official Ubuntu releases page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNow, you can open VirtualBox and select ‘New’ where you can configure your new operating system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn the prompt, you can add information such as Name, a location where you want to store files needed for the system to run, and the location of the ISO image that you will load for installation purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn the next step, you can configure a username, password, and information such as hostname.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nClick Next, and the prompt will ask us about the hardware resources you want to provide to the virtual machine. The minimum requirement for Ubuntu is 1024 MB or 1GB of RAM but it is recommended to use 3GB or more. If you are doing some light testing, 1 vCPU may be enough for some minimal and server installs, but it is recommended that you place at least 2 vCPU cores in your setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nAfter clicking ‘Next’, select the amount of storage to give the virtual machine. Ubuntu recommends a minimum storage of 25 GB or more. This examples shows that there\u2019s enough space to install the system and use it properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nAfter clicking Next, you can follow through the installation process and choose language and other options based on your preferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nFinally, create a new VM for each Ubuntu version, allocate resources, and attach the ISO files. You can install Ubuntu on each VM following standard installation procedures. The procedure in older Ubuntu versions is similar as well as the process you need to finish in VirtualBox. By following these steps, you are ready to utilize multiple Ubuntu versions and check their performance and features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step 2: Comparing Boot Times<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Boot time is crucial for understanding system performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can use systemd-analyze<\/strong> as a powerful tool included with systemd, <\/strong>which is the initialization system used by modern Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. This tool provides various functionalities to analyze the boot process of your Ubuntu system. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWe can check the overall boot time by running the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
systemd-analyze<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nThis command will display the total time for the system to boot, breaking it down into kernel time, userspace time, and time spent when all services required for the graphical user interface have started and the system is ready for user interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can expand this command with the flag blame <\/strong>in our command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
systemd-analyze blame<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This command will list all the services and how long each took to start, which can be very useful when troubleshooting services that are causing delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nFurthermore, you can use the ‘critical-chain<\/strong>‘ flag which shows services, sockets, mount points and similar, and they are critical for the boot process, where the output shows which units are delaying the boot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
systemd-analyze critical-chain<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nThis is where you can compare boot times among different Ubuntu versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step 3: Application Launch Speed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Testing application launch speed provides insight into real-world performance differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Depending on whether you are using a graphical user interface or just the terminal you can use the command time<\/strong>, which measures launch time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
time sleep 3<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nLet\u2019s examine the output:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
real <\/strong>– 0m3.003s: This indicates that the total wall-clock time from the start to the end of the sleep 3 command was approximately 3.003 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\nuser<\/strong> – This shows that the CPU spent 0.003 seconds executing user-space processes. For the sleep command, this value is very low because sleep primarily involves waiting and does not perform any significant user-space computations.<\/p>\n\n\n\nsys<\/strong> – 0m0.000s: This indicates that the CPU spent 0.000 seconds on system (kernel) operations on behalf of the process. Again, since sleep does very little besides waiting, it does not require significant system resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRepeat this for multiple applications such as LibreOffice Writer, Terminal, and Gedit. You can compare launch times by using different Ubuntu versions and document the differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Step 4: System Resource Usage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Between versions, we can also measure the CPU and memory usage on our system. One very convenient way is to use htop <\/strong>which shows information about the system’s uptime, current load, memory usage as well as processes and how much these processes are consuming resources on our system. You run this by simply typing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
htop<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nNext, measure the disk’s performance which affects the speed of read\/write operations and overall system responsiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Use the ‘dd<\/strong>‘ command for the disk write speed test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
sudo dd if=\/dev\/zero of=\/tmp\/test1.img bs=1G count=1 oflag=direct<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nAs an output, we can see the speed that is available to us when creating a file filled with zeroes. By writing a large file directly to disk, we can measure the raw write speed of the disk. This is useful for benchmarking between versions and also when comparing different storage devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can also measure read speed using the ‘hdparm’ <\/strong>command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
sudo hdparm -Tt \/dev\/sda<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nThen, you can record read\/write speeds for each Ubuntu version. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through these practical examples, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of the differences in features and performance across different Ubuntu versions. Each newer version of Ubuntu brings additional features as well as optimizations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Compare features and performance between Ubuntu 20.04 vs 22.04 in this step-by-step tutorial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":113237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2781],"tags":[],"collection":[],"platform":[],"funnel_stage":[3017],"coauthors":[2535],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Ubuntu 20.04 vs 22.04: Comparing features and performance<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n