R.I.P. – Windows XP, Part 2

This article is a follow-up to the original R.I.P. – Windows XP article.

I hate Digg – not the site itself so much, but the Digg premise.  This notion of “popularity = noteworthiness” is the reason I have to tolerate endless news stories about Paris Hilton and the reason Janet Jackson canceled her latest tour, as opposed to things *I* actually care about (like a tanking economy).  If popularity = awesomeness, I guess Titanic is destined to forever be the greatest movie of all time.

Ugh.

Even worse is the fact that my blog is primarily for MY enjoyment (imagine that), and I generally stick to writing articles that my acquaintences will care about.  I couldn’t care less about the greater population of the internet.

And yet somehow my last article ended up on Digg’s front page.  I’m flattered and pissed all at the same time, and had I known this would happen you can bet I would’ve written a different article.

In lieu of that, here is some additional explanation on my previous post.  I hope this clarifies things for readers who are interested in an XP -> Ubuntu conversion.

For me, my computer and my OS are tools.  I use them to accomplish tasks.  I don’t consider them status symbols – I couldn’t care less if yours is faster or prettier or newer than mine.  Good for you.

Because my computer and OS are tools, I want them to allow me to do what I enjoy – programming, music composition, photo editing, a little gaming.  I don’t want my hardware or my OS to interfere with these tasks.

For me, Windows XP reached a point where it interfered with my enjoyment of these tasks.  XP became slow, bloated, fragmented, outdated.  I don’t consider this to be so much a fault of XP itself – lest we forget, it is now 7 years old – so much as a fault of what XP inherently requires: things like virus scanners, regular defragmentation, a lot of TLC to keep it running at peak performance.

I’ve spent years tweaking XP to run properly.  I may not be an expert on the subject, but I’ve read and practiced and programmed enough optimization tools to know the basics of maintaining an XP machine.  Many thanks to all the enlightened Digg readers who commented things like “WTF? U HAVE VIRUS AND SPYWARE BICH” – I appreciate the help, but it certainly wasn’t needed.  I know what a virus scanner is, and my dissatisfaction with XP’s performance wasn’t virus or spyware-related.  It was a function of XP requiring a high level of maintenance to keep it running optimally.

Some Digg readers claim “well my Vista install boots in 30 seconds.”  Good for you.  I don’t care.  Vista is incompatible with my hardware, and I’m not forking hundreds of dollars for hardware upgrades just so I can improve my computing experience.  If Vista worked for you, then by all means keep using it – and why the hell are you reading a pro-Ubuntu article anyway?

Other Digg readers claimed “your numbers are wrong, my XP boots fine.”  Again, good for you.  I don’t care.  If you’re happy with XP, then keep using it.  I’m not trying to stop you.  But if you are dissatisfied with XP’s performance, IN MY EXPERIENCE Ubuntu fixed the problem.  I can’t guarantee it’ll solve all your problems – but it worked for me.  Take that for what it’s worth.

It is true that my speed numbers were an exaggeration.  Obviously.  If you couldn’t figure this out, then you’re an idiot, and maybe the internet isn’t for you.  If you want specific “load” times, here’s hard numbers for my XP Pro install:

3:34

3:14

3:15

Here’s what I consider “time to load”: the time elapsed from when I push the power button until the CPU drops down to idle.  XP’s desktop shows up in about 45 seconds, but because CPU and hard drive activity has my machine at a crawl, I don’t consider that loaded.

Argue with these numbers if you want, and maybe yours are different.  Good for you.  My numbers aren’t solely the result of XP – these include time for a virus scanner to initialize, time for select background processes to launch.  I have trimmed down this load time greatly (it used to be approaching 6 minutes), but without hardware upgrades, or an MFT defragment (which I haven’t tried), or disabling startup programs I actually use, I am out of ways to get XP’s load time consistently below 3 minutes.

The point: I wasn’t trying to bash XP or claim Ubuntu will give you a 5-6x performance increase.  I was fortunate enough to have that happen to me (same numbers for Ubuntu 8.04: 31, 33, 31), and if you’re looking for a cold-boot performance increase, maybe it’ll work for you.  I hope it does.

The Firefox load time is, again, an exaggeration.  Obviously.  My cold-boot time for Firefox 3.0.3 on XP tends toward 60 seconds, not 5 minutes.  Sorry if I led you astray.

Again, I don’t consider this to be Firefox’s fault.  I run a number of Firefox plugins and a custom theme, and I’m sure that doesn’t help the FF load time.  But the EXACT SAME CONFIGURATION of FF on Ubuntu 8.04 cold-loads in 3 seconds.  Every time.  That is not an exaggeration.

Again, I don’t care whose fault this is.  I’m not trying to place blame.  I’m simply pointing out that my browsing experience has greatly improved since switching to Ubuntu.  If you’re interested, give it a try and post what you find. Maybe your experience will be different, and maybe you’ll save someone from switching to Ubuntu and having a crappy experience.

Ubuntu isn’t a perfect OS.  Far from it.  But in my experience, it performs MUCH better than XP, and because of that I will stick with it for now.  If, in the future, Microsoft releases an OS that works better on my hardware (HA HA HA HA!), I’ll switch to that.  I’m no ignorant fanboy – but I know what worked for me, and based on that, I’ll encourage anyone willing to expore a switch from XP to Ubuntu.

And to the ignorant “VISTA ROOLS LINUX SUX” crowd: ha ha.  Thanks for making me laugh.

– My official article ends here.  The rest of this text is specific responses to Digg/article comments, which you may or may not find interesting. :) –

Zmobchomper writes:

In my personal experience, XP only slows down in response to how you treat it. Almost all the problems I’ve come across with XP are caused by other applications and not the operating system itself. I’ll spare you the details because, if you’ve been using Ubuntu for a while now, chances are you have a basic idea of what you’re doing.

I totally agree, and thanks for pointing this out.  XP’s performance is greatly dependent on the software you have installed, and it wasn’t fair for me to imply that XP alone was the problem.

Charlie writes:

You should give GIMP a try, you may even be able to say goodbye to Photoshop as well!  GIMP 2.6 is impressive software.

Totally agree.  GIMP 2.6 in particular is a fine replacement for PS6.  Thanks for the comment!

Q writes:

5 minutes to load Windows and 5 minutes to load Firefox??? WTF!

Dude… you gotta get that spyware cr*p off your computer. My Windows XP Pro loads in under a minute and Firefox pulls up in seconds.

I guess the word “exaggeration” is lost on some people.  And dude – I dare you to take 10 XP installs and time how long it takes for them to go from power off to idle CPU.  I think you’d be surprised by the results.

And seriously: what does your XP install have to do with my XP install?  Think there’s a chance we could have, say, different hardware?

John writes:

Your opinion is biased and outdated, just like your version of Photoshop. -__-

This comment is just completely nonsensical.  My version of Photoshop is biased?  And is there such thing as a non-biased opinion?  THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT AN OPINION.

And anyone who pays for a new version of software just because it’s newer is an idiot.  PS6 works fine for me, so why should I fork for CS4?  $100 says John doesn’t do anything in CS4 that I can’t do in PS6.

Jack writes:

Surely you’re exaggerating. FUD is FUD, and it’s no better when it comes from “our” side.

Sorry that you considered a 5-minute load time for XP FUD.  I agree that Linux fanboys make a bad habit of using FUD to argue their points, but for my computer, the data wasn’t FUD.  Exaggeration perhaps – but not FUD.

mrmudgeon writes:

I use Ubuntu and Windows XP. This article is pretty retarded and is not the kind of thing that will get folks to switch. I have been running XP on a dual-core Intel based server for some time. My system boots up in less than 2 minutes despite a large number of services that I have installed on the system. My linux environments take a similar length of time bo boot. Internet Explorer on my windows system is actually a bit faster than Firefox on Ubuntu or Windows. Maybe the author of this article needs to consider a different browser environment on Windows.

Surprising – did you ever consider that perhaps my intention wasn’t to get others to switch?  But I appreciate the inference of motivation.  Some of us bloggers do actually just post what we find interesting and exciting.  Not every expression of opinion is an attack on what other people do.

And the line “Internet Explorer on my windows system is actually a bit faster than Firefox on Ubuntu or Windows.”  This comment is so shocking I don’t even know how to respond.  Obviously, when the OS pre-loads an internet browser, it gains a speed advantage.  And yes, there are other considerations in choice of browser besides just load time.

DangerCollie writes:

I haven’t found Ubuntu to be that much faster, even on compatible hardware. Sometimes, on start up and shut down, it’s noticeably slower. And I’m not sure how he’s getting OpenOffice to open that fast. We’re still on 2.4 and it’s a little slow the first time you start it. Faster after the first load.

Based on my experience, this isn’t uncommon.  Different hardware configs will respond differently to certain programs and OS’s, and there is definitely a chance Ubuntu might be slower for you.  That just wasn’t the case for me.

And I didn’t do anything special to OOo – wish I had some kind of special tweak, but that’s simply how it runs on my box.

Shinobi326 writes:

Photoshop 6?! Who in the hell is still using that unsupported POC? Isn’t that at least 10 years old? Time up invest in an upgrade if you are not on least a CS version.

No, it isn’t time to invest in an upgrade.  Again, I hate these supposed Adobe experts who believe anyone not on CS4 is an idiot.  That’s like assuming every car mechanic who doesn’t drive an ‘09 model is an idiot.  Why should I upgrade if PS6 does exactly what I need?

People like this are the reason that companies like Adobe don’t innovate any more than they absolutely have to. I’ll upgrade to CS4 when CS4 does something I can’t do equally efficiently in PS6.

iridescence writes:

Any new install of an OS always feels faster than one you’ve been running for a while. It’s true of every OS I’ve used, inc OSX.

Ah, an intelligent comment!  This is absolutely true, and if I were doing a legitimate scientific comparison of Ubuntu and XP, I’d have to use clean installs to be fair.

Ramzy writes:

If it takes 5 minutes for you to boot your PC, and another 5 minutes to boot Firefox, then your computer is *****, not XP. Maybe defragging every 5 years isn’t a good idea.

Oh wow, defragmenting speeds up XP?  Cool!  Thanks for your priceless help!

Here’s an idea – how about use a filesystem that DOESN’T require constant defragging to work properly?  It’s called ext3.  Look it up.

Ufia writes:

Who is the backward retard ’switching’ OS in this day and age? Haven’t they heard of dual booting? Or a single monitor/keyboard KVM’ed to multiple computers? Or virtual machines?

I mean, there’s no reason not to use both Linux and Windows. And Mac OS X, and Solaris, and BSDs, etc… The fanboyism is only limiting your own knowledge of other operating systems.

Except mine is a dual-boot….oops.

Jeffler writes:

Buried for sensationalist title. Also, the article is short, and it seems to be if this guy was having problems with speed he probably installed XP when it came out and hasn’t done a cleanout at all. Hell, this guy is so behind he’s still using Photoshop 6!

You’re right, everyone who has speed problems with XP is becaused they’ve never cleaned it out.  Good call, Sherlock.

Also, I’ll make sure my next article is something long and non-sensationalist, just for you.

CoffeeandTV writes:

That was a retarded article. This guy has been using XP that long and still doesn’t understand basic computing.

That was a retarded comment.  Thanks for your insight into basic computing.  It really helped me.

mariecordona writes:

Then clean up your OS and fix whatever is causing problems. Run msconfig and see how items are in your startup that you don’t need. Uncheck the boxes and reboot. Then clean up all of your temp files, unneccesary programs and defrag your hard drive. Try disabling the taskbar icons for programs you don’t use very often. Go into your services and disable things you don’t need. Same goes with unneccesary Windows components in Add/Remove Programs. Check your hardware. Does it meet the recommended requirements for running XP? Remember that if a computer barely meets the minimum requirements for running XP (or any OS for that matter) then you will not have enough resources to run anything else.

Bottom line is, if your computer is running XP and it is slow, it’s your own damn fault. Clean up after yourself every day and you never have to do spring cleaning.

Done everything there, plus way more.  XP still doesn’t run how I want it to.

Bottom line is, with enough work and hardware changes, you can get a Honda Civic to perform like a Porsche.  But wouldn’t it be easier to just buy a Porsche?  Yeah, you CAN do ungodly things to get XP to work properly – but for some of us, it’s a hell of a lot easier to just install Ubuntu and be done with the matter.

—-

I wish I had the time to respond to all the idiot Digg comments, but this is plenty for now.

And congrats to everyone else who has had a positive experience switching to Ubuntu.  To any XP user looking for improved performance – I can’t guarantee Ubuntu will work for you, but it worked for me.  If nothing else, it might be worth a try.

Related articles:

• R.I.P. – Windows XP
• 10 Things I Don’t Miss About Windows XP
• So you want to upgrade from Windows XP…
• 5 stars for this Ubuntu/Linux commentor