I have a general "feeling" that applications open faster on Windows than on Linux. I know this is too vague/non-scientific but if I were to compare load time of an application e.g. VLC on Windows and Linux how would I go about ? Also, I would like to study the differences in loading mechanism used by windows and Linux for binaries so any reference would very much appreciated.
The Linux loader can give you lots of information about the binding process.
LD_DEBUG=help ls
See the ld.so(8) man page for more details.