Comparison Between Ubuntu and Windows

In this post i will give you a basic comparison between Ubuntu and Windows Operating Systems. And in particular i am going to take Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Windows 7 for comparison.

1. Graphics and User Interface:

Even though, graphics is a personal choice i will give a small comparison between Windows 7 graphics and Ubuntu 12.04 graphics. Both being very popular Operating Systems, have better graphics.
But when we compare Ubuntu 12.04 graphics with the Windows 7 graphics, taking performance into account, we come to know that though Windows 7 gives better graphics using Windows Aero technology it consumes system resources and memory thereby reducing the system performance. On the same system with same configuration Ubuntu can run smoothly along with it's nice graphics and User Interface designs. So as i experienced my vote goes to Ubuntu for graphics.

2.  Preinstalled Softwares:

About preinstalled or bundled softwares, Windows 7 comes with very minimum bundled softwares. The very basic softwares like a word processor, spread sheet and a presentation softwares are not present by default. To get these minimal features, we have to purchase Microsoft Office Suite.
But unlike Windows, Ubuntu 12.04 comes with preloaded software bundle LibreOffice which has LibreOffice Word for word processing, LibreOffice Calc for SpreadSheets and LibreOffice Impress for presentations and along with these some additional tools like LibreOffice Formula etc. Also Ubuntu has a preinstalled chat client called 'Empathy - Instant Messaging'.

3. Drivers:

Another biggest advantage of Linux distros(distributions like Ubuntu) is that they have built-in drivers for almost all types of normally used hardwares  such as Wi-Fi, Ethernet controllers, USB drivers, BroadBand routers, printers, scanners etc. Ubuntu also has a feature to download and install the built-in drivers with proprietary drivers whenever necessary. But unlike Ubuntu, in Windows 7 drivers should be manually downloaded and installed. But now Windows also comes with some basic drivers like USB drivers, Bluetooth drivers etc.

4. MultiMedia:

The common drawback of both the Operating Systems is that, in both operating systems we have to download codecs for playing multimedia files such as Xvid etc. But Windows comes with Windows Media Player which can be used to play common media files like *.avi, *.mp3 etc. But in Ubuntu 12.04 every codec should be downloaded manually and installed. So in this case Windows 7 over takes Ubuntu 12.04

But as VLC Media Player is available for both WIndows and Ubuntu it is easy to overcome this drawback.

5. Third Party Software Installation:

When it comes to installation of 3rd party softwares in Ubuntu , the installation procedure is comparatively less than that in Windows. This is because of the large software repositary system setup by Canonical Inc and Ubuntu community, which gives tremendous software support via Ubuntu Software Center. But in Windows there is no such software center system and you have to get all softwares from the 3rd party websites where there are possibilities of injection of harmful programs to the user's system.

6. Security:

Linux by default does not run as a root (the Windows ‘administrator’ equivalent). This ensures that any automated program or script cannot make changes to the system without explicit privileges from the user. Windows 7 also implemented a similar concept called 'User Account Control' System, according to some survey it is not as robust as Ubuntu/Linux distros. So it is clear that Ubuntu or Linux distros are more secure than Windows.

7. Gaming:

When it comes to gaming support by the operating system, although Ubuntu has many games, it   can't beat Windows. Most of the high-end games are built for Windows platform as Windows gives DirectX support for efficient graphics rendering. But recently a commercial game engine called Steam is released for Ubuntu which will lead to a tremendous development in gaming features. The very famous game Counter-Strike has already striked the Ubuntu operating system using Steam engine.

8. Cost:

Another biggest advantage of Ubuntu and Linux distros over Windows is that, Ubuntu is totally free and it is open-source at the same time giving almost all features of Windows which is a commercial operating system.