Ubuntu slowing down with each new release

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_bench_2008&num=1

...wow

 

I guess it's just that they have to include more and more driver support, etc with each new version.

 

I wonder how much is in fact the kernel, and how much is just overhead from cruft in userspace.

 

I noticed that too, but then again I am sure developers are aware of this problem; making a light OS a little bit heavier so that more and more people can use it may be the reasoning behind their strategy (if it is a strategy at all).

 

This is why you use Gentoo; it was fast 5 years ago, and it's still fast now

 

I prefer installing an OS in 30 minutes rather then a few hours.

 

Yes, but after the initial install your system will run great and sta fast. I say it's worth it.

 

I also noticed a slow down, especially on boot and login. Seems these days it takes forever to login instead of the near instant login i remember having a few years back.

 

and it doesn't take half an hour to update either

 

Yeah, I use arch. It's the best distro I've used.

 

Until you try to install something.

Nope, arch is pretty good, and I like it.
Just not for me really.

 

Ubuntu is overhyped... That's the reason I'll never install its (besides laptop hard disks' killing bug/scandal and similar).

 

First off, these tests are mostly against the kernel, so it's not Ubuntu's problem. It's kernel and driver issues, mostly to do with the new Xorg, new ATI drivers, etc.

A lot of this can be traced back to the CFS kernels scheduler, and so on. It's not just an Ubuntu problem... they're going to run the tests on Fedora, and other distros. I'd be willing to bet that they have similar results when looking at the same kernel versions.

 

That's not a ubuntu specific bug, that's actually a bug with the HD, and happens in most linux distros, and windows.

 

Noticed that as well.

I plan to install that sometime. It sounds pretty good. Slackware I want to try to...

 

Yet you use it: Ubuntu + extra tools + codecs = Linux Mint.
Also almost every distro has had that bug.....(including Linux Mint).

 

So? Debian + extra tools + slightly easier install = ubuntu, doesn't mean ubuntu == debian.

 

I've been using Ubuntu since 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog, a more apropos name now than it was then) and if you think Intrepid and Hardy are slow, you should try one of those releases. Boot times were astronomical back then; I was so happy when Edgy dropped about 10 seconds off of the boot time on my Inspiron 9300, and the last version I had installed on there (7.10/Gutsy Gibbon I think) booted even faster still.

I think the majority of the issue with their tests is that as of 7.10 - the release where the most significant dip in performance occurred in these tests - Compiz is enabled by default, and I suspect it was not disabled before testing. Compiz is a quite a performance drain (I leave it disabled for the most part, though it's enabled right now).

I must say that Intrepid seems to be quite a bit slower than Hardy, but the version on my ThinkPad is in less than stellar condition, so I'll wait to pass judgment until the final release next week and a fresh format.

I'll note the fastest booting OS I've ever used is XP Pro x64 on the "extra" desktop in my sig: about 10 seconds from POST beep to login screen, and about 5 more from there to a usable desktop. I don't get it; XP Pro x64 doesn't perform anywhere near as well on my primary desktop, despite being installed from the same VLK disc and my desktop's hard drive testing faster in HDTune. I blame that horrid M2N-SLI Deluxe.

 

I think his point is that that it is Ubuntu + extra.

 

My point is it's not just Ubuntu

 

I think we got that.

The reason Thomas was trying to make that point is to show that criticizing Ubuntu while using Linux Mint doesn't make much sense to him since Linux Mint is essentially Ubuntu with add-ons, making it difficult, in his view, to claim it as superior in speed and polish to Ubuntu.

 

Debian > Mint > Ubuntu.

Debian is stable. Ubuntu is becoming bloated and slow like SUSE.

 

Mint is Ubuntu plus more stuff... how is Mint NOT bloated and slow like SUSE if Ubuntu theoretically is? Besides, Mint is behind Ubuntu in releasing everything, including 64bit support. Why would you want that? Not to mention they claim the 32bit version is "more stable" than the 64bit version. If that's the case, they have no business distributing and operating system.

 

Mint is better than Ubuntu strictly from the OOBE. Mint is still buggy like Ubuntu. But IMHO, Mint is better than Ubuntu from a noob standpoint.

Debian is my preferred distro of choice however.

 

Your logic is flawed with several contradictions.

If you're taking it from a newbie stand point of view then it goes something like:

Mint > Ubuntu > Debian

because Debian is the hardest to use out of the three from a newbie point of view. Don't mix in your own point of view with a newbie point of view and try and justify it. Maybe for you Debian is better than Mint which is better than Ubuntu but not so for a newbie.

 

Actually, Mint == Ubuntu.
It uses Ubuntu repos as well, except for a few programs.
What I mean is it's just Ubuntu with a few extras.

Exactly.
Ubuntu isn't debian + extras, its easier, but it's completely a different distro.

Actually, yes it is.

It's about the same speed as Ubuntu from my experience....

 

Wow...lots of religious Ubuntu fans on NBR. WOW!

Ubuntu is good for newer users. Mint is good for people who like codecs and themes installed with the distro. Debian is better for an intermediate user.

On older hardware, Ubuntu is slower than leaner distros like Debian. I get weird crashes with Firefox in Ubuntu 8.04 that I do not get in Mint or Debian.

Ubuntu = slow and bloated ~ SUSE

 

I don't mean to insult you but you're getting very decoherant. You state there are a lot of Ubuntu fans here and then you attempt to coat this opinion with some pseudo fact opinions stating who each distro is good for. You then come back full swing with the opinion about how Ubuntu is slower than Debian and how Ubuntu ~ SUSE.

So what if you had a Firefox crash in Ubuntu but not in mint? I had a screen res problem in mint but not Ubuntu. Is Ubuntu better than Mint just because of that? No, but it's more compatible with my hardware. Just because you find Ubuntu slow doesn't mean it is like an entirely different distro which you also find slow.

This entire pseudo argument is also inane because it's all running the same kernel which means it's like arguing about how Car X is better than Car Y because Car X is shiny when they have the same engine.

 

I was with you, until you lost me with that. The transmission, brakes, drive train, and interior amenities are also very important when buying a car. I'd say that some are more important to most buyers than the engine itself.

The user space and the way it's configured is what people see when they use an operating system. Yes, the kernel is essentially the same (different patches and configs) between Fedora and Ubuntu, but that doesn't change the fact that Fedora just doesn't work well for me even though I prefer the way it's configured in many ways. I'd hazard to guess that many Linux users would be happy with a Windows NT kernel if someone wrapped a POSIX user space around it.

 

To put it literally, it's like arguing over an opinion that can't be scientifically proven (because we all have different machines and peripherals) about the same thing. I was going into a broader view of how arguing over what Linux distro is better is inane in itself because they're made differently for each persons needs and is purely opinion because of all the different variables for every person. (Sorry I had to get a little scientific and mathematical there, if I got confusing)

 

Alright, I just took it in a different way

 

Mint is more or less Ubuntu. It is not a major fork. Mint just adds a little bit more user friendliness over Ubuntu. The media repositories are added by default. The artwork and theme are different. There are some other helpful GUI tools and wizards. There is a SUSE-slab like menu.

Ubuntu is a heavily hacked version of Debian-unstable. Most things should work but it will not be as stable as Debian. Sorry to say that but that is the truth. Ubuntu was okay at first, but now it has become overrated. Some people say that Debian is difficult to use, but it is not really that much harder to use than Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has become bloated. It takes my computer 2.5 minutes to boot Ubuntu vs. 1 minute to boot Debian. Ubuntu loads too way too many things when it boots and is becoming slow like SUSE. Ubuntu is especially slower than Debian on older hardware (i.e. Pentium III).

By the way, I have run the 3 aforementioned operating systems on the following systems:

Pentium II 450 MHz, 512 MB ram
Pentium III 800 MHz, 512 MB ram
AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz, 512 MB ram
AMD Athlon XP 2200+, 512 MB ram
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 1 GB ram
Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, 1 GB ram
AMD Athlon 64 2.4 GHz, 2 GB ram
Intel Core2Duo T7300, 4 GB ram
Intel Core2Quad Q9650, 8 GB ram

Ubuntu is definitely slower on the older hardware than Debian. Debian is actually snappy on the Pentium II vs. being slow as molasses on Ubuntu.

I am posting my observations, yet I get attacked. I guess there are some sensitive people who feel scared that some people do not like Ubuntu as much as they do. Perhaps they are afraid to admit that Ubuntu is not the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe Ubuntu is not undeniably perfect as the blind masses believe. Just a thought...

 

Nifty. It's still faster than windows and generally just as easy to get working.

 

Since you seemed to totally ignore my last post (your post just proves the stupidity of trying to argue about which Linux distro is better) I'm going to leave you to your inane activities instead of wasting my time trying to show you how you're wrong. XKCD once made a comic about the stupidy of internet arguments, I believe it would do you good.

What is?

 

im going to guess the thing you guys have been arguing about for the last 3 pages (ie. ubuntu)

 

I guess we should just grab some popcorn, a cold drink, lean bakc and enjoy the show . This discussion isn't going anywhere...

 

I'm not doing any arguing, I already learned my lesson from the XKCD comic. That was a pretty random comment though.

I prefer two Jamaican patties and two cold ones when enjoying something.

 

I've been eating my popcorn since page one. I'm so stuffed.

 

Yes, they have. This thread has become nothing more than a distro crusade... tilting at various windmills...

Just to have fun:
Unnamed pieced together linux c. 11/1991, SLS, Red Hat, SuSE, Yellowdog, Debian, Ubuntu and slackware tossed in there somewhere (late 90s), OSX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, A/UX, OpenStep on:
various sparcstations through c. 1998
Oxygen 2 & Indigo workstations
80386SX/80387SX notebook (4MB remember this for some reason, it was real fun re-building gcc and X11 on this machine... as the distro required it since the supplied binaries only bootstrapped the machine)
AMD 486 DX-40 (still re-building everything here)
Mac IIcx (68000)
P-II (various 233MHz - 7XX, single/dual configs, various mem configs)
Amd Athlon T-bird 1GHz (forgot mem config)
various ibooks (original - "icebook" based line, 396MB)
powerbooks (through G4, 640MB)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ (939), 2GB DDR-400

Ok, so bottom line here is that ANY distro can be gotten to run adequately on any CPU supported base platform. It's all a matter of picking additional install packages and limiting options that install by default that don't make sense on the platform.

Ubuntu is essentially modern Debian with a bunch of extras that make it easier for n00bs to use. Other common/popular distros on based around the same n00b friendliness and use various packaged managers. (Brings back "fond" memories of RPM dependency hell(RedHat/yellowdog).)

Debian: out-of-date by anyone's standards, and far far too slow at releasing stable releases. Most serious users use un-stable.

Slackware if you like a stable base to tinker with.

Build your owns: well, have fun. Hope that you have LOTS of free time to keep everything up-to-date.

Source based: nice in theory, but in practice the small amount of extra performance that these distros like to tout is essentially mitigated by all of the big boys providing i686 builds for essential binaries and kernels as well as x86_64 support.

*BSD: More akin to slackware/debian but usually with less hw support. Sporting a freer license, and a significantly architecturually different base UNIX design (BSD v. sysV). I used to run it on my servers, but the last time that my main one died, I switched it to Ubuntu LTS 6.06 and am still running that ATM (too lazy to switch it back to FreeBSD, and no longer any real need/desire to).

OSX: Well, IMO it's the best desktop UNIXlike OS, but obviously, only really works well on real mac hw. Has several third party repos that provide a system similar to PORTS (FreeBSD), and another offering debian packaged binaries and source (forgot the name offhand).

My next "fun" project will be getting Ubuntu up on my MS-1651(P8600/4GB) build that I've just ordered from avadirect. Seems to be that it really need i686 8.10 distro, not sure if sound/wireless are auto-detected but I'll cross that bridge when necessary. Also plan to try out some of the other distros before I finalize my install, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will just be i686 Ubuntu until the x64 build actually completely works on the PM45/ICH9M chipset. (I'd try Gentoo/Arch but I strongly suspect that they will suffer from the exact same problems that x64 Ubuntu and that chipset suffers from.)

I haven't bothered to research this, but if you've got the info for I'm not too proud to just take it handfed... esp. if you've got an x64 fix as I really wanted to start moving everything that I can over to 64bit OS.

 

Nice, you tell me I have fallacious reasoning, yet you attack me with ad hominem fallacy. Good job mister pseudo-logical philosopher. I might read you esoteric ramblings some other day while watching Kathy Bates undress.

Ubuntu is overrated. The hype surrounding it is greater than the actual end product. Then you have religious Ubuntu fanatics shun any criticism of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu users are the new Apple fanboys. Praise and evangelize an over-hyped, under-delivered product to the masses and sweep any problems under the rug like it never existed.

 

Hey hey hey.. whoa.. Chill out.. We're all here for a common cause and that is Linux. Each person has their own preferences in distros, but let's not that ruin our common identity by arguing...

 

well 8.10 might be heavier and slower but my new computer is that much faster so I it doesn't really bother me

 

Don't let it bother you too much, arguing over stupid little things doesn't just exist in the Linux world. It happens in the Windows world too, but there were a lot more newbies arguing there than here so I hang over here more. It's not even limited to software, people argue over religion and who gets the child what day and so on and so forth. That's just the way the world works.

 

But you end up reinstalling every 6 months, so over a few years, it ends up taking the same amount of time. Since Gentoo has a rolling upgrade system, a system can run for an indefinite amount of time on the same install while staying up-to-date.

Moreover, you can move a Gentoo install from one computer to another. When my Thinkpad gets here in a week or two, I'll just bzip2 my install, move it to the Thinkpad, recompile the kernel with support for the new hardware, and I'm good to go. I won't have to reinstall any programs. It will probably take less time to do than installing Ubuntu, installing all the programs, and then moving my home directory would take.

I'd rather have a distro without a completely broken versioning system.

Installation works just fine. Portage is an amazing package manager.

I used Kubuntu for more than 2 years before moving to Gentoo, and I have to say that Gentoo is better than it in almost every way imaginable.

I think what all of you fail to understand that installing from source is not just about getting a faster system. What I've found to be the biggest advantage of source-based install is how versatile it is. For example, I can install the current Git/SVN/CVS copy of a program through the package manager. If someone checks in a revision, Portage will install it on the next update. That is simply amazing.