Why is Windows so big and heavy?

[tremmor]

the only way you will get a lightweight operating system is to write in machine language. with an assembler. that will never happen. sitting there with a debugger and not to mention how to harness and connect these routines together to work with all the people associated with it. they use languages and compilers that are not the most efficient and can be long and sloppy after compiling. Faster machines make up for it.
thats the only diff.

 

[Okedokey]

I think it's more about using less resources for given usage than just plain using less resources. ... and generally uses noticeably less memory, not to mention being generally faster and more responsive.

Linux overcommitts memory, so it actually will use the same amount of RAM as Windows, it just runs the (albeit very small) chance of crashing if all applications/services called for their share at the same time. With Windows, this cannot happen. This is the difference.

 

[TrainTrackHack]

Linux overcommitts memory, so it actually will use the same amount of RAM as Windows, it just runs the (albeit very small) chance of crashing if all applications/services called for their share at the same time. With Windows, this cannot happen. This is the difference.

Interesting. I'm probably going to set my kernel to never overcommit and see how that affects my memory usage.

 

[DMGrier]

Hmm, bizarre, I've had the opposite experience with Ubuntu and Mandriva. I couldn't for the life of me find video drivers for my laptop for either of them. Mandriva flatout refused to install on my desktop, while Ubuntu installed fine. I liked Ubuntu on it actually, though my desktop is mainly for games so windows seemed like a better choice.

I've installed windows on countless machines, and from Vista onwards I've had very little work to do in the way of drivers.

yeah the most recent was I installed Windows on a Vaio, then I had to install every driver then I started to do Windows updats and half way through the computer crashed to a black screen then Windows tried to fix the hard drive which after a hour I said screw it and re-installed Windows again, the drivers again and a second round of updates which I had to do again cause for what ever reason it would skip them during the first time I updated it.

When I have installed either Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora or openSuse the only thing I have ever had to do is install software I preferred cause I do not always like the software they come with.

 

[speedyink]

yeah the most recent was I installed Windows on a Vaio, then I had to install every driver then I started to do Windows updats and half way through the computer crashed to a black screen then Windows tried to fix the hard drive which after a hour I said screw it and re-installed Windows again, the drivers again and a second round of updates which I had to do again cause for what ever reason it would skip them during the first time I updated it.

When I have installed either Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora or openSuse the only thing I have ever had to do is install software I preferred cause I do not always like the software they come with.

Hmm, I guess there's too many factors to all have the same experiences.