I'm not sure if it's thanks to Wayland, or just improvements to the kernel, or improvements to the desktop environment, or some combination of the three, but at this point I actually think that for the first time I might actually prefer Gnome over macOS.
I haven't bothered with Windows since Windows 8, but it does make me happy that Linux holds its own performance-wise, even still. It doesn't look like Linux is categorically better than Windows, but it looks like for the most part they're comparable.
I find Ubuntu and others to be pretty fragile still. IMO, technologically Linux has been ready for years. If NixOS were packaged into an actual product experience it would be a great new entrant into the desktop operating system space.
NixOS is nice because if you get to a situation like that, you can simply reboot and choose a previous generation, and then figure out where you went wrong.
Sort of, but only sort of. The filesystem is actually (mostly) unchanged for the backups. You have the /nix partition that can only really be touched by the nix program itself, and you have your root partition built based on the manifest defined in your configuration file. As such, every time you want to change anything about the system, you "rebuild" it, it stores a "copy" of the old root system, but since it's a cool lazy functional thing, it really only stores the diff's from the configuration, so they aren't terribly expensive, so it's not weird for me to have literally hundreds of generations stored on my laptop. Old stuff in the /nix partition isn't deleted until it's garbage collected, and a lot of stuff can't be garbage collected until the generation attached to it is removed.
So it's like a filesystem snapshot, but only the system files itself, the actual stuff on the hard drive actually doesn't get touched.
> However, since LiveCD/Flash images became a thing, I stopped worrying about the OS at all, just keep a recent backup of my /data partition.
I actually kind of do that with NixOS too!
My root partition is a tmpfs mount, meaning that every reboot is effectively a fresh root [1]. I have persistent volumes for my home directory and a few other things. To quote a friend, it's like a "new car smell on every reboot".
[1] Followed this tutorial: https://elis.nu/blog/2020/05/nixos-tmpfs-as-root/
I think Linux is great for more mainstream models that have already been out for a few years, but unfortunately I can't recommend if you're buying a new or more niche machine.
It's really a shame, as I absolutely don't like the direction either Microsoft or Apple is going. I keep ending up back at MBP due to overall polish/hardware quality, but I prefer linux to MacOS. I hope Asahi Linux can get fully up-to-date with latest models and resolve the various QoL issues
It's really the hardware holding me back, still. I'm also watching Asahi closely. Any other laptop I've tried makes a compromise somewhere that I don't want - bad screen, track pad sucks, hit and miss keyboards. Plus heat and fan noise.
I just want a MacBook Air, but Linux. The new snapdragon surface laptop 7 is close (except the keyboard) but it doesn't run Linux and I've given up on Windows a long time ago.
Slimbook Execute, Slimbook Excalibur, Tuxedo Infinity and Tuxedo Pulse are amazing machines.
RaptorLake gets close (and beats) the M3 in performance in some areas, but not in heat or fan noise.
No doubt they are all great machines, but after using an air for the last few years I can't use anything else that's not as cool or as quiet.
I'm holding out for Asahi Linux, or some better (and Linux supported) snapdragon elite offerings. The new surface laptop 7 is pretty close hardware wise (except the keyboard) but it can't run Linux, sadly.
Lunar Lake is supposedly pretty close to the Snapdragon. A bit slower but no need to bother with ARM and a much better GPU (if that matters).
You may not even know about the latest from last week, it's the long-awaited Windows 11 24H2 general release.
Among other things, now you get bitlocker by default upon installation, and it automatically encrypts (not only) its own partition, plus any others within the realm of its default autoencryption settings.
This can be a little bit of an ordeal to recover from even if you have a Microsoft Account. If you have already made the effort to maintain a Local User instead, it can be accomplished but naturally you wont be able to decrypt using any online credentials. You would barely notice anyway since there are no notifications about bitlocker of any kind, much less autobitlocker with a fury. So you don't actually have any decryption keys at this point either. Other popups will occur though, nothing very useful as usual. Plus when booted to the newly installed W11 24H2 you're an authorized user so you can access your C: volume and every other volume like normal. So you would never guess there's a problem until you boot that PC to some other volume, like one having up-to-date W10 installed. And it wont boot because that whole partition has been stealth encrypted and the undamaged bootfiles no longer recognize it. It can only be accessed when you are already booted to the new 24H2 volume but bitlocker is still not "complete" on any other volumes without a Microsoft Account, so on each encrypted volume there is only an option to turn bitlocker "on" not off. You can muddle through and obtain a local decryption key but it does not work in a straightforward way (and perhaps maybe never the first time), plus decryption takes a bit of time. So it ends up being faster and easier to reformat the encrypted volume and recover the contents from backup.
To correct this, action needs to be taken in advance before the installation of W11 24H2 like no Windows before, you must make sure no other disk volumes are exposed and that the install setup process can only "see" the target volume you are intending to install 24H2 onto. Otherwise you really need to use the latest RUFUS app to tweak and adjust the Windows install routine so you can disable things like autobitlocker in your customized USB Windows install device. Before you subject a multipartioned PC to unbridled mayhem like never before. Not just a multibooter.
This finally adds up with other creeping challenges to make the latest Windows more fiddly and in need of arcane command-line intervention more so than Linux for the first time.
Not like it was since the beginning of Linux up until a week ago.
And it's a big leap.
Installation of ubuntu went seriously downhill since they moved to subiquity though, but its something I can live with once every 5 years or so when I get a new laptop.
I moved from blackbox to xfce about the time I moved from a desktop to a laptop, mainly for things like access to wireless etc, I don't see a particular need to move again, will try to remember it next time I get a new laptop.
IMHO those benchmarks doesn't necessarily say much without any power usage data. Not sure what the current situation is but historically it wasn't uncommon for battery life to drop by 2x or so in Linux without extensive tweaking.
I'm using MBP with macOS since 2013 and I'm quite happy... don't need all that much speed (I upgraded my mbp2013 to MBP with M1 in 2021) but rather that it's "fast enough" and stable and is silent :) While I like Linux on the server I had weird issues with it on the desktop (network lost, not waking up…) so I'm a bit weary... though I fathom that my next machine will have Linux (most likely with ARM) but that's still 3-5 years in the future :)
I'm really happy with my Thinkpad. It's pretty fast, light, one of the most pain-free Linux installs I've ever had, and reasonably priced. I'm not overly sold on the keyboard nipple but it's easy enough to ignore.
When I got M1 I was on a fence with getting a linux machine but in the end the device was sponsored and ARM (cool and silent) won me over (I can't stand the nosie). I think that it's almost certain next machine will be Linux as apple and macOS are utterly annoying...
I get some occasionally glitches when changing DPI settings (usually when switching between my desktop monitor and my large 4k TV) and the annoying flashing when logging in/logging out which I can easily live with.
Best of all, all the games I care about run on Linux now and in many cases they run better on Linux than they ever did on Windows!
Some of these may be due to my laptop's shoddy support for Linux but I also had issues on my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 a couple years ago.
I haven't had any scaling issues, I haven't tried screen recording. Sound mostly works fine, though it occasionally gets pretty confused by HDMI sound output (though that's usually resolved by re-plugging the cable). Bluetooth worked fine for me without any headaches, I even got Airpods to work without much trouble.
The only issue I've really had with Gnome, and I have no idea what this is and it's probably a bug in Firefox, is that for some reason the web interface for Transmission Server will crash the entire desktop. I need to muck about with dmesg or journalctl to figure out why and then file a bug report, but it's definitely that page (I've recreated it with just Firefox open on the Transmission Web page).
Otherwise, it's been great, I really like Gnome right now.
Fractional scaling works only for native wayland applications. For X11 applications running under Xwayland, they run at classic 96 dpi and are upscaled to the given fractional scale. Obviously, upscaling and bilinear filtering means blurry applications. (Even vscode has to be forced to use wayland - it is capable of doing so, but it still uses x11 even on wayland system by default).
Screen recoding problems are also legacy issues. All these application that have problem (Webex, looking especially at you) are trying to screengrab using XGetImage at x11 window, root window for entire desktop; which obviously doesn't work (and it ever worked under X11 only due PCs using global framebuffer without any overlay planes in the past). The proper way is to use Pipewire, which Chrome or Firefox has been doing for ages already. Just some apps think, that what they were doing 15 years ago is fine today too, why bother updating.
Aside from time-wasters like that though, I agree: I prefer Linux over Mac -- but Mac is more secure.
What else could contribute to a raw cpu benchmark difference?
By default Windows on a laptop (in this case a Zenbook S 14 with Core Ultra 7 256V) uses a reduced power mode where it limits the max frequency and is less aggressive in scaling up core frequency because of the greatly reduced return per unit of power (which can destroy battery life and make heat profiles unacceptable).
This comparison makes no mention of the power profile, nor does it observe battery usage if applicable.
This looks like a misleading if not completely useless clickbait comparison. Others mentioned schedulers, and while schedulers can account account for a percent or two difference across this sort of wide workload, instead a huge disparity is seen.
Also a lot of typical Linux pipelines become unbearably slow if you try to replicate them in Windows.
> On average the Ubuntu 24.10 release was about 14% faster than Microsoft Windows 11 out-of-the-box on this Lunar Lake powered ASUS Zenbook S 14 laptop.
What else was the "Out-of-the-box" Windows installation trying to do while they were running the benchmark? Sitting here on my Windows 10 installation with nothing but Firefox and Task Manager open, there are dozens of things clamoring for the attention of the scheduler and using CPU:
https://i.imgur.com/NxBOBXm.png
Yeah, I've installed several of these services on purpose, but I've also uninstalled or inhibited a bunch of things that I didn't need.
It's trying to maximize the performance to power usage ratio out of the box. The default power profile is very conservative, which on a laptop means better battery life and reduced heat. Given that this comparison didn't do even rudimentary power consumption, heat, or CPU frequency scaling measures, it is overwhelmingly likely as the difference.
> there are dozens of things clamoring for the attention of the scheduler and using CPU
Linux machines have hundreds of processes too. It simply doesn't matter in 2024. That isn't a factor and isn't relevant, nor is the scheduler to blame.
This is a silly misleading benchmark that is de facto clickbait. Pretty surprisedto see it doing well here.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-vbs-harms-performa...
1. Install Steam using your distro's package manager, e.g. sudo apt install steam
2. Download battle.net's setup.exe from their website
3. In steam, "Add non-steam game" and add the setup.exe
4. In steam, right click on the battle.net setup.exe and in properties, under Compatibility, check the box that says "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" and select Proton Experimental.
5. Run it, which will allow you to run the installer on the first run. On subsequent runs it will just launch the battle.net launcher, allowing you to run the game immediately.
And everything works!!! Of course, you can feel free to do it manually with Wine or using a different tool such as Lutris. To be honest, this works with almost any Windows game that I can think of.
See: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/ppgk04/starcr...
Also, nice username --- I imagine it is Donny Vermillion from Starcraft 2 haha.
These days I'd vastly prefer tests with declared tuned daemon profiles, as they cover a much broader amount of systems tweaking than just CPU governor.
Did we at some point redefine this to mean "good" or "appropriate" or "acceptable"? If not then, in context, I have no idea what your point is.
I want comparison of Photoshop or Firefox with bunch of tabs.
Windows benchmarks used to have parity for a very long time. XP/7/8/8.1/10* had performance benchmark results within the margin of error ~ 2% at most.
On the other hand since upgrading from 6.6 to 6.11 I noticed a great improvement in UI responsiveness on my old X1 Tablet and I doubt this Ubuntu uses a recent kernel even.
Disclaimer: I haven't used Windows in a long time.
It's not the file system. It is the file system filter. NTFS is a high performance FS.
Microsoft is working around this via a feature called DevDrive. It uses ReFS instead of NTFS as ReFS leverages copy-on-write.