(Based on the original comment of "GeneralZorg" of UbuntuForums)
In general any Linux distribution is currently faster than XP (although management of RAM memory, and sharing of resources between tasks is better on Linux), but there are some specific reasons that explain the relative slowness in loading the same application on Linux:
1) Linux makes extensive use of libraries dynamically generated. This has many advantages over the compiled libraries statically used by Windows (such as reduction in the use of memory as one of the most important) but the loading speed is reduced due to the need to link applications and libraries when loaded. This occurs especially in application C++ (like Firefox, OpenOffice, the majority of KDE, etc).
Some "organised" are being made to improve this (for example, - fvisibility = hidden of GCC), but it seems that the applications under Linux boot speed never reach their Windows equivalents.
(2) some applications to make them more easily portable to other operating systems, are written with languages of very high level and relatively little (seeking more stability and rapid development that the efficiency) such as GTK or QT, which provide complex development environments and occupy more memory, so reload data by the SO sometimes is greater than usual (although this case is given both in Linux and in Windows if you look at the) same program).
If you analyze it carefully this is logical: Linux (an implementation of Unix technology) was born as an operating system for servers, and its developers have considered that it is more important to use less memory and be more stable; a server application is started once and has to work until the end of the day (at least tries to).
In general any Linux distribution is currently faster than XP (although management of RAM memory, and sharing of resources between tasks is better on Linux), but there are some specific reasons that explain the relative slowness in loading the same application on Linux:
1) Linux makes extensive use of libraries dynamically generated. This has many advantages over the compiled libraries statically used by Windows (such as reduction in the use of memory as one of the most important) but the loading speed is reduced due to the need to link applications and libraries when loaded. This occurs especially in application C++ (like Firefox, OpenOffice, the majority of KDE, etc).
Some "organised" are being made to improve this (for example, - fvisibility = hidden of GCC), but it seems that the applications under Linux boot speed never reach their Windows equivalents.
(2) some applications to make them more easily portable to other operating systems, are written with languages of very high level and relatively little (seeking more stability and rapid development that the efficiency) such as GTK or QT, which provide complex development environments and occupy more memory, so reload data by the SO sometimes is greater than usual (although this case is given both in Linux and in Windows if you look at the) same program).
If you analyze it carefully this is logical: Linux (an implementation of Unix technology) was born as an operating system for servers, and its developers have considered that it is more important to use less memory and be more stable; a server application is started once and has to work until the end of the day (at least tries to).
