which benchmark to use for evaluating/quantifying system performance?

[goodbye-windows(tm)]

Hi all,

I'm new to linux, but I'm pretty dedicated to making it work as I really want to give windows the boot.

I've loosely followed the linux movement for years, and recently decided it was advanced enough to be practical. I like to say THANKS to all who have brought linux to it's present state of functionality.

I am running the newest linux (ubunbtu 11.04) on an old laptop (2.3 Ghz celeron, 760 mb ram, bios is the latest version). I don't expect it to perform well, it's not a fast processor.

But.....it performs so poorly with linux.....and I am beginning to wonder whether the machine is broken or malfunctioning. The processor utilization seems high at all times, but I am not sure what is normal/typical.

Which of the many benchmark software packages should I use in order to quantify it's performance (or lack there of)???

Are there web resources that will list benchmark values of various machines, so I can determine if my punch box is broken or whether it's just slightly slower than other similar machines?

Regards,

Art

[ajgreeny]

With that hardware I think you would do a lot better with Xubuntu.

The gnome/unity version of ubuntu 11.04 seems to run poorly on older hardware as far as I can make out; it is certainly slow on mine, but Xubuntu with the lighter xfce desktop should be OK.

You might even like to take a look at Lubuntu, with the even lighter lxde desktop. That goes very well on my old laptop with only 512 MB ram. Xubuntu and Lubuntu only come with abiword and gnumeric as office software, but like all other (?)ubuntu family distros can easily be augmented with anything in the repositories, such as Libreoffice, etc etc.

[MAFoElffen]

Hi all,

I'm new to linux, but I'm pretty dedicated to making it work as I really want to give windows the boot.

I've loosely followed the linux movement for years, and recently decided it was advanced enough to be practical. I like to say THANKS to all who have brought linux to it's present state of functionality.

I am running the newest linux (ubunbtu 11.04) on an old laptop (2.3 Ghz celeron, 760 mb ram, bios is the latest version). I don't expect it to perform well, it's not a fast processor.

But.....it performs so poorly with linux.....and I am beginning to wonder whether the machine is broken or malfunctioning. The processor utilization seems high at all times, but I am not sure what is normal/typical.

Which of the many benchmark software packages should I use in order to quantify it's performance (or lack there of)???

Are there web resources that will list benchmark values of various machines, so I can determine if my punch box is broken or whether it's just slightly slower than other similar machines?

Regards,

Art
From reading your post... Sounds like you looking for something multi-platform to make your comparisons(?) Something like this:
http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=home

If you look at my sig... I multi-boot between Windows, Linux and Unix, but spend 90% of my time in Linux. Where I volunteer (a computer recyclers) the Windows repairs I do there are usually from Linux tools. The servers there and at home, my development and test, my entertainment... Linux. After some tuning and tweaking... the only thing from Windows that still seems to be a plus for it, is the frame rates in Windows games and in comparable Flash games may be a little faster. Linux is still getting better with that, but that's a catchup thing is still working on.

[goodbye-windows(tm)]

From reading your post... Sounds like you looking for something multi-platform to make your comparisons(?)

============================================

No, not looking for any cross platform comparisons. I'm looking for a ubuntu to umbuntu comparison, something that I can use to figure out whether my computer is broken, or whether it is performing ok relative to other similar computers.

My laptop can't play youtube videos, despite that fact that the download speed is more than adequate. The display updates in firefox are so slow, I routinely get warnings that a script is unresponsive and asking me to continue waiting or to stop the script.

Regards,

Art