Soliciting Input For a Linux Review

Name: Soliciting Input For a Linux Review
Item: Soliciting Input For a Linux Review
Author: Ryan Smith

by Ryan Smith on February 6, 2008 12:00 AM EST

Posted in
Ryan's Ramblings

139 Comments | Add A Comment

139 Comments

One of the things we have been wanting to do for some time now is to do a proper review of Linux as an end-user operating system. We have done articles on Linux in the past relating to performance, but never a complete OS review.

A Month With a Mac, our article on the Mac experience was very well received and we would like to do this again for a Linux review. I, a Linux novice, will use Ubuntu Linux for a month as my primary OS in order to capture an idea of how the Linux experience stacks up, and how it compares to the Mac and Windows platforms.

Now the reason that we're soliciting advice first is due to a matter of timing. Ubuntu is on a six-month release schedule with the next version due in April. If we were to start our month-long experiment next week, our review would not be ready until the middle of March, only a month or so before the next Ubuntu release. On the other hand if we wait for the next version of Ubuntu, a review would not be done until at least the late-May/early-June time frame.

So we would like to hear back from our readers and Linux users. Would you rather see this kind of a review done sooner, or wait another 2-3 months for a review done with a newer version of Ubuntu? This isn't a straight-up vote, but we'd like to take your opinions under serious consideration, especially since we aren't intimately familiar with Ubuntu and what the next version may bring.

Please add your comments to this blog post, we'll get back to you next week to let you guys know if we're going ahead with our experiment or not.

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MooseMuffin - Saturday, February 9, 2008 - link
Yes, Intel is the only one who fully supports and provides open source drivers to the linux community. Yes, because of this it is much more likely that all of the features of your intel graphics will work properly out of the box.

Even so, none of that really matters if you need real 3d performance because Intel's parts simply don't offer enough. I've played Half Life 2, Portal and WoW on this linux installation at 1680x1050 with all the options on, and Intel's parts simply aren't an option for anyone with similar goals. Recommending only intel graphics on linux is really putting a limitation on what you can achieve.
Goty - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
It's great that you want to contribute to the discussion, but actually KNOWING about the subject you're trying to discuss is usually a good idea. I have two separate systems running two separate distributions, one with an ATI card and one with an NVIDIA card (and not old cards, either, an X1900XT and an 8400M) and I don't have any problems bringing either system out of suspend or hibernate (granted the desktop system is put into those states less often than the laptop).
sht - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
So you define *knowing* as having two data points out of, say a million? Would there be the slightest chance that others than you had the problem? Let us see what we can find in 10 minutes with Google.

Aah, a thread[1] on ubuntuforums.org that shows up on the first page with search results when searching for "suspend linux ati":

"i usually have issues with ati, although the x1500 i'm using on this pc is working ok, but a dell laptop with an ati card keeps losing emerald"

"The only problem I've had is not being able to suspend or hibernate on my laptop." (seconded by another poster)

"The hibernate/suspend thing can be annoying, but only if you use those features often"

Nvidia gets good comments in that thread, but there are several issues reported this week alone on the unofficial forum for NVIDIA Linux [2].

[3]: "Suspend to RAM: Blank screen on second attempt"
[4]: "Default DualHead : one monitor goes blank w/FC3 and FX5700 - 169.xx"

Now, this is not to say that Nvidia and ATI cards don't work at all with suspend or whatever feature. If that is what you are trying to get at, you missed what my first post was about, which was "Intel is the only graphics vendor that properly support Linux."

And to be perfectly clear, it is as much or little about suspend and resume that it is about 2d or 3d acceleration, it is about having a vendor that properly supports Linux.

[1] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=623880">http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=623880
[2] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f...">http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f...
[3] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1...">http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1...
[4] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1...">http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1...
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
Speaking of Mac hardware support (and funny enough), the box that we'll be running this on is working right now as a Hackintosh. I'll have a small blog up about that next week, but it was a surprisingly easy process and the range of hardware support was greater than I was expecting.
Calin - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
You might have better luck with a mainboard with Intel integrated video than with the usual test boards. The lower price of admission into this might help.
As for performance benchmarks, I'm not sure I require them - they will be nice, certainly
Bruneauinfo - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
I say get crackin.

Just please take hardware into consideration. You may have one system that Ubuntu installs on flawlessly, another system that will require expert assistance, and then another that will just not work until a driver is developed (if ever). For example, X-Fi cards from Creative will probably never function correctly on Ubuntu. However, a Dell laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled should work out of the box.

Point being a premise must be arrived at first. Are you an average Joe who decides to download Ubuntu because it looks cool. If so you could run into a lot of driver related problems. On the other hand, if you're at least savy enough to read up and ask around first, you'll probably hear that hardware must be taken into consideration - in which case you'll check and make sure your devices will work okay with Ubuntu first before wasting your time. Then there's the 'I'm giving up on non-free OSs!!' in which case you'll study up on compatible hardware first and build a system that is 100% Ubuntu compatible - or buy a complete system with Ubuntu already installed and ready to go.
paulpod - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
Linux people swear their OS is better in every way yet you never see video benchmarks. Vista is no good at video support since they ruined the DirectShow system so I'd like to find an alternative when XP can not longer be supported.

Please determine whether hardware accelerated HD video is possible on Linux. This means accelerated decode and deinterlace/scaling. If they are possible, an HQV benchmark should be performed against something like Avivo in XP on a 38xx card. Besides quality, look at CPU utilization and resistance to frame skipping when performing other operations.

Also test whether the AMD Linux driver has all of the Avivo TheaterMode multi display functions. And, for Pete's sake, test HD tuner cards and Blu-ray playback!

If these functions are not available in Linux, that fact must not be overlooked in an objective OS review.
mlau - Sunday, February 10, 2008 - link
"Linux people swear their OS is better in every way": depends on the
people you're talking to. If you want games, then by all means stick
with windows. No other OS currently has better drivers and infrastructure to run games. If you want something thats configurable to your hearts content, then the free/open OSs are best choice.
New hardware is currently better supported on linux (sans the parts
where the manufacturer doesn't want linux drivers to happen).
Finally, UNIX is system initially designed by developers for developers. They never needed to appeal to the average joe like windows does.

RE accelerated video: there's no real hw acceleration beyond MPEG2-MC; although people from Intel are working on a generalized media acceleration framework. But performance of the available software decoders isn't that bad; Low-Bitrate 1080p-h264 material is no problem for my 2.4GHz Opteron (you know, the 10GB files you can get on the 'net).

As for the "benchmark" apps, good luck findind posix variants of all those stupid windows apps. WINE certainly won't be enough to run the win32 exes...

(minor nitpick: "Linux" is the kernel, not a complete OS)
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
I'll see what we can do about video tests, but I can't make any specific promises. BluRay/HD-DVD will probably be out of the question however, since there is no licensed/proper application for Linux.
designerfx - Monday, February 11, 2008 - link
About HD,

what about what VLC is doing? And/or what about Matroska setups...aren't those considered HD, and doesn't that work cross-platform?