I am very very sure that it is not about the hardware.
I have used the highest specs laptops and PCs running windows or linux, and I have used the relativaly-low specs Macbooks. and mac wins.

it is about the software, My ipad 2 has a 500 MB of ram and and the dual core A5 chip, but it is just... smooth. it doesn't lag or wait and it can run thousands of apps simultaniosly without me noticing.

I want linux to be this way, and I know it is not about the hardware.

please tell me, what is the reason that iOS and OSX are smooth and snappy, while linux is not? and how to make linux this way?

i think ios is snappier than android because android is based on java virtualization whereas ios is closer to native 'c' (objective-c). java introduces an extra step of translating machine opcodes into a virtual cpu that understands java binary.

one way to combat this is that manufacturers use cpu's with multiple cores; therefore requiring larger batteries to handle the power; therefore screen sizes can be bigger.

i think ios only allows 1 app to run at a time (my understanding is that it essentially freezes background apps from using cpu until they regain focus -- i dont think it is possible to run 2 apps at a time on ios unless something changed in recent versions ?)

i hardly use os-x so i dont know if it is snappier.

Well, Apple has a lot of money, and a lot of talent. And they control the seamless integration of hardware and software. Both Linux and Microsoft have to deal with a vast hodge-podge of hardware.

Look at the technologies that go into Mac OSX for the answers. Probably one of the biggest things holding back Linux is Xorg, which is getting kind of long in the tooth. But then, the native interface of all *nix-based systems is the TUI, rather than the GUI.

To make linux that fast, you'd have to buy some patents. You'd have to re-write the base code to conform or work more closely to the hardware.

My Linux with Solid State feels as snappy as my Mac's with regular HDD.

Maybe take a look at this thread. There are some links there, aparently ios prioritizes its GUI process in a way that it feels more responsive and 'snappy'.

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As for linux behaving this way, maybe if you run X and window manager processes with negative nice, it would be snappier, just a guess.

You might try turning on compositing in your window manager settings. This makes the desktop look a whole lot smoother. If your window manager doesn't provide this setting, just run xcompmgr at startup. Just compare the smoothness of the Windows XP Luna theme (doesn't have compositing) with the Windows Vista/7 Aero theme (uses compositing.)

I think a lot of the problems are due to Linux still using the old, archaic X11 system. There is a new display system being developed called Wayland, which is simpler and more optimized for desktop use and features built-in compositing. I don't know how well it will succeed, but it looks promising.

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Wayland actually works pretty well already

Are there any window managers/desktop environments yet that can use it? Can most programs run on it? I'd like to try it.

I used it with cinnamon, I would imagine you could with gnome also..

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/wayland

Do you notice any performance difference with it as opposed to X11?

Not really..

Doing a research... I think the problem is simply resource allocation. Mac gives real-time priority to user inputs and to the outputs that shows directly to user.
While Linux and windows give normal priority to those.
And it seems that it is not a simple issue as it seems.

The same reason that home computers using Motorola technology had far greater capabilities than the x86 architecture with more than 10 times the resources. IOW, it is the hardware. Nothing has changed at Intel because they've had no reason to change since taking over the market.

See my collection of tips. In summary:

Use BFS scheduler
mount options for ext4
/etc/sysctl.conf options
Use ionice and nice commands as appropriate, for apps and daemons. E.g. the logging daemon should be run with ionice -c3