Just one Win vs Linux Question
 

No intention of starting a flame war, but help a noob out.

I installed Win7 after two years a couple of days ago, and a clean install of Win7, with Avast and many other programmes, ran faster than a clean install of Ubuntu Precise. I was quite astonished by the difference, but i have one question. There's a little voice telling me don't do it, as i remember that after trying out my first distro, Ubuntu 10.10, the performance was remarkable. So, is the thing that Windows is just going to get slower and slower until it gets excrutiating, and Ubuntu install stays the same 'speed' over the next years?

Thank you for your answers in advance!

Ubuntu is widely regarded as one of the slowest and most "bloated" Linux distributions these days. Xfce (Xubuntu) or LXDE (Lubuntu) desktop will be an improvement over the default Unity environment. Try something like AntiX or CrunchBang if speed is your top priority. Or Slackware/Debian/Mint/etc/etc/etc if you are looking for a good balance of usability and performance. :)

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

In what way does it "run faster"?
My limited experience of Windows 7 tells me it slows down in much the same way as older versions did -- becoming slower as the registry fills with entries and various pieces of bloatware are installed.
Unity seems to me to require faster hardware and proprietary drivers for your graphics card to run well. There's also the "feature" that searches Amazon for "offers" when you search for applications and that can cause a delay while the results are downloaded.

Win7 is a great OS for Windows, but it does indeed slow down eventually just like all other versions of Windows.
Ubuntu/Unity indeed is ponderously heavy and won't run well unless you have pretty newish hardware. Developers seem to follow the philosophy its proponents so often tell me- "Unused RAM is wasted RAM"- whereas I would rather reserve the RAM for running a heavyweight program rather than just the OS. Plus there's the Amazon/"other third party" search feature with which I am not comfortable.
Follow snowpine's suggestions- they're all good.

That is the key question.

There are many different aspects of a system that ordinary users report as "run faster".

How fast does the system boot up: Many Linux distributions are not well optimized for boot up speed. Many serious users of Linux rarely reboot and thus don't really care if that is slow.

How fast to programs load for the first time after boot up. Most programs naturally load slowly the first time. Once those are in cache, subsequent runs of the same program may be much faster. If reboots are rare, there is no reason to care. But some users reboot a lot and there are ways (maybe automatic in W7) to make likely programs preload before first use.

DNS: A lot of computer use is really internet use and a major reason for slow internet may be slow DNS. That ought to be the same between Windows and Linux. Both should get the same answer from DHCP. But that might be worth checking.

Disk accesses: Were those two installs in different disk positions? The beginning of a hard disk is much faster than the end. When performance depends heavily on disk accesses, it depends heavily on the partition's position on disk.

Those are all just examples. Others have answered with some generalities about Windows vs. Linux performance (and newly installed Windows performance vs. later). But that is pretty much wild speculation without a description of which specific activities were compared between Windows and Linux.

thanks for all your replies.
i'm not that tech savy to know all the details, ofcourse, but what i meant with running fast, was the system opening the file browser, web browsers - all almost instantly, in windows 7. The first run of programmes in Ubuntu is true, i have the same issue with the applications loading very slowly when i run them for the first time. Example: i have a 4gig ram, 2.1gig dualcore intel processor, 500gb of disk and an integrated graphics card (intel). the laptop was purchased in spring 2010. and i remember windows being painfully slow after time (ofcourse i was so unknowing of the processes i didn't know a thing about fragmentation and registries and stuff), and a friend offered Ubuntu by chance, so i gave it a shot and loved it. After that, i got more into tech. (not that much, but now i know more than an everyday user, who barely knows how to install an office suite, even if it's just clicking next next).
+ should my machine run 12.04 without problems? And windows? (i did check the requirements for both, but it's rarely a help, because i get a whole bunch of different answers).So yeah, basically, i was just wondering if the Win performance will deteriorate over time, or have i just 'done sth right' when installing so it runs great...
+ the thing i like about Ubunut, despite all the philosophical differences, is that it acts pretty much like a total suite, free of charge (and i'm not stingy, i've donated to Debian, Mageia...and used a bunch of different distros over the course of time), no licensing issues (if i run win7, it's ofcourse not going to be a purchased copy), + Libreoffice's integration of docx in 4.0 is better than ever. I have an in-house cloud service (and it works without problems for me) and i like it because i don't need third party software for it. So yes, it's handy-dandy. But as many others, keeping gnome 2 and developing it would be more than a good choice, despite me liking gnome 3 and unity :)
So yeah, basically i'm at a crossroad, since both seem to be working on a fresh install (i installed them on the same disk, and one at the time. in no moment was dual boot an option).
But also, is it philosophically 'better' to run ubuntu than win7?

Thanks again guys.

Use what works best for you -- if you need something Windows has then use it. Similarly since you bought it you might as well use it.
For Ubuntu have you tried removing the Amazon recommends stuff and perhaps found whether there are any service you can stop or uninstall? As has been mentioned Ubuntu has turned a bit bloatware filled and seems to be aimed at the latest, greatest hardware rather than performing well.

I'm guessing your Intel integrated video is the bottleneck. What's the chipset?

You can easily test-drive Xfce or LXDE without a complete install; all you need are a couple of clicks in the Software Center. Here's a guide for Xfce: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/xfce

intel GL40

To help applications load faster the first time:

From my experience Linux (i used Debian and Ubuntu extensively) do not slow down as Windows does. I have Linux installed for years and tried all kind of stuff on it and it never slowed down.

I work as tech support (all our clients use Windows) and i can tell you that every version of it including 7 slows down if many applications are added and removed. Many times so much crapware are preloaded with preinstalled Windows machines that only a clean reinstall can fix it.