>With Numix the machine feels and looks great but I'm not so happy after installing Windows 8.1 on an 10 year old Pentium M notebook with 2GB RAM and having to realize that Windows is way faster and responsive and more feature-rich than KDE and Unity and requires less RAM.
I'm not trolling - I'm talking about stuff like browsing files using the file manager and using a browser or office for writing documents.
Despite BS comments from some Linux zealots to the contrary, a Windows desktop was almost always snappier than Gnome/KDE official releases, especially after version 2 for Gnome and 3 for KDE.
Now, for the serverside things change drastically. It also changes drastically if you just use some mininal window manager on Linux.
But the whole "Windows is bloated/slow" etc was mostly uninformed boasts, for people who didn't use both on a day to day basis and took the whole "open source is by definition faster/less bloated/etc" line hook and sinker.
I have like ten years of experience in mixed setups. I have supported Windows since 3.1.May I try to shed some light into this?
Windows (from Microsoft, no OEM) could be really good, snappy and usable.
On the other hand what many users see is a locked down enterprise installation at work and a bloatware-ridden laptop from hp, dell or one of the other mainstream brands at home.
Furthermore a Windows installation (the OEM one ordinary people have to go through) can easily take 2+ hours. And then you have to pay up for and install office.
Compare this to any linux after Ubuntu (they weren't too bad before either) where installation takes 30 minutes and includes a decent office package.
Oh, -and multiple desktops, a sane system-wide package manager with upgrades.
Windows (as delivered by Microsoft) is neither slow nor bloated. As experienced by many end users it very much is.
> Furthermore a Windows installation (the OEM one ordinary people have to go through) can easily take 2+ hours.
Windows 8 clean installs are very quick indeed (less than 30 minutes in my experience) due to improvements MS made to the way files are copied. They claim most upgrades take 40-60 minutes. See http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/11/windows-8-to-have-fa...
Despite BS comments from some Linux zealots to the contrary, a Windows desktop was almost always snappier than Gnome/KDE official releases, especially after version 2 for Gnome and 3 for KDE.
Now, for the serverside things change drastically. It also changes drastically if you just use some mininal window manager on Linux.
But the whole "Windows is bloated/slow" etc was mostly uninformed boasts, for people who didn't use both on a day to day basis and took the whole "open source is by definition faster/less bloated/etc" line hook and sinker.