Save takes longer in gedit and gnumeric
It could be that windows is just telling me it has saved the state of the program sooner than it really has and that Linux doesn't report the state being saved until it really has finished saving. But this is just speculation.
I know it isn't a big deal. A few extra seconds isn't much but it does adds up when you are writing a really long document and have fallen into the habit of saving multiple times as you write. Hitting Ctrl+S is almost second nature to me when I start writing. Having to wait a good chunk of time more in linux for even minor saves is somewhat annoying.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed this strange lag. I have seen it in Crunchbang, Ubuntu, Fedora and numerous other distributions I have tried. Every distro has the same annoying longer delay for saving (on gedit and gnumeric)"^.
^and some other apps that I will continue to list as I keep a closer watch on this issue: Gummi is now in the list.
"EDIT after comments: Please click that small comment bubble below and see the comments to this journal. @paul gave me some very useful suggestions about getting to the root of this problem. Thankfully, its not the operating system or even the hardware on my computer (two things that I was hoping it wouldn't be, because I can't change them without considerable effort).
The problem apps are gedit and gnumeric. I have found a substitute for latex composition with a live preview already: Gummi! And it is 100x more fabulous. Gnumeric will be hard to replace. I don't know what program comes even close to the awesomeness of Gnumeric. OpenOffice (Libreoffice) calc is a pale shadow for the particular way I use Gnumeric.
"Thanks, Paul. If every linux newcomer had a patient friend like you, I think the transition to the OS would be so much more painless. :-)
One factor, oh great tiny scientist, that you may have overlooked is the actual hard drive. What it is spinning at? Many laptops use 5400 rpm drives to conserve power. Most desktop boxes use 7200 rpm drives. Slower speeds equate to slower write speeds.
And there is the question of what file system you are using. Some are faster than others.
But I'm sure you are right, it's all Linus Torvald's fault.