Microsoft Dev Explains Why Windows is Slower than Linux - Polidicks

[QUOTE=nikomo;40614356]The great thing about Linux, is that Linus will probably come over and stab you in real life if you try to break the ABI and API in any way. If you rewrite some part of the system that suddenly boosts performance, ok fine, but what about backwards compatibility? Oh you didn't touch how the ABI works? Cool. If you do a static compile of a userland program in Linux, it will pretty much be guaranteed to work on any distribution, for a really long time. I'm fairly sure that the binaries that shipped with Unreal Tournament 2004 will still work on Ubuntu 13.04, I haven't given a try though, I really need to play with my Linux partition on my gaming machine, I already switched my laptop to Linux-only.[/QUOTE] Totally: [url]https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75[/url]

I switched to Linux at work simply because compiling our large codebase on Windows was a [i]nightmare[/i]. It was much slower than on Linux and it often failed because it couldn't delete some file (that was Symantec's fault though). On a technical level it's much better than Windows and the terminal is super easy and efficient to use compared to cmd, but I find things almost daily that I used to do on Windows in a few seconds or minutes that are nigh impossible on Linux without googling for 2 hours, editing a bunch of configuration files and rebooting a few times (or logout/login). For now I'll stay with Windows 7 at home and Mint at work and see what works out better in the long run.

I simply run linux on my devices just because I've been working on linux computers for 6 years, and I got used to it. Really, it's a matter of how much you are used to a system. For example, when I first got my linux netbook I was pretty mad it didn't run Windows. As I didn't know how to install it, I just messed around with ubuntu and got it the way I wanted. Nowadays, I can't last 2 weeks in Windows, just because I don't know how to do things.

[QUOTE=SGI Onyx;40609798]They need to replace NTFS ASAP.[/QUOTE] What's wrong with NTFS? Not defending it or anything, genuinely curious.

[QUOTE=Dlaor-guy;40614802]What's wrong with NTFS? Not defending it or anything, genuinely curious.[/QUOTE] Not sure, I think it had something to do with fragmentation and generally being slower, but I think those are things that can be solved with an SSD unit.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;40614008]Tbh I prefer graphical interfaces, simply because there's no way in hell I can remember all the commands i'd have to use instead.[/QUOTE] I'd totally use the GUI package manager/software center if it wasn't the slowest piece of shit ever written.

[QUOTE=ThePuska;40610205]My Windows 7 took only 10 Gb and I didn't bother to strip it down to the bare minimum. It's still inexcusably large, but the truth is that Windows is by design a more complete OS than most Linux distros.[/QUOTE] No it didn't. Windows 7 has a basic install footprint of around 17GB. [editline]12th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=VinLAURiA;40610809]Another thing I don't get. I get that Linux is open and that's a big plus, but even with stuff like OS X people are always pegging the Unix family as better than NT. What's so great about Unix? It's not even like Unix and NT are the only OS "bases" around; there are still OSes based on neither of them. We still have stuff like Amiga floating around. Is it just because Unix is the most commonly open-source OS type?[B] I mean, hell, even NT is open-source with stuff like ReachOS having reverse-engineered a lot of Windows' "bones."[/B][/QUOTE] you are deluded if you think that means NT is open-source.

[QUOTE=Dlaor-guy;40614802]What's wrong with NTFS? Not defending it or anything, genuinely curious.[/QUOTE] Fragmentation.

[QUOTE=SGI Onyx;40609798]They need to replace NTFS ASAP.[/QUOTE] In what fantasy land is NTFS not up to scratch? It's more stable than the majority of common linux filesystems (a few corrupt blocks on your ext4 volume? here m8 let's delete all your recently written files and shove hundreds more into lost+found), and has insanely good online defragmentation to make up for its poor allocation.

[QUOTE=Rika-chan;40611152]I have not found a single district of Linux that works properly on my boyfriend's HP laptop because of graphics driver issues[/QUOTE] If it's a ati/amd hd5000 series & intel gpu combo, then it's AMD being cocks and only offering decent amount of support for hd6000 and up. [editline]12th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Jookia;40615765]Fragmentation.[/QUOTE] And on multiple terabyte harddrives (or even worse, large RAID arrays), that can [I]REALLY[/I] slow shit down. NTFS wasn't made with that in mind, and a background defragmentation process is a band-aid on a gaping wound. [editline]12th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=SGI Onyx;40615099]I'd totally use the GUI package manager/software center if it wasn't the slowest piece of shit ever written.[/QUOTE] Synaptic is cool, but Ubuntu Software center is buggy as shit, and will crap out on you if you're doing more than one thing at once with it

Also NTFS has a ~4% overhead on the data you store.

[QUOTE=FlubberNugget;40615470]No it didn't. Windows 7 has a basic install footprint of around 17GB.[/QUOTE] Since it's been a while since I formatted my laptop's SSD and I wanted to confirm it, here's a fresh install of Windows 7. No updates or drivers. Useless features are disabled but other than that I didn't yet get around to configuring it. [img]http://i.imgur.com/eLjSkSL.png[/img] Granted, that's actually 11 gigabytes + the system reserved 100 megabytes of boot partition

[QUOTE=SGI Onyx;40616424]Also NTFS has a ~4% overhead on the data you store.[/QUOTE] EXT4 is also somewhat guilty in some regard there, but there's tools available so the end-user can reduce it without introducing trade-off's. The flexibility of Linux is both it's strongest advantage, and also it's disadvantage when it's exposed to those not familiar or technical inclined.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;40614008]Tbh I prefer graphical interfaces, simply because there's no way in hell I can remember all the commands i'd have to use instead.[/QUOTE] After using the linux terminal for a while you get the basic stuff down off by heart, it's why I love arch because it throws you in at the deep end and you gain the knowledge of how to fully maintain it before you even have a working OS

Let me start off by saying I don't know a lot about programming or OS's and shit. But I do have a question, isn't stuff like not fixxing/replacing NTFS or other file system a result of ignoring it for so long it has become almost impossible to fix?

[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;40617256]After using the linux terminal for a while you get the basic stuff down off by heart, it's why I love arch because it throws you in at the deep end and you gain the knowledge of how to fully maintain it before you even have a working OS[/QUOTE]I don't think you quite understand, I don't remember any text-based commands very long at all. I've got pages of dev commands for games that I frequently play, and of those I remember maybe 1 or 2 without the assistance of auto-complete in some games' command consoles. If I had to use a console to do everyday stuff in Windows, my wall would need to be covered in post-it notes. GUIs are imo far more intuitive; for one, you can figure out how to do what simply by exploring the interface, seeing what options are open to you. If I want to do more advanced stuff, then I acquiesce that a console would be of more use rather than adding billions of buttons for that one rare eventuality where it's needed, but if I just want to e.g. get rid of a program, it's easier to go to a list of installed programs, select the one and click uninstall or whatever.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;40617460]I don't think you quite understand, I don't remember any text-based commands very long at all. I've got pages of dev commands for games that I frequently play, and of those I remember maybe 1 or 2 without the assistance of auto-complete in some games' command consoles. If I had to use a console to do everyday stuff in Windows, my wall would need to be covered in post-it notes. GUIs are imo far more intuitive; for one, you can figure out how to do what simply by exploring the interface, seeing what options are open to you. If I want to do more advanced stuff, then I acquiesce that a console would be of more use rather than adding billions of buttons for that one rare eventuality where it's needed, but if I just want to e.g. get rid of a program, it's easier to go to a list of installed programs, select the one and click uninstall or whatever.[/QUOTE] Obviously if you had to use those commands every day then you'd remember them longer, that's just human nature [editline]12th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=ItsMozy;40617364]Let me start off by saying I don't know a lot about programming or OS's and shit. But I do have a question, isn't stuff like not fixxing/replacing NTFS or other file system a result of ignoring it for so long it has become almost impossible to fix?[/QUOTE] It's a result of knowing that modifying it to the point where it doesn't exhibit the problems it currently has would require breaking compatibility with years and years of various legacy programs which your average enterprise customers and normal computer users would find prohibitively difficult/expensive to fix.

[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;40617711]Obviously if you had to use those commands every day then you'd remember them longer, that's just human nature[/QUOTE]That still means a new user has to dig out them commands from somewhere, be it the Internet or a manual, when it'd just be so much simpler to show them a control panel and let them fiddle with it for basic stuff.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;40617882]That still means a new user has to dig out them commands from somewhere, be it the Internet or a manual, when it'd just be so much simpler to show them a control panel and let them fiddle with it for basic stuff.[/QUOTE] Nothing is stoping a user from doing just that, the terminal is much more useful for power users and people who prefer it over GUIs which require a lot of clicking than for users who just want the computer to work.

I'm not saying new linux users should use the command line all the time they don't need to and they don't have to, I'm saying that if a power user wanted to delve deeper into your OS then just a little practice would get them acquainted and fluent with those commands. I'm not saying they're more intuitive, they aren't, but they're learnable if you want to put the time in.

[QUOTE=danharibo;40617987]Nothing is stoping a user from doing just that, the terminal is much more useful for power users and people who prefer it over GUIs which require a lot of clicking than for users who just want the computer to work.[/QUOTE]I'm aware of that, my original point is that for anyone who isn't in the minority of PC power users, having a graphical representation of common commands is helpful, intuitive and easier to remember. To me, an operating system is nothing more than a tool; the less I need to memorise to operate it, the more efficiently I can do stuff with it that I want to do. Secondly, allowing regular users to explore the function of their OS through GUI at first will help them acclimatize to it a lot easier (as Mint does for me, and Windows did when I first used a computer), and from then on those that want to go deeper can, with the terminal.

so essentially developing for windows is a beurocracy filled with red tape and to get anything done developers just make their own non-compatable parts of the code and stick that in because you couldnt work with the other systems due to compartmentalization of the development process

[QUOTE=ThePuska;40616449]Since it's been a while since I formatted my laptop's SSD and I wanted to confirm it, here's a fresh install of Windows 7. No updates or drivers. Useless features are disabled but other than that I didn't yet get around to configuring it. [img]http://i.imgur.com/eLjSkSL.png[/img] Granted, that's actually 11 gigabytes + the system reserved 100 megabytes of boot partition[/QUOTE] Update it, it should jump a few gigs.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;40618023]I'm aware of that, my original point is that for anyone who isn't in the minority of PC power users, having a graphical representation of common commands is helpful, intuitive and easier to remember. To me, an operating system is nothing more than a tool; the less I need to memorise to operate it, the more efficiently I can do stuff with it that I want to do. Secondly, allowing regular users to explore the function of their OS through GUI at first will help them acclimatize to it a lot easier (as Mint does for me, and Windows did when I first used a computer), and from then on those that want to go deeper can, with the terminal.[/QUOTE] ok no one's disagreeing with you

[QUOTE=Jookia;40615765]Fragmentation.[/QUOTE] Would somebody explain this, I've seen a bunch of people claim NTFS is somehow more prone to fragmentation than other filesystems, but they've never explained why (NTFS supports stuff like pre-allocation like other filesystems, etc.) Unless the filesystem puts files all over the disk (Fine on a SSD, not on a spindle disk) or re-writes files to be contiguous on each modification, it'll fragment files.

[QUOTE=wraithcat;40612859]Nah, the spreading around in expert departments is basically what hurt MS so much. It basically created nationstates which are at war with one another and are vieing to get their stuff on priority even if it technically should have less. What MS is doing now though is trying to bring everyone into line somewhat at least. Which was long overdue.[/QUOTE] I would agree to an extent, my comment is based on a collection of a few employees who have or are working at MS. I think it was better off when it was expert focused, not that I agree how such conflict existed. I really appreciate these leaks because it allows acknowledgement of problems and through that be able to fix those problems. While saying that, I love other parts of microsoft, the hardware is pretty good and adore microsoft research.

[QUOTE=TheDecryptor;40619743]Unless the filesystem puts files all over the disk (Fine on a SSD, not on a spindle disk) or re-writes files to be contiguous on each modification, it'll fragment files.[/QUOTE] That's what other filesystems do. They use the law of averages to place files over the disk with huge gaps between them. Bam, no more fragmentation.

[QUOTE=Jookia;40621717]That's what other filesystems do. They use the law of averages to place files over the disk with huge gaps between them. Bam, no more fragmentation.[/QUOTE] There is still fragmentation, it's just less severe.

[QUOTE=Jookia;40621717]That's what other filesystems do. They use the law of averages to place files over the disk with huge gaps between them. Bam, no more fragmentation.[/QUOTE] That would increase seek times on anything other than flash media though, which seems counter intuitive (The reason you want to avoid fragmentation is because it increases seek time)

[QUOTE=danharibo;40621806]There is still fragmentation, it's just less severe.[/QUOTE] There's a negligible amount. I haven't ever had to defrag my system, and it runs exactly the same as when I first installed it. For all purposes there might as well be none. [QUOTE=TheDecryptor;40621906]That would increase seek times on anything other than flash media though, which seems counter intuitive (The reason you want to avoid fragmentation is because it increases seek time)[/QUOTE] Considering we use multitasking systems that each access files over different areas of the disk (what are the chances Firefox will open up a file just after Steam's?), putting files next to each other is a relic from DOS when only one program could run at a time.