or
anything where security is important, I wouldn't use anything else.  I
don't know what ArchLinux focuses on, but clearly it isn't either of
these goals :)

-- 
Joel Goguen
http://jgoguen.net/