Toms hardware should benchmark compiling a Linux kernel!!!

Or compiling programs in LINUX maybe even using K3B for a burning benchmark. Come on TOM get up with the times WINDOWS is dead LINUX and OPEN SOURCE will be smashing throught windows and knocking down gates

I agree. Compiling is the #1 most intensive thing I do with my computer but I rarely see anybody benchmark that.

I agree... that would be a useful benchmark indeed.

Now I have a great deal more enthusiasm for Linux than I once did; but I'm under no illusions. Windows is far from dead. Until Linux becomes as easy to use as Windows / MacOS... it will never become mainstream. There are too many users out there that are unwilling to learn anything new.

I hear what you're saying... however I'm talking about people that complained about the move from Win98 to WinME because "the look is too different". How open do you think people like that will be to Linux? Especially if they have to do anything even remotely resembling a command line...

I don't mind Linux. I can see myself getting used to using it... after all I did use DOS for years, and that was nothing but command line. Having a GUI like Linux's is just icing on the cake. I agree that Windows is far more complex (how many millions of lines of code), but Windows is still far more easier to use for most people... and that's all those people care about. You could try to explain until you were blue in the face, but those people would still insist that Windows is much easier to use than Linux. (And in some ways, they're right).

I enjoy Linux and feel that it is a superior OS when compared to Microsoft (I'm posting from it right now), but I don't think Linux will be defeating Windows at the moment because of the lack of Linux releases for most major games and the lack of a major computer manufacturor that installs Linux by default (and I´m not talking servers).

That said, I feel that a Linux kernel benchmark would be an excellent test of a CPU's performance. Also, perhaps running a game with different compiler options for the kernel would tell us how much of an impact that makes.

Well. I do have lots of free time....

Quake 4 runs on Linux natively, correct? Perhaps itś time to invest in it....

Well, it is true that once you have Linux configured the way you want it, you shouldn't ever need to look at the command line again. I'm just speaking from the pains I had trying to enable 3D on my Radeon 9700 Pro... a lot of command line stuff to deal with. After all that pain, it was a matter of ATi actually releasing a driver to support the newer kernel. Not only that, but the new driver was a hell of a lot easier to install than the old one. But, once I got everything set the way I wanted, I didn't have to worry about the command line interface again.