A friend of mine was telling me about the download speeds he was gettiing on his linux operating system here in the uk. My speed on windows is about 800kb/s wheras he is nearly hitting 8mb/s. I decided to install linux on an old hard drive and was still getting 800kb/s. Is linux actualy any faster on normal downloads and is it any faster on p2p websites such as utorrent. If it is do i need to set it up in a specific way. thanks.
the download speed is not dependent on your operating system, only on your connection. so if you get 800kb/s on windows, you will get that 800kb/s on linux or solaris or OSX or whatever. µtorrent is no website, it is a program. And what is your definition of a 'normal download'?
Linux can handle a lot of simultaneous connections and run fast even in old machines (using the correct distro). But as Alpaca said it should be independent of your xDSL. Some P2P programs take a lot of resources, so maybe your friends means that with linux the downloads don't hang the computer or make it too slow (that could affect the perfomance of the downloads itself).
if anyone is interested, I have both linux (ubuntu intrepid) and xp on this laptop, and XP is a fair bit quicker at most things, especially booting (30 seconds vs. 90 seconds) though I think the long boot time problems were fixed in newer versions (which I can't run because ATI killed the driver support for older cards)
You don't need to use Catalyst on older ATi cards as radeon (xf86-video-ati) is pretty complete (for older cards). Should be the default in ubuntu I think.
It's an ati 200m, and the ati driver is old (they stopped supporting it) and doesn't work with the later versions of x.org which any ubuntu release from jaunty onwards use by default. the only other option is the open source driver, which has laughable performance, so i'm stuck with intrepid - which is a shame because i really like some things about ubuntu. I was dual booting with xp anyway to use lightroom, so a few months ago i did a fresh xp install and moved everything back over to windows. it's faster, it can handle fullscreen video without tearing, i can sync my ipod, edit photos with decent software, calibrate the screen, play much more advanced games and use skype (which to be fair worked in ubuntu, but my webcam didn't). It's a pretty long list... especially when you consider XP is faster on here too. But damn I miss compiz I think it's possible to upgrade to a newer release then downgrade x.org to an older version, but the last time I tried I couldn't even get the open source driver to work, so i was flying blind (& gave up). Possibly would need to start with a fresh install rather than do an upgrade, but then I'd have the pain of changing everything back the way I wanted it... easier to stick with windows! ubuntu gets used for troubleshooting, messing about with linux and wowing people with compiz, mainly! edit: but thanks anyway!
Ubuntu is not the only linux distro out there Full screen video -> Only Flash should give you such problems. Sync ipod -> Rythmbox, floola, banshee, gtkpod... edit photos -> Gimp games-> well, yes big catalog, but not too new or eyecandy. Steam is working on it. As ID Soft did. But I'm surprised by the speed problem. Linux is pretty quick. And you can tweak it to make it faster. If you want to downgrade versions of a given program, you should try distros like ArchLinux. Although is not easy as Ubuntu is, but: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=674245
I know, but it's supposed to be one of the most user-friendly, so it made sense for me to start there when I was looking at trying linux. I'd never used anything but windows before. Flash works okay, but no better than any other video on here. I can play a DVD fullscreen pretty smoothly (as in framerate) but I get tearing all the time, and it's quite annoying. Under XP I can stream 720p no problem, and with no tearing, but ubuntu just ran away screaming when I asked it to do the same. I tried them all (save floola) and they don't do what I want. I'm quite picky mind, Itunes doesn't exactly do what I want either. Main problems with linux-based methods were: no album art support, no distinction between music, audiobooks and podcasts and no video (which was a major thing for me - 7 hr train journey between uni and home seems a lot shorter when I have tons of movies/TV on my ipod). Gimp is great for basic photoshop tasks, but it's nothing like lightroom - completely different programs for doing different things. I do use gimp in XP though, it's great for pixel-based edits. Also screen calibration is a must for me, as it's pointless editing without accurate colours, because as soon as I get the edited shot onto a calibrated machine (for printing etc) I realise it looks dreadful and have to start again. As if that isn't enough in the way of hurdles linux would have to leap in order for me to want to use it for photo editing, my camera churns out 25mb .RAF files, which none of the linux software i tried would recognise. I got a few things working, but nothing remotely new. Diablo II worked well, and a few other old titles. It felt very restrictive though - at least under XP I know i can get most things working if I tweak them enough. I even completed oblivion on here before I built my desktop. It's certainly not bad within the OS, it's mostly booting that takes ages. Combined with the lack of programs and video/gaming performance it feels far less capable. I might get around to trying another distro eventually. I don't want to use linux as my main OS again any time soon though. It's not very intuitive when it comes to fixing things that don't work, which happens a lot. In windows when i boot up and it's somehow "lost" my graphics drivers, I just have to put up with being back in 1998 (i.e. 800x600) for a bit while I reinstall catalyst, then restart the machine. In linux it boots to a command-line interface, and I have to go find another PC with an internet connection to look up the commands to purge my graphics drivers then download and install them again. If ubuntu isn't "easy" enough for me, it doesn't sound like I'd have fun with any other distro Anyway, sorry to rant at you. I didn't mean to throw all those suggestions back in your face, just I'd already spent months experimenting with most of those things and eventually gave up, feeling rather disappointed. Hopefully someone else will have better luck! Thanks anyway Yslen
Don't apologize. You have your reasons and you've explained them well. At least you don't look like those windows fanboys. Using tricks like adding "profile" in the start (first time only. Check Google) increases the start up speed of debian/ubunut/mint alike distros. Archlinux is pretty fast starting up, but it lacks of fancy splash screens and such us (saves time). If, anytime, you want to give it another chance, just ask here
Linux is fast, or slow, your choice. Linux is ugly, or glittery, your choice. Linux will only effect your download speeds if your system is generally slow, it has very little effect on your download speed directly. Video playback is better, or worse then Windows, your choice. no album art support, no distinction between music, audiobooks and podcasts and no video You can do all of this in Linux, or not, your choice. .RAF files are supported in Linux, your choice. (UFRaw) Linux is faster, or slower then Windows to boot, your choice. The point (in case anyone missed it) is that Linux has the flexibility to be all of the things you mentioned, it comes down to settings, app choice and configuration. There is no reason for Linux to be slower then Windows and if it 'just is' then there is no reason why you cannot make it faster, with ease. As stated if you ever have issues or need advice with Linux, just post away and someone will help, just wanted to clear up the points you mentioned in case someone else wrongly took them for truths.
If the apps don't exist, and there are no more settings left to tweak, and it still doesn't work, I think it's safe to say it just doesn't work - sorry. 1.) There is no software fully supporting Ipods 2.) There is no way to properly calibrate a screen 3.) There is no photo editing software anywhere near the standard of what I use under windows 4.) With my hardware, driver support is lacking, both propriety and open source - which means video playback is far from perfect. I'm sorry to say these four things are true, and it doesn't look like they'll be changing any time soon. As nice as it would be to have an open source OS that could cope with my demands as well as windows, such a thing does not exist. As much as I appreciate your defence of Linux as a platform that is as good as the person who uses it, I have to say that attitude doesn't really help solve any of these problems. Having someone say it's "my choice" whether or not something works is a little bit annoying when I've spent months trying every solution I could find only to conclude it isn't possible. If you have a working solution to any of these problems, please feel free to post a link or explanation here, I'd certainly like to hear some. In response to the gimp plugin, I've tried it under windows and the results are (as expected) not good enough. It's also pretty limited when it comes to conversion options - it's a bit like going back to using CS2, only with less accurate colours.
Right, as lovely as it is to see someone hating Linux on a pretty much "just because" basis, I must interject. With regard to all four of your points to the most part, I proclaim "Bollocks" 1) Link 2) Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 Link 5 3) Link 4) Well I don't know what hardware you're using but my judgement on the matter is you just haven't looked hard enough. As evident from my 2 minutes of googling.. you sir, are talking from your anal sphincter. Disclaimer: I primarily am a Mac user, but in my day to day life, I regularly use MacOS, Various versions of Windows, Various versions and distros of Linux, and spend most of my time supporting them. With ease. In closing if you're so closed off from the idea of learning anything and potentially becoming a more rounded person, then I strongly advise you to; turn off the tv, computer, radio, mobile phone, tape up your letter box, never buy any newspapers, and board up your windows. If however you just don't care, then STFU and let people do and learn what they want to do to enrich their own lives.
I don't hate Linux, there is a lot about using Ubuntu that I love, which is why i stuck with it as my main OS for over six months. Its nicely laid out, installing and updating software is for the most part a pleasant, streamlined experience and it can do things with virtual desktops that windows completely fails at emulating. As for the links you posted; 1.) GTKPod was pretty much the first thing I tried (in fact several different implementations of it) but found it lacking in several ways. It allowed me to connect to the device, and to transfer music in a drag and drop fashion, but did not support syncing (where the software knows what's already on the device and so doesn't copy over a duplicate). It also didn't differentiate between different types of audio files, such as audiobooks, podcasts and music, which is essential for keeping a large collection organised properly. I think it was GTKPod that ignored all my album art too - and yes, I am one of those people who obsessively finds the correct album art for every single album. 2.) Link 1: A quote from the article; "profiling for a color-managed workflow is another story, and really a different task". This is an article about making your colours look pretty, not about keeping them consistent for the purposes of matching colours with different devices accurately. Link 2: Actually specifically states (read the conclusion) that while it is possible to use software for a basic calibration, it really isn't that good, and for any serious purposes its sensible to invest in at least a basic hardware-based calibration solution (like the one I own and would like to be able to use with Linux, but can't). Link 3: Looks like it has the right idea, and specifically mentions the device I want to use. I'll be sure to try this when I next have the chance. The only potential issue here is with the way the generated profile is interpreted - as a profile made in windows on the same system does not give the same result under linux (using xcalib). Perhaps there is a way around this too - but obviously the point is that the colours must match between all systems, and if they don't, there was no point calibrating in the first place. Link 4: Manual calibration takes forever (I've tried to manually calibrate a printer before, it's a nightmare). Also, as stated in the article, it doesn't really work unless you are absolutely certain that the other variables are constant and correct - which is why dedicated calibration hardware is the standard method for accurate calibration. Link 5: Also mentions the ArgyllCMS method, which supposedly recognises some calibration hardware. Again, I'll have to try this, but I think part of the problem lies with xcalib, and the way Linux interprets colour profiles. Like I said, I'm eager to try it, and I'll let you know if it's worked. 3.) Thankyou for the link to Gimp, that was very enlightening. (That was sarcasm). I already use gimp on a regular basis, and it is very good, but it is a replacement for photoshop - a 'traditional' pixel based image editor. Lightroom, my preferred software, is an instruction based editor which makes changes on a global (or more recently a local level using layers) without actually doing any editing. As an example; in photoshop or gimp, if you adjust contrast, sharpen then desaturate (random actions off the top of my head), then decide you added too much contrast in step one, you have to backtrack, undoing your work since then - which might have taken you a long time. In lightroom, you just go to the contrast slider and move it to where you've now decided is the right place - that's it. It's a completely different style of program, and one that has become very popular due to its workflow based design. It doesn't punish you for not making decisions in a fixed order, and is massively flexible. It also acts as a cataloguing tool, using tags for each image, rating and colour flagging systems and even things like gps integration, so you can see where your images were taken. What's more, you can collect images together and cross-reference them, for example it takes about four seconds to pull up every single image I've ever taken of a certain subject in a certain location. Gimp does none of these things. I believe there is a lightroom-esque app for linux, but I was heartily unimpressed when I tried it - it lacked most of the features I've come to depend on in lightroom over the last few years, emulating it mostly in aesthetics while delivering little of the same functionality. 4.) I am using an Acer 3102WLMi, with an AMD Sempron 3200+ (1.6Ghz, single core), 2Gb of (cheap corsair) 533MHz DDR2 ram and an integrated Radeon Xpress 1100 (128mb, based heavily on the popular ATI 200m, I believe). ATI moved the gpu chip to 'legacy' support before I even started experimenting with Linux, and stopped producing Linux drivers for it. The most recent drivers they did make are not compatible with any version of x.org newer than the one included in ubuntu intrepid. The open source drivers are (I think) compatible, but these have even worse performance than the ATI drivers - main complaints (which you will find all over the forums) are choppy video playback and tearing. Sticking with intrepid, the ATI drivers are usable, and will handle full screen video and DVD playback, albeit with some tearing (you know, like gaming without v-sync), but cannot manage youtube/iplayer in HD, or any other HD content I can find. I usually use VLC (just because I prefer the interface) but I've tried basically every player I can lay my hands on. Most of them don't work very well at all, with black screen issues very common. Windows on the same hardware, as I've said, can easily stream HD content (infact I was watching youtube in 720p earlier while encoding a video in the background - perfect 24fps, very smooth.) There are some known issues with openGL support (under windows) with the 200m based chips; the earlier versions had different firmware that meant anything using openGL would not run well at all (for example SW:KOTOR on this laptop = 2-3fps, while the DX9 based TF2 = 20fps easily, even with some added AA and AF). I don't know if this might be related in some way, but I am reluctant to flash an integrated chip, for obvious reasons - this is my only PC when I'm away from home, so I need it to work!! That's not really got anything to do with this. I am not you, and even if you could solve these problems for me in a flash, that wouldn't change my point. I am not incompetent with a computer; I can put one together from bits, fix most errors in windows, and for that matter most of those I came across in Linux - and yet I could not solve these few problems. Anybody wanting to do so, therefore, is going to have a hard time of it, especially if they do as I did and try Linux having never used it before and wanting it to meet all their computing needs. I don't know what gave you that impression. I would think a lifelong windows user ditching microsoft for a 6-month linux live-in experience shows some willingness to try learning something new. I spent many hours getting to grips with the (totally not intuitive) terminal and generally solving problems. I do rather enjoy solving problems - I'm usually pretty good at it, and "getting Linux to work" became one of my hobbies for the time I used it. I'm sorry if I have mistakenly given the impression that I am trying to tell people to avoid Linux. I originally posted here because someone asked if the general opinion was that Linux was faster - I responded by saying in my case, despite my best efforts, it was not, and at best was equal to a windows installation that was much less hassle to set up. Kumo gave some sensible suggestions, but I then explained I had already tried them all, and none had given me what I needed (and I got a nice polite reply too). Since then I seem to have become a target for people who think that because Linux can't do what I want, it is somehow my fault, and I deserve to be insulted for daring to suggest that some people might not find Linux to be the perfect OS it is sometimes made out to be. Again - if you have any sensible suggestions, please feel free to post them here. So far you've just arrogantly assumed that your two minutes of googling has solved problems that I never could despite six months of trying. Unfortunately for you, it's just made you look like a bit of a troll. Believe me, I am more than happy to be proven wrong - I loved using Linux, and would gladly go back to it if it were possible to do all the things I want to do without issue. All I was saying in this thread is that I've given over a considerable amount of time to trying to get Linux to work for me, and ran into several unrelated brick walls. I'm not completely ignorant about computers, so the chances are a lot of people will have the same problems I had, and Linux will not suit them either. Now, I'm going to go and make use of directX. I'll check back here in a bit, as you or someone else will undoubtedly flame me for trying to make what I consider a valid point. I'm not trying to stir up trouble here, I was just giving an account of my experiences with Linux, and for some reason that annoyed you. Yslen
In fairness, with regard to colour calibration, Yslen was referring to proper software to drive a colorimeter such as a Spyder or Lacie Blue Eye etc. Yes, there is software for Linux that allows you manually adjust gamma based on a on-screen visual assessment and then create a profile , but this sucks. No colorimeter manufacturer provides Linux support for their calibration hardware. For this reason alone you will never find Linux being used in professional photography or graphic design... you rarely see Windows being used either, but that's a snobbery issue... and another matter entirely. To Antec900: 8mb/s is almost the same as 800kB/sec. Did you mean your download speed was 800 kilo BYTES a seconds, or kilo BITS a second?
Off Topic - when I first started working as a programmer in the early 90s and Windows 3.11 & WinNT 4.0 was the current OS, we had an office opposite a graphics design company who all of course used Apples. We used to share a photocopier and got to know them quite well and when they showed me how easy it was to connect a printer or external hard drive to one of their machines I was amazed - compared to the shenanigans of installing a new device under Win 3.11 it was literally "plug & play" on the Apples (with SCSI) The point of this story is that it may be snobbery now, but back in the day it was always my understanding that graphics designers preferred Apples because they didn't need to be nerds to get them working and also of course because the mighty Adobe Photoshop was not available for Windows in those days. Back on topic - I'm surprised by the people saying Ubuntu is slower to boot than XP - I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 on an old IBM Thinkpad T42 and it boots in seconds and shuts down even faster.
For the above reasons, I rarely comment on Linux threads. I find Linux perfect for rock stable servers, and I personally have a handful of FreeBSD boxes which I've grown to love. However given my desktop usage is limited 99% to computer games (1% email/browsing) it is completely pointless me running Linux as a desktop OS, and people seem to take offence to this, and decide to point out what 5 year old games will run on Linux I played those 5 year old games, 5 years ago and got bored, and moved on, to something which requires DirectX/Windows to play ... then got bored of that and moved on again ... etc.
Well as 99% of your desktop usage is game playing then yes Linux may be less suitable, thats not what the topic here is about, no one here is arguing for Linux being the choice for a 99% gamer. The main topic of this thread is the speed of Linux, and particularly the idea that it is slower then Windows XP, tagging on the old argument of gaming has no relevance in this thread at all from what I can see. In fact if you read the responses you would see the only reply about gaming is that the quality is not there for Linux however Steam is almost ready with porting their games.
Like I said, I'm limited to intrepid (8.10) which has a boot issue which isn't in newer versions. So long as you're not restricted to an older release (by driver issues etc) it's not going to be an issue.
I found ubuntu to be reliably faster, in the sense of high average download speed compared to windows, but i never found the source of the reason. Basically i have never had over 1.1mb/s DL, but ubuntu would stay much closer to that figure more of the time than windows for some reason.
