Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Linux and being speedy (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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After doing some google-fu, I've been puzzled further as to how the finnish man has done it.

What I mean is, Linux is widely known and praised for being more efficient and lighter on resources than the greasy obese N.T. slog that is Windows 10/11

To the big brained ones out there, was this because the Linux Kernel more "stripped down" than a Windows bases kernel? Removing bits of bloated code that could affect speed and operations?

I'm no OS expert or comp sci graduate, but I'm guessing it has a better handle of processes, the CPU tasks it gets given and "more refined programming" under the hood?

If I remember rightly, Linux was more a server/enterprise OS first than before shipping with desktop approaches hence it's used in a lot of institutions and educational sectors due to it being efficient as a server OS.

Hell, despite GNOME and Ubuntu getting flak for being chubby RAM hog bois, they're still snappier than Windows 11.

MacOS? I mean, it's snappy because it's a descendant of UNIX which sorta bled to Linux.

Maybe that's why? All of the snappiness and concepts were taken out of the UNIX playbook in designing a kernel and OS that isn't a fat RAM hog that gobbles your system resources the minute you wake it up.

I apologise in advance for any possible techno gibberish but I would really like to know the "Linux is faster than a speeding bullet" phenomenon.

Cheers!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago

As I'm sure you've gathered, this is a complex and nuanced discussion, but to me the biggest factors making Linux fast are:

Absence of telemetry/data collection monitoring your use of the device
Open source development model encouraging the entire world to contribute to make the Linux kernel better

There's something to be said where a consistent 5% performance improvement in a filesystem or process scheduler would be taken as a huge win. How would you even manage finding or contributing such a change to something closed source like Windows 11? Academics write papers about the kernel's performance and how it can be improved whereas I tend to think Microsoft takes more of a 'good enough' approach to such details.