Windows 8 vs ubuntu 12.10?

and does this mean ubuntu will be faster while initialized?

How you can compare them ? Libre Office is not Microsoft Office, Totally different OS, it can't be compare. I have few OSX , Windows and Linux PC here, for sure Windows 7 or 8 look more responsive in every applications.

Well speed is a factor no matter what. I mean I rather have the faster operating system overall. Plus check this out, with WINE you can run Microsoft office and some people said it is faster. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Microsoft_Office Officaly from Ubuntu.

If you want speed, you get faster hardware, it's the hardware that make the huge difference. I'm not the kind to run my OS in an old p4.... I see some peoples here not stopping to tell us that Windows 8 run faster than Windows 7, lol, some of them run their Windows 8 in a 4 years old PC.

"check this out " , you seriously thing I don't know Wine ? Sorry if I want to run Office I run it in a Windows PC or a Mac , I don't use Wine in any of my Linux PC as I don't use my Linux PC for that kind of usage. Any Windows apps you run in Wine as a speed handicap compare to run the apps in Windows .

If you need a production suite in Linux, you use Open Office or Libre Office, those are free and support files format of Excel and Word, no need to run Office in Wine

Yeah but the operating system always makes the difference. Look at Windows Vista. Plus, I mean try running Windows 8 on a VPs with 256MB of RAM. I'm running an i7 on Windows 7 with 4gb DDR5 ram btw.

Ddr5 ????

My bad DDR3 I don't know why I said DDR5. Lol sorry.

look at my spec, if I run Vista, it will smash a lot of Windows 8 and 7 PC , even if I run the Vista in VM ...hardware make the most difference.

Linux is Linux and it does some things very well. It is totally different than Windows and serves a different purpose. For some, it's just the cost savings, as Windows and office can add up, especially if you have multiple computers. For others, it's the fact that the software is open source, and can be modified to do exactly what you want, not mostly what you want. For others, it is security and being less susceptible to malware, viruses and spyware. For some, it's the lure of a very light weight system that consumes very little resources or works very well on an old computer.

It's certainly not for everyone and for every person. But it IS a very strong tool to have in your toolkit if you ever need it. We use both Windows and Linux at my office, and I would not have my job if I didn't know both of them.

Yeah I totally agree. Hardware is the number one factor but I want to have the feeling of a slick operating system. Security is kind of a consern of mine but to be honest Windows is actually great in Security you just gotta use common sense.

area 66 said:

look at my spec, if I run Vista, it will smash a lot of Windows 8 and 7 PC , even if I run the Vista in VM ...hardware make the most difference.

Click to expand...

It does make a huge difference, but not all of us have the funds available to build such an elaborate setup. My box is over 3 years old and is still super fast and runs whatever I want more than fast enough. I build a new rig a few months ago for work and it's got a Core i7-3770, while my home machine has a Q9550. So, tons more performance potential in the i7, but for most tasks and activities, I don't feel much difference between the 2 machines...at least not enough for me to justify the cost of a new machine.

I wish that I had more funds available for my computer hobby, but it's my other pesky bills like a mortgage, car payments, health insurance, kids, savings, home repairs and other stuff which eat up my fun money.

I agree it come to a point that hardware is overkill.

Actually Ubuntu or any Linux distro will boot faster than Windows 8 with btrfs, I think by windows 9 refs will be in both server and home versions so I can't wait to test refs vs btrfs in the coming years.

If all you run is Photoshop and MSOffice you can run Office 2013 beta and Photoshop Cs6 Extended in Wine without any issues, it worked on my setup anyway but always try to have as much ram as possible as wine seems to use more memory than native.

If your a gamer, even though steam is coming don't count your games coming to Linux and I would more likely wait 5 years time or until the release of Windows 9 to give it a try or until ubuntu's next lts release.

Linux is not for everyone, personally I did not like it. Windows 8 as different as it may seem compare to the previous versions is still easier to learn and get the hang of. When I tried Linux I was frustrated, I decided to give it a shot went to forums that were Linux Ubuntu related. I found myself typing quite often just to update drivers it seems. You want support you say? don't even bother calling any telephone number on any product most likely wont support Linux.
Drivers, Technical Support, Applications can't run natively.... Linux is good if you want to just use it to go on the internet I guess. With the lack of support for Ubuntu I quickly gave up and return to windows. You may say it's fast but that speed is useless to me if I miss out on productivity.

I like and use ubuntu 12.10. But it has little capability to handle DRM protected materials. Netflix and Amazon won't stream, you can't sync the newer Mac iPods, phone or iPads. You cannot download ebooks and audio books from the library. As such Ubuntu works fine but has limits that may be important for you.

You can download any ebooks, amazon works fine but I think there's a specific player available for linux for that but netflix isn't available or will ever be available for linux.

Overdrive media console, the interface for many libraries, doesn't have a Linux application and nobody I've found has been able to get it to work on WINE. I'm glad to hear Amazon Prime is working--earlier it wasn't. I continue to dual boot and will be looking at windows 8.

How much the hardware matters and how much the software matters depends on what you're doing.

* If you are using a computer to do tasks that are not resource demanding: such as browsing the web, checking e-mail, or typing up documents in office software, then you need a computer powerful enough to perform well enough for the operating system itself. Once a CPU is fast enough to render the desktop UI, a webpage, or a word document, it becomes moot to worry about upgrading it any further. In this case, you would only notice a speed increase by using a faster harddrive (or SSD) or even a RAID setup. This would speed up OS and application start time which is the speed you'll notice the most. Both Linux and Windows can do this very effectively, however MS Office does have more features and support than LibreOffice if you go far with it. Even an old Windows XP computer or a small netbook could handle this job exceptionally well.

* If you are using a computer to play demanding video games, convert or edit videos, design 3D models, manipulate high resolution photos, run virtual machines, or even do emulation: having an i7 over an i3 in this case, for instance, would be largely noticeable. Larger RAM capacities would also matter more here. This is also where your choice of graphics acceleration may come into play, especially with 1080p+ resolutions being prevalent in this department. In this situation, a modern version of Windows has a pretty significant advantage over Linux, though Linux HAS been used with proper knowledge of its tools, but it's not common. Windows 7/8 64-bit are almost a must nowadays for this.

* If you're running a simple server. One to hold your network's files, or even host a simple website... a low end machine running a Linux terminal may very well be all you ever need.

Of course there's in-betweens in all of this. But this is the very basic idea of how it boils down. I mean there are exceptions to all the rules, for instance someone mentioned the lack of DRM support in Linux, that even the average joe users who don't need a powerful machine may still not enjoy Linux. Some printer or some scanner may not work right, whatever. You always have to evaluate and plan ahead what you will do, and what you might end up doing when selecting hardware and software both.

As for me personally? I run Windows 7 64-bit here on my desktop (in my specs), but my laptop runs Windows 8 Pro 64-bit with Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit on dual boot. I reboot to whichever one suits my fancy at the time, and I have my uses for both.