The fastest OS is not always the easiest to use or the best to sell.

The performance of Linux-based operating systems on some hardware is indeed faster than other operating systems on the same hardware under some circumstances. No argument.

If you're going to post links like that you really should read them yourself first. The NV link says absolutely nothing about Linux being the fastest OS, just that they got a performance boost from their Linux drivers.

It's quite clear that you have a poor understanding of these matters so let me spell it out clearly: for GPU performance OS is almost completely irrelevant!

The determinants of performance will be (1) the GPU hardware itself, (2) the driver code, and (3) how sensible (or brain-dead) the program's usage of the 3D API is. It's true that under (2) some OS differences can matter, but they do not matter to as great an extent as you seem to think.

Stories about "I got X% extra performance under platform A with application Y" are not statistically valid - the plural of anecdote is not data. Come back to us when you've done testing of hundreds (or thousands) of different titles on multiple different hardware configurations and then we can talking about stuff in this direction.

Your enthusiasm for Linux is commendable, but behaviour like this is only damaging to your own credibility.

The performance of Linux-based operating systems on some hardware is indeed faster than other operating systems on the same hardware under some circumstances. No argument.

of some Linux-based operating systems, strictly speaking each distribution is its own OS and there are fairly big performance differences between them (it primarily comes down to how the kernel, system libraries and X11 were built, Linux has a potential advantage in that you can get your kernel and most drivers(not nvidias though) optimized for the cpu you're using but some distributions are built for insanely old instructionsets to ensure compatibility with old hardware).
Also, valve primarily compared their OpenGL2 renderer with their D3D9(Which has a far higher per batch overhead than OpenGL or D3D10+) renderer (Allthough Linux did have a slight advantage compared to OpenGL2 on Win7 as well), There isn't much info on how OpenGL3-4 performs on the various platforms with nvidias drivers. (Did nvidia boost OpenGL performance across the board or did they just focus on Left 4 Dead specifically like they normally do with AAA titles ? Did the OpenGL improvements get ported over to the Windows driver before Valve did their tests ?).
It is nice to see that you can get good performance out of Linux though but getting drivers from one vendor optimized for one game using an old OpenGL version isn't enough(it might be a good start but we've had several of those in the past).

We saw fairly big boosts in OpenGL driver quality (primarily from AMD/ATI) when doom3 was released as well, it is in the time between the big name OpenGL titles that the quality tends to drop significantly (Windows and D3D doesn't suffer from this problem since new , big AAA titles are released all the time)

Your enthusiasm for Linux is commendable

I have to disagree. The result of being a Linux fan often results in some kind of inferiority complex (have we been down this road recently?) that causes Linux fans to lash out and over-do support for said operating system.
That is actually validated by this very topic, in which a Linux fan has felt his or her system-of-choice has been under-appreciated and thus made a topic to try to gain some appreciation for that operating system.
Let’s assume we are in exactly the same situation as we are now, but Windows was proved to be the fastest. Does a Windows fanboy post such a topic by today’s standards? No. People who use Windows don’t need validation. It’s only the minority that wants to fight back and use any little thing they can to support their side of the table.

I actually hate all of them. Windows, Macintosh OS X, and Linux. I am definitely not a fan of any of them (at the same time admitting that I couldn’t make a better operating system than any of them). The only thing that matters to me is what games I can play on each system.
Any operating system that can’t run Starsiege: Tribes can fuck off.

This is what is funny about this thread. Within the console wars it has been stated billions of times for 10 years: It is not the hardware that makes success but the games.
Why would you ever even consider that this does not apply to the land of computers as well?
If Linux ran 100 times faster than Windows, I would still buy Windows because it runs the game(s) I want to play.
[size=8]That is all there is too it.
Enough already.
We don’t care how fast your favorite operating system is.
Bragging about that gives you about X amount of pleasure, whereas playing my favorite game gives me X*X*X*X amount of pleasure.

Any game that goes beyond consoles and mobile invariably goes to Windows. Not Linux.
So no on really cares about Linux’s speed.
Go ahead and run Linux. Have fun calculating…stuff…faster than myself…
Enjoy that 1 millisecond-less of a delay when you open a folder.
Have fun with all that extra speed while I enjoy head-shotting people.


L. Spiro