Ubuntu Stability Concerns

[cypherzero]

Despite what everyone was telling me Linux seems seriously unstable compared to Windows. It doesn't freeze or anything, but sometimes drops out to a black terminal screen. It's done this about four times in two months, Windows has only restarted twice in two years.

I'm using GNOME and KDE, I also find GNOME crashes more, again contrary to what everyone else keeps saying!

Am I doing something wrong here or is this normal?

[Hex_Mandos]

It's never happened to me, except once when I messed up while installing my nVidia drivers in Edgy. Are you sure there's not a compatibility problem with your hardware?

As for individual apps, I have more crashes in KDE... I don't remember a GNOME app crashing on me.

[mills]

this is going to be the most overwhelmingly one sided poll result in the history of polls

[starcraft.man]

I've only crashed twice in almost two months and both times were really issues with Beryl, I can't say I've ever crashed my comp when just using metacity. Sounds to me like theres a problem with your install, maybe time for a clean install since feisty is here?

[luizfar]

Well, depending on your hardware, Linux tends to be more unstable than Windows. This is due to hardware companies that don't offer Linux support, which must be done by the community. But this problem is not that common these days as it was some years ago, thanks to many companies that support Linux and to the great job being done by the community.

Also, it depends on te Linux you use: while Ubuntu is more up-to-date, with other older-but-more-stable distros, like Debian Stable, you will hardly have stability issues, it's all a matter of the price you pay for what you want. But, I must say that the Feisty Fawn is _very_ stable. I've been using it since the beta version and have had no problems so far. Also, even those unstability problems are nothing compared to Windows' terrible scaring blue screen.

With Linux you have more ways to handle the processes running and control of what the OS is doing. These things are really good if you know how to deal with, and have no comparison with Windows simmilar features.

I've being using Linux for almost 2 years and I must say that all the huge problems I ever had were due to things I did when I didn't know much about the OS. I'm trying to say that being a beginner also contributes for crashes (which is also true for Windows beginners).

The bottom line is: Linux is far more stable than Windows, but you may be unlucky some times and it won't like your hardware, wether because your hardware is rough-supported or you're using a very new sofware. These cases are rare though

[rai4shu2]

Gnome crash more than KDE? Is that even physically possible?

[Compucore]

I have ran under all four version for at least a month for each on a coimputer that was going 24/7 to see if ubuntu was stable. never really had a problem all four. with the exceoption of some apps not working properly due to a video card not being compatible with open gl. Took the program out. Never had a problem since then. I know I am usually adimate about what I have in all my computers here. But I find ubuntu better for me anyways than windows.

COmpucore

[sloggerkhan]

The only crashes I've ever had on ubuntu have been my fault.
(When I first started w/Ubuntu it was a bit shakey cause I did a lot of stupid things that made it unstable.)
Can't say the same for windows.

[madmetal]

i really heavyload my ubuntu system and never faced problems..
the only thing that i cant stand is freezing for 2-3 seconds when i have a skype call..

[RandomJoe]

The only time I had Linux crash on a machine that Windows did not was when the machine had bad memory. Turned out that (at the time - probably Win98 ) Windows wasn't using all the memory, whereas Linux was eating up everything with buffer space and would hit the bad bits at the high end of the memory space. If I ran enough programs on Windows, it too would hit those bits and crash.

I haven't had bad memory in quite some time, so I don't know how true this holds for Win2K or XP. And IIRC Vista aggressively caches things to memory as well now.

While Windows is far more stable now than it used to be, I still have more problems with it and I only use a single Windows machine, during the work day. Between work and home I have many Linux machines and some of them have run over a year nonstop (firewall/server type). Haven't had much trouble with Gnome either on the desktop. As others said, the only system crashes I've had were ones where I did something to cause them.

[Eddie Wilson]

The only time that I ever had linux to crash on me was when I was trying to use some beta software or trying to run windows programs under linux. Other than that it never has crashed on its own before. That is for me anyway.
Eddie

[karellen]

Despite what everyone was telling me Linux seems seriously unstable compared to Windows. It doesn't freeze or anything, but sometimes drops out to a black terminal screen. It's done this about four times in two months, Windows has only restarted twice in two years.

I'm using GNOME and KDE, I also find GNOME crashes more, again contrary to what everyone else keeps saying!

Am I doing something wrong here or is this normal?

:lolflag: I hope this poll is a joke!
man, it's not Linux (kernel) that crashes, it's just de X server. and for that there's:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

[primski]

who the h*** voted for windows ? :P

[Rui Pais]

who the h*** voted for windows ? :P

the OP, of course.



If the only thing i knew as Linux was edgy i probably would say that it's not a much stable OS too... (and about DE, my wife, with edgy/gnome, had more crashs that i with cvs alpha e17)
Lucky Feisty seems much better.

[slimdog360]

terming all linux distros as 'linux' is a bit...well it's a bit something. It would all depend on the distro, your hardware and (probably most important) how competent the user is and what they actually do to the system.

[primski]

... and (probably most important) how competent the user is and what they actually do to the system.

ditto, as an IT personal i learned that big majority of ppl dont know schitt about comps and probably dont even want to learn as such, therefore i understand completely why someone prefers *******. its more fool proof, but that doesnt make it better in ANY way.

[PartisanEntity]

Despite what everyone was telling me Linux seems seriously unstable compared to Windows. It doesn't freeze or anything, but sometimes drops out to a black terminal screen. It's done this about four times in two months, Windows has only restarted twice in two years.

I'm using GNOME and KDE, I also find GNOME crashes more, again contrary to what everyone else keeps saying!

Am I doing something wrong here or is this normal?

Your experiences are different than mine. In my case while WIndows XP did not crash all the time, Linux has not crashed on me once since I started using it and that is something I personally find very impressive.

I have had applications crashing inside Linux, Gimp sometimes does that, but the operating system remains stable.

So for me the more stable OS is definately Linux.

[m2.g5ru6y7s]

I only had a complete freeze when editing a document with vi.
But maybe it was the hardware.

[prizrak]

Dropping into the terminal is not the same as crashing the OS. That's an issue with X.org and your video more than likely. Gnome crashing is also not an OS crash it is an issue with Gnome/Gnome program or again X.org.

GUI on Linux is just another program not part of the OS so it can crash (as any other program could) but not bring down the OS with it. Windows's GUI is part of the OS (although since 2K it became better separated) and when it crashes 9 times out of 10 the whole OS goes down.

Of course to a desktop user it doesn't matter much since most your programs are GUI based and well also die if GUI does.

X.org issues are generally hardware related so you might want to open up a support thread with your hardware config and what software you installed on top. Gnome issues could be due to codec problem. For me at least Gnome crashed alot when trying to play certain videos.

[chakkaradeep]

I encounter crashes more with Windows and Internet Explorer than in Linux. In Linux, its rare and i dont even remember when did i get a crash !

[pelle.k]

I hope this poll is a joke!
Yeah, me too!
You can't ask a question like this! Gnome isn't an OS, neither are any off the GUI apps you are using. You could compare specific apps in Windows with Ubuntu counterparts though.

What you are asking, should be;
How stable are (third party?) apps in general in <insert distro + version + DE> compared to <insert windows + version> in general?

I won't be participating in this poll, as might have figured out by now.

[Rui Pais]

the OP is a newbie and a Windows user.
He/she is not used to see an OS separated in kernel/base/X/DE.

The pool is a little provocative, yes, but go easy on him (remember Ubuntu friendliness ):)

[AusIV4]

I have three Kubuntu computers, and there are two things that can cause them to crash. One is a MythTV box, and the drivers for my secondary TV tuner aren't very reliable. If I'm recording something on that, it means I'm already recording on my first tuner. If I'm trying to watch something I've already recorded while recording on two different channels, this often results in a crash.

The only other thing that consistently causes crashes is trying to play 3d games on Wine on my machine with an AMD graphics card. Again, I think this pretty much comes down to driver support.

Every once in a while, Beryl or KDE will crash or freeze up and I have to restart X, but it rarely needs a reboot.

I'd post my uptimes, but they are remarkably unimpressive right now as I've just been trying the Feisty Live CD on all of them to see how it handles their hardware.

[dca]

Also w/ Windows being proprietary/closed source, you can't just fix the problem. You're only recourse on crashes (memory fault - blue screen - et' al) is relying on the 'eventviewer' system & app logs which in itself are worthless because if you click on the error the fix is cryptic if even listed or relavent. Windows is a failed OS. I would never run anything on Windows server except for Exchange. If you run Windows on a desktop, the only real solution is to create and image of your HDD using ghost when you first purchase it and be prepared to re-image every six months. Windows is just a magnet for crap, even the apps you spend $50+ for: anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc only work half the time requiring you to install Spybot, Ad-aware, and one other to make sure one catches what the other one couldn't. As you can tell I play hardware support and on the workstation side, it's all Windows...

Crashes, please. You know, the crapper is the inability of Windows/MS to work w/ anything besides MS. My God, just the crashes from MS Outlook running on MSWinXP or Win2k drive me nuts. I mean they (MS) wrote both, how come they can't play nice? You could sneeze while converting a Word Doc to PDF using Acro Pro and the thing would crash or freeze. Don't say boost the virt mem or install add'l physical mem because let's face it, how much sh*t DOES MS WINDOWS need to do it's job????

[Somenoob]

It sounds like you have configuration issue(wrong video driver?) or maybe just poor hardware. Gnome or anything else in Ubuntu has never crashed on the 3 machines that I own or slowed down. Windows on the other hand has.

[cypherzero]

Thanks for all your replies, like I said I kind of figued out something was uniquely wrong with my install - I'm using the Edgy distro at the moment and will probably upgrade to Feisty now. I know GMOME/KDE aren't truly part of Linux, but when they crash and refuse to restart it's pretty much equivalent to a system-reboot in Windows. I admit was probably a bit ambiguous in the question!

[rai4shu2]

Try running Mac OS 7.0, then you can complain about stability.

[jiminycricket]

Are you getting anything in ~/.xsession-errors when your X session crashes?

[juxtaposed]

Windows is rarely unstable for me, just slow and choppy and such every so often. Linux I dont think has ever crashed for me.

[ceil420]

Every Windows version before 2000/XP could crash if you so much as looked at it funny. 2000 was more stable than previous incarnations of the OS, and I've only found one way to reliably crash XP (though it is remarkably easy; just try logging into a second account while my stepdad's logged on; could be software, but still).

Linux has not crashed on me since I began using Edgy in February. I've had to restart twice, but neither time was a system crash (my computer apparently doesn't like Beryl, and Frets on Fire stayed on the loading screen for 5 minutes and I didn't know how to kill it). Only two linux applications crash for me every once in a while, and that's GIMP and Firefox; Ubuntu nor Torvalds had any hand in the development of either (to my knowledge).

[chinaski]

Am I doing something wrong here or is this normal?
mmmm... I'll say the first one :D

never had a system crash unless I messed up with some important conf file

I can't say the same thing for Windows, [un]fortunately

I remember my first PC, not so long ago, with Win95

one night I was bored and started to clean the hard disk from "all those garbage files" in C:\

no warning message, no password needed, no logging in as root... at next reboot no more Win95 :D

[steven8]

at next reboot no more Win95

Well, you were getting rid of the garbage files. Well done!! :)

Linux has ben rock steady for me so far.

[grinias]

Windows Stability is a joke anyway. And their instability is not for free; you pay for that. As already mentioned above, I only face kubuntu instabilities with some conf files. And I was really impressed by the error-free upgrading of Edgy to Feisty Beta (which was the final!!!) for my Acer TM 4101, one week ago.

[samjh]

My experience with crashes:

Windows
Use: 9 years
Purpose: General office work, lots of gaming, lots of system programming and some web development.
Crashes requiring system restart: beyond count
Crashes requiring format and reinstall: 1 (virus)

Linux
Use: > 1 year
Purpose: General office work, some gaming, and some application programming
Crashes requiring system restart: ~ 10 (usually while testing unstable software, but also some Firefox-related crashes)
Crashes requiring format and reinstall: 3 (two irreparable X-server errors - yes I tried all documented work-arounds for several days, and one hardware controller issue)

Macintosh
Use: 5 years
Purpose: General office work
Crashes requiring system restart: 2-3
Crashes requiring format and reinstall: 0

I tend to find that Windows suffers from more minor crashes than Linux, but Linux suffers from less minor crashes and more major crashes than Windows.

[PartisanEntity]

I just realised that the suspend feature still will not work with my Asus A6K (Turion 1.6GHz). Otherwise it seems all is working quite nicely. Kudos to the devs.

[Erunno]

Hm, I voted Windows as despite contrary claims various Linux distributions tend to crash occasionaly on 2 different systems of mine. Windows used to be crash happy when it still had the 95/98 postfixes but starting with Windows 2000 the stability increased considerably and WinXP SP2 never crashed once since I installed it 2 years ago and I've never heard any complains from my friends and colleagues either. But on the other hand I keep my Windows system pretty clean, meaning I only install applications I need on a daily basis (and games ;-)).

As already mentioned, Windows 95 and 98 used to be as unstable as people claim. I experienced blue screens beyond count. Why this is attributed to the newer, far more stable iterations of the operating system is puzzling to me and I can only guess that people either don't know how to operate their OS (eg malware) or simply keep the myth alive for political reasons.

[mech7]

Windows is definitly more stable.. most problems i had where with compiz and video drivers on ATI card though so that might be the problem.

[Dorsai]

I have found Ubuntu to be unstable also, admittedly I am new to it and just trying to learn the ropes. With a two year old computer running dual core and nVidia 5900 Ultra graphics I expected Ubuntu to work very well, and it did until I installed Beryl. Now I have random freezing and black screens that require a hard reset to clear. Most likely I will have to abandon Beryl which is a shame since I'm a big fan of the 3D work environment.

Much more disturbing for me is the completely useless nature of having a brand new dual core computer that Ubuntu chokes on unless you want basic graphics functionality. Because I own a new computer with an ATi 1900xt I find poorly supported graphics at every turn. Come on people, ATi is the second largest discrete video card maker on the planet and I cant run Desktop Effects ? Please. Beryl? Forget aboud it. This same system runs XP flawlessly and despite what the fanboys are spouting here I have zero stability issues with XP, it just works, regardless of what I ask it to do.

I know some of you are shouting at the screen, "If your happy with XP then go use it you #$%#". The reason I am trying to get behind Linux, even though XP runs perfectly fine, is I see Corporate greed eroding my Rights under Fair Use laws and I refuse to buy software from anyone that plays ball with the MPAA/RIAA, in a nut shell that spells Vista. It also spells OSX. That pretty much leaves Linux, or no Rights, at which point I will simply not use a computer.:(

In any case I am new and trying to learn the ropes with Ubuntu, hopefully the graphics issues can be hammered out. At some point I would like to dual boot on my new computer and start cutting the cords to Microsoft. In the mean time I will continue to poke and prod at my two year old rig and try to get it stable.

[KrazyPenguin]

I am also finding Feisty Unstable and thinking it should have been named Freezy Fawn!!!!

Windows XP = No issues other than I would NOT want to upgrade to VISTA, I don't like Windows cuz I want choice, and I like the Linux philosophy.

I find XP very hard to crash as well.

Ubuntu is still one of the best distros to use with my hardware, yet it is still not 100%.

This raises another issue about Feisty being rushed. There was no RC!!! There were some major bugs , yet Ubuntu still released the final anyways.

I would like to see the schedule changed so that there is more time to fix bugs.

I'm thinking that there are some kernel issues here, maybe beyond Ubuntu's control.

It seemed that a lot of problems occurred just before release with the kernel update.

[Snowcat]

For me its no contest - Ubuntu has always been so much more stable, it's not even funny. And with Feisty I can even, finally, suspend and hibernate my laptop.

Windows has always had frequent hangups and crashes. But it could be because my parents (I've never had windows on a computer that I alone use) are complete morons when it comes to safe computer use.

[mech7]

I have found Ubuntu to be unstable also, admittedly I am new to it and just trying to learn the ropes. With a two year old computer running dual core and nVidia 5900 Ultra graphics I expected Ubuntu to work very well, and it did until I installed Beryl. Now I have random freezing and black screens that require a hard reset to clear. Most likely I will have to abandon Beryl which is a shame since I'm a big fan of the 3D work environment.


The freezing problem sounds very familliar to me with Desktop effects turned on. :mad:

[aysiu]

Linux kernel => more stable
Desktop environments (Gnome/KDE) and effects (Beryl/Compiz) => not necessarily more stable

[energiya]

If you don't use X (or make stupid configurations), VERY stable. On the other hand, Windows... well, being on this forum and using Linux tells it all.

[arsadogi]

i am considered to be a vandal-savage user mostly because i messing configurations files and installing software.Linux is the only OS that can stand me.About windows the only thing that i can remember is
LABEL:loop
format install windows
format install windows
bne OS,ubuntu,loop ##if installedOS!=ubuntu go back to the windows nightmare
:lolflag:

[prizrak]

The freezing problem sounds very familliar to me with Desktop effects turned on. :mad:

You are using beta software what do you expect?

Desktop environments (Gnome/KDE)
Those tend to be pretty stable KDE is probably about the same as XP and Gnome is definetly better stability. Especially if we are talking Ubuntu, there are pretty nice sane defaults for both DE's.

[arsadogi]

the more you install apps the less stable gets your system.i recommended a guy (windows_user) so give a try to ubuntu.A day after he had installed edgy eft he had apt-get_ed allmost the whole repository beryl,codecs,torrent clients,games,p2ps,and billions of apps and system tools.When i saw him again one week later he ckaimed that windows is more stable from ubuntu and that using linux is a waste of time.

-So i want to tell that the Add/Remove list is quite rich and attractive but someone should have selfcontrol. I prefer to keep my system more simple(a.k.a more stable) and choose wisely one app per functionality.

[bailout]

Linux kernel => more stable
Desktop environments (Gnome/KDE) and effects (Beryl/Compiz) => not necessarily more stable

I think this is one of the great linux myths. I had os crashes under win 98 but since moving to XP I haven't had a single crash that completely locked the pc. Programs and processes have crashed but I have always been able to do the three fingered salute and restart properly. However, edgy gives me quite frequent crashes that I can only get out of by doing a hard reboot of the pc. I am pretty certain it is caused by the ralink drivers for my usb wireless adapter but what annoys me is that those drivers crashing causes the whole system to freeze so completely.

[aysiu]

I think this is one of the great linux myths. I had os crashes under win 98 but since moving to XP I haven't had a single crash that completely locked the pc. Programs and processes have crashed but I have always been able to do the three fingered salute and restart properly. However, edgy gives me quite frequent crashes that I can only get out of by doing a hard reboot of the pc. I am pretty certain it is caused by the ralink drivers for my usb wireless adapter but what annoys me is that those drivers crashing causes the whole system to freeze so completely.
The kernel isn't crashing. The kernel is running fine.

If you believe the Linux kernel is unstable, try running a Ubuntu server and see how many freezes you get.

[prizrak]

I think this is one of the great linux myths. I had os crashes under win 98 but since moving to XP I haven't had a single crash that completely locked the pc. Programs and processes have crashed but I have always been able to do the three fingered salute and restart properly. However, edgy gives me quite frequent crashes that I can only get out of by doing a hard reboot of the pc. I am pretty certain it is caused by the ralink drivers for my usb wireless adapter but what annoys me is that those drivers crashing causes the whole system to freeze so completely.
Edgy was fairly unstable, did you ever had the same problem with Dapper? XP crashes quite easily actually and is definetly quite a bit less stable. You also cannot equate Ubuntu to all Linux, Ubuntu tends to include newer (read: less stable) software. If you take Debian for instance that tends to run older software it is very very stable.
Here is a good example of Linux stability. http://www.bash.org/?741630

Also I work in IT and we have Windows servers and workstations. None of the servers can stay up for more than a couple of months and I'm talking both older 2K servers that are fully patched and newer 2003 servers. Workstations (XP) can stay up for about a month before they need to be rebooted (they start getting slow). We are talking a 100% controlled environment here with those machines only having the bear minimum necessary software.


The kernel isn't crashing. The kernel is running fine.

If you believe the Linux kernel is unstable, try running a Ubuntu server and see how many freezes you get.

Actually the network services and drivers are a part of the kernel and in his case it is the kernel that gives up.

[mech7]

You are using beta software what do you expect?


I expect that software bundled with the os.. which has a stable version to work correct.

[Erunno]

I expect that software bundled with the os.. which has a stable version to work correct.

Wasn't there an explicit warning popup that compiz is beta software and might be unstable in one of the herd releases ? In case my memory doesn't trick me, I wonder why they removed it.

[Luggy]

I've been using Ubuntu since Hoary and at first my only problem I had with Linux was some things not working right, but over time these problems have been fixed.

The only problems I encounter now are a result of me doing something stupid.

Linux is perfectly stable, the problem is that I'm not.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I find ubuntu lightyears more stable then windows.
you can run a lot of apps, use wowee effects, browse the net without a single crash...
XP I had constant crashes

[KrazyPenguin]

When people say XP keeps crashing on them, I think they need to say which XP.

Is it XP sp1 or XP sp2 cuz I use XP sp2 with all the fixes and it is rock solid.

And I never thought I would ever say that...... :confused:

And sometimes it isn't even XP but spyware/viruses/trojans/pups etc, that the user is responsible for.

But Linux stil ROCKS !!!

:guitar:

[Dorsai]

When people say XP keeps crashing on them, I think they need to say which XP.

Is it XP sp1 or XP sp2 cuz I use XP sp2 with all the fixes and it is rock solid.

And I never thought I would ever say that...... :confused:

And sometimes it isn't even XP but spyware/viruses/trojans/pups etc, that the user is responsible for.



I couldn't have said it better, I have been using Windows since the 3.1 days and find XP w/SP2 to be extremely stable as a video and audio editing platform. I've never had the problems most people complain about but then again I don't visit wares or other BS websites so maybe I'm not getting the virus exposure others are. I do get a lot of calls from family though, usually teen age girls involved somehow, and it never ceases to amaze me at how many trojans and viruses they can get on a computer in such a short time...

[prizrak]

Wasn't there an explicit warning popup that compiz is beta software and might be unstable in one of the herd releases ? In case my memory doesn't trick me, I wonder why they removed it.

They didn't remove it, it was there last time I checked. It only pops up once to warn you after all you are on your own.

[prizrak]

I couldn't have said it better, I have been using Windows since the 3.1 days and find XP w/SP2 to be extremely stable as a video and audio editing platform. I've never had the problems most people complain about but then again I don't visit wares or other BS websites so maybe I'm not getting the virus exposure others are. I do get a lot of calls from family though, usually teen age girls involved somehow, and it never ceases to amaze me at how many trojans and viruses they can get on a computer in such a short time...

My work desktop is a fully patched SP2 system. It needs to be restarted once a month to stop it from getting slow and I get a virus warning every once in a while. Mind you this is a work desktop that I don't use to go to any websites. Occasional MSDN or MS Knowledge base article excluded. YMMV but Windows is not a very stable system and needs certain upkeep.

[prizrak]

I expect that software bundled with the os.. which has a stable version to work correct.

As was pointed out there is a warning there not to mention that as with most things in Linux if your hardware is supported it works perfectly (I should know).

[Dorsai]

My work desktop is a fully patched SP2 system. It needs to be restarted once a month to stop it from getting slow and I get a virus warning every once in a while. Mind you this is a work desktop that I don't use to go to any websites. Occasional MSDN or MS Knowledge base article excluded. YMMV but Windows is not a very stable system and needs certain upkeep.

I honestly believe that a lot of the Win XP stability issues are hardware/driver related and have nothing to do with the XP kernel. Your really at the mercy of the hardware vendor to provide stable and robust drivers. This, in my opinion, is why Apple has loyal followers, the fact that the hardware and software available to run on the Apple platform is limited is in fact an major asset when looking purely at stability. Apple maintains rigid control over hardware and software for compatibility and stability standards while Microsoft spends Billions trying to develop and maintain a "works with anything" OS to try and keep as many people as possible satisfied. I also believe this "limited" compatibility is one of the reasons for the success of Linux. Theres an old saying that apparently no one working at Microsoft has heard, "You can satisfy some of the people all the time, or all of the people some of the time". You can never do both, even with billions of dollars thrown at a project like Vista.

[macogw]

I've never had a crash with Ubuntu. I've had (while using Feisty in alpha testing mode) Beryl break so I had to fix it from the terminal, and I've learned my lesson about putting my still-turned-on laptop inside its carrying case (hint: it overheats...BAD), but other than those...no crashes. I have -very- well supported hardware though. It's a Centrino with Intel graphics so there's open source drivers from Intel for pretty much all of my hardware. People with nVidia or ATi graphics or Broadcom wireless cards aren't nearly so lucky.

[macogw]

Actually the network services and drivers are a part of the kernel and in his case it is the kernel that gives up.
A driver module in Linux isn't really "part of the kernel" the way Windows drivers are. If a Windows driver crashes, the kernel goes with it because they're so attached. If a Linux driver crashes, the kernel lets go of it and keeps running just fine. My ethernet driver (sky2) is horrible and crashes at high throughput. Windows would BSOD at that. Ubuntu keeps going just fine. I just unload and reload the module, and my internet's back--no kernel panic involved.

[Happy_Man]

I know this is kinda off topic but...how do you start a poll?

[Jouke74]

In windows Xp I actually never had a severe crash unless some hardware was malfunctioning or driver install went wrong. In Linux I am still a newbie and I am trying out stuff (which makes the crash probability higher). However, until now I had to do really strange things to make the system freeze. Therefore, in terms of stability on my system (with normal use of the OSes), windows and linux are the same :
both are stable simply.

It is however an unfair comparison because of many reasons:
e.g. Windows XP is older and more "mature" as compared to Feisty.
e.g. Ubuntu = 64 bits and Windows = 32 bits.
e.g. Ubuntu is my "experiment" system and I am not trying out anything on windows.
e.g. I never use the internet for more than about 20-30 known safe websites.

Other observations:
- Windows is generally a bit faster in reponse, but it depends on what I am doing (probably ATI driver realted). Linux is faster in the actual calculation work I am doing.
- Linux seems more secure (as pointed out windows allows my to move system files).
- Linux wireless is a problem with my card, every distro update it changes.
- Linux allows much more system tinkering (I can NOT mount a complete harddrive if I want to)
- Windows requires at least 4 driver CDs to be installed afterwards plus many updates, linux until now way less.

Hardware (which is an essential factor for stability) AMD X2 4200, A8N SLI premium, 2 GB RAM, Asus (ATI) EAX1600Pro, WD 74GB raptor, WD 250GB caviar, Sounblaster 4 audigy, Asus Wl-138g marvell wireless.

[leandromartinez98]

I use linux full time, just to say. However, I think it is not fare on windows to say that the "system" doesn't crash if X crashes. I mean, that's true. Many times X crashes in linux without a kernel crash, and you can go to the command line to restart X or reboot. This is obviously perfect for servers, which many times don't even need a graphical interface. However, if you are editing some file, a figure, or anything else, a X crash is the same as any other crash from the point of view of data loss. X crashes, unfortunatelly, are not so uncommon in Ubuntu, particulary if you use heavy 3D applications, compiz and so on. At least for me this is quite a common problem. The argument of the incompatible hardware is not valid, since windows is running in the same variety of hardware, or even greater. From my experience XP or Vista crashes are as rare as Ubuntu ones. By the way, I voted in the "about the same" for that reasons.

[leandromartinez98]

The kernel isn't crashing. The kernel is running fine.

If you believe the Linux kernel is unstable, try running a Ubuntu server and see how many freezes you get.


When linux crashes is never linux fault. Either is the use of some beta software, stupid users, or it is not realy crashing, maybe you need to reboot your computer, but if you had a magic way to see inside the system you would see that the kernel is not crashed, it is running fine.

Again, I use linux full time. I like it. But I still think, from the time I was starting to use it (about eight years ago) that the comunity states things in a little bit religious way. At the desktop, now, after the great improovement of XP over previous windows versions, both systems (and I call systems everything, not only some back core of the system that the great majority of the user don't even know that exists) are about the same in terms of stability.

[brunovecchi]

I used to get crashes frequently using Beryl/Compiz... Now that I am without them, it hasn't crashed in more than 6 months and counting...

[leandromartinez98]

Just crashed here. Doing nothing, without compiz or beryl. It loaded the screensaver and never came back. This is an example, I don't think it was a kernel crash, because I could see some response of the hard-disk to key pressing. However, nothing got me back on X or to any other of the TTy. Hard reboot... :-(

[etusha]

firefox and pidgin crash every second

[swoll1980]

necromancy I think they call it

[bruce89]

firefox and pidgin crash every second

Obviously not as often as that, unless you're a fast typer. Anyway, badly-written programs will crash.

[sydbat]

necromancy I think they call itYup. Although we have both contributed to it...