Can Ubuntu 9.10 Outperform Mac OS X 10.6?

[movieman]

Real performance is what happens after the system has finished booting up and you actually start to use it.

But there are few things more annoying than having your OS crash and then having to wait for it to reboot, which is why Microsoft has been faking 'fast boot' for so long by putting up the login screen way before the system is ready to use.

My Windows laptop has taken to spontaneously powering down lately, and XP takes about 30 seconds to get to the login screen and then about 2-3 minutes before it's actually usable after logging in (thanks to every little program wanting its own 'service' and 'taskbar applet' and wanting its own 'updater' to check for updates whenever you boot). The Ubuntu netbook with (I believe) a slower disk, a quarter of the RAM and a much slower CPU takes about the same time to get to the login screen and about 15 seconds before it's ready to use after logging in.

[Garp]

Actually, I ran some tests on this a few months ago and they indicated a strong correlation between disk accesses and boot times. I can't find the thread right now (it's on these forums), but the results went somewhat like this (fastest to slowest):

1. Arch: ~100MB
2. Ubuntu: 140MB
3. Fedora: ~200MB
4. OpenSUSE: ~250MB
5. Vista: ~350MB

With the exception of Vista, boot times where roughly linear with disk reads. Tests were carried out in brand new, fully updated VirtualBox VMs and the results were read by the VBox performance counters.

Right, which just emphasises my point, there is a lot more taking place on those distributions that take longer to boot. Whether you want that stuff to occur is another argument that again has little to do with the performance of the OS After all most people boot their system maybe once a day (maybe more than that if you run windows ) Performance is best measured by looking at how fast the actual tasks you do operate, all those metrics that the Phoronix suite does. That's what gives you a real indication of how the distribution performs.

Of course if they hit that ~5 seconds or less boot time target then people might start shutting down and powering up their systems a bit more frequently. Heck, even 20 seconds I was getting for Arch was great (right up until I threw that out the window by installing all those additional services I need)

I'd be inclined to call Bull on ~7 seconds on that spec laptop frankly. Even ArchLinux fresh on my office machine (Core2Duo E7300, not exactly a slouch) it took around 20 seconds to boot.

But there are few things more annoying than having your OS crash and then having to wait for it to reboot, which is why Microsoft has been faking 'fast boot' for so long by putting up the login screen way before the system is ready to use.

I fully agree. Fast boot times are awesome. I'm not denying that. It's just that the poster I first quoted was using it as a benchmark of how fast the distribution was full stop, instead of how fast it boots.

[BlackStar]

Of course if they hit that ~5 seconds or less boot time target then people might start shutting down and powering up their systems a bit more frequently. Heck, even 20 seconds I was getting for Arch was great (right up until I threw that out the window by installing all those additional services I need)

Just wait till SSDs become commonplace. My laptop boots so fast now that I have actually disabled hibernation (reclaiming ~5GB of space, which is pretty imprortant on a 80GB SSD) and no longer bother to sleep (which slowly kills the battery).

Moreover, I no longer dread dist-upgrades. Even if I need to reboot, 15'' later I'm back online (shutdown: 5'', bios: 2'', boot: 7'', plus 1'' to type my password). I find myself actually enjoying the boot experience.

I fully agree. Fast boot times are awesome. I'm not denying that. It's just that the poster I first quoted was using it as a benchmark of how fast the distribution was full stop, instead of how fast it boots.

Confused, are you referring to me or leetsweden?

[Apopas]

Since we are talking about boot times... could someone enlighten me about that thing I posted here?
GZIP and boot performance

[BlackStar]

Since we are talking about boot times... could someone enlighten me about that thing I posted here?
GZIP and boot performance

This is a very interesting topic, I'd suggest moving it to a separate thread.

[Apopas]

This is a very interesting topic, I'd suggest moving it to a separate thread.

More chances to be seen here

[Smorg]

Should have put it against Gentoo. Mac probably actually tunes their stuff for their hardware. Ubuntu can't. Gentoo would be a better comparison.

[Apopas]

Should have put it against Gentoo. Mac probably actually tunes their stuff for their hardware. Ubuntu can't. Gentoo would be a better comparison.

I doubt any other OS/dist can stand against a finely tuned Gentoo. But with Gentoo you have the problem of the default settings. For example Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora etc stay always with their "out of the box settings" when they take place in comparison runs. With Gentoo there is not such thing. You can make it in the manner you want, not neccesarily fast but secure, not necceserily secure but slim etc. So, after a possible benchmark a horde of guys will appear to whine about why you did this and why you chose that option.
Also, we shouldn't forget the amount of time a decent Gentoo system needs to be built.

Maybe a comparison between OSX, Ubuntu and Arch or Slack would be more proper.

[dipalina]

How do I get a program to open upon computer startup in Mac OS X? I'm a recent Mac convert from PC, and I can't figure out how to get programs to open up when I turn my computer on. With Windows, you just put the shortcut in the "Startup" folder in the start menu. Is there something similar in Mac OS X?
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[deanjo]

How do I get a program to open upon computer startup in Mac OS X? I'm a recent Mac convert from PC, and I can't figure out how to get programs to open up when I turn my computer on. With Windows, you just put the shortcut in the "Startup" folder in the start menu. Is there something similar in Mac OS X?

It's dead easy. Launch the program if it isn't on your dock, then on the icon on the dock right click on it (or ctrl and click) you should have a option in the menu that pops up that says "Open at Login". Alternatively you can add it to System Preferences ---> Accounts and add a new login item.