Developer: Review: Fedora 12 vs. Windows 7

Review: Fedora 12 vs. Windows 7

We compared the latest Fedora distro with Windows 7 to see where one outscores the other. Plus, we have discussed the Filesystems E xt4, Ext3 and NTFS and carried out several tests on them

Friday, January 22, 2010

BANGALORE, INDIA: After the grand launch of much awaited ?Windows 7?, on October 22' 2009 here comes Fedora 12, code names Constantine. In this story we will try to see how Fedora 12 fares against Windows 7 plus will also compare the Ext4 (one of the key highlights of Fedora 12) against Ext3 and NTFS.

One of the key enhancements in Fedora 12 is the Ext4 boot support which was not there in Fedora 11. But coming to the desktop of Fedora 12, it still doesn't impress me because the Compiz effects are still more or less the same and I don't see much of the difference as compared to Fedora 11. Some other enhancements of Fedora 12 are better touch screen and tablet support, and an improved Bluetooth stack.

Primer on filesystems
Filesystems define a method to store and retrieve files from disk. Here we tried comparing the two Linux Filesystems: Ext3 and Ext4 and NTFS on Windows 7. NTFS File system has been designed for the Windows NT stream of operating systems for enterprise users keeping in mind the security constraints. It has become the default filesystem for all Windows based OSes. Similarly, on the Linux distros, Ext2, Ext3, and now Ext4 are the defacto filesystems.

Tests and test bed
We ran a slew of tests on both OSes to find out the best one. Some of our tests tried to answer common practical questions like how long does each OS take to install? How much disk space was used in the standard installation process? How long does boot up and shutdown time take? Plus, we ran the Geekbench benchmark. We used a machine with an Intel Quad Core CPU @ 2.66 GHz , 4 GB RAM, and Maxtor's 250 GB HDD@ 7200 rpm.

The results
The testing process started with Windows 7 Ultimate( 64-bit), and the total number of clicks to install Win 7 was just 12 as compared to Fedora which required 16. The total time taken by Windows 7 to install was approximately 16 minutes and 50 seconds. The boot up time for Windows 7 was 45 seconds and shutdown was only 11 seconds. We also tested the time taken to copy 100MB file from a USB to HDD and vice-versa. It took only 14 seconds to copy from the USB to HDD and 1 min and 8 secs to copy from an HDD to USB.

We installed Fedora 12 on the same machine and the time taken by it was just 13 mins and 3 seconds for a default package selection, beating Windows 7 by 3 mins. The number of clicks to install the Linux distro was four more than Windows 7, ie 16. The file system was by default, Ext4. We selected the entire drive and did not create any extra partitions on any of the OSes. The installation time taken by Fedora 12 with Ext3 file system on it was 13 minutes and 38 seconds.

NEXT>>

Would you like to Comment on this Article?

Name
Email
Comment Here
Code Verification

Read Comments

Tamil said on 1/27/2010 8:50:27 PM:
Hi there, How can you say Windows installs 3 min more than fedora when it only installs basic package, do you have any idea how much stuff win 7 ultimate has? why dint u try win 7 pro? This review is worst than many of linux lovers I ve seen, next time please make sure you do a proper review. And dont call it a review.

to Tamil