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New Way To Grade Decay of Computer Installations
skojt writes: "I saw this link in Dr Dobb's Journal (the paper edition) about the
behaviour of a slowly decaying computer installation. It refers to a Windows installation, but as the author writes, 'But there will shortly be ports to Linux, Mac OS X, and other Unices; we are confident these OSes are just as prone.'"
Based purely on my own experience, Windows does decay quite a bit faster than Linux - but I don't think it's mainly the OS's fault:
It's mainly the users and the applications. There are so MANY applications for Windows out there that want to put an icon on your descktop, in your system tray, in your start menu, etc. It is no wonder when the decay takes place. All these applications do their own thing to Windows.
Then, on top of that, you have many, many, many bad installers. They remove some files, sure, but rarely do they get rid of everything, including registry entries.
Linux has a bit different type of users, and most of the software made for linux is by people who hate "Take-over-your-system-ware" sofware. It also doesn't have the central registry system like Windows. Sure it will have it's problems, but right now it does not. More users and more bad or poorly written apps will cause bloat and decay.
So, as usual, we must blaim the users and the applications for software decay for the most part. The OS should do some cleanup as well, but gone are the days when uninstalling mean deleting the directory it was installed to.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
But these things are CRUFT! And there's MORE in a "virgin" Windows box:
It takes a LONG time to get things cleaned up and usable. You used to be able to just wipe the disk and install Windows from scratch, but more and more OEMs are not allowing thins, only giving you some crappy RESTORE disks...
Really! Dude, we've like never heard this before!
Free Software is powerful in many ways, but the idea that you, yourself, can go in and fix decay is kind of silly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all OSes rely on abstraction. Abstraction relies on a bit of bloat.
Any OS is going to decay over time without micromanagment. Windows will probably decay even if you're the strictest of system operators because it tries to hide everything from the user. Even if we did have the source to Windows, the FIX would be not including so many useless programs.
Open Source code doesn't solve everything.
I think it's a bit premature for us linux advocates to say it is immune to this. While a package manager certainly does help reduce dependancy issues, I don't think it addresses the physical issues.
/usr/* will start to get quite fat with binaries and their required libraries. Everytime one of those apps are called, it will take additional time to find the binary itself, then tack on the additional latency produced by the libraries having to be located and loaded into memory and the rusult will unavoidably be the visual degrade in performance.
...
First and foremost to consider is that there is no such think as a O(1) search algorithm("read 'Big Oh of one' for the non computer scientists in the crowd: notation used to measure the efficiency of an algorithm). The ammount of time required to search a list will always be a function of its size.
As the user base of Linux grows, so will the demand and supply of software. slowly, but surely,
Plus as more and more non computer literate people start using Linux, we will have to ensure that the software to support installing and upgrading packages on the system is user-proof, or other problems will result.
Unless someone can win a Nobell prize or Fields medal for finding a O(1) search, I'm afraid the above article is correct.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
You can get a windows install to never decay:
1) install favorite OS as the host system.
2) install VMWare
3) install windows as a guest OS. Flavor to taste.
4) set the Guest OS drive to non-persistant. Set you home directory to a share form the Host OS.
5) reboot the guest OS as needed. Everytime you reboot, the system is restored from the image stored on the Host OS. Crap does not stay unless you tell it to stay.
or for slightly different purposes, install the OS and tailor it as you like it. Image partition. Reimage the drive when there is too much fluff and bloat hanging around.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
Defrag the disk, then go to sysinternals.com and get the registry defrager and defrag the registry. Does wonders for windows start up time. You can use the same tool to defrag those swap files too.
Not always effective, but it's easier than a full reinstall.
Microsoft used to distribute a registry cleaner which I would also recommend, but for some reason MS pulled it.
Maybe if it was relatively easy. I don't know of a MS kernel mailing list. Besides, if I'm paying more for the damn thing, I would expect it to be a little more stable than the one put together by voulenteers
You just need the right tools... Many people have already mentioned the wonderous tools over at Sysinternals, but no one's mentioned any of the stuff writen by some finish dude named Jouni Vuorio. Over at his site there's a really nice set of power tools with a registry cleaner, powerful file manager, and remote admin capabilities. While this set of tools is curently in beta I've never had a problem on my home Win2K desktop. On the other hand, I won't use beta software on production machines at work so I just use his stand alone RegCleaner which even when set to "Auto clean" and "Extra powerful" has yet to damage the registry on any PC I've used it on. It has even fixed a few PC's which would only boot into safe-mode. They're not open source, but they're definatly free as in beer. Try 'em out, I think you'll be as pleased as I am.
The majority of these comments seems to infer 2 basic things in regard to the article:
1. The user of the machine is either competant or cares about the state of the machine. (ie. comments about how easy it is to keep it clean/organized/know what's going on)
2. Assumes that every computer on the planet has an IT department standing behind it who knows what it's doing.
I take care of hundreds of networks for a living and the last thing I want to do when I get home is to fart around with my own boxes. My boxes are probably at Force +13 on the F*'d up scale, but as long as they work and my data is backed up I don't care. I might have some time in January to set them back up.
The point is, while there are lots of perfect little computer housekeepers here, in my experience, this article hits it right on the Windows Key. Personally I can't believe people have time to type through all the laughing.
If you guys have time could you come over and clean up my mess? I'll leave the door open.
At work I have a Windows 2k box. I don't have admin rights to it, but I have installed as much un-needed stuff as possible. I like lots of little meters and media players on my desktop. And guess what, there is NO cruft in it. If I don't start all those crufty programs, it is almost as good as new. And that's a PII 350, 64MB box.
It is all the experimental programs that the "Power Users" download, that lead to the accelerated decay. Because most tested applications clean up after themselves.
And all those registry-bashing Linux people. God damn, from what I read over at gnome.org, there is some sort of GNOME-registry, which "everyone" agreed was a "good thing". The thing with the Windows registry is all the dumb programmers, IE Creative, who loaded ALL their mixer settings into this, it was a whopping 3 MB! And when the "clean" registry from Microsft was below 1 MB(Win95), then that was a huge degradement. But if you know what you are doing, it is not harder to do some cleanning in the Windows registry than removing unwanted files from a Linux system.
And on top of that, Windows XP comes with a feature called "System restore", which allows you to get back all those settings that worked so well, including the registry. OK, I've only used it once, and it may not be the "best" tool there is, but it is certainly better than nothing.
I have an installation of Windows on my laptop that has been going for a long time (>1.5 years) with no "rot" at all. I have no performance degradation at all. "Why?" you ask. Because I know wtf I am doing. What is wrong with you? When is everyone going to get that it has nothing to do with the OS. It is the user/administrator. Ignorance is no excuse for confusing poor configuration and maintenance with poor design.
As Dark Helmet would say,
"I am surrounded by assholes!"
Typical. Can't anybody admit a defect in Windows with out clamming it's universal or blamming the users.
Universal:
Over the years thies problems have not surfaced in other operating systems.
Users:
Mac Os has the same kind of users as Windows and Linux actually shares the same userbase.
Only a precentage of Linux users don't like 'take over' software..
Also Ms Dos itself never degraded.
Just look at how each defect happends in Windows and how other operating systems work and you'll see thies problems are unique to Windows or at least not normal.
Stop blamming the users for using features Microsoft included.
Stop blamming "the nature of computers"
Put the blame where it belongs....
Poor design...
More over most problems could be fixed easly if Microsoft would just stop making excuses.
I don't actually exist.