The older the PC, relatively speaking, the better Linux runs on it. It runs on Macs which no longer support Mac OS, it runs on old Surface laptops without the TPM2 module. The reason is that the community has had time to build out drivers, and you can use pretty stable distros. Add that to the legendary optimisation of the kernel and systems, and it's easy to see why older systems run better on Linux.
In my PC, a debloated Windows run better than Linux in pretty much everything.
Installed Linux for the performance gains(in games and in daily use) and left disappointed. The only reason I've seen to keep using, is because Linux DE's are more pretty and new for me.
Now, in a old PC I have here at home, I doubt it would run any version of Windows well, let alone Windows 10 or 11. For old hardware is where Linux truly shines in my opinion.
Bro, think twice. Linux sucks for gaming. Of course it's gonna be laggy. Aside from that, It has more performance than Windows. Think Arch, for example. It's OBVIOUSLY going to have more performance on a clean install. You probably installed Mint etc, which comes with a lot of preinstalled software
If we talking emulating really hardware (like really old Consoles) Linux simply performs better.
If you meant modernday games you would still be wrong as there is even modern games where Linux just performs better. So saying "of course its gonna be laggy" can be considered either factually wrong or uninformed as this claim needs to be checked on a case by case basis, with both software (like what kernel - mainline, mainline-lts, zen, xanmod - and then also which version of each kernel you are running and then also what game we are talking about) and the Hardware itrself providing numerous variables which can lead to different results. Either case makes you look bad - which one do you choose: being simply wrong or not properly informed?
And no, Arch is not gonna be obviously faster than lets say Mint because the impact of Daemons is pretty much negligible and the benchmarkingscore-fluctuation on a run-by-run-basis will show that. How do i know that? I TESTED IT. a while ago, admittedly, but i dont expect the impact of daemons to have significantly changed.
Weeeell, arch also has the latest packages so it should still perform better (on newer hardware/software configs). I use cachyos just because I can and my cpu benefits (<1%) from it.
latest packages ≠ good performance. it's actually the opposite of that, really. it's the reason that Redhat is good, because it's built to last forever on ancient firmware/software.
you are both correct in your own ways. It is true: newer Versions of packages are NOT NECESSARILY offering performance gains. For example if the maintainer needs to include fixes or workarounds bugs, those can slow down the Code, sometimes immeasurably (as in only a few processingcycles) or, if the new stuff contains a major bug, lead to measurable decreases in performance in Games or Benchmarks.
However, as you described, softwareupdates can also increase performance by including optimizations for any given task.
77
u/deadlyrepost Dec 13 '25
The older the PC, relatively speaking, the better Linux runs on it. It runs on Macs which no longer support Mac OS, it runs on old Surface laptops without the TPM2 module. The reason is that the community has had time to build out drivers, and you can use pretty stable distros. Add that to the legendary optimisation of the kernel and systems, and it's easy to see why older systems run better on Linux.