I've tried many Linux distributions even light ones but windows always seems faster for me. I've gotten pretty good at making windows fast by disabling effects, services, startup programs etc. Is there similar things I can do for linux?
Is it possible that windows just has better hardware drivers or handles hardware more efficiently?

Faster at what exactly? Booting?

What is it exactly that you want your computer to do faster?

Puppy runs completely in RAM and is super fast. Can't stand Windows anymore unless it is on a high spec machine with a good graphics card. Puppy runs circles around Windows and most other Linux distros as well.

You mentioned trying light distros, have you tried Puppy with the "boot to RAM" option enabled?

Hi,
You are referring to a light footprint GNU/Linux when you say 'Puppy runs circles around Windows and most other Linux distros as well.'. I think there are several distributions that 'puppy' could not even be compared too. Nor should be!

I'm referring to "most other Linux distros" in general.

The word "most" was used to allow for distros that might be faster than Puppy.

I suspect any distro that is faster than Puppy gives up a lot in terms of completeness and ease of use. Feel free to prove me wrong. I'm no fanboy, if there is a better distro for my needs I'd switch in a heartbeat.

Well if you want a super fast linux go with linux from scratch. It is not easy but man once you get it up and running, it is hard to beat in speed.

There isn't a categorical, "one size fits all systems" answer like the one that you seem to be looking for.

I don't know of a way to disable effects, but what would be equivalent would be to use a lighter window manager, something other than KDE, GNOME, XFCE.

For services and startup programs, that would depend on your distro as to how you turn them off.

No, Window$ does not have better drivers, but you need to be more specific as to what device is having problems.

Hi,

I would like to add to what 'H' stated. M$ Windows doesn't have better drivers but does have more drivers available since the partnership with vendors does lock out other OS. We (FOSS) do have the luxury with NDISwrapper but not everything is available for other devices until the device drivers are reverse engineered or completely developed by independent programmers.

I want it to do everything faster. Running programs or using the internet or viewing videos windows is always quicker.

Faster than Puppy running from RAM? Nonsense!

My opinion is the same as jstephens84. If you want a tuned machine with Linux, you have to install it step by step having complete control of everything and absolutely everything that will be installed on the machine. This way you will reduce the quantity of modules and services you really load on startup and most important thing, you will be aware of which of those you really use and which you don't. The same with the desktop environment, installing it from the bases and at the moment the only two things I know to improve performance compiled for specific architecture is using emerge on "Gentoo" or using apt-build on "Debian".

That is what I think you want to to with you computer. It will be hard, it will be complicated, it will be time consuming, but, as jstephens84 said , once you get it walking, it will be unstoppable.

Salutations.

@jumico

I don't know if you're a new Linux user or not, but I'm going to assume you are newish. No offense intended if you're not.

The Windows XP desktop is hardly faster than my Fedora 8 desktop. I mean, I can wait the extra second for Firefox to load on Linux for the privilege of using Linux.

What about an operating system is important to you? Is it speed? Is it security? Is it extensibility? Is it functionality out of the box? Is it Windows application compatibility? Is it looks?

I think those are the questions you should ask yourself, and prioritize your answers. From there, you should be able to determine which OS is better for you. If it's security, extensibility or out of the box functionality, I think Linux. If it's Windows application compatibility, then Windows wins. If it's looks, then what looks best to you? Vista's desktop, or Compiz Fusion?

I'm just curious if you have installed the proper drivers for your video card or not.. it could affect desktop performance if you have a nice nVidia or ATi card and you are using the vesa drivers..

...well, if that's what you want, you can disable effects...exact details depend on which GUI you choose and unfortunately/naturally it makes more difference on the GUIs with more effects in them..

...well, if that's what you want, you can disable services...exact details depend on which services you have running and which services you need...details of how to do this are dependant on the distro you choose and (using GUI tools) the GUI

...well, if that's what you want, you can disable startup programs...exact details depend on which distro you choose

...not so sure about "etc" though...

Is there? I guess that's a yes, then.

Many things are possible, this just happens to be one that isn't true. in fact, In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, linux seems always to be faster than an up to date version of Windows (can't comment on what would happen if you could make, say, win 3.11 run on an 8-core nehalem monster).

and
I'm sure that there are performance gains from LFS/arch-specific compilation but my feeling is that these measures can miss the low-hanging fruit; ie, there are performance gains to be had from various easy moves and if the struggle to get a precision-tuned kernel makes it difficult to see the simple, easy, gains then it isn't worth doing (for me...YMMV, of course...if you actually have the time to follow through and do all of the things that could result in a super-fast system, but I know, in my case, that I'd give up part way through unless I had a real need, which wouldn't be constructive).

Actually yeah.
I dual boot so it doesn't really matter. Security's not a big deal. I can make windows pretty secure. Looks don't matter. Speed matters. I find myself having Linux programs freeze or crash where they wouldn't in windows. I can easily open up 20 tabs in Firefox in windows but I couldn't do it with Linux or it would take super long or crash.
This might be a possible problem. But on both my PCs I have integrated graphics would I still have to find the right drivers?

I tried Gentoo but I remember it taking hours to install programs after it was already set up. I guess thats because it complies from source or whatever. Also I couldn't get my sound to work.

@salasi Thanks I guess I'll have to look for my question concerning a specific distribution then.