Windows Vista vs. Windows XP vs. Ubuntu Linux

By
Scott
– February 9, 2007Posted in: Editorials

articles.jpgWindows Vista vs. Windows XP vs. Ubuntu Linux

There’s a new
OS in town, but can it compare to our comfy slippers, or even
the diamond in the rough?

Manufacturer:
Price:

While
the Operating System of choice is still Microsoft, even Microsoft
currently has a choice. MS Vista, the new kid on the block, has
some promising features and definite sex appeal. What we at VL
want to find out, does it have performance to match, or is it
just a prettier more laden version of Windows XP? While MS is
the majority, there has been a small revolution of sorts. Never
before have I seen so many people switch to a Linux variant then
when Ubuntu released 6.06 (Dapper Drake). Now with 6.10 (Edgy
Eft) even my Brother In-Law (not a computer geek by any stretch
of the imagination) has switched, it appears the move is continuing
to gain momentum. Could Ubuntu become the Linux killer app to
Microsoft’s dominance?

Before
we can delve deeper and determine what is what, lets look what
we are trying to accomplish and of course, what we are not going
to look at in this article.
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Overview

First
and foremost, this is not an article to tell you to switch from
one OS to another, more to the point, I am trying to show you,
our readers, where the performance lies and MY level of pain
in implementing a proper solution. Realise that I have used
Windows XP for about 4 years now in work and home, Ubuntu Linux
for about 1 yr on and off and Windows Vista for less then 30
days (granted the flow from XP will be an advantage). The test
products are as follows:

  • Microsoft
    Windows XP Professional

  • Microsoft
    Vista Home Premium

  • Ubuntu
    Edgy Eft (6.10)

The
first question I am probably going to be asked, why did I chose
Vista Home Premium? We at Viperlair feel that this will be the
primary solution purchased by the majority of end users, especially
since it also contains Media Center; the up-tick to Vista Ultimate
only has the added security of Bit-Locker and the promised Ultimate
only extras offering any tangible reason to go above Home Premium
for the majority of home users. It certainly shouldn’t affect
performance in any tangible way. So now that we have chosen our
operating systems, let’s go over the hardware.

Test
System : Asus
P5W DH Deluxe, Patriot
PC2-6400 2GB, Intel
Core 2 Duo E6400 (Stock 2.13GHz), Samsung 18x DVD+/-RW SATA Drive,
 Samsung
250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache SATA-II Hard Drive, Asus
EAX1650XT

As
you can see we are not going all out with this system. It is what
I would call a highly likely system purchase by our average reader.
Sure, you might go nV for your video or AMD for your processor
but the system specifications, generally speaking, should be pretty
common.

Installation

Installation
was interesting; by that I mean that despite the fact MS have
done wonders with the Vista installation routine, I would have
sworn that MS Vista would be the slowest as it is the biggest
install. Not the case by any means.

Install
time in Minutes:Seconds, Lower is better

As
you can see, Ubuntu installs slightly faster, not enough to warrant
an issue even in my line of work, where re-installing is a bi-weekly
thing. Poor XP Pro brings up the rear, by a significant amount
mind you. Once installed, whats the time it takes to boot up (once
the BIOS POST’s)?

Boot
time in Seconds, Lower is better

Vista
is downright impressive, you barely have time to get a soda (or
beer :p). If you think the boot time is impressive, you should
see the wake time. I swear its instantaneous, you press the power
button from Vista being asleep, and there is the login screen;
VERY impressive.

Let’s
go over some random thoughts during the installation of the 3
Operating Systems shall we:

  1. XP
    -Professional

    1. Tried
      and true, you are comfortable here

    2. Easy
      to install, use, manage and setup games on

  2. Vista
    Home Premium

    1. Install
      is actually easier then XP Pro

    2. Once
      installed, its time to fumble around

      1. Where
        are my network drives

      2. I
        don’t see my download directory

      3. Will
        FireFox work? (yes it does :P )

      4. Oh
        crap, this application won’t load

      5. Need
        to get drivers for my Logitech mouse, nope, nothing
        on their site

      6. The
        Marvell Yukon NIC works, but not very fast

  3. Ubuntu
    Edgy Eft (6.10)

    1. Install
      is the fastest of the bunch

      1. Wow,
        detected my mouse buttons fine

      2. Internet
        works great out of the box

    2. Now
      the fun begins

      1. wait,
        Office is already installed? (Open Office)

      2. FireFox
        too?

      3. I
        can’t find the launcher to that new program I installed

      4. which
        Wiki do I use to install the ATI drivers?

      5. Wait
        my screen is skewed to one side, how do I fix that?

    3. Remember,
      its not harder, its different

My
overall impression of the installations themselves are rather
immaterial. Ubuntu installed the fastest and included several
packages that had to be added after the fact for the other OS’s.
Unfortunately, once installed, Ubuntu took the longest to get
to the point of running the tests (once again, I am an XP user
for the most part). Let’s look over each OS as it relates to getting
them test ready.

Ubuntu

There
are many many sites to assist you in getting all sorts of programs
running on Ubuntu; the unfortunate thing is there are many many
sites to get you going on Ubuntu. While information is great,
too much information becomes time consuming as you have to filter
out all of the information to find what fits your needs the best.
Once you get Ubuntu going and you become comfortable with the
interface, its actually not any harder then Windows. In fact when
it comes to updating the OS you get a bonus; it updates all of
your packages too (unless you tell it not to), this all with a
few clicks, a password and boom, your done. Oh and no REBOOT needed…

There
are a few hoops you must jump through to get games running on
Ubuntu (as with any Linux Distro), OpenGL being the first and
foremost of the bunch. While I have read many discussions on ATI’s
lack of support for Linux, I must say I was impressed with the
ease at which I was able to get OpenGL working just fine with
an ATI video card, one that ATI just got a Windows XP driver that
included it (not to mention Vista and OpenGL are yet to be available).
I did not get into any games outside of OpenGL as I felt it was
not part of this article to see Ubuntu’s performance in an emulation
environment.

XP
Professional

While
XP was slightly behind Vista in that Vista installed quickly and
I was able to “fumble around” Vista due to a somewhat
similar layout to XP. XP’s long installation time (in comparison
to the others) and reboots that are required for joining your
network domain etc (where the files live) is what hurt it here.
XP is the old blue (background) that we are used to, when it came
out it was flashy, that has since worn away (although there are
pkg’s you can get to alleviate that). Maintaining the programs
you have installed and the OS is still somewhat cumbersome and
by no means free. Any updates to the OS and most applications
require the dreaded reboot…

Installing
the games and applications needed for this article was painless
and something we at VL are very accustom to, once again, most
of the installations required some sort of reboot to make them
active.

Vista
Home Premium

Vista
was the 2nd fastest to install and overall the fastest to get
to the point of Test operational. I confess that I have used Vista
RC1 and RC2, so some of the mundane things like finding your download
files and Network folder I already had in my bag of tricks. Things
like renaming your workgroup to match mine were somewhat more
difficult and time consuming. Also time consuming, and frustrating
at times, was the very little bit of information on the web about
Vista and resolving issues (kind of the opposite issue of Ubuntu).
When I had a problem running a program I went searching, I found
several answers for XP Pro, and of course none of those worked.
I finally found the answer (in this case “run as administrator”)
but not by a web search, by a friend who has been using Vista
for a couple of months solid. This issue should alleviate itself
as Vista is in the hands of users for a longer length of time.

Installation
of the battery of tests was slightly harder then that of XP due
to a few glitches here and there. The most difficult amazingly
was UT 2004, in which I had to install the UT2K4 update 4 times
before it worked properly. Adding to this pain was the only way
to test if the the update worked was to go into the game and see
if you could move, if not, exit and apply again. There are still
reboots required (and even some recommended that I just ignored)
for Vista though it is no where near as frequent as XP. Audio
and NIC Drivers (which Vista actually had at build time but were
not efficient by any means) did not require a reboot, just to
name a couple.

Battery
of Test’s

  • Basic
    System Requirements

  • SiSoft
    Sandra (Vista / XP)

  • SuperPI
    (Vista / XP / Ubuntu)

  • 3DMark
    (Vista / XP)

  • DVD
    Shrink (Vista / XP / Ubuntu)

  • CDex
    (Vista / XP / Ubuntu)

  • Video
    Encoding (Vista / XP / Ubuntu)

  • Quake
    4 (XP / Ubuntu)

  • UT2004
    (Vista / XP / Ubuntu)

Obviously
not all tests run across all platforms but I tried to be as comprehensive
as possible. I also realized that one program does not do the
same thing across all platforms, so what was my solution? I did
some research and I pulled the most popular program for the task
at hand. For example, in the case of Video Encoding, Vista / XP
we used TMPGEnc, a relatively popular and efficient encoder however
this program is not built for Ubuntu. So what was my solution
on Ubuntu? I used FFMPEG, a popular Encoder in the Ubuntu world.
Different programs, same end result which is the core point of
any benchmarking; to discover the final result. 

Basic
System

One
thing we can look at out of the box, is what does the system use
just to run the GUI? While we can take Bill’s or Linus’s word
for it, lets go to some real numbers shall we.

Vista
Left, XP Middle, Ubuntu Right

From
what I can tell, Ubuntu is using the least amount of memory, with
XP following closely behind and Vista chewing up the largest chunk.
This same pattern follows for CPU utilization. While not much
of an issue when you are running 2GB of memory and a C2D processor,
it is something to think about if you are only at 1GB or less.

SiSoft
Sandra

While
Ubuntu is left out in this test (by no fault of its own mind you)
it is a good comparison between Vista and XP. Also a good point
of reference if you want to upgrade to Vista using your current
hardware by seeing where it falls against our XP results.

SiSoft
Sandra CPU Arithmetic

SiSoft
Sandra – Memory

SiSoft
Sandra – Multimedia

With
SiSoft Sandra CPU, Vista lost a few points, nothing drastic mind
you but never the less, a drop. Moving on to memory we see, well,
we see what looks like 2 completely different systems. I ran this
test several times, each with a similar outcome. I don’t know
why, but apparently Vista is much more, not just a little but
much more efficient in memory bandwidth then XP Pro. Finally there
is Multi-Media, once again Vista shines, and outperforms XP Pro,
likely due to the memory scores. So with the synthetic tests at
least, apparently Vista is up to the task.

SuperPI

While
we typically use PiFast at VL, I needed a program that worked
for both Windows and Linux if it was available, and this one is.
We calculated 1 Million digits of PI in our test.

Time
in seconds, Lower is better

Apparently
Ubuntu is a touch slower then both XP Pro and the fastest, Vista.
Surprised yet? In reality, the times are pretty close which is
to be expected for a test such as this.

3DMark

Obviously
this is for Windows only, as several of the tests require DirectX
9C, don’t see that on the distro list for Ubuntu.

The
results actually shocked me a little as this is a synthetic benchmark.
Remember how Vista performed in the SiSoft test? As you can see,
XP Professional wins this one hands down. It isn’t even close
with exception of the CPU score which has been a recurring result
througout all the tests so far. Of course this is quite expected
since graphic drivers will need time to mature, a process that
will happen more rapidly as the user base for Vista grows.

DVD
Shrink

We
ripped the War of the Worlds bonus feature off the disk at 100%
and compressed the file from the hard drive to 70%. Times are
in minutes:seconds, and lower is better. We were able to run DVD
Shrink on all three systems giving us a good snapshot.

Time
in Minutes:Seconds, Lower is better

Even
with the above tests completed, Vista’s performance impressed
me here. While it did outperform XP Pro, the efficiency of Ubuntu
shines here, taking both Microsoft OS’s to task (not to mention
DVD Shrink was running under WINE in Ubuntu).

WAV
to MP3

We
ripped Bad Company “Desolation Angels� to a single large wav
file on our hard drive (this alleviates DVD ROM spin time etc),
we then took that wav and encoded it to a 384Kbs MP3. We used
CDex for all three with Ubuntu running it under WINE again.

Time
in Minutes:Seconds, Lower is better

Surprisingly
again, Vista outperforms XP Pro, however not surprisingly, Ubuntu
outperforms all of the above (is there a trend here?).

Video
Encoding

We
took our original rip of War of the Worlds bonus feature, then
we re-encoded it to an Mpeg2 file at 5000kbs. Times are in minutes:seconds,
and lower is better.

Time
in Minutes:Seconds, Lower is better

While
Vista outperforms XP Pro handily, Ubuntu once again shows its
muscle. Vista and XP both used TMPGEnc while Ubuntu used FFMPEG.

Quake
4

This
originally was the point at which I started to rip into ATI for
not having OpenGL drivers for Vista, and then they ship them the
day it is released (Beta drivers had no OpenGL support). I was
of course going to then get into the whole not having CrossFire
ability for Linux as well. Unfortunately for me, but, fortunately
for you, they got them on the download just in time for first
ship.

Vista
is impressive, both in Time Demo mode and in actual play. You
notice at first launch, Q4 is sluggish but by the time you count
to 5 its moving smooth as butter. This is quite common with Vista
and games on dual core CPU systems. The time demo gives the same
attributes; if you simply go into Q4 and launch a time demo it
will lag at first then go full steam ahead, the 2nd time demo
will always be faster then the first due to Quake 4′s caching.
XP takes 2nd, albeit far behind, and just behind XP is Ubuntu.

UT2004

Well,
now UT2004 supports DX9 or OpenGL. I was glad to be able to show
the performance of all 3 OS’s, as well as show the difference
between OpenGL and DX9.

Hrmm,
look at that graph, is it descriptive enough to make your decision?
Probably not, that doesn’t mean that you can’t look at it and
say “Vista is owning the games�. I was surprised at this one
as well. I would have laid money on Ubuntu before the test started
(I would have lost). In fact, Ubuntu brings up the rear in this
scenario.

Final
Words

While
Microsoft owns the desktop space, we have noticed some chinks
in the armor, and Apple is not the only other game in town. When
you add the cost of the hardware and software together, Open Source
solutions such as Ubuntu, Fedora Core and Suse (just to name a
few) are appealing alternatives.

Suffice
it to say, unless you have a relatively new system in hand or
you are looking to upgrade your system, don’t even pick up the
MS Vista box; leave it on the shelf. MS Windows XP Professional
is still a very viable OS, and apparently, outperforms or maintains
pace with Vista in almost every test we have run with current
hardware in place. Vista has the advantage of utilizing the performance
a newer setup offers, XP is falling behind in that it is not as
efficient with multiple processors or large amounts of memory.
Other then the new hardware advantages, does Vista bring that
much over XP? In a lot of cases there are still negatives for
Vista, being that it is new and all of the quirks are not ironed
out, you bet XP is a better solution, TODAY! Once that first Service
Pack is released, you might just want to leave XP behind. That
said, gaming performance was pretty high, higher than we expected
Vista to have and in most cases beat out the other two contenders.
Of course, ours is but one setup and as always, you should check
out other sites with similiar articles and take an average before
making a decision.

What
about Ubuntu you ask? Well, my bias leans towards running Ubuntu
(or any Linux for that matter) anyway, however I am a realist
and I fully understand that DirectX games such as Flat Out2, BF2
and BF2142 will not run, or must be emulated to run on Linux.
Thats not to say it would not be a good solution, because obviously
you are getting a lot of performance out of older as well as new
hardware, especially when you consider what you pay :) .

In
the end, obviously you the reader to need to make the choice of
what is right for you. How much pain are you willing to endure
in order to have an OS that fits your requirements? What reason
would compel you to move to a new OS? Is it sexy to stay with
XP Pro? Not so much. Is it sexy to move to Vista? Certainly. Is
it sexy to move to Ubuntu? Maybe, no matter, it definitely is
kewl.

If
you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
If you liked this article, and let the rest of the community know.