Intel Ivy Bridge: Unity/Compiz Continues To Impair The Linux Desktop

With the Warsow game, the desktop environments had little impact on the overall OpenGL frame-rate performance from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the Linux 3.4 kernel and Mesa 8.1-devel.

Lastly, when running Xonotic, Unity 2D was 9% faster than the stock Unity, the stock KDE was 14% faster than Unity, suspended the effects increased the frame-rate by an additional 8% (or +23% over the stock Ubuntu desktop), and Xfce continued to run in line with the suspended KDE effects position.

These results are not entirely surprising for the open-source Intel Linux graphics driver if you have looked at the results from past desktop comparisons on Phoronix. Compiz has turned out to be a shivery wreck that is unlikely to see dramatic improvements in the near future.

If you missed it, see the Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04 Intel graphics benchmark results. There's also more Intel HD 4000 Ivy Bridge Linux benchmarks.