My Ubuntu installation notes long! 3190

Chris Clement

It is productivity where I find that Linux beats (or rather, blows) the socks off Mac and Windows. I speak from fairly recent (bad) personal experience with Mac.

I find that Linux adapts itself to suit what workflow appears natural to me. Scientific applications, including commercial ones, run much faster on Linux than they do on Mac. There are some studies out there (mainly using statistical calculations on each platform) that on comparable hardware (impossible until Apple's move to the Intel platform), Linux outperforms Windows by about 5-10% but both outperform Mac by about 50%. This is a shocking state of affairs. That a BSD derivative should lag behind so much is hard to understand but I know it to be true - Matlab typically runs only less than half as fast on a Mac than on my Debian Linux system (benchmarked it personally).

In security, Mac is at best an equal to Linux (I say "at best" because it does not have the extra protection that security through obscurity brings - something that Windows Vista, true to form, is trying to copy).

Add to that the cost of Mac hardware and the sheer headache in porting GNU tools and the outdatedness of binaries for such tools for Mac, one wonders if Mac got anything beyond security out of the transition from OS 9 to OS X.

I would still recommend Mac to anyone wanting to switch away from Windows and wanting the doubtful patina of commercial support (though even there Novell and Redhat are giving a very good account of themselves), but for anyone looking for top-notch performance without wasting money, Linux is the way to go. The initial learning curve is steep, but the rewards are unmatchable.

Right now, the only advantage that Mac offers to non-fluffcakes (people not into movie editing etc.) over Linux is pre-configured good looks. Given the cost at which they come, one might as well spend some a few seconds typing :

apt-get install kwin-style-baghira

As to the slowness of Ubuntu that you experienced :

1. Your video card might be running with Vesa drivers - which would make everything run dead slow. 2. You might be running a memory pig like KDE with tons of superkaramba themes or Gnome with something similar and or using an old machine. You can choose xfce-enlightenment if that is the case - another advantage of Linux over Mac and Windows - interface too slow ? - use a simpler one and reapportion precious system resources to things that matter.