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A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053

An anonymous reader writes "Even though the next generation Windows product is not due until late 2005 or even 2006, here is a look at what Microsoft has in store for it's future operating system. 'Without a vast amount of tweaking, this build is a resource hog. At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.'"

758 comments

  1. Why is that obvious? by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

    You don't think Microsoft can figure out 10 more things to implement in the next 2 years to consume any ram they happen to free up through optimization?

    1. Re:Why is that obvious? by shamilton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Chances are the alpha is built in debug mode. Those seem to be rather bulkier, both on disk and in memory.

      --
      "[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
    2. Re:Why is that obvious? by prandal · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Remember the days when the PC magazines all used to review pre-release software, find some bug or other, and say this will be fixed in time for the final release? Except the bugs never were fixed come the final version?

    3. Re:Why is that obvious? by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why is this flamebait?

      Why is it obvious that an OS in two years won't consume 400mb of ram?

      What will the base system Microsoft target contain, in terms of memory?

      Right now 512mb of ram is $100.

      In a year then it might be $50 or $60. Or it might mean a base system will contain 1gb of ram, and everyone will have 64bit CPUs capable of addressing 16gb, or 32gb of ram. We already have desktops today that can address 8gb, and we're only waiting on ram sticks to increase in density.

    4. Re:Why is that obvious? by jackb_guppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People get a grip... Microsofts customer is *NOT* you and me. It is Dell, Gateway, HP and the like.

      They goal is help their customers sell more product. That means give to their customer's customers pretty bright beads and *CAN NOT* work on existing (well slowly at least). This leads to the people buying BIG compters from MS Customers allowing for MS to sell the product twice!!

      Can you say "More profit!"

    5. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      since when is objectivity required on Slashdot?

      Are we really that incapable of listening to other points of view?

    6. Re:Why is that obvious? by Abjifyicious · · Score: 1
      Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

      You don't think Microsoft can figure out 10 more things to implement in the next 2 years to consume any ram they happen to free up through optimization?

      I think the original poster was being sarcastic ;)

    7. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are your claims also true of Linux? I'm sure in a couple of years there's going to be lots of things that Linus can think up to throw into the kernel which will take up half a gig of memory.

      Odds are, that statement would be modded flamebait but yours is anti-Microsoft, therefore it's modded insightful. Nothing wrong with that, it's just the biases of the slashdolts making themselves known.

    8. Re:Why is that obvious? by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How is mine *anti* Microsoft?

      It's a legitimate point, I asked why it was obvious the final release will take less memory?

      I would fully expect all OSes in 2005 to take more than 256mb; possibly even 512mb. Microsoft would just happen to be one of many. If this were a Linux article, I would have asked the same question. I use a Mac, and I *know* how much memory OS X likes, and am under no illusions that 10.5 won't take as much!

    9. Re:Why is that obvious? by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Well, I totally agree with your point, but just as an addendum--after checking one online site, you can order 512mb ddr ram for $70. I got my 512mb sdram for $54 3 years ago. I think it's a safe assumption that prices will be signifigantly lower in 2 years.

    10. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This review was terrible! The reviewer has so much faith that microsoft wouldn't release such a resource hog. I suppose this was the create your own reality review.

    11. Re:Why is that obvious? by Slack3r78 · · Score: 1

      Except we're talking about a prerelease piece of software that's going to have been built with full debug hooks, which add significantly to the memory footprint of an application. For simple "Hello World" programs, debug hooks can be the difference between a 50k binary and a 150k binary. Now expand that out to a full operating system.

      I'm not saying I don't expect Longhorn to have a larger footprint than XP, I just think it's kind of ridiculous to complain about the memory footprint of an alpha build that's likely been compiled with debugging rather than efficiency in mind.

    12. Re:Why is that obvious? by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources

      What is the point of showing these numbers then?

      In other news:
      Apple is working on a ultra-mini iPod. The pre-beta-alpha version we got our hands on weighted 20 pounds and was bigger than my G5. Of course, the final version will be smaller and lighter. One could still wonder where Apple is heading at with such a bulky product.

      Foreword: If you have nothing relevant to say, don't say anything!

    13. Re:Why is that obvious? by CoolGuySteve · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you look at past versions of windows, 500MB for Longhorn isn't really that crazy either. From experience, I'd say you needed about 32MB to be comfortable in Win98, 64MB in WinME, 96-128MB in Win2k, and 192MB in WinXP. 500MB in 2006 just seems like a natural progression. (And by comfortable, I mean being able to run the OS and other things to make it usable like a browser, e-mail app, and whatever else is needed. In reality, much less is needed to get the OS to actually run, it will just run like ass.)

      Of course, after having to manage several GNOME/Mozilla users on a VNC server at work (university departments are poor), I've gotten into the habit of making sure there is at least 256MB per user to prevent running out of swap and taking the machine down completely. So Linux isn't really doing that well in terms of memory usage either.

      Memory usage in current environments is all pretty insane to me anyways though. A harddrive is literally a million times slower than ram for latency. You'd figure operating system and desktop development people would want to use as little swapping as possible as doing so would dramatically improve the responsiveness of the system and, consequentially, the user experience.

      I think I'll just stick with fluxbox.

    14. Re:Why is that obvious? by GuidoJ · · Score: 5, Funny

      What will the base system Microsoft target contain, in terms of memory?

      Bill Gates himself answered this question years ago.

    15. Re:Why is that obvious? by cybpunks3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not necessarily how much memory is used, it's what it's used for.

      Longhorn is going to have an embedded SQL server in its filesystem, right? Well, SQL server uses a lot of RAM. So that's one thing. It will also have .NET "managed" code at the core of the OS. If it's anything like Java, then this also uses a lot of RAM.

      The RAM usage really should be itemized and MS should provide ways to turn off features that people might never use that just eat up RAM in the background.

    16. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Monopolists don't have customers, they have slaves.

    17. Re:Why is that obvious? by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      there's going to be lots of things that Linus can think up to throw into the kernel which will take up half a gig of memory

      Dude, we're not talking Kernel here, but Operating System. Add up all your favorite apps (read: X, KDE/Gnome, Mozilla, etc...) and tell me how much memory you have allocated.

      Don't try to compare two dirrerent things. Memory ahd HDD are becoming more of a commodity these days. Let's be happy and enjoy our new features!

    18. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is mine *anti* Microsoft?

      It's a legitimate point, I asked why it was obvious the final release will take less memory?


      You didn't ask why it was obvious that the final release will take less memory. You asked: "You don't think Microsoft can figure out 10 more things to implement in the next 2 years to consume any ram they happen to free up through optimization?"

      In fact, it's not even a real question -- it's rhetorical. Your statement is most likely true. However, the way it comes across is what makes it flamebait-ish.

    19. Re:Why is that obvious? by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      "We already have desktops today that can address 8gb"

      We do? 32bit systems can address 4GB.
      64bit systems are able to address 128GB.
      What desktop system addresses 8gb?

    20. Re:Why is that obvious? by Quobobo · · Score: 2, Informative

      The PowerMac G5. Technically it should be able to support more than 8GB, but only 8GB is supported by Apple.

    21. Re:Why is that obvious? by de+Selby · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Why is it obvious that an OS in two years won't consume 400mb of ram?"

      Because there's no good reason for it to. It's hard to think of a good reason for it to take 400MB on disk!

      This is just the same kind of bloat that took word processors / desktop publishing from floppies to multi-CD bloat-fests. Yes, things should naturally get a little larger with these windowing systems etc., but not so many orders of magnitude larger (or slower).

      What does XP give me with that > 1GB install that I couldn't otherwise have in less than 100 Meg? I excpect any disassembly of most modern software will find 100MB chunks of NULLs to increase hardware sales. And perhaps there is one copy of each file for each day of the month.

      RAM/HD space is for the data your applications work on, not your OS!

      Even Multics, VMS, and MVS back in the day had kernel features comperable to modern, BeOS had the database FS and it was small and fast, Plan9 is just 64MB and the whole windowing system is TINY, NeXT had DisplayPS way back when and was smaller and faster than modern systems...

      Let's design an OS.

      We'll give it preemptive multitasking w/ hard realtime support, memory protection, ErOS type capability security, sync & async I/O, rethink the API like BeOS, make it multiuser, full-featured shell (before Berkeley [cat should not have flags]), a database filesystem (hell, several lesser FSs too), a DisplayPDF or PS vectored windowing system, give it TCP/IP OpenGL etc., support for filesharing of various types, some initial apps (basic UTF-8 editor, HTML4+CSS browser, image preview)...

      How much space? 'Prolly well under 100 or 200 Meg.

      //end pathetic, illucid rant

    22. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right now 512mb of ram is $100.

      Technically, 512mb is just over half of a bit. That's some pretty expensive RAM...

    23. Re:Why is that obvious? by BiggyP · · Score: 1

      i personally like this one

      "Even though the initial startup is extremely fast, once logged in the system crawls along, taking a seemingly endless amount of time to get everything up and running. This too will definitely improve over development time."

      isn't that just what they did with XP, and XPsp1 more so, get the loading screen out of the way quickly and hand the user a mouse pointer and desktop to play with in order to create the illusion of improved startup times, doesn't matter that the user can't really do anything for 45 - 60 seconds after they get their desktop, as long as it doesn't say loading anywhere.

    24. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Technically, 512mb is just over half of a bit. That's some pretty expensive RAM...

      You may have missed the recent MS press release, but due to the fragility of the Longhorn OS it will be necessary for everyone to install platinum-plated RAM

    25. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Timothy, you're a fucking cock sucker. Asshole.

    26. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some dickhead modded this "over-rated". Please mod this up to compensate. There is *no* necessity for /. to be un-biased. Readers that aren't capable of distinguishing objective facts from subjective opinions shouldn't be allowed on the internet without supervision from their parents.

    27. Re:Why is that obvious? by parkanoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, I haven't noticed any increase in memory footprint between jaguar and panther. It could only be me, but it seems that OSX has gotten smaller, faster and more stable with each release.

    28. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's design an OS.

      We'll give it preemptive multitasking w/ hard realtime support, memory protection...


      Just give it the Linux kernel. Except for supporting features like multitasking that require some interface support, it hardly adds space to add kernel features. It makes "rethink the API like BeOS" more difficult, but what's it at now? 400K, 500K compiled? If space is the problem, Linux isn't.

      And add some OLE/CORBA thingies.

    29. Re:Why is that obvious? by bill_doors · · Score: 1

      But who are Dell,Gateway,HP customers? Are we the last part of the chain? I believe that we can do something to avoid keep being the slaves of the Microsoft whims.... but how? start to use free/open software in a massive way. I have a box with 128 MB and GNU/Linux Debian running... why i have to need pay for a new computer with 512 MB of RAM??? That is not fair... not fair at all!

    30. Re:Why is that obvious? by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      Because it's interesting. It might use 500 megs of ram right now, but how good will it look if it's released and will run smoothly on 256MB machines?

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    31. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who does HP and dell sell to?

    32. Re:Why is that obvious? by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      I'm a fluxbox user too, but I wouldn't dare put it on the computer of any non-techie I know. Non-techies like icons (I hate them), and don't need to screw around with configuring menus. Everything has to be as obvious as possible, and as pretty as possible. We are not the target user for Gnome, KDE, or XP. We're okay with giving up the obviousness in favor of increased system speed and lower memory usage because we don't need to have everything pointed out to us. The average XP user does.

      It's always nice to run across another fluxbox user. That makes... uh... two I know of. Including me. ;)

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    33. Re:Why is that obvious? by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      I FUCKING HATE THAT! Sweet zombie jesus, that pisses me off. I don't have Photoshop on my computer, of course, so I have to use my dad's WinXP box anytime I need Photoshop (first person that says "Gimp" gets punched in the face). If a reboot is neccesary, it takes longer for his computer to get to a USABLE state than my Linux box does. Kind of wrong, when you think about it.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    34. Re:Why is that obvious? by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 1
      The PowerMac G5. Technically it should be able to support more than 8GB, but only 8GB is supported by Apple.

      Well, it would if there was a 64-bit MacOS X, which there's not.

    35. Re:Why is that obvious? by black+mariah · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is so fucking stupid I'm not sure why I'm replying to it, but I think the power of sanity compels me...

      No, it's not hard to think of why it takes up 400MB on disk. Windows isn't a fucking command-line based hardcore sysadmin funtime OS. It is designed to be everything to everyone. There is an old saying you obviously haven't heard that goes something like this "90% of users will only use 10% of an application, but those 90% will each use a DIFFERENT 10%."

      Anyone that pines for the days of VMS should be legally restricted from bitching about current operating systems.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    36. Re:Why is that obvious? by tyrione · · Score: 1

      You've really overly simplified the design choice of system VMs'.

      What is the logic of running VNC for users using GNOME/Mozilla when each system already running GNOME typically gets Moz out-of-the-box?

      Are all your machines using Linux w/ GNOME/Mozilla and you connect to a VNC Server to run MS Office or some other Windows Apps?

      You don't give enough information to draw upon your claim for 256MB per user account and how that pertains to VNC and Linux.

      Offtopic

      The biggest dilemma I've seen is poor code optimization on all platforms which takes a back seat to feature richness.

      At NeXT and now Apple, Avie Tevannian was a stickler for making sure the OS runs on the slowest boxes consumers still purchased and actually run well. As the scale moved up the chipset performance specs the OS responsiveness only improved. There will always be a need for serious SQA Test Harness implementations as well as a sweet spot between system functionality and system performance.

      Linux 2.6 is much more enjoyable to work with than 2.4 and it only gets snappier with each patch version.

      Throwing out the device driver argument since closed drivers on any platform are solely responsible in coordinating with the OS Vendor to make sure it properly interfaces with the OS System Low Level APIs. Take OS X's I/O Kit as an example.

      I see the main crux of RAM increases dealing with the meta data that Filesystems will need with either Longhorn, Linux 2.7.x or OS X, let alone FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.. There will have to be advancements in VMs because to expect everyone just to purchase 2, 4, 8 or 16 Gigs of RAM for the OS and its necessary applications is assinine. For Servers that makes sense, or Developer system working with BLOBS, etc., but not for a consumer desktop system.

    37. Re:Why is that obvious? by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Honestly if by the year 2007 you don't have a computer with 4gigs of ram then you're just lame, regardless if you use Linux or Windows.

      --
      Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
    38. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about a 64 bit system you pedantic bastard?

    39. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Gimp 2.0"

    40. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Gimp." It fucking sucks.

    41. Re:Why is that obvious? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      That's just the number of DIMM slots multiplied by the largest stick you can get. 4 DIMMs * 2GB/DIMM = 8GB. Just like how my Athlon XP system only supports 3GB of memory, as it has 3 DIMM slots that can handle DIMMs up to 1GB. Technically, the processer can handle 4GB but I'd have to find another board.

    42. Re:Why is that obvious? by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      *punches you in the face*

      I have been meaning to try Gimp 2, but haven't got around to it. I hear there's quite a few improvements.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    43. Re:Why is that obvious? by Jediman1138 · · Score: 0
      Microsofts customer is *NOT* you and me. It is Dell, Gateway, HP and the like.

      I am Michael Dell, you insensitive clod!

      --

      nothing.can.stop.me.now

    44. Re:Why is that obvious? by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 1

      A G5 has 8 slots, so you could populate it, when 2gb dimms appear, with 16gb of ram.

    45. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The proposal wasn't command-line based. It was for a DisplayPDF windowing system. This adds more fat and functionality than any Windows before Longhorn or MacOS before X.

      It looks like the attempt was made to add almost everything a home user would need. What is missing? Name something.

    46. Re:Why is that obvious? by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 1

      Uh, 8gb is already well past 32bits, regardless of 64bit OS X or not.

      And 16gb will be hit just as handily, I think.

    47. Re:Why is that obvious? by Technetium+Web · · Score: 1

      "This too will definitely improve over development time." hmmn... sounds AWFULLLYYY familiar from M$ eh? Like "we will have better ram managenet, over time to stop crashes" and the countless other claims. ~buys dual AMD64 3ghz processors, 1.5g DDR ram, radeon 128m agp 8x card and then STILL gets lagged by that NASTY lookin GUI!~

      --
      www.TECHNETIUM.net.au
    48. Re:Why is that obvious? by Squozen · · Score: 1

      I'm fairly sure that somebody has filled one with 8 2Gb DIMMs for a 16Gb system, and it worked.

    49. Re:Why is that obvious? by SphericalCrusher · · Score: 1

      Haha. My bet is that Microsoft might actually make and bundle RAM with the OS.

      The layout seems to be really slick, but with proper use of StyleXP, you can make Windows XP look the same in a matter of seconds. Also, even though I actually like the layout of Longhorn so far, I hope they have a large selection of more to choose from -- because that will get old really fast.

      With the addition of the WinFP, maybe it won't be as bad as the rest. Windows XP was actually a pretty good OS... exclude the bugs and holes. (Okay, so maybe I lied.) Maybe Microsoft can put a stop to that before Longhorn's release? Probably not; but good luck to them anyway.

      *Boots up Debian 3.0 box*

      --
      "Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
    50. Re:Why is that obvious? by CoolGuySteve · · Score: 1

      I didn't give enough detail. We have old pentium 1 systems with nothing but X running with vncviewer as the login program. Most of our users use the default RedHat GNOME + Mozilla setup and that's what eats up about 256MB. Users can also VNC into these systems from home.

      It's mostly just fancy xhosting except that xhost has become a dirty word because of some Sun equipment that they had before I worked there.

      Anwyays, we can save costs this way since one new $500 machine has enough power to serve several desktops. Eventually, the older pentium systems get phased out and I guess the machines that we buy now will become VNC clients or whatever the equivalent of the day will be.

    51. Re:Why is that obvious? by Pieroxy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Dude, it's going to be released not before 2 years! The thing you are reviewing is in debug mode and probably has very little to do with what Longhorn will finally be. Forget what you see, this is just not Longhorn! You are reviewing a product that is nothing, will never be released close to the form you are reviewing it, so I am asking: What is the point?

      how good will it look
      Nobody knows for one good reason: Nobody can predict the future. Let's review it when MS says it is good to be reviewed.

    52. Re:Why is that obvious? by de+Selby · · Score: 1

      I don't want a command-line based sysadmin OS. I want an easy GUI with all the latest features targeted to average home users.

      I've heard the "90% of users" idea. I assume it to be true and take it into consideration. That's why I didn't say it could be done in less than 64MB.

      Windows95 can be less than 64MB with almost no loss in functionality if any, but I'm shooting for a lot more than that. I'm trying to match what users are doing now and what Longhorn is trying in this build.

      (And I don't pine for VMS. I only said that old mainframe OS's implemented modern advanced core features in a small fraction on the size.)

      VMS along with BeOS, NeXT, Plan9, Multics, etc. each demonstrate their respective modern "bloat" features (such as modern kernel features (SMP, virtual memory, hot swapping), vector-based device independent gui, almost overuse of exception handling and error checking/recovery, advanced database filesystems, rich set of media and codec libraries, numurous sets of useful API's, fully-featured networking, advanced security, etc.) all while staying quite small and fast.

      If you put all the fattest and most useful parts of these OS's together, you end up with something still relatively small--and you'll be asking yourself, "What has XP/Longhorn got that I haven't got?"

      Give it all the help and tools you can think of, some cool eye candy in the windowing system, a scripting language, add some encryption or online transaction support, compression built in... you're pushing 200MB or 300MB on disk, depending on how you go about it. (Maybe 400MB if you're reeeaallly lax about it: a lot of duplication, too much wrapping, unused legacy code, suboptimal implementation, go with your first write or little code cleanup / refactoring, etc.)

      It's hard to imagine it getting any bigger just for the OS. What is this missing? What has Microsoft added that this doesn't have? What more could Longhorn possibly have that must stay in memory?

    53. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know that when someone says "a DisplayPDF or PS vectored windowing system" they mean a GUI that works like Mac OS X and not some ancient CLI, right?

      But I'm on your side. I doubt Microsoft would add gigs that did nothing. Let's all reason that these bits are needed to create features and these features are used by people.

      -- portman, grits, beowulf --

    54. Re:Why is that obvious? by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 1
      It's not the money. It's the fact that all that RAM is used by the OS. IF it is used by the OS, that means it costs processing cycles. Lots of them. That means processing power is moved from applications to the OS. Isn't that the wrong way around?

      I have written several applications that really need speed (for instance, complex evolutionary learning stuff). I have one here that I wrote originally for Windows 3.1. When I moved to Windows 95, recompiling for 32 bits, I got a speed increase of about 400%. That is mainly because Windows 3.1 was so incredibly badly written. However, after that, every time I moved to later Windows versions I got serious speed decreases.

      Comparing the 486DX33 I used for my earliest experiments and the P4/2.4GHz I've got now, I should have had a speed increase of something like 10,000%. The actual speed increase is about 500%. All the rest of that processing power is taken over by the OS. I ask you again, isn't this the wrong way around?

    55. Re:Why is that obvious? by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 1

      He was just three orders of magnitude out. "K" is near "M" in a keyboard, so when he was typing his speech he hit the wrong letter.

      --
      When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
    56. Re:Why is that obvious? by rixstep · · Score: 1

      IMHO it is more than that, and I have been watching these clowns for a long time.

      A. Coding quality at Microsoft is abysmal. 'When it gets too slow, we just throw more hardware at it.' That's a direct quote from a Microsoft employee. That's the way things are done there. No one ever allocates time to clean code, but if you want to add a new wiz-bang feature, no matter how dumb it is, you get an immediate go-ahead.

      B. Things do not improve over time. I don't care if it's a debug build or not. Things are never that bad if it's coded well in the first place. In fact, the entire production model is screwed. It goes against everything Fred Brooks tried to teach people. If Fred Brooks had been asked to lead the Longhorn project, he would have gone fishing instead, or asked Dave Cutler to help in the pit stop with the latter's Microsoft-sponsored race cars.

      C. Microsoft will insist to the very end that their latest Belgian Blue will run faster on less hardware than people are using today. They have to: this is marketing. When Windows 95 was getting ready to stumble out the door, Ballmer insisted, time and again, that it would run FAST on 4 MB RAM. When they finally unveiled it, all the OEMs set up their machines with precisely 4 MB RAM, and it could take ten seconds real time to minimise a window.

      D. Now OEMs will beef up their models. When people have been hyped for so long, they're hooked. Now you got 'em.

      E. The pathetic programming quality in Redmond is a bonus to Microsoft and everyone. It's known to be bad, and things work best if it is bad. Yes, everyone profits. It's a scam. What's interesting is that people never catch on.

    57. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean we would have to buy load of 30-pin RAM to upgrade those 386 machines we currently have running Linux from 8MB to 512MB before 2006?

    58. Re:Why is that obvious? by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 1

      I'm not disagreeing with you, but that wasn't my point : )

      Faster PCs should yield faster results, in proportion with technology.

      However, and this was my point, I don't see why anyone would expect final ram usage to go down.

      Ideally this means *useful* things will be implemented.

      Those who saw my question as anti Microsoft think I'm being sarcastic.

      I own a Mac, and really, Apple does implement useful things, at the expense of ram. Expose, built in spell check, Rendezvous networking, UI animations, real 3d acceleration, real wysiwyg, etc.

      If 10.4 beta has clocked in as consuming 400mb, I actually *would* expect it to go down in size, that or Apple would keep implementing *useful* things to take advantage of increased base memory configurations.

    59. Re:Why is that obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thats a myth. he never said that. (i assume your referring to the 640k thing)

    60. Re:Why is that obvious? by BiggyP · · Score: 1

      well, why not The GIMP? GIMP2 delivers some UI changes to make it more Photo$hop user friendly, but beyond that there really isn't much that immediately makes it better than the 1.2 series that the GIMP community at large have been using for years now without problems. (there are obviously lots more changes, but if you don't know GIMP you probably wont care)

      as for linux vs. XP startup times, not wrong at all, and when i first started using linux win9x startup would often take longer than RH5.2, ok, granted it was most likely win9x in a very bad state, but still.

  2. Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are you so sure it wouldn't, Microsoft was never one for making a small package, and Longhorn is meant to be run on machines of 2006, where there is much more RAM in the the system.

    1. Re:Resources by Karamchand · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually the amount of RAM put in consumer-level machines hasn't increased that much. It is quite common to see a P4 with 2.4Ghz and only 256MB RAM in the stores. And this amount has been quite stable (more or less) over the past few years.

      So the 2006 consumer-machines might habe 512MB of RAM. But if 483 are needed just for Windows not much is left..

    2. Re:Resources by tunah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think this is backwards. If windows needs 480MB of ram, then consumer machines will have 768 or 1024.

      --
      Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
    3. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't Bill Gates say the OS would need 3 GB of RAM, and a bunch of storage, several times what is common today. (Recently, I purchased a Dell, with 120 GB HDD, and a Gig of RAM.)
      I have 128 MB on this 200 MMX I'm on now, with Damn Small Linux 0.5.3.1, and it is using about 26% of the RAM now, with Opera 6.12, and Wvdial.
      What a change Longhorn will require!

    4. Re:Resources by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In the past few years they were shipping Windows XP.
      Before that they were shipping windows 98 with 128 Megs of Ram.
      Before that they were shipping Windows 95 with 64 Megs of Ram.
      Before that was Windows 3.1 with 16 megs of Ram.
      Then there was dos with 640k of ram. Because that is all you needed.

      so right now without any optimization 483 megs are needed for the OS this probably includes a lot of debugging stuff and some features that will be removed in the final version. So after all that is done it will probably be about 256megs of Ram. Just to get it to run and 512 for it run ok and 1 gig for the optimum performance. You should not fear this just accept it. When people buy windows they rairly buy it at compusa, but with a new computer. That way the cost of the OS and the extra memory is absorbed in the cost of the computer.
      But I bet Microsoft is getting one step further in giving us what they promised us in Windows 95.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:Resources by TechniMyoko · · Score: 0

      he said years ago his statement was taken out of context

    6. Re:Resources by macmaxbh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When my sister went to college (she's a sophomore now) , she bought the several-thousand dollar IBM Thinkpad offered and supported by the school. It was a well-outfitted machine (Office, NAV, Pentium 3 Mobile, CD-RW drive, Windows XP Professional, etc.) and a whopping *128*MB of RAM. I would have expected that much from a cheapo $1000 laptop, but not the school-sponsered computer.
      When she ran Windows XP, Internet Explorer, Mulberry (mail), Photoshop, Word, and several other programs at the same time, needless to say, it was slower then molasses.
      I guess that if nothing else, this will get computer manufacturers to offer more RAM in their computers when they find 128MB, or even 256MB, won't cut it anymore.

    7. Re:Resources by shamilton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did you invent those numbers? 3.1 ran nicely with 4 MB. 95 was good with 16 MB. 98 was good with 32. XP is tolerable with 128.

      --
      "[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
    8. Re:Resources by leifm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      256MB is perfectly adequate for just about everything. I got my Inspiron with just 256 because Dell charges a ridiculous amount for extra RAM. The only time I feel like I need to push it to 512 or more is when I have a number of development things running.

      --

      "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
    9. Re:Resources by leifm · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I'm with you. My 95 machine came with 16, ran just dandy. I bumped it to 48MB which was fine for 98. 128 and XP is a bit painful, but can be done. XP with 256 is fine for day to day stuff. I figure Longhorn will be best at 512, doable with 256.

      --

      "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
    10. Re:Resources by Sinus0idal · · Score: 1

      Oh and the DOS 640k was never the amount of RAM the system had... it was the maximum amount of conventional memory DOS allowed.

    11. Re:Resources by ProppaT · · Score: 1

      I was about to say...rich bastard. I was pimpin' 3.1 on 4mb of RAM. Eventually upgraded to 8MB of RAM, which set me back about $200...as did that 4x Sun Moon cd-drive upgrade. But, heck, back when you only had a 1gb hd, you had to have a 4x drive. It's not like you could install a cd's worth of information on your computer. That would be INSANE!

      --
      Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
    12. Re:Resources by Roydd+McWilson · · Score: 2, Informative

      You seem to have skipped NT4 and 2k. You should have 3.1 --> 4MB, '95 --> 16MB, NT4 --> 64MB, '98 --> 32MB, 2k --> 128MB.

      --
      THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
    13. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tolerable? It's only tolerable if your common applications are notepad and solitaire. Obviously you haven't tried running IE, Outlook Express and Word at the same time on 128mb. Those are the three applications that most normal users use, and they run like barely and not always for long with 128 mb. God forbid you have winamp, trillian or antivirus running and you try to type a paper with internet references.

    14. Re:Resources by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, if the resources are needed, then computer manufacturers will have to put it in. Being able to stuff a machine with RAM isn't hard, it just costs money. I have three systems that will take 4GB of RAM, it simply isn't necessary, I rarely use more than 300MB at any one time.

    15. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you invent those numbers? 3.1 ran nicely with

      Read the post again. He's talking about how much RAM was in average computers at the time, not how much was needed by the OS.

    16. Re:Resources by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      Perhaps that's true where you are, but I see a lot of consumer-level machines advertised here in the UK with 512meg of RAM. The one I bought my girlfriend at the end of 2002, for example, came with that much as standard, and it was by no means an exception.

      As someone else has pointed out, if the next version of Windows requires 512 meg of RAM, then consumer-level machines will have at least that much. No PC manufacturer is going to ship a PC that just plain doesn't work, runs unacceptably slowly, or doesn't have the latest version of Windows preinstalled.

    17. Re:Resources by DrJay · · Score: 1

      I wasn't aware that 3.1 ran nicely under any circumstances. I was using nothing but Macs when i came in contact with it and couldn't believe anyone could find that interface tolerable.

      JT

      --
      ______ This mind intentionally left blank.
    18. Re:Resources by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 1

      Believe it or not, from time to time I come across some discussion where someone posts how much he misses program manager from win3.1.

    19. Re:Resources by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 1

      XP is best with 512 or higher, and "okay" with less. I imagine longhorn will run best with a gig or more. Memory is still pretty cheap so it won't be a big deal.

    20. Re:Resources by Vaystrem · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I beta tested Windows 98 (dangerous to admit that here) and would just like to point out that the beta version ran better and used less memory than the final did because the Final had more features than the beta did, and I'm sure for other reasons as well.

      So the submitter's comment that "Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources" isn't necessarily true.

    21. Re:Resources by gabebear · · Score: 1
      I keep seeing the Dell comercials for the $499 with the "free" memory upgrade. Evidently they are shipping the system with a default of 128MB and doubling that for free. I guess they are trying to get rid of a bunch of 128MB modules.

      And, yes, they do sell this same system without the special with only 128MB of RAM and still put Windows XP on it.

    22. Re:Resources by Solosoft · · Score: 1

      Linux isn't too hard on my machine. Although the specs are somewhat wierd :/

      Solosoft
      --------

      1 Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz oc'd 233MHz 256k L2 Cache
      128mb EDO SIMMS
      nVidia GeForce 2MX (32mb) PCI
      AWE64 ISA

      Even with these old stats it runs perfectly fine. I even installed KDE and it was plenty quick. It only touches about 40mb of RAM but it's mostly just X. The HDD hardly swaps, but when it does my my it does.
      I can hardly move the mouse, this is rare tho ...

    23. Re:Resources by vectra14 · · Score: 1

      different OS'es for different tasks:
      winCE.net (4.2):
      smallest possible: ~500 kb (yes, KILOBYTES)
      largest possible: ~32 megs

      oh, and the 32meg build is probably everything quite a few people ever use... including IE, minesweeper, office (well, word...), etc

      in other news, this article is completely useless. thanks.

      -sergei

    24. Re:Resources by spells · · Score: 1

      \windows\system32\progman.exe
      Tell them it's still there :) (I'm pretty sure this PC is a fresh install of XP, but not positive)

    25. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's still wrong. WIn95 was sold with 8-16 meg machines.

    26. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      When people buy windows they rairly buy it at compusa, but with a new computer. That way the cost of the OS and the extra memory is absorbed in the cost of the computer.

      Tell that to large corporations who will have to upgrade everything.

    27. Re:Resources by red+floyd · · Score: 1

      Hey, my NT4 Server box said "Minimum Requirements: 16MB, 33MHz CPU!

      --
      The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
    28. Re:Resources by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

      No, they'll have 512, but you'll be able to upgrade your RAM to 1024 or so for about twice what it would cost if you priced the RAM yourself using pricewatch.

      I bought a WinXP laptop last month that came with 256MB of RAM (64mb of which went to video, leaving me with 192MB of actual RAM left over for the system) and guess how much the out of the box WinXP Home wanted to use? About 160MB! Enough so that if I launched more than 1-2 IE windows, I was already eating swap file. The laptop was SLOW, because it has a laptop's hard drive (either 4200rpm or 5400rpm, I'm not sure which to be honest) and the latency was killing the user experience.

      I went and pared down the system to turn off all the eye candy bullshit, and I'm still using around 120-125 MB when idling, which isn't so bad. But having just 64 MB left for apps is ass, so I went and bought a 512MB SODIMM from Crucial (the "luxury" subsidiary brand of Micron).

      I paid $84 for that, when HP wanted over $120 for a 256MB SODIMM... and I happen to know that HP uses Micron RAM in their laptops! HP support couldn't even tell me a part number to order if I wanted a 512MB upgrade through them, so going direct through Crucial was more than a no-brainer in this case... it was, ah, "Essential!"

      Now I have a spacious 768MB of RAM which has enabled me to turn off the VM swap file altogether, which in theory should let the hard drive spin down more often, and conserve my battery life some, as well as save wear and tear on the HDD.

      Once I get it to dual boot Debian, I'll be really happy with my available memory indeed, and my gf will be able to use her limited user account on the XP install if she happens to need to use the laptop for some reason.

      But yeah, in conclusion, OEMs love to ship systems with barely enough RAM to run just the OS, and then charge out the wazoo for a decent RAM upgrade.

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    29. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      OH. MY. GOD.

      I can't believe it's still there.

      And it doesn't even handle right clicks, just like the original! Ahh, sweet sweet nostalgia.

      Also, it makes me appreciate the start menu a lot more.

    30. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then don't use those memory hoggers.

    31. Re:Resources by Vancorps · · Score: 2, Informative

      As someone who beta tested 98/2k/and XP I can say that that is not the trend, but I would probably add that 98 was never unstable for me. I was most impressed with an early beta of 98 because of that fact. 98 didn't start using more resources until they upgraded IE, if you don't do that then it will run the same resources as it did about a year before its release. 2k and XP definitely improved themselves also XP wasn't beta for that long. Memory management is one area Microsoft managed to improve dramatically which is why I was able to install Longhorn on a thinkpad with 256 megs of ram. It ran okay for a few minutes just paging, then it started to slow down as explorer ramped up to operating capacity.

    32. Re:Resources by lewp · · Score: 5, Funny

      The fact that you use Outlook Express makes you evil. Your computer is running slowly to punish you.

      --
      Game... blouses.
    33. Re:Resources by technos · · Score: 1

      And this is correct, too. NT4 will run in 16M. I remember running NT4 Workstation on a 486-33 with 24M of memory and thinking it pretty usable.

      --
      .sig: Now legally binding!
    34. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, I need your version of XP... my system ran like a slug until it gained 512 Mb of ram.

    35. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I beta tested Windows 98 (dangerous to admit that here) and would just like to point out that the beta version ran better and used less memory than the final did because the Final had more features than the beta did, and I'm sure for other reasons as well.

      Actually, it's the opposite, with both 98 and 95. The betas were much slower, and Microsoft ripped out a lot of features, resulting in a faster base install, and an extra product, the Plus packs, that were sold for extra money.

      But I have to echo everyone else here: these are betas with a lot more debugging and asserts in place than will be in the final version. Remember: premature optimisation is the root of all evil.

    36. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, even though this is getting off-topic, I heartily concur that the 98 beta was much much better than the final product. I ran that several years, and had very few problems. A fried of mine though, had 98SE, and he was pretty much screwed.

    37. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My flatmate put XP on his 96MB K6 system, against my advice (what the HELL is up with people who ask for advice, and then ignore it?). It... um... works. 90% of the time is spent spinning the hard disk, but it works.

    38. Re:Resources by sootman · · Score: 1

      It's worse than that. Go to dell or compaq and look at the base systems--most have 128 MB shared memory, which technically puts it below the 128 MB minimum MS says is minimum for XP. I just worked on a new Compaq today, XP and 128 MB (shared; windows showed 120 MB) and all the OEM crapware, and it was painful. I told her she'd need RAM and went right out and bought it. The upside: 512 MB for $90.

      FWIW, base eMacs come with OS X and 128 MB also. Not shared, and a bit more tolderable, but not by much. 256 MB is acceptable, 512 is fine for most.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    39. Re:Resources by leifm · · Score: 1

      First real machine I ever used, this is discounting the Tandy my Dad bought, was a Mac LC. 16Mhz, 4MB RAM, 40MB HD. I had ircle, Netscape 1.2, Eudora Light all in that tight little space. Now I use basically the same shit most times, and I need a hell of a lot more.

      --

      "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
    40. Re:Resources by leifm · · Score: 1

      That depends. Mozilla + Thunderbird, which is my always on stuff is fine with 256 on XP Home. Throw in JDeveloper + mySQL + Tomcat or something and it gets swappy, which doesn't happen at work with 512 on my box.

      --

      "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
    41. Re:Resources by CPlusPlusOwnsYou · · Score: 0

      Most people i know have 1gig of ram whether its the gamers, software developers or computer graphics/animation peeps that need it for rendering. 512mb was good last year. 1gb is good now. I'll probably need 2gb next year.

      --
      "Software is like sex: it's better when it's free."
    42. Re:Resources by demon · · Score: 1

      It's still there because older installers still use it as a way to install the icons for the apps they install. It's messy. I think the old Windows File Manager is still there too.

      --

      Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
      Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
    43. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      by Vaystrem (761)
      Three-digit user ID... enlighten me, o holy messiah! I bow before your infinite wisdom.
      I beta tested Windows 98...
      Death to the infidel!!!

      Slashdot can be so confusing. Someone tell me what to think and make it snappy, dammit.
    44. Re:Resources by Roydd+McWilson · · Score: 1

      That's interesting, because on my 486DX2-66, I seem to remember it swapped a lot with less than 64MB of RAM. But then again, maybe I was using it to run Visual C++ (figures for 9x and 3.1 were sufficient for running Borland C++).

      --
      THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
    45. Re:Resources by Scooby+Snacks · · Score: 1

      Actually, MS says 64MB minimum for XP, with 128MB recommended. (Yes, those are the actual specs for both Home and Pro.)

      --

      --
      Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
    46. Re:Resources by richie2000 · · Score: 1
      I think the old Windows File Manager is still there too.

      Sadly, no. I went away with Win2k. However, I have a copy of FILEMAN.EXE from an NT4 box that I still install on my XP boxes, just 'cause I'm used to it. :-)

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    47. Re:Resources by MajorDick · · Score: 1

      Oddly enough youre right, beta testing Win 95 back in late 93 I found the same thing was true, the beta was more stable than the release.

    48. Re:Resources by NeMon'ess · · Score: 1

      so why'd you buy a dell and not another company like ABS?

    49. Re:Resources by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Well, that doesn't make sense to me at least, considering prerelease software usually contain lots of debug code. How else would they be able to debug it?

      Also, you're using your experiences with a beta to talk about an alpha. Alpha's are even more "add new features without caring for performance and even bugs" than betas.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    50. Re:Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see a trend here.
      Nice, good, tolerable. Next logical step?
      "Longhorn, well it runs with 512."

      But hey, we're talking about something that is very early. IMHO, the only thing it's good for ATM, is previews (what MIGHT be in store for us when it's released) and chatter. Rumours, Speculation, and keeping 12 year old kids locked in their basement making screenshots of unexplainable "features" they "found" in their "legally obtained" copy of an unreleased product.
      Then again, I run Linux, so what do I care how much RAM the new OS will take?

    51. Re:Resources by leshert · · Score: 1

      You might want to actually benchmark things before you turn off VM swap.

      (Quite) a few years ago, I got a then-massive RAM upgrade and did precisely what you did. I did some benchmarking, and found out that turning off swap actually _hurt_ performance (not by much, about 10% or so for the tasks I tested).

      The reason was that if the OS swaps out little-used processes, it has more room to eat up the RAM for file caching (probably the real reason XP wants 125MB while idling... the more you have, the more it takes. Linux does this, too).

      This was, as I said, quite a few years ago (how long? Well, the 'beefy memory upgrade' was to 32MB, when most of the world was still at 8 or 12). But premature optimization is still the root of all evil.

      [Incidentally, I went from 256MB to 512MB on my laptop... XP only ate 40MB more than it did with 256MB, but I definitely have sped up cache-friendly file operations like compiling...]

    52. Re:Resources by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

      It doesn't seem to hurt my system's performance any to have the swap file turned off in XP, though I can't say I've really pushed the hardware all that hard yet.

      I'm really less concerned with the system's raw speed as I am its battery life, which I figure will tend to be longer if it doesn't need to have the hard drive spinning all the time for VM swapping.

      For browsing, email, and office productivity apps it seems to be just fine, and every bit as responsive as before I turned off the swap file. I had to do a lot of tweaking before I got the system nice and comfy, with only the stuff running on it that I really wanted running, but once I did that I found that it was not too bad, for Windows.

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    53. Re:Resources by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      3.1 ran nicely with 4 MB. 95 was good with 16 MB. 98 was good with 32. XP is tolerable with 128.

      Well, for one thing, you left out ME which probably required 64, and XP is really more based on the old NT line.

      NT 4 needed 32 min, but 64 was realistic. Win2000 needed 64 min, but 128 was a more realistic minimum (256 preferred). WinXP ups the ante again (a fresh laptop install weighs in at 160Mb in use), so 256 is a realistic minimum while 512Mb is preferred.

      Personally, my preference is 384Mb for Win2000 and 768Mb for WinXP. (With a dozen different apps open at the moment, I'm at 635Mb used out of 768Mb.) 512Mb is the minimum amount of memory that we'll order new business machines with, and that will probably creep up to 1Gb by year-end if memory prices drop a bit more.

      Heck, anytime someone asks me about buying a particular machine, I have them trade down to the next slower CPU and double-up on memory instead. Makes the machine much more stable/responsive and adds another year or two to the machine's useful lifespan.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    54. Re:Resources by syrynxx · · Score: 1

      Most end-users of the "Mom" skill level are incapable of physically replacing/upgrading memory in a home computer at any price. And then in corporations - add the cost of a desktop technician visit. Easily $100 on top of the memory itself. So it's unfair just to list the cost of a bare memory module as the net $$ cost of the upgrade.

  3. uhh by Naksu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the big news is, an alpha version of an operating system from an OS family known to eat lots of memory, actually eats lots of memory?

    1. Re:uhh by FlipmodePlaya · · Score: 0, Insightful

      I know you never mentioned Linux, weren't bashing MS, etc. I'd still like to point out that Windows isn't the only OS that has turned into a RAM hog... When I have no programs open (nothing but system background processes running), my Linux box will take something like 300MB of RAM. That's with Gnome, too, which is supposedly more light weight than KDE...

    2. Re:uhh by BlueCup · · Score: 3, Funny

      Good god what on earth have you done? I run Mandrake 9.1 with Gnome on 128! Looks to me like you've gotta have something needlessly running.

      --
      WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
    3. Re:uhh by marquis_de_Carabas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Is that real memory usage, or with the cache added in?

    4. Re:uhh by niko9 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think the point is, you don't have a choice of not using the bloated Windows interface. You choose to use Gnome; that's just fine.

      I choose to use blackbox:

      total used free shared buffers cached
      Mem: 1033236 475028 558208 0 32748 394020
      -/+ buffers/cache: 48260 984976
      Swap: 514040 0 514040

    5. Re:uhh by The+Axe · · Score: 2, Informative

      You must factor in the amount of cached used. Linux likes to store as much in cache as possible, but will quickly give it up for an application that needs it. Also, sometimes top inaccurately reports memory usage concerning shared libs - several apps may be using the same lib which might take 10MB, and they all will be reported as using up at least 10MB.

    6. Re:uhh by Micah · · Score: 4, Informative

      Linux does NOT take that much RAM. Not even close. I'm guessing you're looking at the total memory usage, including cache. Linux aggressively uses free RAM as disk cache, so it will usually appear that most of your RAM is in use.

      I have run Kernel 2.6.2 on a 486 with 16MB RAM. It wasn't doing a lot, mind you, but it had a few megs free. (It was NOT running X.)

    7. Re:uhh by maelstrom · · Score: 4, Informative

      Its not always a bad thing to have memory in use. In fact, Linux aggressively tries to make use of every piece of memory it can. If you haven't used an application for awhile it will page it into swap and reclaim some RAM for the file cache or other programs.

      The other thing to be careful of is top and other memory reporting utilities report X as taking up far more RAM than it actually uses. This is because X mmaps your video card memory. So if you had 128 megs of video RAM, your X would look pretty huge.

      --
      The more you know, the less you understand.
    8. Re:uhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're probabling looking at the memory consuption in something like "top". Frankly, top and friends doesn't know shit about memory. Long story short, it doesn't matter if you have 0.1 or 32GB of memory, all of it will be used by disk caching if nothing else in Linux. X might be reported to "use" 500MB in a 512MB system, but start up open office and it doesn't start any slower than does after a fresh boot. The question to ask regarding memory efficiency is simply is the computer swapping/acting slow?

    9. Re:uhh by readams · · Score: 1

      On my system running GNOME built from CVS HEAD, with a number of foreground processes running, including galeon, evolution, and a build process for gnome, I'm using only 181 MB of RAM.

    10. Re:uhh by Welsh+Dwarf · · Score: 1

      just for the record, my KDE 3.2 (Ohh the memory hog) + applications + servers = 112M, You're defiantly including disk cache in your estimate

      --
      Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
    11. Re:uhh by CodeSniper · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "I'd still like to point out that Windows isn't the only OS that has turned into a RAM hog" right... With each release, windows has grown more and more bloated. When I installed sp1 over xp a while ago, i thought it had broken my xp install because it was taking over 30 seconds more to load on my p4. And that was just a service pack, imagine what the next version will bring.

    12. Re:uhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh, and they say that slashdot is opensource/freesoftware zealots site. I can't believe this since that post seems like one from a guy who doesn't even know how to read output of free command, and is still modded up to 5 insightfull. Also posts that try to correct his statemets are not visible in default browsing mode. Go figure...

      I use KDE 3.1.3 on Mandrake 9.2 and my memory usage is ~110MB

    13. Re:uhh by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Let's not forget other little details like the X server looking like it's consuming huge amounts of memory (it usually IS, but not as huge as it appears) because it maps all of display memory...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    14. Re:uhh by name773 · · Score: 0

      yeah, i run a mail server (qmail) on a 100mhz machine with 16mb of edo ram, and the uptime is currently 74 days, running slack 9.1 (2.4.23). then my mom asks, "why don't you use windows?"

    15. Re:uhh by Yartrebo · · Score: 1

      My computer, which is running GNU/Linux Mandrake 9.1, takes 40MB of RAM idling out of my 128 MB. I'm running KDE with plenty of eye-candy enabled.

      It's rare that I use up the full amount of RAM.

    16. Re:uhh by RogerWilco · · Score: 1

      At my last employer we had an embedded linux 2.4 system (the SSV TRM/816) that had 4 Mb rom and 16 Mb RAM of wich we used 4 as a ramdrive. We even had a graphical user interface with STL (iirc). It reminded me what a powerfull system 486DX4-100 already is.
      My mailserver/firewall/router is a 486DX-33/8Mb running 2.2
      The company's server was a P100/32Mb running qmail/CVS/MySQL/Samba/Webadmin on a 20 Gb harddisk the bios didn't understand. This was the main server for a software shop of about 17 deveopers. We had custom applications for calendar/appointment/projectmanagement/billing/CRM /etc all running on the MySQL.

      Linux is awesome as it can be usefull without X.

      Adriaan Renting

      --
      RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
    17. Re:uhh by thinkninja · · Score: 1
      gnome 2.4 (free -m):
      -/+ buffers/cache: 432 579 (used / free)
      Now, that's a lot no matter how you cut it. Looks really nice, though :)

      XFree86 counts memory on vidcard according to another poster. So, minus 128m from used (maybe). The other memory hogs are firefox (56m) and mlnet (87m, I think). Anyway, it's not all gnome.
      --
      "The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
    18. Re:uhh by HoppQ · · Score: 3, Funny
      So if you had 128 megs of video RAM, your X would look pretty huge.


      You know, I did try that, but the girl still wasn't impressed with the size of my X. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I should try those pills those kind people advertise by email.

      --
      My sig will be released in 2015 third quarter. Rating pending.
    19. Re:uhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how do you know that this version of Windows doesn't include a similar feature which makes it appear to use up more RAM than it is actually doing? Whatever works for Linux can work for Windows too. Although often it doesn't but thats another story...

    20. Re:uhh by Malc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To be honest, I find these arguments about how much memory Linux uses compared with Windows to be rather pointless. Windows XP can run in a very low-end low memory environment too. In this case, as Windows XP Embedded. Most people refer to Windows' resource requirements only when it's running as a fully-featured desktop OS. To compare that with Linux would require installed KDE, etc... and we all know what the result will be. The major difference of course is that end-users don't have as much choice to customise Windows for their hardware.

      The other thing many people don't know about Windows is how to tune its system cache. It too can be configured to be very aggressive - try changing it's settings to maximise throughput for file sharing, and watch all your free memory disappear.

    21. Re:uhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux does not take this much ram to run a stripped down router, or perhaps even a dedicated webserver. However, "Linux", or "Linux plus all the programs I need to run to make it act how I want", when run at a level where it presents most of the functionality of windows, totally can expect this much memory. Once you've got a gnome system or a kde sytem or both running, you're talking about a couple hundred megs of ram consumed between the kde framework(kdeinit, kded, famd, etc...) or the gnome framework(beats me.) and X, and possibly gpm, your file browser, your web browser (unless they are one and the same) and whatever else random processes you have running on your system. Autorun cd's? We can count amd then... on and on.. I have trouble worrying about giving a half a gig of memory as a problem to commit to a base system, if I want good functionality on top of it. but hey, that's just me. What would I know. I haven't used windows for 10 years. buh.

    22. Re:uhh by 10Ghz · · Score: 1

      After I log in to KDE3.2, my system uses about 55 megs of RAM. And that's with full-blown KDE-session with Kwallet, Juk, Kmixer and few other apps running in the background, not to mention Xfree and a largish background-image. Launching Konqueror (for example) increases the amount of RAM being used by few megs.

      I think that's far from unreasonable.

      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
    23. Re:uhh by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 1

      The kernel itself doesn't (and the same goes for Windows). But when you add X Windows and a GUI like KDE, the memory requirements of Linux are similar to Windows 2000.
      The one big difference is that you CAN run Linux in text mode, while the standard editions of Windows offer no such option (XP Embedded may be an option if you have plenty of time to configure it for your system).

      --
      C - the footgun of programming languages
    24. Re:uhh by JollyFinn · · Score: 1

      You know, I did try that, but the girl still wasn't impressed with the size of my X. Am I doing something wrong? I't all depends size of the girl. But one thing girls have common that they don't wan't to know your X. Past is past, and now is now.

      --
      Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
    25. Re:uhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet, a few days ago, when someone asked for a good book or web page for learning windows, the best thing even the windows zealots could come up with was "how to commit suicide".

  4. Let's get this out of the way by Aliencow · · Score: 5, Funny

    "They must be running IIS on Longhorn!" or something. I heard that if nobody says something like that in a Slashdot thread, the universe implodes.

  5. insert 640 k joke here by way2trivial · · Score: 1

    is 512mb enough for anyone?

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    1. Re:insert 640 k joke here by mesach · · Score: 1

      Looks like

      512MB should be the minimum for anyone!

      --
      moo.
    2. Re:insert 640 k joke here by dicepackage · · Score: 1

      Did I say kilobytes I meant megabytes.

    3. Re:insert 640 k joke here by JoeCommodore · · Score: 1

      No, no you got it all wrong, Bill said 640MEGS is all the memory anyone will ever need... sheesh!

      --
      "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
  6. Perhaps it's ready now? by vitalstatistix · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're just waiting for the hardware needed to run it to become available...

    1. Re:Perhaps it's ready now? by krack · · Score: 1

      Heh this isn't far from the truth. An axiom at MS is that they're 'Designing software to run on computers that don't exist yet.'

      --
      Just because you are not paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.
  7. That's a lot of builds by spoonist · · Score: 1

    They're on build 4053 and they won't be ready until about 2005 or 2006?

    Woah. At the rate they're going, they'll be on approximately build 13000 by the time 2006 comes around.

    Geez and I thought Gentoo had a lot of builds...

    1. Re:That's a lot of builds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Geez and I thought Gentoo had a lot of builds...

      Nah, just feels that way cause they take so long to compile.

    2. Re:That's a lot of builds by Alizarin+Erythrosin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, NT4 is build 1372 (I think), and I believe that Win2k is in the build number 2000-something... It seems to be the build number for the NT kernel itself.

      --
      There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
    3. Re:That's a lot of builds by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      I don't know for sure, but I believe that Windows build numbers update across versions. That is, this is build number 4053 of Windows (or just the NT series?), not build 4053 of Longhorn.

      For example, Windows XP was build 2600 when it was released.

    4. Re:That's a lot of builds by dapyx · · Score: 3, Funny

      You know how the Microsoft employees do: Once in a while they press several times the "Build All" button, so their bosses think they've been working hard.

      --
      I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
    5. Re:That's a lot of builds by kevinowen · · Score: 5, Informative
      They're on build 4053 and they won't be ready until about 2005 or 2006?
      I can't tell if you're joking or what, so...

      That build number is the build of the overall NT kernel and code branch, not just of Longhorn. For example:
      Windows NT 3.1 = build 511
      Windows NT 3.5 = build 887
      Windows NT 3.51 = build 1057
      Windows NT 4.0 = build 1381
      Windows 2000 = build 2195
      Windows XP = build 2600
      Windows Server 2003 = build 3790

      (FYI, those are for the original release versions. Betas have earlier build numbers.)
    6. Re:That's a lot of builds by aardvarko · · Score: 1

      Windows XP = build 2600

      Hmm.

    7. Re:That's a lot of builds by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Windows 95 = 4.00.950
      Windows 95 OSR2 = 4.00.1111
      Windows 98 = 4.10.1998 (MS is loosing it...)
      Windows 98 SE = 4.10.2222
      Windows ME = 4.90.3000 (why the huge 4.90 jump?)

      Even the build numbers for that 16/32-bit hybrid OS look freaked out since Win 95. :-P

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    8. Re:That's a lot of builds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A new set of traffic lights went up on the Microsoft campus roads last month. The name of the intersection on the sign is "2600 Crossing"...

    9. Re:That's a lot of builds by tsukasa137 · · Score: 1

      Wait.
      Does this mean that XP is the same codebase as NT 3.1, but with loads of changes?
      Because if it was, that would explain a lot...

    10. Re:That's a lot of builds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2000 is 2195 to be exact actually.

    11. Re:That's a lot of builds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows ME = 4.90.3000 (why the huge 4.90 jump?)

      I think that implies the (planned) dying of that kernel base, since this is the last Windows version that runs ontop of MSDOS (btw. MSDOS had no remote hole in the default install since it came out *g*).

      IIRC the Kernel Versions where something like this:
      3 -> Windows 3.xx,
      3.5 -> Windows NT 3.5*,
      ? -> Windows NT4,
      4.0 -> Windows 95
      4.1 -> Windows 98 (SE)
      4.9 -> Windows ME
      5.0 -> Windows 2000
      5.1 -> Windows XP
      ...
    12. Re:That's a lot of builds by Foolhardy · · Score: 1

      NT3.1 gold is build 511.

    13. Re:That's a lot of builds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      Wait. Does this mean that XP is the same codebase as NT 3.1, but with loads of changes?
      Yes, yes it does.

      Microsoft has only made 2 operating systems - DOS and NT.

      Everything from the first release of MS-DOS all the way through Windows ME was one codebase, and everthing from NT 3.1 to XP to this Longhorn alpha was the second codebase (called New Technology).

    14. Re:That's a lot of builds by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      XP is build 2600

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
  8. You know what they say... by Hiigara · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Bill Gates: 483MB will be enough for everybody.

  9. Who cares about RAM usage by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 1, Troll

    Most systems now have 512MB, in two years they will probably have 1GiB or more. I've got 1GiB in mine right now.

    1. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did this guy really just use the abbreviation "GiB?" That stands for gibitye. Quite possibly the gayest name I think anyone could have come up for the supposedly official binary power prefixes. At least it's not as bad as a mebibyte (WTF???)

    2. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by understyled · · Score: 3, Insightful

      not caring about proper memory management and usage leads to lazy programming. it's wasteful. why not spend the extra time to have a smoother running program that requires less of a footprint? any improvement you make now will help you in the long run, especially if you're always adding things to older code. start with a polished base and more often than not you'll end up with a polished product. this whole "memory is cheap, who cares" thing reminds me too much of how wasteful people are in general..
      "why build 1 when i can build 2 for twice the cost?"

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
    3. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't know what you are talking about. Mod parent troll.

    4. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by Bombcar · · Score: 1

      Why 512MB and 1GiB? Shouldn't it be 512MiB and 1GiB or does the though of 512 Men in Black scare you?

      [/lame joke]

    5. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes I think the idea was the disk drive manufacturers were abusing the terminology (analogous to how TV mfrs were measuring bezel size) so they decided to madate new words to confuse everone, not just clueless disk drive buyers, or something like that. Don't you just love committees?

    6. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by charvolant · · Score: 1
      not caring about proper memory management and usage leads to lazy programming.

      Laziness is in the eye of the beholder. Not caring about memory management leads to concentrating on other things. Such as well-designed, correct, understandable, maintainable code. This is often much more important than resource usage when you have a complex application domain that changes all the time, such as finance or medicine to worry about. Memory is cheaper than good analysis and design.

      In addition, you get to practise computer science 101: write the code properly, then find out what the resource limitations are, then optimise if you have to.

      Hence the popularity of higher-level languages for application programming. If you use a virtual machine environment, such as Java or (shudder!) perl for application programs then you are freed to concentrate on the design and correctness of the application. Plus you get the benefit of improvements in memory management algorithms, rather than having to re-invent the wheel every time.

      any improvement you make now will help you in the long run, especially if you're always adding things to older code.

      The problem with "improvements" is that they are often at the expense of coherency. For many programs, concentrating on system details, such as memory management, is more likely to result in obscure, fragile code that is almost impossible to add to. If your architecture starts to change, then all those "improvements" are going to be a nightmare.

      Which is not to say that resource management isn't important in some areas; particularly system-level and small, multiple-use software. But these areas don't make up the whole world.

    7. Re:Who cares about RAM usage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because 512MB may not be much these days, but that's just for the OS. Add 512MB for Outlook, 1GB for Word, 1GB for .NET framework, 2GB for Visual Studio, and soon you'll be looking at a 64bit CPU.

  10. Final Release by CrackedButter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.
    No actually, they have the all important Brushed... I mean Slate look in place, so thats development pretty much wrapped up on this version.

  11. OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Am I the only person who thinks improvements should come in the simplification of code rather than adding new features? I would much rather have another version of Windows 2000 that runs more efficiently than whatever may come from Longhorn. It's beginning to sound less like an application launching layer and more like a 3-ring circus stuffed into a shoebox.

    1. Re:OS "improvements" by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ah but bill gates doens see it that way. He believes the future of computers is in the software. Pack it full of "features".

      Here read up on what he said at MIT on computers.

      --
      30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
      Score:5, Troll
    2. Re:OS "improvements" by ultrabot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Am I the only person who thinks improvements should come in the simplification of code rather than adding new features?

      Yes. That's why you should switch to Linux. Windows can't just be "simplified", they have created a monster in the form of NT kernel and now they need to deal with it. Switch to a lean, mean POSIX kernel.

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    3. Re:OS "improvements" by CrackedButter · · Score: 1

      You are right in what you say, but this is windows you are taking about.

    4. Re:OS "improvements" by drsmithy · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I would much rather have another version of Windows 2000 that runs more efficiently than whatever may come from Longhorn.

      XP. Turn off the Fisher-Price skin and its accompanying hand-holding elements and it's faster than Win2k (from UI improvements as much as software optimisations).

      OTOH, if all you're after is an "application launching layer", then I sincerely doubt _any_ version of Windows is appropriate for you.

    5. Re:OS "improvements" by prostoalex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing about "efficiency" improvements is that the potential market is not that large. There might be maybe 20 people on this planet willing to pay $200 for a Win2k that occupies 32 MB less of memory space.

      As Netscape example has shown, if you deviate from your core business and start re-writing the entire codebase for the sake of "cleanliness" and "efficiency", someone else will step into the market, and by the time your re-written product is capable of running on Casio watches, the market has made several steps forward in terms of functionality.

    6. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Computers are getting faster/cheaper, ram and disk space is getting cheaper, programmer time is more expensive than both of those. Bulky overhead due to the design is a-okay as long as the design makes things easier for the coders to understand, improve upon, etc.

      I don't necessarily think this way, but there's an answer.

    7. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Turn off the Fisher-Price skin and its accompanying hand-holding elements and it's faster than Win2k (from UI improvements as much as software optimisations).

      Or change your shell to something other than explorer. Cmd.exe for example. XP becomes blazingly fast when Explorer isn't in memory.

    8. Re:OS "improvements" by Nimrangul · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Does anyone else see the irony in this person using the term lean in relation to the Linux kernal?

      It's far from lean, and I don't see it getting any leaner. You just need to choose which bloat to take, or go with one of the BSDs, one of the Unixes, FreeDOS or OpenBeOS.

      --
      I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
    9. Re:OS "improvements" by brain_not_ticking · · Score: 0

      That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

    10. Re:OS "improvements" by ultrabot · · Score: 0, Troll

      Does anyone else see the irony in this person using the term lean in relation to the Linux kernal?

      Probably some w2k-running BSD fanboy would. Why do all the Microsoft apologists run BSD instead of Linux? Overcompensating because of their penis-envy, perhaps?

      Pretty much any Unix kernel is pretty lean. POSIX is lean, and simple. The OS might resort to some complexity to get performance, but the bloat should stay within tolerable limits if POSIX is all you want to support (instead of all kinds backwards compatibility hacks and DOS 2.11 compatibility).

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    11. Re:OS "improvements" by Shinobi · · Score: 0

      Actually, the NT kernel itself _is_ lean, and contrary to popular Linux fandom theory, the Linux kernel is _not_ lean. The NT kernel supports a bare minimum of functions for interfacing modules, then everything else is written in modules around it, while Linux is monolithic(put a lot of functionality in the kernel itself) and pretty bloated.

    12. Re:OS "improvements" by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You can make the linux kernel quite lean by removing functionality which you don't need. Oh sure then you'll have a bunch of loadable modules but the fact is that functionality requires code, and code takes up space. The parts of the kernel you can't turn off without making it not work are still pretty small.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:OS "improvements" by kayen_telva · · Score: 2, Informative

      no. why ?

      with windows, you are stuck with the kernel it comes with.

      with linux, you can pare it down to the bare essentials when you compile it yourself.
      sure, Lindows may be a little bloated for usability, or Xandros.
      but Debian or Gentoo ? hardly.
      can you tailor you WinXX kernel to your hardware while removing extraneous crapola ?

    14. Re:OS "improvements" by PyromanFO · · Score: 1

      You realize the graphics system for Win2k is built into the Kernel, right?

    15. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MIT blows. There's a shitload of spam coming through an open proxy on one of MIT.edu's machines. I alerted them about the problem two months ago, and they still haven't done jack shit. My mailbox is still getting flooded. MIT.edu is nothing but a fucking spamhaus.

    16. Re:OS "improvements" by ultrabot · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, the NT kernel itself _is_ lean, and contrary to popular Linux fandom theory, the Linux kernel is _not_ lean. The NT kernel supports a bare minimum of functions for interfacing modules, then everything else is written in modules around it, while Linux is monolithic(put a lot of functionality in the kernel itself) and pretty bloated.

      This is a myth. NT is not a microkernel, at least not anymore. It was around 3.x (whatever the version number was), but not anymore. IIRC, even the window management functionality is in the kernel now.

      And it's not just the kernel - the win32 API is a monster, containing a lot of GUI functionality and whatnot.

      Oh well, I guess you should expect nothing less from morons who thought CR/LF, backslash dir seperator and drive letters are good ideas.

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    17. Re:OS "improvements" by lussmu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ah but bill gates doens see it that way.

      But, what you or Bill think doesn't matter. What matters is the public opinion of the people buying it. I don't know whether Bill is a genius or a moron, but people are buying his product, so we really can't complain about what he's doing with it!

    18. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which machine is this?

    19. Re:OS "improvements" by cybpunks3 · · Score: 1

      Mozilla isn't clean or efficient, and won't run on a Casio watch.

      Opera, on the other hand, appears to scale very nicely down to PDAs.

    20. Re:OS "improvements" by MisterFancypants · · Score: 1
      There might be maybe 20 people on this planet willing to pay $200 for a Win2k that occupies 32 MB less of memory space.

      And all of them are idiots since 32 MB of memory costs a lot less than $200.

    21. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No. Nobody here thinks that including you.

      Here's a list of potential benefits to a new release that improves efficiency and simplifies code. You tell me which of them is worth paying $100 for an upgrade:

      • Your desktop pc, which runs for a couple of months without crashing now runs for six months without crashing. Keep in mind that unless you like leaving documents unsaved for hours at a time, your potential benefit is on the order of 10 minutes time saved per year. Is that worth $100?
      • That 5 year old laptop with the passive matrix display, the 2 Gb hard disk, the weak battery, and the flaky power input can now be upgraded from Win98 to WinXP2 where it will take 5 minutes to boot, constantly thrash, and possibly edit a Word document if your willing to get some coffee while it loads. There may be some specialized cases where this is worth $100 to somebody. But enough to justify the development cost?
      • Your spiffy 2 year old 800Mhz desktop will now boot 5 seconds faster, and your desktop responsiveness is almost imperceptably better. Is that really worth $100?

      I suppose it's possible your one of the few people who gets a warm fuzzy from knowing that what you have under the hood is technically superior even though you get no perceptible benefits. If so, wonderful, but whining and acting superior because the rest of the world doesn't share your beliefs is just annoying. I buy a product to meet some need or desire. Until I have a compelling need I see no reason to upgrade. What is it about my purchasing strategy that you find morally repugnant?

    22. Re:OS "improvements" by Ice_Balrog · · Score: 1
      Does anyone else see the irony in this person using the term lean in relation to the Linux kernal?"
      No.

      I've seen Linux running on a 486DX with 8 MB of RAM nicely. To run X, you'll need a bit more... say P1 100 with 32MB of ram. That hardly qualifies as "bloat".
      You just need to choose which bloat to take, or go with one of the BSDs, one of the Unixes, FreeDOS or OpenBeOS.
      Ummm... no. The BSD's are roughly at the same level at Linux. Many of the UNIXes are much larger then Linux and BSD.

      Oh, and drivers are almost always compiled as modules, so that if they are not needed, they are not loaded.
      --
      #include "sig.h"
    23. Re:OS "improvements" by spitzak · · Score: 1

      Neither the Linux kernel or the NT kernel can claim to be very "simplified", but neither is to blame for the memory usage. Desktop systems (ie Windows, or Linux with the GUI) are huge memory hogs compared to what they do.

      This bloat is due to enormous numbers of shared libraries that all call each other. It's like a big tangle of hair, it is impossible to pick up the pieces you want and not get it all.

      Try running KDE or Gnome and you will see bloat that, while it does not match Microsoft, is within an order of magnitude.

      Unfortunately I don't see either Microsoft of Linux solving this. People want features and will keep inventing them. People will not see any immediate benifit if you rewrote the system into Unix-command-like components and this requires hundreds of times as much effort as adding features. The only limit to what features are needed are what the current hardware can do. So I expect both systems to continue to expand to fill all available memory and processing speed forever.

    24. Re:OS "improvements" by Rysc · · Score: 1

      There's still a thriving alternate shell community out there. Using litestep can be much lighter than Explorer, and much more useful than cmd.exe.

      --
      I want my Cowboyneal
    25. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What's wrong with the Win32 api containing GUI functionality? Where would *you* put it? Besides, one of the fundamental points of Longhorn is the managed Windows Framework (aka WinFX), which is meant to be a forward-looking replacement to Win32.

    26. Re:OS "improvements" by jbtule · · Score: 1
      As Netscape example has shown, if you deviate from your core business and start re-writing the entire codebase for the sake of "cleanliness" and "efficiency Actually, extreme programing and adaptive programing are becoming more popular, and these methods employ rewriting your code to make cleaner by allocating time for refactoring. Really, software is never written right the first time, and it's easier to fix earlier than later, which is what microsoft hopefully has learned, as they are having to re-write their entire operating system from scratch, because they ignored awful code in windows too long. (We had microsoft come and talk about security for a computing conference at our university, and when asked why windows has had so many exploits, and the microsoft guy answered that there is code in windows that's 10 years old and no one has looked at.)
    27. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CR/LF is the more logical way of moving text to a new line and moving to the start of that line, after all, a carriage return moves the cursor to the start of the line, a line feed just moves the cursor down, just like a typewriter.

    28. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Microsoft was smart, they would have looked at the BSD/SysVr4/Plan9/Mach kernels and come up with a modern design that reflected the best of the old without the redundant/antiquated material. Instead, they used a spawn() model of process creation, rewrote various Unix system calls and reinvented "better" versions of others, and this resulted in a bloated piece of shit.

    29. Re:OS "improvements" by Foolhardy · · Score: 1

      In NT4, most of the win32 subsystem, including the graphcis system was moved into win32k.sys. It runs in kernel mode but is definately not part of the kernel (ntoskrnl.exe). It was moved there to cut down on the context switching overhead for out-of-process function calls to the win32 subsystem (in csrss.exe and csrsrv.dll). You can run the kernel perfectly fine without loading win32; like the first phase of setup or the recovery console.

    30. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BSD nazi.

    31. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Darn right. When I was a kid, my family couldn't afford a vga monitor or a keyboard, so I had to use MSDOS and Windows with a teletype. If it wasn't for that CR before the LF, the text would go right off the right hand side of the platen and the printer head carriage gears would strip. If I had chosen Unix as my OS back then, it would have destroyed my teletype!

      Actually "/r/n" is what is commonly known a "kludge", just an alternative to sending a bunch of '/0' 's to the printer after the carriage return because the p.o.s. printer didn't have any form of buffer. The IBM PC arrived on the scene long after printer terminals and dumb terminals were made obsolete by terminals that understood ANSI escape sequences, etc. Incidentally, cmd.exe on NT doesn't interpret ANSI escape sequences. Ever wonder why?

      To fully appreciate just how stupid it is to use a CR before LF, try using a binary editor to remove one or two CR's or LF's from a dos text file and then try to read the same file in notepad. Next, try porting a Unix program that uses the stdio functions to read from and write to so-called "binary" files.

      And then there's those "case-insensitive" file names. After Windows XP had somehow managed to destroy and important part of the registry, I found that it would crash just a few seconds into each boot attempt. The reason? A file that was named importantdriver.sys was instead named IMPORTANTDRIVER.SYS. Stupid.

      And then there are examples of how microsoft's own software fails because of pathnames that contain spaces....

    32. Re:OS "improvements" by toddestan · · Score: 1

      If the 2.6 kernel is too big for you, you can always use the 2.0, 2.2, or 2.4 kernels which are all still being maintained and updated.

    33. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >dir d:\windows\system32\krnl386.exe
      Volume in drive D has no label.
      Volume Serial Number is xxxx-xxxx

      Directory of d:\windows\system32

      08/23/2001 04:00 AM 92,160 krnl386.exe
      1 File(s) 92,160 bytes
      0 Dir(s) 1,418,444,800 bytes free

    34. Re:OS "improvements" by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      Well, I haven't read the article text, but that picture of Bill is DAMN SCARY. Anyone else think that hand is outstretched to tear out the throat of someone just outside the photo?

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    35. Re:OS "improvements" by null-sRc · · Score: 1

      Am I the only person who thinks improvements should come in the simplification of code rather than adding new features?

      if that's how you feel, maybe you should reformat and install DOS--simple, fast, with almost no features!

      and in regards to the "high" commit charge. Who cares? 512MB RAM is dirt cheap, and in 2006 2Gigz could easily be standard.

      --
      -judging another only defines yourself
    36. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CRLF was and is an IBMism, spazmonkey.

    37. Re:OS "improvements" by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      IIRC, even the window management functionality is in the kernel now.

      Only if you include user32.dll, gdi32.dll and maybe also shell32.dll in the size of kernel32.dll.

      Oh well, I guess you should expect nothing less from morons who thought CR/LF, backslash dir seperator and drive letters are good ideas.

      Actually, you can mount devices in Windows. :-)

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    38. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Features is the only point anymore of MS.

      OSes are free nowadays. Every OS does the same thing in similar ways, whats the point of making 3-4 different versions of pretty much the same thing?

      Linux, Windows, OS X, whatever. They all do close to the same functions, none of them are so fundamentally different from each other, they have drivers, kernels, files, disk access, etc etc

      What realy is different?

      So why shouldn't we just use one OS and vary it according to needs and leave it at that?

      And that is how it goes. So why would you choose Windows over Linux? Extra features!!! Of course.

      What makes Windows fundamentally unstable, always changing and hard to deal with OS? Features!!!

      MS needs features to sell the OS, the OS can suck because they are so busy making new features that they can't be bothered to fix old ones.

      Windows is full of 90% of code and features that only 1% of the users ever will care about, much less use.

      So you end up with a bunch of useless features hacked together with Apps so integrated into those features that they can't ever be possibly used on a different OS.

      It's a loose loose situation for MS. For every customer the loose, they loose 2. One for the OS, one for Office. They won't get them back. In order to keep users they add features and make life more difficult for the disserters. That has the side effect of pissing people off because they feel trapped combined with bloating out the system with extra features that nobody uses.

      If people would realise that they are buying a program they can get free off of the internet, then MS is going to go into a very rough spot.

    39. Re:OS "improvements" by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1
      Only if you include user32.dll, gdi32.dll and maybe also shell32.dll in the size of kernel32.dll.

      No, most of the core GUI functionality is in-kernel (for speed). For instance, you can use CreateMenu and pass the HMENU to another process. This works because an HMENU is just a key to an internal kernel hash table.

      The NT kernel has all kinds of garbage in it. Just take a look at the loaded modules page of sysinfo some time. The registry lives there, as does an audio encryption and DRM subsystem (SAP). I've even seen echo cancellation drivers in-kernel!

    40. Re:OS "improvements" by McLoud · · Score: 1

      The only reliable way of optimizing something it's designing it right first (eg: OSX, yeah, you can burn me now).

      --
      sign(c14n(envelop(this)), x509)
    41. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the problem for Microsoft. If they made it so that various kludges, defragmenters, file locaters, installers, registry cleaners, blah that pass as "new features" could be dropped and their code reached the point of being "mature", then their revenue stream would dry up and they'd become another has-been as well as a third rate software company.

    42. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Want to confuse windows? Try mounting various parts of "Documents and Settings" or "\Windows". Ask yourself why explorer would claim that your "root" drive is 95% capacity when the defragmenter says it's at 25%. Try rebooting several times just to see how often Windows scrambles up your mount points. Want to create a link to a file? Look around the web for a program that will do it, because the clowns at Microsoft couldn't bother to write one themselves. Want a decent command line with filename completion? Get cygwin bash. CMD.EXE's interface is pathetic.

      This is a familiar marketing tactic that Microsoft employs. No one uses the "POSIX-compliant" API because it was just a quick and dirty "feature" Microsoft dropped in so that they could sell their OS to the government. Whether said "feature" works or doesn't work is immaterial.

    43. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can compile out junk that you don't want with the Linux kernel. To do something like that with NT, you have to shell out thousands of dollars to Microsoft. Is there such a thing as a bootable floppy for NT? No. Linux? Pick a distro. So what's your point?

    44. Re:OS "improvements" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Turn off the Fisher-Price skin and its accompanying hand-holding elements and it's faster than Win2k (from UI improvements as much as software optimisations).

      Amen. I can't think of a bigger waste of cpu cycles, memory, and pixels than Windows Themes. Even if you were enough of a luser to want it, the rendering is quite buggy.

  12. Hmm... by JoeLinux · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is this Gate's law once again counter-manding Moore's Law?

    Joe

    1. Re:Hmm... by Kingpin · · Score: 4, Interesting


      "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". DK.

      --
      Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
      Geocrawler error message.
    2. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depending on who you ask, optimizing for size or speed at all is evil. :-)

    3. Re:Hmm... by Dan+Ost · · Score: 1

      This quote actually originated with Tony Hoare. The full quote is
      "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil."

      Donald Knuth may have restated it somewhere, but it didn't originate with him.

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
  13. Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL code by Michalson · · Score: 3, Funny

    I just wonder how they where able to graft X-Windows into their current source code.

  14. I Hear Intel by The+Lost+Supertone · · Score: 4, Funny

    Intel: Hey Microsoft why don't you slow down windows a bit? Microsoft: Why? Intel: That way home users will actually have a reason to buy a 3Ghz processor

    1. Re:I Hear Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      AMD: Hey Microsoft, why not support AMD64 so we can create a false sense of performance increase and a need for this non-existent increase?

      Microsoft: Okay!

    2. Re:I Hear Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats old news.. they've been doing that for at least 10 years I'd guess. If mine goes any slower it will stop... looks like im gonna have to rebo

  15. New GUI? by Skjellifetti · · Score: 5, Funny

    At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

    What'd they do? Replace the Windows GUI with Gnome?

    ducks

    1. Re:New GUI? by ThisIsFred · · Score: 4, Funny

      What'd they do? Replace the Windows GUI with Gnome?

      Look more like a lightweight version of KDE to me.

      --
      Fred

      "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
      -RMS
    2. Re:New GUI? by darc · · Score: 1

      Nope. Looks like emacs.

      *ducks*

      --
      Tired of legitimate data sources? Try UNCYCLOPEDIA
  16. so... by pvt_medic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    microsoft works with computer vendors to make it that the new opperating system requires a new computer to be compatible with it. Revitalizes companies like Dell, HP, etc. Everyone walks away richer (well except all of us who will have to throw away our current computers).

    Dang, i remember the days when 8 megs of ram was a lot, and 80 meg hard drive would never get filled.

    --
    30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
    Score:5, Troll
    1. Re:so... by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well you might trying to be sarcastic but um yeah.

      Sorry hate to break it to ya but 8MB of ram is shit for a compiler [that is meant to handle a program of any respectable size]. 80MB of disk space is little space to hold source+builds, etc...

      The trick [which most miss] is an acceptable rate of growth.

      I imagine 100 years from now a PDA will have a baseline of 1TB of memory [anything less will just be inhuman]. The point is right now that would be insane.

      Similarly sure 20 years ago 8MB of ram was godly [cuz quite frankly the average program was of limited appeal and functionality]. You can pick up a 512MB of ram for relatively cheap [~110$ CDN for PC2700].

      So it isn't unreasonable to assume a desktop user would have 512MB or even 1GB of ram [it's much I agree but not overly excessive]. If windows required 512MB of ram 10 years ago they would have gone out of business. Right now though it's not asking too much.

      That being said I agree with the sentiment against bloat. I run icewm for the sole reason that it takes 10MB of ram. Combined with X my entire "desktop" takes less than 30MB of ram. It would be nice if the next version of windows didn't take 200MB of ram when idle but alas it wouldn't be cool enough if you didn't have a million little things going on all at once.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:so... by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      Dang, i remember the days when 8 megs of ram was a lot, and 80 meg hard drive would never get filled.

      8 megs? My first computer had 16KB of RAM, and storage was on cassette tapes.

      Personally, I'm *damn glad* that technology progresses - I do not want to be using 1982-level technology for the rest of my life. I can comfortably bring any PC you care to supply me with to its knees in terms of resource usage, as can anyone who's done any numerical simulation work. For that matter, just editing large-enough images can do it - a work mate of mine has a very, very nice panoramic view of some Tibetan mountains that ground his machine (with a gig of RAM) to a near halt while he was stitching it together.

      As operating systems and applications become more complex, they will necessarily require more resources. If you don't want to upgrade your machine, don't upgrade your software. You can't expect it to do more, but use no more resources.

    3. Re:so... by niko9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      All the more reason for budget strapped people/small business/univeristies to take another look at the free unices or stay
      with Linux if they have already switched.

      I have another idea: As soon as things like CPU freq scaling and ACPI really mature in the Linux kernel, you can bet your bottom dollar that people will argue that not only does Linux save you on upgrade costs, but can save you millions on the desktop in power operating costs as well.

      Have you noticed how much juice the Prescott sucks up?

    4. Re:so... by Professor+Cool+Linux · · Score: 1

      but What they don't realize is.. We collect those machines & make beowolf clusters...

      besides I know my cluster of 386's can run longhorn but i feel its a waste...(yes i know "longhorn" can't run that way but that cluster can handel it)

    5. Re:so... by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Does your current computer work? I am guessing it does because you have posted the message. Unless you are really good and you can incode tcp/ip packets using a wire and a cat5 cable. But I digress...
      If your current computer works there is no need to Toss it out and upgrade. Unless you need to get new software all the time most of the time the old stuff works fine. The average life span for a business is about 4 years. Then they need to be updated because of increasing numbers of problems and fear of unable to adjust to new software that may be required. But for home use, heck a P200 still can get the job done for most home use. Email browsing web, word processing. And a 486 Can still be used as as a firewall or small web server.
      If it still does what you need it to do and you are not waiting minutes for it do some task that you commonly do. Then you don't need to upgrade. Home users only truely need to upgrade their systems if they are into games and always want the latest and greatest games. Hobie in areas such as Graphics and Photoediting, Or advanced sound stuff. But for normal joe smo who browses the web and check email and chats on IM their old system works fine.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now that's what I call a poorly coded app. What on earth was he using to stitch them?
      I wrote an image stitcher a few months ago, and it sure as heck didnt take up ungodly amounts of memory... people these days seem to have forgotten a very simple rule of thumb, which is to only load and keep in RAM the data that you are actually working on, instead of an entire set of files.

    7. Re:so... by Roydd+McWilson · · Score: 1
      I run icewm for the sole reason that it takes 10MB of ram.

      WHAT?? That's insane. I run fvwm2, and it takes 1.7MB, which I think is way too much.

      --
      THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
    8. Re:so... by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Well to be specific icewm on my box takes ~7.5MB of ram [four processes of 3.3, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.5 MB each].

      Note thate compared to fvwm2 [which I have only used in cygwin] icewm supports multiple desktops, has a clock, start menu and tray. icewm also has nice window decorations..

      So sure fvwm is smaller but it also does less.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    9. Re:so... by dzym · · Score: 2, Interesting
      And as long as the Linux kernel developers are actively blacklisting old and new ACPI implementations instead of actually making the code work with the hardware, ACPI support will never mature.

      And it's not like you can run a modern Linux desktop distro on a 486 100mhz nowadays anyway. Face it, requirements have changed in every way imaginable. You and the grandparent poster are already as ancient compared to the current generation of computers as we years ago were compared to the cardpunchers of days yore.

      Adapt, or obsoletize yourself.

    10. Re:so... by KPU · · Score: 1

      Note thate [sic] compared to fvwm2 [which I have only used in cygwin] icewm supports multiple desktops, has a clock, start menu and tray. icewm also has nice window decorations..
      Uh. . . have you ever tried configuring fvwm2? For some example config files you might want fvwm themes which has many themes with their own window decorations, "start" menues--taskbar like to button bar, a tray. Not to mention they all have virtual desktops (FvwmPager).
      Total memory usage by fvwm: 4.7 MB

    11. Re:so... by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      To each their own.

      All I care is that icewm is small, quick loading and doesn't bloat like KDE or Gnome. I never said "icewm is the bestest in the whole wide world". I said it was decent.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    12. Re:so... by dbIII · · Score: 1
      Sorry hate to break it to ya but 8MB of ram is shit for a compiler
      I remember trying to compile a "hello world" program with gcc on an Atari ST upgraded to a whopping 2.5MB of memory. It didn't have enough memory to do it.
      I imagine 100 years from now a PDA will have a baseline of 1TB of memory
      I strongly doubt that - the palm was very successful despite the fact that it had nowhere near the power of a newton, simply because it had enough and worked well, and was a lot cheaper to make. You can still buy a new PDA that doesn't come close to the specs of a newton.

      The only reason a PDA would come with that much memory is if that is the baseline, and I suspect in a few years PDAs may well be as scarce as teletype terminals are today anyway - they're already getting replaced by telephones.

      I run icewm for the sole reason that it takes 10MB of ram. Combined with X my entire "desktop" takes less than 30MB of ram.
      You do know that the memory usuage reported for X includes the total memory of your video card as well - those with 256MB video cards would be given the impression from that X is incredibly bloated. Enlightenment has a reputation for being a bloated window manager, but most people don't realise that the default theme is designed to show everything it can do with maximum eye-candy. Use a plainer theme and it was responsive on a pentium75 with 32MB ram and a 4MB video card. The default themes of window managers like fluxbox (which I use on localhost:2.0) are designed to show what you can do with a simple and memory lean theme. The gnome panel is a completely different story.
    13. Re:so... by Imperator · · Score: 1
      I imagine 100 years from now a PDA will have a baseline of 1TB of memory [anything less will just be inhuman].

      Yeah, in the distant future we won't even need to worry about releasing memory that we allocate. We'll just lose the pointer and cackle with glee as we drive around in our flying cars.

      --

      Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
    14. Re:so... by Inuchance · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What are you talking about? I have Slackware Linux 9.1 running on this 486DX2 at 66MHz. The hard drive is only 486MB big, with only 10MB of space free, but this machine still runs fine (No X, though, but I doubt the hardware would support it anyway). It even works as a fully functional (10BaseT) NAT router.

    15. Re:so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did you completely miss the obvious fact that he was talking about the past and not the present? Does time flow in a linear fashion in your world? Ever remember something?

    16. Re:so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It's been at least 2 decades since people had only a text console as their primary means of accessing a "personal" computer.

      Stop living in the stone ages, geez. At least come out to the bronze or industrial age.

    17. Re:so... by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Laugh all ya want. I bet 30 years ago PDAs with 128MB of ram seemed like a really "far fetched and mystical idea".

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    18. Re:so... by de+Selby · · Score: 1

      Yeah, in the distant future we won't even need to worry about releasing memory that we allocate. We'll just lose the pointer and cackle with glee as we drive around in our flying cars.

      No, no, no. You assume no paradigm shift in what we expect to run on them.

      Text will be represented by 1MB/char (on average) as every app will have its text incoded in every language and as pre-recorded sound all the time.

      The OS will take 9/10 of the RAM (magnetic, BTW) to provide necessary services, such as dynamically modifying all the apps so they can run at a decent speed on the latest downloaded processor map and also providing a frustrating and inefficient 3D interface.

      Future PDAs with 1TB of RAM will be able to edit one plaintext document, no larger than 64 chars long. Anything more requires swapping onto the new IntarWeb(TM) network--and at 5GB/sec (theoretical) only takes several seconds for every swapped local memory operation.

    19. Re:so... by cosmo7 · · Score: 1

      I imagine 100 years from now a PDA will have a baseline of 1TB of memory.

      You're thinking too literally. In the future, high-end computers will have just one byte of memory, but it will be exactly the byte you need right at that moment.

    20. Re:so... by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      Similarly sure 20 years ago 8MB of ram was godly [cuz quite frankly the average program was of limited appeal and functionality].

      Heck, 15 years ago, 8Mb of RAM was godly.

      Summer of 1988 I pieced together a machine capable of booting OS/2 1.3. Only had maybe 512Kb or 1Mb of RAM on the motherboard, the rest of the memory came from full-length ISA RAM-expansion boards. Think I managed to get up around 4Mb or 6Mb and boy was it slow! It did boot and I'm amazed the power-supply didn't give out from all of those cards.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  17. vacaum by Vlion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I see Longhorn ain't going to play nice with even XP-class machines. Oh well, not like I wanted my rights digitally managed anyway.

    --
    /b
    |f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
    /a
  18. Compile modules? by TobiasSodergren · · Score: 1, Redundant

    It's maybe possible to save ram by compiling stuff you don't need as modules, like:

    * IE
    * The clipper thingie in office
    * The animated, fading menues from the start button

    And other stuff which obviously live in the kernel :)

  19. That's alotta commit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's as much as I have committed on a fully-loaded 2003 server running dreamweaver and hosting fedora core 1 on VMware. That swanky DB/filesystem better bake me fresh cookies.

    1. Re:That's alotta commit by heinousjay · · Score: 5, Funny

      a fully-loaded 2003 server running dreamweaver

      That could be the most appropriate use of a server I've ever seen.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    2. Re:That's alotta commit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used my installation of Windows Server 2003, Web Edition to chat on MSN and do some image editing with the gimp. (Right before I formatted over that partition because it ran so slow... apparently my 1.8ghz with 512 mb ram can't handle scrolling in notepad and running windows at the same time.)

      I wouldn't be using a WYSIWYG editor though... they drive me fricking crazy. All I need is a plain text editor...

  20. Meanwhile in his deep undersea fortress... by mabu · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bill gates has called a meeting with the memory chip manufacturers...

    GATES: "Gentlemen, I'm here to offer you a proposition. With my evil, resource bloating operating system, you can join with Microsoft and we will band together and control all the memory on the planet."

    JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN: "I am not comfortable with this."

    GATES: "I understand."

    (He presses a red button on his arm rest)

    (A trap door opens up from the ceiling and 10,000 copies of WordPerfect, Borland C++, Lotus, and Quattro Pro, bludgeon the Japanese semiconductor CEO to death. His lifeless body slumps over.)

    GATES: "Anyone else have any problems with my plan?"

    1. Re:Meanwhile in his deep undersea fortress... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      ME: Not Funny.

    2. Re:Meanwhile in his deep undersea fortress... by mabu · · Score: 1

      ME: Don't blame me because your MCSE is about as valuable as Iraqi currency.

      There's always a career available in disinfecting bowling shoes.

    3. Re:Meanwhile in his deep undersea fortress... by mabu · · Score: 1

      In case you didn't get that, it takes the same amount of skill to press the reset button as it does to spray some Lysol into smartly colored footwear.

      All is not lost.

    4. Re:Meanwhile in his deep undersea fortress... by NeMon'ess · · Score: 1

      No no no. The meeting was in a big blimp over the San Francisco Bay Area. The Japanese Businessman would have no part of the proposition and May Day led him to the stairs. Once he was on the stairs May Day pushed two buttons and the stairs changed into a slide. The Businessman slid out of the blimp and died when he hit the water far below.

      Gates: "So, does anybody else wanna drop out?"

    5. Re:Meanwhile in his deep undersea fortress... by Kiyooka · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the pink-to-mouth, the asking for a bajillion dollars, and the slowly dying bouts of evil laughter.

  21. C'Mon, It's Pretty Much An Alpha Release by Naked+Chef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course it's a resource hog, they probably have every debugging feature turned on in it. Is there a point to "reviewing" this build?

    1. Re:C'Mon, It's Pretty Much An Alpha Release by andy55 · · Score: 1

      Of course it's a resource hog, they probably have every debugging feature turned on in it. Is there a point to "reviewing" this build?

      No doubt, but all the other stuff they'll add in over the next 1-2 years will offset the debugging stuff removed, easily.

      Separately, wtf is up w/ the window theme (ie, brushed aluminum window look). What a sad rip-off of Mac OS 10.3's theme. Is there no end to MS's lack of creativiy and design abilities??

    2. Re:C'Mon, It's Pretty Much An Alpha Release by TwistedSpring · · Score: 1

      I agree, but then you can't stop the flood of Linux zealots on Slashdot. Those who've been using KDE and Gnome for ages should understand the frustration of slow, often unaccellerated, ugly and unresponsive GUIs designed by people who know what looks pretty but don't know how to make something intuitive and ergonomic, as Gnome and KDE are both fantastic examples of this.

      So Longhorn uses a ton of RAM? A few points:

      1. Good. I'm glad my memory is being used instead of going to waste. I'm guessing the amount of RAM used is dependent on the total system RAM available and that the VMM attempts to keep as much stuff in physical RAM as possible. This was sorely missing from earlier versions of Win NT which would swap out all my apps overnight.

      2. It's no good complaining that the leaked version uses an apparently large amount of memory. Of course it does, it would be compiled in debug mode without optimizations. Also the article points to a memory leak that is constantly eating memory. I guess there will be other buggy apps that are doing this as well (it is an alpha) and that would also add to the memory usage.

      3. Who knows whether the drives use DMA mode in this release, or if drivers are even available. Slowness could be down to PIO.

      4. While I don't like an overly graphic GUI and use win2k, I think longhorn looks pretty stylish and I'm glad that they're ripping off apple. OS X's interface looks damn swish and I want that on my box without having to buy some crazy apple nonsense that looks like a couple of old shopping trollies welded together and costs $3000. I'm sure you will be able to turn off the themes or change them to a standard look if you wish.

      5. Enough with the Linux zealots please. I've just found my Linux box will kill tons of daemons seemingly at random if several web users run buggy CGI scripts that eat all the virtual memory. At least windows has a swapfile that can be changed in size. Linux is great and all that, but it's god damn awful for desktop use, always has been and always will be. If I want sleek and responsive I'd be crazy to choose Linux or X windows on any unix platform. Gimme Panther or Longhorn for design, web browsing, and general gui tasks. Gimme bash for everything else.

      Heaven forbid a Linux user bashes Linux, but you're all so god damn intollerant on /. i feel its almost a calling to fight back.

  22. Best part is, you can download your own copy! by James+A.+J.+Joyce · · Score: 5, Informative

    I found a handy page on Google with some torrents and other doodads. You may want to check how much RAM you have first ;-)

    1. Re:Best part is, you can download your own copy! by red_kola · · Score: 0

      Do not even think of visiting that link if you've got Javascript turned on or don't have a pop-up blocker...

  23. Longhorn Alpha by TheApocalypse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have tried to install an alpha version of Longhorn. It hangs when it gets to detecting hardware, so I havent been able to actually use it. I think the build that i have it pretty much like XP is so I'm not that hurt that I can't get it to run. The nice thing is though, that it comes with a nicer partition utility than XP does. Not as good as something like Mandrake or SUSE, but still good for Windows.

    1. Re:Longhorn Alpha by nb+caffeine · · Score: 1

      i got a preview edition through the msdnaa, and had this happen too. so, i was trying it "
      'for the last time'' and got distracted. came back to my pc, 2.5 hours later, just as it was finishing. guess they have a bit of work to do on hardware detecrion...

      --

      "Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
    2. Re:Longhorn Alpha by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1

      TWO-AND-A-HALF *HOURS* for hardware detection?

      Knoppix Linux does it in the two minutes it takes to boot!

      And the Windows tools^H^H^H^H^Htrolls^H^H^H^H^H^Hassholes think Linux is hard to use?

      BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
    3. Re:Longhorn Alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAIK, waiting 2.5 hours is not difficult.

      Sure, their auto-detection time is laughable, but it doesn't make it any harder to use.

  24. System resource usage by Eric+Smith · · Score: 0, Troll
    At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.
    How is it obvious that the resource utilization will go down? When they add more bloat, the commit charge gets bigger. No surprise there.
    1. Re:System resource usage by Eric+Smith · · Score: 1

      How is that a troll? It's true of all software that gets lots of stuff added. I'm not picking on MS, it happens with Linux, Gnome, KDE, Emacs, etc.

  25. Nearly 500 meg? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's ONE HUNDRED times more than my computer's operating system, RISC OS*, uses. Ridiculous.

    * http://www.iyonix.com/iyonix/features/osfeatures.s html

    1. Re:Nearly 500 meg? by imsabbel · · Score: 0, Troll

      Well, my raid array is 3.5 MILLION times as large as the floppy of my first computer (cpc6128).
      RIDICULOUS!!!!!!1111

      And YOUR OS is FOUR HUNDERED TIMES BIGGER then cpm 2.1

      --
      HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
    2. Re:Nearly 500 meg? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oi, Challands! Pack it in!

  26. Who cares? by prostoalex · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hey, if you're extremely worried about the RAM resources, are too cheap to shell out that extra $40 for 256 MB of memory, or expect to run the whole thing on TI-83 calculator, then maybe next Windows is not for you.

    If you want functionality, you have to dedicate resources, if you don't want much functionality, stick to Linux on a floppy with pre-installed vi and life would be great.

    Mozilla Firefox 0.8 is currently taking up 63 MB of RAM, and that's just a browser with no media players, mail clients, task schedulers, etc.

    1. Re:Who cares? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hey, if you're extremely worried about the RAM resources, are too cheap to shell out that extra $40 for 256 MB of memory, or expect to run the whole thing on TI-83 calculator, then maybe next Windows is not for you.

      There are plenty of otherwise perfectly good PIII machines out there with 1+ GHz CPUs that are limited to 1/2 GB of RAM. Adding another 256MB DIMM may not be an option.

    2. Re:Who cares? by Aggrajag · · Score: 1

      Strange, my build of Firefox takes 19 MB with one page open...

    3. Re:Who cares? by AvitarX · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have 6 windows open.

      slashdot, penny arcade, FX networks flash monstrosity, and 3 random mozilla.org pages (just to add windows)

      I am using only 38 MB

      with one widnow it was 18 MB only slashdot (wich did seem high, but not anywhere near 64MB).

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    4. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seem's right. I think Firefox's memory problems stems from its tab implementation. Too bad Mozilla's source is full of cruft. Unless a rewrite is done, Firefox will probably never be rid of this problem.

    5. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      FX networks flash monstrosity

      I was there just a while ago. /me can't wait for The Shield to start again.

    6. Re:Who cares? by whiteknight31 · · Score: 0

      I have no idea what your talking about with firefox. I have 2 windows open and its taking up 20 MB of ram. You must have a screwed up build.

    7. Re:Who cares? by prostoalex · · Score: 1

      The official 0.8. Tabs open - Slashdot, News.com and Webmail on my server. No Java applets, no Flash, perhaps some JavaScript, no huge images or animations.

    8. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you really want functionality, stop being cheap and spend a few grand on a powermac with mac os x.

      If you're too cheap to spend a few grand on a powermac, maybe computing isn't for you.

    9. Re:Who cares? by unixbum · · Score: 1

      Mozilla Firefox 0.8 is currently taking up 63 MB of RAM, and that's just a browser with no media players, mail clients, task schedulers, etc. What kinda crack are you running firefox on? firefox runs at about 19mb of ram... compared to IE's 20mb

    10. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't run Mozilla Firefox either, its a memory pig, taking up 63MB, even the SQL server i'm running didn't take up that.

      So far Longhorn will need over 256MB anyway (I doubt the final version will need less considering it is with no applications loaded, so that figure is redundant and a poor estimate. Additionally comparing the memory size of a TI-83 calculator to even 486's is daft.

      How on earth your post got moderated as Informative, I have no idea.

    11. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      themes?

    12. Re:Who cares? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      I do have 1GB of RAM in my system, I'd just rather it be used for something worthwhile rather than unnecessary bloat.

      For one, hard drives doesn't keep pace. All that data has to be loaded from somewhere, so responsiveness from boot time lags. Execution time probably lags as the CPU has to churn through all that crap.

      BTW, right now, my Firefox is reading 34MB with seven open tabs. Thunderbird is at 18MB.

      The biggest memory hog right now is Photoshop, and that's only taking 140MB of memory, even that is being pretty wastefull as I was only editing 32MB worth of pictures, and they are now all but closed except for the main program.

    13. Re:Who cares? by Cyrack · · Score: 1

      63Megs? Thats a lot of por... err... pages you got there :-) With four tabs open (and some extentions (Webdesigner thingie, adblock and others like these)) it consumes 22Megs, IExplore.exe starts at 19Megs (showing newz.dk) and takes more as soon I start browsing. But then again, I just could start lynx... on a gentoo box... with as few kernel-modules as possible...

    14. Re:Who cares? by cbosdell · · Score: 1

      firefox .8 final uses 20.8 megs with 8 tabs open here.

    15. Re:Who cares? by acm · · Score: 1

      ditto. 6 windows, 38mb.

    16. Re:Who cares? by noewun · · Score: 1
      The biggest memory hog right now is Photoshop, and that's only taking 140MB of memory, even that is being pretty wastefull as I was only editing 32MB worth of pictures, and they are now all but closed except for the main program.

      Photoshop keeps three copies of the current image in memory at the same time: one to work on, one for undo and one for the history palette. As Photoshop works solely with bitmapped images, this is the only way to have multiple undos or history.

      Besides, if you think that's bad, try having two gigabyte-sized images open at the same time, copying multiple layers from one to the other.

      --
      I am a believer of momentum and curves.
    17. Re:Who cares? by Fweeky · · Score: 1

      2 Slashdot windows (article with 50 nested comments and this reply), Penny Arcade, FX Networks, 3 random mozilla.org pages: 31MB. This is Opera 7.50 preview 2 under windows XP using automatic memory cache and a skinned interface. Browser's been open about 2 and a half hours.

      What browser are you using? :P

    18. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF you doin?

      Running FireFox .8 now with about.. 9 tabs open and I'm not much past 45.

    19. Re:Who cares? by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      duh. not finished though and still informative, yay slashdot.

      I am using firefox .8 like the grandparent.

      wouldn'thave been a useful comparison otherwise.

      it is nice to know that Mozilla is about par with Opera now, except the better ram cash in Opera.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  27. Ninnle instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just another reason to stick with the tried-and-true Ninnle Linux!

    1. Re:Ninnle instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My Ninnle Linux box uses only 2 megs of memory with a full GUI and no programs running.

  28. Obviously by Jedi+Holocron · · Score: 5, Funny
    Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.


    It will consume more...
    1. Re:Obviously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, probably enough to make AMD64 machines more attractive than crumby 32 bit machines using PAE. Not that bad an outcome though.

    2. Re:Obviously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...small children

  29. RAM Size by rhysweatherley · · Score: 1
    "At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources."
    Seems a bit low to me. They haven't used up the full 512 Mb of RAM on standard systems yet. It's going to take them ages to meet their target of making everyone buy 4 Gb systems at this rate! Looks like Longhorn will have to slip some more so they can cram a few more unnecessary things in.
    1. Re:RAM Size by benjamindees · · Score: 1
      Don't forget, MS still has to get that *upgrade* hook. I think the plan has been:

      • barely max out standard RAM on current systems with just the OS.
      • user upgrades (with a pirated version): their system seems slow, but works.
      • they finally get sick of it, blame it on their *old computer*, and buy a completely new one.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
  30. Depends.... by protogoogoo69 · · Score: 1

    Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

    Is MS in bed with hardware manufacturers?

    --
    ...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
    1. Re:Depends.... by ultrabot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is MS in bed with hardware manufacturers?

      MS is in bed with almost everyone, in the sense that almost everybody is taking it up the tailpipe from Bill & Friends. And many don't seem to mind.

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
  31. I'D LIKE A SUPERSIZE OF DEATH WITH A COKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    The democrats are fucking traitors and losers, especially the former deaniacs. President Bush, our hero is setting the right course and he knows exactly where he wants to lead this country. When are you dipshit liberals gonna get it? Open source, lunix, macs they're all the same. Total shit operating systems and hippies. I stick with my American made Windows XP and my American made Dell pc. You fucking traitors can go ahead and use apple and lunix like the traitors you are.

  32. Long live Clippy! by dapyx · · Score: 3, Funny

    Probably they put the animated "Clippy" on the Start button.

    --
    I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
    1. Re:Long live Clippy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hmmm... but what are the other 3MB used for? :)

    2. Re:Long live Clippy! by SmackCrackandPot · · Score: 1

      Hmmm... but what are the other 3MB used for? :)

      Multiple camera views with surround sound, DVD intro's and trailers for upcoming features.

    3. Re:Long live Clippy! by DroopyStonx · · Score: 1

      Didn't you hear?

      Clippy is now 3D accellerated, powered by DirectX 9.1, and will require at LEAST 32 megs of video memory.

      --
      We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
  33. Article Text (slashdotted) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053 - Page 1
    Posted by Team Flexbeta on 05 March 2004 (34135 views) Rating: 4.64
    Even though the next generation Windows product is not due until late 2005 or even 2006, we wanted to take a look at what Microsoft has in store for us. We take a quick look at the recently leaked Longhorn Build 4053.

    For those of you that are lucky enough to have snagged a copy, remember this, Build 4053 is still a baby, not even in Beta stage yet, so we will not go in depth into subjects such as the theme, sidebar, etc.

    The installation wizard has improved greatly from past installers that Windows 2000 and XP had. No more will we see the plain DOS like setup screen, its all graphical now with minimal questions during the installation process, which, has its good and its bad. For a home user upgrading to Longhorn, the installation is a breeze, start the setup, enter the key and go take a nap, by the time you wake up it will be done. If the setup continues on this path towards final release, then the use of an answer file will be necessary to alleviate any post installation changes, especially for a network administrator implementing a company wide roll out, but Microsoft has always provided excellent administrator tools for this very reason. The installation did take an awfully long time, especially during the "Hardware Detection" phase, but I'm sure that this will be improved upon in the months to come.

    Even though the initial startup is extremely fast, once logged in the system crawls along, taking a seemingly endless amount of time to get everything up and running. This too will definitely improve over development time.

    The layout is clean and clutter free. Minimal icons are presented on the desktop, which is one of my pet peeves; I go to great lengths to maintain an icon-less desktop. The sidebar is definitely going to have its share of protestors, me being one of them. To me, no matter what is docked on the sidebar in the final release, it is a huge waste of space and system resources that a vast majority of users will just turn off. There will be more applets applied to it in the end, search bars, link bars, etc, so as the sidebar comes of age, we will examine it once again.

    Without a vast amount of tweaking, this build is a resource hog. At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources. My test system is an Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz with 512 MB of RAM, so it is still running at a good pace, but anything less than this makes the system crawl along at an insanely annoying pace. When the final build is released, the recommended system requirements will be roughly the same as Windows XP, but as anyone that has tried to run XP with multiple users will testify, simply having the recommended requirements is just not enough.

    At this point in time, build 4053 is basically Windows XP with a different theme, even though some new technologies are being created and there are dribs and drabs of them in this build. Build 4053 is still a lot different from previous builds where some of the new technologies Microsoft is working on were clearly integrated, such as the Hardware Carousel, WinFS, etc, in this build like Build 4051 (PDC) they are absent or implemented at a minimum.

    There are very visible bugs at this stage, but it seems that some of the major pains that plagued previous builds have been worked on or corrected. The infamous Internet Explorer memory leak seems to have disappeared, and that was a huge memory leak, but as I sit here writing this, the commit charge is growing and growing, so there are still memory leaks in some processes and/or services that are running.

    Some features previewed in previous builds have been developed to a greater extent such as Contacts, Photos and Videos. The layout and orientation of the windows has been vastly improved. All links and graphical elements have been fine tuned

    1. Re:Article Text (slashdotted) by syusuf · · Score: 5, Funny

      The installation wizard has improved greatly from past installers that Windows 2000 and XP had.

      That's excellent, since that's the application I use the most when using Windows on my PC...

    2. Re:Article Text (slashdotted) by Etyenne · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Internet Explorer 6.05.4053.0 and Outlook Express 7

      As stated earlier, the huge memory leak from previous builds seems to be absent.

      I have not been following Windows development very closely, but I as under the impression that all the OS (and associated applications) was being rewritten in C#. If this is the case, memory leak should not happen anymore. Is this right ? If yes, then I guess IE had not been completely rewritten yet.

      --
      :wq
    3. Re:Article Text (slashdotted) by AaronLawrence · · Score: 1

      Uh... yeah right. They will fiddle with bits and pieces of it... probably the "exciting" web features of the desktop will turn into .NET stuff... you obviously have no conception what rewriting the OS would involve...

      --
      For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
    4. Re:Article Text (slashdotted) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even assuming this is true, it is possible that, through programming error, some memory allocated isn't freed properly before the process ends, isn't it? Especially with something like the main Explorer process, which could be running for a while.

      Besides, are they redoing the kernel in C#? Huh?

    5. Re:Article Text (slashdotted) by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1
      That's excellent, since that's the application I use the most when using Windows on my PC...

      Well, I've had to "reboot, reboot and reinstall" so many times lately, that the WinXP installer is getting to be annoying.

      Running windows the installer is one of the most used applications.

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  34. Re:Slasshdotteeddd by Recoil_42 · · Score: 1

    it's slow, but still up. -- just hit reload..

    --


    Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
  35. Something is not right here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They must be running IIS on Longhorn or something!

  36. Not obvious! by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 1, Redundant
    "Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.'"

    It may be the new Microsoft business model, low cost software, high cost hardware -- just like inkjet printers (low cost printers, high cost ink)

    If Microsoft gets there hands into trusted computer hardware platforms, and ram, they can lock you into platforms that only Microsoft gets money from. And doesn't Microsoft make money from ram now?


    Of course the early builds are debugged enabled and fat, but I have no doubt that by the time it is released, it will be much bigger. Microsoft programmers are lazy, why write efficient code when you can just add more hardware? And don't forget that no one will ever need more than 640k.

  37. Reason for Delay by ortcutt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe it won't take until 2006 to finish Longhorn, maybe they just need to wait until DRAM prices fall enough that people will be able to afford to run it.

    1. Re:Reason for Delay by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      Since DRAM is increadibly overpriced it may not take very long at all. If people are willing to pay $200 for 512 they will be willing to pay $300 for 3 gigs in 3 months. And with 64bit they will, ridiculous ram prices and the obvious nature of a huge ram footprint make you think the problem lies in an area which is one of the most likely to clear up in the near future.

  38. Name by Tango42 · · Score: 1

    Is there any news on what the name of this version will be? (I'm assuming "longhorn" is purely a working title)

    1. Re:Name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about "copland"?

    2. Re:Name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have to get your ideas from somewhere...

      I'm liking the sound of "Rhapsody"... How's "MkLinu"--no, wait, that's taken...

  39. Longhorn schedule by shawkin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sources working at the Redmond campus say that it is common knowledge on campus that Longhorn will not ship until mid 2007. With current technical problems mounting, the same sources say that 2008 is starting to look likely, if not optimistic.

    Those who have to use the current build say that it is not stable at all. Apparently, there are new failure modes in the DRM and file systems that are "very difficult to analyze and very non-intuitive to troubleshoot or even understand." The failure modes are reported to totally freeze the computer, prevent rebooting and resist reformatting.

    If true, the words "difficult and non-intuitive" are not encouraging, particularly when used by very experienced users at Microsoft .

    1. Re:Longhorn schedule by andy55 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sources working at the Redmond campus say that it is common knowledge on campus that Longhorn will not ship until mid 2007.

      Those are some pretty big words. Too bad you can't name those sources. If you look at the development of Mac OS X, I can't wait to see where it's at by 2007--whew--or even 2006. Whatever the case is at MS, they're in serious trouble if they don't ship asap, with Linux and Mac OS X getting better and/or more widespread by the quarter. Once again, I'm starting to fantasize, thinking about a world that doesn't use MS products as a industry standard.

      Separately, during my trips to MS in biz dealings, every couple offices you'd see macs and cinema displays.

    2. Re:Longhorn schedule by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2007? At the rate things are going that means that things like the Linux kernel would be hitting 3.0 or 3.2, and GNOME and KDE are running at something like 4.0 and 5.0 respectivily. Whatever X replacment wins in the end (I'm rooting for Y-Windows myself) will have hit 1.0+, and all those little, but oh so important like D-Bus, and HAL will be 1.0+ and nicely intergrated.

      I guess this means Redhat, Mandrake and so on would be up to version 48.2 or something. ;)

      Of course, debian will probably be at version 3.3. (I'd give my left eye-teeth for something like stable-new, which had six month point releases).

    3. Re:Longhorn schedule by dohcvtec · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sources working at the Redmond campus say that it is common knowledge on campus that Longhorn will not ship until mid 2007

      Wow... Windows XP was released in 2001, so that will end up being a 6-7 year interval between OS releases. I'm not sure what that will mean, but that's a really long interval between OS releases.

      --
      -- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
    4. Re:Longhorn schedule by geekoid · · Score: 1

      The current build comes with only one gaurantee:
      It will take up hard disk space.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Longhorn schedule by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows Millenium Edition II.

      And this time, it's personal.

      (Sequels are never good.)

    6. Re:Longhorn schedule by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      (I'd give my left eye-teeth for something like stable-new, which had six month point releases).
      Ew. How are you going to get a girlfriend after being so physically deformed?

      Oh, wait...

      BTW: as far as X goes, it's Keith Packard's "kdrive" all the way... It might get renamed (honestly, kdrive is a lousy name for an X server) and the freedesktop name will probably disappear though.
    7. Re:Longhorn schedule by macbraughton · · Score: 1

      With current technical problems mounting, the same sources say that 2008 is starting to look likely, if not optimistic.

      If there is any truth in this comment, then it would not be too far off to say that MS may have finally bitten off more than they can chew. There are so many things that have changed since the 90's when their business model gave them the dominant position that they have today. Who knows what other things could happen in the next 3 to 4 years? Hardware is still getting cheaper, the mass deployment of internet applications is really just now starting to mature, wireless internet is still in its infancy. An 'all-in-one' OS just doesn't make that much sense anymore, most people don't care about all of the bells and whistles, they just want something that is fast and easy to use. IMHO you could probably get away with something that only has a really slick GUI that doesn't do much more than connect to the web and lets the server-side apps do all of the heavy lifting. Linux is an ideal candidate for this type of distributed computing paradigm (although some slimmer OS like the Hurd would work even better and it will be coming into its own by the time Longhorn is released) by that time Google have replaced Microsoft as the next evil corporation #1 anyway (like MS replaced IBM in the nineties.)

      --
      ...and i'm sorry for us the dinosaurs roam the earth the sky turns green where i end and you begin
    8. Re:Longhorn schedule by binarytoaster · · Score: 1

      An 'all-in-one' OS just doesn't make that much sense anymore, most people don't care about all of the bells and whistles, they just want something that is fast and easy to use.
      Errr... no? Explain the success of OSX, where you do not need to buy a single separate program - *maybe* Office if you really really need Word or somesuch. But hey, that one isn't really "in the OS" in Windows either. (And Works is quite fine for most applications.) iApps + Safari + Mail = everything most people want to do with a computer at home.

      (although some slimmer OS like the Hurd would work even better and it will be coming into its own by the time Longhorn is released)
      Ah, I have just been trolled. Oh well, I wasted a little time already, might as well laugh at you for mentioning Hurd... Wasn't that supposed to be "coming into its own" about 10 years ago?

    9. Re:Longhorn schedule by bheer · · Score: 2, Funny

      >so that will end up being a 6-7 year interval between OS releases

      Look at the bright side, at least no one can laugh at Debian again.

    10. Re:Longhorn schedule by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd say 2008 is unlikely. Windows 2000's EOL is 2007. When they need to upgrade, they're going to go to XP or Server 2003? I'd say MS would have their latest OS waiting for them.

  40. Features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    here is a look at what Microsoft has in store for it's future operating system.

    I wonder if it'll educate its users on apostrophe usage. This is third-grade stuff, dickhead. Maybe you should KNOW IT BY NOW.

  41. A Microsoft Prospective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    At Microsoft, our current take is that memory and storage are cheap and that every user will have a machine with 1 gig of RAM when Longhorn hits the stores. In the end it will come down to whether the user can live without the Longhorn without having to upgrade their system. Although some users might choose not upgrade, we feel that the overall majority of users will see the value our software provides and opt to upgrade.

    1. Re:A Microsoft Prospective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've had a gig of ram in my computer for over a year, and Slackware runs great on it.

      I don't care when Longhorn hits the shelves.

    2. Re:A Microsoft Prospective by hplasm · · Score: 1

      Meh. 640 Gb will be (just)enough for everyone..

      --
      ...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
  42. Article text by Rexz · · Score: 2, Informative
    A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053 - Page 1

    Even though the next generation Windows product is not due until late 2005 or even 2006, we wanted to take a look at what Microsoft has in store for us. We take a quick look at the recently leaked Longhorn Build 4053.

    For those of you that are lucky enough to have snagged a copy, remember this, Build 4053 is still a baby, not even in Beta stage yet, so we will not go in depth into subjects such as the theme, sidebar, etc.

    The installation wizard has improved greatly from past installers that Windows 2000 and XP had. No more will we see the plain DOS like setup screen, its all graphical now with minimal questions during the installation process, which, has its good and its bad. For a home user upgrading to Longhorn, the installation is a breeze, start the setup, enter the key and go take a nap, by the time you wake up it will be done. If the setup continues on this path towards final release, then the use of an answer file will be necessary to alleviate any post installation changes, especially for a network administrator implementing a company wide roll out, but Microsoft has always provided excellent administrator tools for this very reason. The installation did take an awfully long time, especially during the "Hardware Detection" phase, but I'm sure that this will be improved upon in the months to come.

    Even though the initial startup is extremely fast, once logged in the system crawls along, taking a seemingly endless amount of time to get everything up and running. This too will definitely improve over development time.

    The layout is clean and clutter free. Minimal icons are presented on the desktop, which is one of my pet peeves; I go to great lengths to maintain an icon-less desktop. The sidebar is definitely going to have its share of protestors, me being one of them. To me, no matter what is docked on the sidebar in the final release, it is a huge waste of space and system resources that a vast majority of users will just turn off. There will be more applets applied to it in the end, search bars, link bars, etc, so as the sidebar comes of age, we will examine it once again.

    A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053 - Page 2

    Without a vast amount of tweaking, this build is a resource hog. At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources. My test system is an Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz with 512 MB of RAM, so it is still running at a good pace, but anything less than this makes the system crawl along at an insanely annoying pace. When the final build is released, the recommended system requirements will be roughly the same as Windows XP, but as anyone that has tried to run XP with multiple users will testify, simply having the recommended requirements is just not enough.

    At this point in time, build 4053 is basically Windows XP with a different theme, even though some new technologies are being created and there are dribs and drabs of them in this build. Build 4053 is still a lot different from previous builds where some of the new technologies Microsoft is working on were clearly integrated, such as the Hardware Carousel, WinFS, etc, in this build like Build 4051 (PDC) they are absent or implemented at a minimum.

    There are very visible bugs at this stage, but it seems that some of the major pains that plagued previous builds have been worked on or corrected. The infamous Internet Explorer memory leak seems to have disappeared, and that was a huge memory leak, but as I sit here writing this, the commit charge is growing and growing, so there are still memory leaks in some processes and/or services that are running.

    Some features previewed in previous builds have been developed to a greater extent such as Contacts, Photos and Videos. The layout and orientation of the windows has been vastly improved. All links and graphical elements have been fine tune

  43. Of course it uses heaps of resource... by kiwioddBall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Every Microsoft operating system during development does! The OS is not designed to run on systems that we use now, it is designed to run on systems that we will be using in 3 years time.

    Historically, when Windows NT received heaps of exactly the same flack about it running extraordinarily slowly from reviewers quite simply because they weren't smart enough to work that basic fact out.

    1. Re:Of course it uses heaps of resource... by addaon · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile, over in the mac world, each of the last three major OS releases has been faster and less resource-hungry than the previous.

      --

      I've had this sig for three days.
  44. What the hell? by steve_stern · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is like breaking into Linus Torvald's house, stealing his sketch notes about Linux, and making fun of them for having such poor quality.

    Its a product that won't hit the shelves for 2 years. It was compiled in debug mode - of course its going to be a resource hog.

    1. Re:What the hell? by atlantis191 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is slashdot. Microsoft usually does not get a good rap here. Sometimes wrongfully so, sometimes rightfully so. There is no doubt that this windows will use more memory than XP and previous versions ever had by a longshot. But to call an OS thats supposed to be used 2-3 years from now a resource hog is rediculous.

    2. Re:What the hell? by Lost+Dragon · · Score: 1

      This is slashdot.

      That was really all you had to say. ;)

    3. Re:What the hell? by Callan.ca · · Score: 1

      [This is like breaking into Linus Torvald's house, stealing his sketch notes about Linux, and making fun of them for having such poor quality.]

      Linus doesnt compile his sketchy code and distribute it, he distributes the code for review, good or bad.

    4. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and that would've saved us all from more horrible abuse of the word ridiculous.

    5. Re:What the hell? by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 1

      No, it's not like looking at notes at all. It's like looking at Linux a.b and GNOME c.d where b and d are odd numbers.

  45. Only 10 things? by brain_not_ticking · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't you love the fact that MSFT always builds an OS for nonexistant hardware? MSFT relies on the hardware manufacturers to put out faster, more capable hardware to support their shotty implementations; it's a crackers heaven.

    This is how it works:
    1: MSFT Releases new OS
    2: MSFT stops supporting old OS
    3: End user forced to upgrade
    4: PROFIT $$$

    but it doesn't stop there.

    Since the OS is implemented badly to begin with, you can expect there will be plenty of things to exploit, to gain control over the end-user's machine. With the above cycle in mind, it's more than obvious that MSFT is blindly supplying crackers with faster, more powerful machines that they can use in their network of zombies.

    I hear that they plan on shipping a virus scanner with future versions of windows...I sure hope they update virus definitions much faster than they currently patch their security holes.

    and 483 MB? That's rediculous. I'm running slackware with everything I need to rule the world, and it uses less than 200MB.

    Memory isn't really an issue for me, as I have an ample amount, but my point is this: Microsoft should more concentrate on fixing their current implementation issues. They need to make their OS's usable (and fast) on widely available hardware. They need to do a lot of work with their memory mangement. I shouldn't have to reboot my computer twice a week, or even twice a month. MSFT should not require users to use the latest technology either, because generally it's prohibitively expensive, and always implemented poorly.

    Until MSFT fixes the above issues, I think I'll stick to OSS.

    1. Re:Only 10 things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Hey "brain not ticking", I've got a good friend over here who I think you'd like to meet. His name is "reality", you two might hit it off. Wait, he's leaving. He says you look too wild-eyed, so I guess you'll never get to meet reality, sorry. You're just too crazy.

    2. Re:Only 10 things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Don't you love the fact that MSFT always builds an OS for nonexistant hardware? MSFT relies on the hardware manufacturers to put out faster, more capable hardware to support their shotty implementations; it's a crackers heaven.

      Sounds a lot like id and the Quake/Doom series, doesn't it?

    3. Re:Only 10 things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only on Slashdot could someone perpetuate the postulate that Microsoft releasing a new version of software that requires people to have faster machines somehow means they are directly funding DDOS attacks by providing equipment to the crackers. Assuming you're not just trolling, the speed of the machine isn't what is important to zombie clients, it is the speed of the network connection available to flood with data. Please mod parent down as "troll".

    4. Re:Only 10 things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess its better than linux which isn't built for existing hardware (usb cameras, Serial ATA, Centrino)

    5. Re:Only 10 things? by jrockway · · Score: 1

      Even if MS fixes the issues, I think I'll stick to OSS. I like having control over my computer; Windows assumes that I'm too dumb to do that, and takes the control away. No thank you.

      --
      My other car is first.
    6. Re:Only 10 things? by Finuvir · · Score: 2, Funny
      This is how it works:
      1: MSFT Releases new OS
      2: MSFT stops supporting old OS
      3: End user forced to upgrade
      4: PROFIT $$$

      You're right, releasing new software is so evil! We must stop them!

      --
      Why is anything anything?
    7. Re:Only 10 things? by yagami · · Score: 1

      So , are you going to use GNOME ??! :)

    8. Re:Only 10 things? by mog007 · · Score: 2

      2: MSFT stops supporting old OS That's just not true at all. Due to a threat of a sit-in, or whatever pusaivness the public used, Windows 98 is being supported for a few more years, instead of being cancelled like it was supposed to be earlier this year. Windows 2000 is still supported, and so is Windows XP of course. Windows 98 has been around for a few years now, and it's still supported. There are even patches that come out for IE 5. Considering how long support for other software products is, I think Microsoft has their head in the game.

    9. Re:Only 10 things? by Lusa · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This isn't any different from whats been going on for the last 10 years except it used to be with computer games. They drove hardware upgrades and improvements but thats been pushed more onto the video cards these days.

      Also I don't see a problem with building an OS for hardware that does not exist yet. In fact, MS need to do that because hardware will have moved on from what it is now. Look at what was an entry level computer two years ago compared to today for example. They've improved a lot and I doubt that will slow or stop in the next year or two. Whoever said MS's customers are the big computer suppliers weren't kidding.

    10. Re:Only 10 things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quake 3 and it's predecessors all ran perfectly on hardware that I had at the moment that I bought the game. I don't see where you're going with that argument.

      Of course, there's no chance in hell that my current rig is going to run Doom3, because it's starting to suffer on games that are out today

    11. Re:Only 10 things? by brain_not_ticking · · Score: 1

      Realeasing new software is not evil. Forcing users to waste money on shit they don't need is evil.

      Your average Joe User doesn't need a 2.4Ghz processor with 512MB (as was the test machine, I believe). Your average Joe User simply wants to surf the internet, use a word processor, send/receive email, probably a little bit of filesharing, and possibly cd burning. All of this stuff can be done on a very basic machine.

      Another poster mentioned that MSFT is not cutting support for Win98 for another few years. That may well be the case, this is irrelevant. This confusion is my fault. I should have clarified that by "MSFT stops supporting old OS" that I really meant "MSFT stops improving old OS." Even if they are "supporting" it, what they're really doing is providing the bare minimum tech support that they can so as to not lose too many customers.

      I have already said this, but I'll say it again. MSFT needs to produce a useful, powerful, fast, and stable OS before they bloat their OS's even more by adding useless eyecandy / redundant features.

    12. Re:Only 10 things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the $50 that your computer maker paid back in 1998 for Windows 98 should pay for improving it in 2004? Name one company that offers support like that?

    13. Re:Only 10 things? by Finuvir · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But most people want the useless eyecandy and redundant features. So that's where the money is. If all they did was improve Win98 from now until the end of time, they would still be fixing things a thousand years from now, but no-one would see any progress unless they added new features (whether or not they're useful).

      There are plenty of things wrong with microsoft, but making an OS for 2006 that needs more resources than an OS released in 1998 is not a big problem. There's very little business in making up-to-date software for older systems (I know Linux can be made to run on older machines with all the current security and bugfixes, but the money is in new machines).

      --
      Why is anything anything?
    14. Re: Only 10 things? by gidds · · Score: 1
      I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I can't resist:

      That's rediculous. I'm running slackware with everything I need to rule the world

      ...except a spelling checker?

      --

      Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.

    15. Re:Only 10 things? by brain_not_ticking · · Score: 0

      Look at it my way though. Nobody will see any progress if they're only adding new features and not fixing the problems in existing features.

      I agree 100% that there is nothing wrong with them making a more resource demanding OS. I just expect the fucking thing to WORK and to be secure. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

      I'm not trying to run it on a dated machine either. I've got a 2Ghz processor with 1.5Gb of RAM. Linux simply runs much better (faster, better memory management, more stable, secure) than windows.

  46. Please don't change a thing! by NoSuchGuy · · Score: 1

    Even though the initial startup is extremely fast, once logged in the system crawls along, taking a seemingly endless amount of time to get everything up and running. This too will definitely improve over development time.

    Thanks Microsoft you made no changes to existing software!

    --
    Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
  47. prospective? by Uber+Banker · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    perspective?

    1. Re:prospective? by JET+666 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      prospective just costs more.

      --
      De sig boss de sig
    2. Re:prospective? by mangu · · Score: 1

      If he's really working at Microsoft, let's hope he codes better than he spells...

    3. Re:prospective? by Zebidiah · · Score: 1

      The spelling mistakes could account for a lot of their buggy software!

  48. Now, really! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

    Obviously, this Timothy fellow must be joking. Your average Microsoft advocate has an air of respectability and tries to avoid creating the impression that they smoke crack.

  49. Re:Who cares? (No really! Who cares?) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought you meant who cares about windows. Is there anybody here that doesn't care a fig about windows? It's one of the reasons I used to come here, in order to not feel so lonely. Now I fear it's being co-opted by the Borg. If y'all love windows so much isn't there another web log to discuss it on?

  50. Moore's Law by The+Slashdotted · · Score: 2, Funny
    Moore's Law

    Moore's Law says that the numbers of transistors per integrated circuit increased exponentionally.

    One day a economist overheard this and didn't know how to apply it, so he looked at a price graph and observed that technology cost half what it did 18 months before.

    A Marketing major heard it and thought that too drery, and declared speed doubled every 18 months.

    Then an MCSE came along, and proclaimed efficient programming isn't cost effective, and Windows bloat will be absorbed.
  51. Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just a reminder: with Mac OS 10, Apple has been improving its performance with every single release...

    although, Jaguar and Panther did add a 128 MB "requirement"

    1. Re:Apple by RoundSparrow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would say that Microsoft has a lot larger userbase... so they draw their release schedule out.

      Upgrading 1,000,000 customers vs. 80,000,000 - your support and documentation has to be that much better.

      Believe it or not, I think Windows 2000 / Windows XP is as stable as linux / Freebsd. I didn't say better, I didn't say more secure... but I think the stablish issue is mute. considering how much more crappy hardware and hardware drivers windows supports - of course more people are going ot have crashes. But on the 10,000 combinations of _good hardware and drivers_ it works fine.

      Remember kids, only takes one driver to lockup the PCI bus (IRQ / DMA / etc). I've seen bad USB drivers bring down Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/windows XP - all latest versions with patches.

    2. Re:Apple by Gannoc · · Score: 0, Troll

      Believe it or not, I think Windows 2000 / Windows XP is as stable as linux / Freebsd. I didn't say better, I didn't say more secure... but I think the stablish issue is mute.

      1) Thats "moot" not "mute"

      2) You're incorrect.

    3. Re:Apple by Dr.+Shim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have to agree with RoundSparrow. I own an HP Pavilion 420n. It crashed on me like nothing has ever before. It was a shit machine... A 2GHz shit machine. I bought a nice, new, large case with 3 fans and a 320 V power-supply. Never crashed on me again. I run Windows XP.

      I've come to the conclusion it's crappy hardware that renders, otherwise good PCs, into something a wee better than cardboard boxes.

      --
      People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
    4. Re:Apple by kaden · · Score: 5, Informative
      I believe you on point 1, but do you have any actual data supporting point 2? I was just wondering.

      I don't really know how modern Windows versions stack up in terms of stability. Win98 and earlier releases were horrible, and some people seem determined to pretend it's still like that five years after the fact, but it's been my experience (with a lot of installations) that Windows XP/2k really don't crash much, except for hardware/power problems, and weirdness with third party programs.

      Defending Windows on Slashdot is probably asking for bad karma...

    5. Re:Apple by strike2867 · · Score: 1

      Believe it or not, I think Windows 2000 / Windows XP is as stable as linux / Freebsd.

      What you believe is very different from the truth. I would agree, XP is pretty stable, but not 2000. It will restart for no reason. Last friday I saw win 2000 server restart on our server for no reason. Screwed up the app I was writing. The desktop edition is just as bad. I couldnt stand it, I nearly punched my screen in cause it kept restarting whenever it wanted to.

      --

      Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
    6. Re:Apple by Gherald · · Score: 1

      1) No one cares.

      2) Read on, he qualifies his statement further. As someone who uses both XP and Linux about equally, I believe he is correct about this.

      It is important to note however that (largely due to its OSS nature) Linux is more customizable for particular security/stability needs, which means that if you *need* maximum stability Linux has more to offer than, say, Windows 2003 server. However if you are comparing a desktop Linux distro to XP, they are about equal stability-wise.

      Another important consideration is that whenever possible Linux users typically do not run userland programs as root, whereas the majority of Windows XP installations are single-user and default to root-like privileges.

      I cannot comment on *BSD stability as compared to XP, but there are so few *BSD desktops that the point is moot.

    7. Re:Apple by mr100percent · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, the OS XPublic Beta first had a 128MB requirement. I've gotten it to run with 64MB, but it's awfully slow that way.

    8. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nazi.

    9. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It isn't like the OS randomly reboots - you are getting that because something is causing a component to fail. If you set your options to not reboot when something causes the OS to fail (maybe your app?) than you wont get an auto-reboot.

    10. Re:Apple by JoeCommodore · · Score: 1
      Yep I see all the big OSs being overbloated, Windows, MacOS X and Linux - regardless of the quibbling over used and free RAM all require gobs of memory to run reasonably and that's before you load it down more with some resource hog productivity suite.

      I just can't beleve all the sloppiness and overstyling in todays OSs (if it isn't sloppy then it would not need faster processors and more memory?) Whatever happened to simple functinality and bumming code to make the programs leaner and meaner? Everone (including Apple) are becoming more and more like Microsoft every day (damn the hardware requirements and bugs, just get the damn thing out the door!)

      --
      "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
    11. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's "moot" not "mute" ya dillhole

    12. Re:Apple by Reivec · · Score: 1

      I dunno about you, but I had a linux server running fine for 120 days and only went down due to a power outage. I had no loss of performance on the machine due to long uptime. I have never seen ANY version of windows last that long, hell after a month everything slows to a crawl until you reboot in my experience. So if you only rate stable on a short term scale... then sure, you are right. But in the long run I still gotta rate windows low.

    13. Re:Apple by flippet · · Score: 2, Informative

      System Properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery -> untick "Automatically Reboot" ?

      --
      "Cattle Prods solve most of life's little problems."
    14. Re:Apple by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As a developer under windows, I can definitely say that XP is pretty pathetic in terms of stability. If the machine doesn't crash on me at least once every two weeks, I've witnessed a miracle. Alas, the miracle is empty, since the system slowly bogs itself down as time goes on, and I end up having to reboot anyway.

      To be sure, they've done WONDERS with the stability. When I was using XP as my home operating system, it wasn't too bad. The problem that I've found with XP is that as load ramps up, it's ability to stay stable and usable trends downward increasingly quickly.

      Oh, and its dual-processor support is pretty pathetic. The load balancing seems incredibly naive. (And, this may not be an OS problem, but I find that I have problems scrolling text in VS.NET in a timely fashion. Not all the time, but sometimes it'll just stall when trying to do something that I consider a simplistic task.)

    15. Re:Apple by E_elven · · Score: 1

      It's kind of slow on anything. Not omg-I-can-see-my-toenails-grow slow, but the lookie-I'm-running-a-two-hundred-thousand-line-jav a-application slow. Just killing the GUI and running Darwin is fine, though :)

      --
      Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
    16. Re:Apple by Vincman · · Score: 2, Funny

      just in case... ;-)

      'System Properties' can be found in the control panel under 'System' or by right-clicking 'My Computer'.

    17. Re:Apple by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "but not 2000. It will restart for no reason."

      I know it may seem like magic to you but there really is always a reason. Computers are deterministic; everything they do has a cause.
      My bet would be faulty memory. Just a guess though.

    18. Re:Apple by Maserati · · Score: 1

      The best I've been able to get 10.2 to do under 64 MB (during ahrdware swaps) was some MP3 playing. Specifically, I had iTune playing and then decided to visit mp3.com to see if there was anything new by Trance Control. There was, so I started sampling tracks in IE. I suddenly realised that I hadn't paused iTunes and the 64MB machine was happily playing both mp3s without skipping. It did take almost a minute to switch to iTunes to quit it though.

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
    19. Re:Apple by MattyCobb · · Score: 1

      As a developer under windows, I can definitely say that XP is pretty pathetic in terms of stability. If the machine doesn't crash on me at least once every two weeks, I've witnessed a miracle.

      wow. what are you doing wrong? cuz its probably not the OS. Don't get me wrong, I prefer my trusty Linux install, but I have XP on my machine also because I play Day of Defeat a lot and Steam and Wine just dont work quite right for me and because I use Adobe Premier which also doesn't Wine just right for me. Anyways, I have never had any stability issues out of XP. It runs just fine for me. I don't know what your loading your desktop up with, but I'd say this is more in the real of user error than OS instability. And keep in mind that can happen on Linux too. I crashed my Linux box many times out of my own stupidity when I was still a n00b trying to figure it out...

      --

      Matt
      You have 1 Moderator Point! Use it or lose it! Is that a threat? -vapid
    20. Re:Apple by secolactico · · Score: 1

      Last friday I saw win 2000 server restart on our server for no reason.

      Did it bluescreen or just plain restarted? Did you have automatic updates enabled (tho I don't know if it will restart the machine).

      I once saw a Win2k workstation reboot for no particular reason. It turned out to be a hardware issue.

      --
      No sig
    21. Re:Apple by Vancorps · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Personally, I rate stability on your ability to cleanup after using all your resources for a while. I see MySQL do this constantly on my linux box, it will chomp away more and more memory until I just restart the daemon.

      On the server side of things I've most definitely had Windows boxes up much longer than 120 days, the only problem comes if the machine has any Internet access, if its just an internal email server then upgrades are rarely if ever needed and so the only time it crashes it when power goes out for longer than the six hour battery backup can supply.

      So I rate stability as both short term and long term and I'd say both are about par for the tasks they are commonly used for. Build a computer around the OS and you will find that most stability problems disappear and sticking linux or windows on just any hardware only serves to ask for problems. Hense the reason I will not use linux on a 386 as a router. But I've course, my gateway does a lot more than just routing so I suppose most people can get away with it.
    22. Re:Apple by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Well, what can I say... You have a non Windows-related issue or my computer has some kind of blessing cast over it.

      I'm likely running the same build of XP as you (Windows XP SP1) since years back and it has as speedy bootups as ever before (a major improvement there since Windows tried to slow down over time before), even if I've installed (and uninstalled) lots of software. My Windows install last crashed maybe half a year ago, and it's not like I'm not using it daily.

      If you have crashes more than every other week, something is seriously wrong in there.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    23. Re:Apple by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      I'd also like to add that the blue screen I got was due to a beta graphics card driver. Go figure... ;-) Reverted and that problem never came back.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    24. Re:Apple by fitten · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but I've had a Linux installation that couldn't stay running for an hour at a time without a kernel panic. On the other hand, I've had Linux installations that have run a year without going down.

      I've also had Windows servers run for a year with no downtime (it was only on an intranet so we didn't have to apply every patch) and the only time it was eventually taken down was for patches. It also had no degredation of performance that we measured during that time.

      Now... on *average*, I would say that Linux servers tend to have higher uptimes but people who usually talk about Windows crashing every few minutes are talking 5 years ago.

    25. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Which OS version are you using? The latest got a lot faster.

      10.3 Panther is pretty snappy, even on a 500MHz iBook with 192 MB RAM

    26. Re:Apple by fwarren · · Score: 3, Insightful
      but it's been my experience (with a lot of installations) that Windows XP/2k really don't crash much, except for hardware/power problems, and weirdness with third party programs. It all depends on what you do with it. Turn Joe Sixpack loose on a linux box, and 6 months from now we will still be surfing the web, writing documents, getting email and laughing at his friends who have viruses. However, he will be bitching about the fact that "CardShop" does not run on linux.

      Meanwhile over in Windows Land, Joe sixpack can't even load the program because he has about 10% resources free because there are 30 items running in his tray...hmmm how did I get three copies of WeathreBug running? Not to mention spyware and mailware running in the background.

      Yup, with the right hardware, and keeping Joes Sixpack off the internet and your windows box will run well. I just fear for the day when all the spyware gets ported to Linux and I have to clean that crap up for folks......

      --
      vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.
    27. Re:Apple by RoundSparrow · · Score: 1


      Humm... A 'mute' point is one not spoken... it stil actually works :)

    28. Re:Apple by Malek+the+Damned · · Score: 1

      Actually, I agree with him. XP is a *reasonably* stable OS in my experience - it's a pity about all the security holes, lack of compatibility (just try playing an older game on it like Legacy Of Kain - Blood Omen if you don't believe me), DRM stuff on the way, and vendor lock-in.

      The bad, as usual with MS, outweighs the good. But it's not _all_ bad.

      Hell, compare it to windows 98. =)

    29. Re:Apple by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1
      I use Windows for work and games and Linux for home and am a web developer by trade. I've been using these boxes for well over 20 years now and my general opinion is that Windows, although better, is still not as stable as Linux. It hangs more on the same hardware (dual boot) than Linux, and is less secure. Linux also runs faster on the same hardware in my experience, and can be tuned to run lightening fast for a server since you can trim out all the unnecessary crap (like the GUI).

      It looks like things are getting better for the Windows crowd, and maybe Longhorn with address the stability a little more and it will pull up even with Linux, but I suspect it will always be a terrible resource hog since they try and cram too many "features" in that can't be removed (e.g. IE).

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    30. Re:Apple by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

      One of the reasons I encounter occassionally is when trying to update a COM+ component on the server. When you remove the component it will very occasionally shut down the machine. Not reboot, or anything like that, but shut it down completely. I have never discovered why, and have seen the behaviour on several machines so it wasn't hardware specific.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    31. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or the blaster virus...

    32. Re:Apple by ModernGeek · · Score: 1

      Maybe you are getting a BSOD, windows 2000 by default will reboot instead of showing a Blue screen unless you change it in your system preferences.

      --
      Sig: I stole this sig.
    33. Re:Apple by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1
      I used to look after the Windows servers for the London Stock Exchange and we had to reboot them as a scheduled job every week to prevent them from running out of resources and crashing. They also get an IISRESET at 6AM every morning to prevent them from locking up.

      By contrast the mail server I set up for them hasn't needed a reboot or reset for 3 years bar to update the kernel. The web/mail server for a large shipping company which runs Linux hasn't rebooted in over 18 months.

      Windows is improving, but it's not there yet.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    34. Re:Apple by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Let me preface everything by saying I used to be a UNIX administrator.

      Now, I work for a company with sysadmins, and they do a good job of taking care of my machine. We make sure it's patched, that we've got the latest drivers, and that the hardware is all running well.

      I have no bizarre third party applications running, besides the usual things that should have nothing to to with stability. I use Emacs, Opera, VS.NET, iTunes and PuTTY throughout the day.

      Some days, I have no problems. Other days, the problems just stack up. I occasionally have the machine lock up on shut down. I used to have the machine crash 2 or 3 times a week, but I stopped playing Diablo II so much. For whatever reason, XP REALLY doesn't like me playing Diablo II. Blaming things on Diablo II won't work, though - XP should be more than robust enough to handle something like that.

      A while back, it would have been more likely that I would have agreed with you. I was running a shell and desktop replacement, but I've switched back to the ordinary base shell now. Nothing I run should be an issue.

      As for Linux, I only had it crash a couple of times. Once, when I was playing around with experimental drivers, and a couple times when I was playing with beta kernels. I also had the windowing system crash a few times, but another networked machine always found the box up and running. (I also had some lockups related to heat when my Celeron 300A was starting to go.)

      Considering the amount of work I do, I don't really find there to be much excuse for XP dying on me. I think I'm most willing to blame it on VS.NET which is incredibly unstable on its own, crashing and coredumping and giving me internal compiler errors several times a week. I wouldn't be suprised if it were running wild and occasionally kicking the system out from underneath me.

      Like I said, as a home system, XP worked GREAT for me. I was running Dual-Head on an ATI, playing lots of games, etc. As a development system, it's been brutal. I have pretty standard high-end hardware (getting older, so not quite as high-end now, but still, a Ti4400 is not exactly bottom of the barrel) and I run standard XBox dev tools. Most of my colleagues have similar problems, though perhaps a little less often than I do.

      I'm not really trying to rag on XP particularily much, merely trying to point out that from a stability point of view, I don't think it holds a candle to any UNIX that I've ever worked with. OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, IRIX, AIX, Linux, OS X and even HP-UX (ick, BTW) seem to be more solid.

    35. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If your system is an SMP based Server, but you ugraded from a single processor system, as many noobs do, you will have constant problems.

      I well set up Win2k SMP system, with top notch components (the ONLY way to go) is rock steady. While I wouldn't bet my life on Win2k, I prefer it over WinXP any day.

    36. Re:Apple by d97mno · · Score: 1

      True that they may be considered deterministic, but no channel is free from errors. However unlikely anything might fail due to communication error.

      Just ask Shannon....he'll back me up on this one =)

      Seriously though your guess seems plausible, bad ram or bad timings will mess anything up.

      --
      Real programmers never comment their code. If it's hard to write, it should be hard to read!
    37. Re:Apple by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      hmm no, i've run linux/freebsd 5.1/winn98/xp on the same pc and linux/freebsd were much much more reliable. they were the same if not easier to install. linux/freebsd were actually easier to install becuase they had drivers for my sb live.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    38. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Believe it or not, I think Windows 2000 / Windows XP is as stable as linux / Freebsd. I didn't say better, I didn't say more secure

      We use win2k where I work and I must disagree. While an improvement over win98, they are not as stable as Linux. My win2k workstation can usuallly go all week without a reboot, but that's about it. The win2k servers (one just for Active Directory and the other just for a 10-user SQL server) usually have to be rebooted 2 or 3 times during the workweek. The Linux server (which gets heavier use - mail, web, ftp, database, file and print server on one box) hasn't been rebooted since the last time the power was out longer than the UPS can last, which was over 7 months ago.

    39. Re:Apple by rcamera · · Score: 1

      windows xp, sp1 running on my dell inspiron 8100 - this summer had an uptime of over 100 days before i rebooted to have a patch take effect. i played sw jedi knight, morrowind, arcanum frequently. there was no loss in speed, no loss in available memory. from what i've seen, this i not very uncommon for xp. perhaps by 'ANY' you mean win9x? or perhaps you've never 'seen' xp?

      --
      Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
    40. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      So what games does Linux offer?

      Win98/2k/XP has more games than EVERYTHING else combined, and your whining about some old game!

      I use Debian & FreeBSD aswell as Win2k and 98se. On the desktop OSS "borders" on useless. I DON'T HAVE time trying to learn obscure drawing apps, and the copy/paste on OSS from one application to another is woeful.

      I certainly won't be waiting for Longhorn either. While I'm still playing the MS based games, I'll keep a Win2k workstation, otherwise I'm moving to Mac OSX. I find FreeBSD is the most stable OS I use, which is what MacOS is based, and my hardware costs about the same as Apples (although I do get more bang per buck, and probably higher quality).

      The main problem with Linux/FreeBSD on the desktop apart from availble commercial applications is the hardware compatibility. While I probably could get my Wacom table and ATI 9800XT working well, I have no reason to do so! What app or game would benefit?

    41. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would bet faulty operating system, lets see who win the bet by installing linux and then seeing if it still crashes.

    42. Re:Apple by lrdviperscorpian · · Score: 1

      What ?! how can you say windows anything is more stable then linux/freebsd. How come windows servers don't even registar on the netcraft charts ? think about it

    43. Re:Apple by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 1

      i just had my Windows XP up for 132 straight days, and i only restarted it for an upgrade.

      there was zero slowage, zero problems at all during that entire time.

    44. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone please note here - the people who are complaining about crashes are either:

      1 - running multi-boot machines

      2 - writing code

      The 2nd group is far more common, which leads me to believe that you learn to need to write more stable code.

    45. Re:Apple by DrPascal · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oh, and its dual-processor support is pretty pathetic. The load balancing seems incredibly naive. (And, this may not be an OS problem, but I find that I have problems scrolling text in VS.NET in a timely fashion.

      That's an Intellisense issue, not a dual CPU issue. I've seen Intellisense block my text editing for a good 15-20 seconds before.

      --
      DrPascal: Not the language, the mathematician.
    46. Re:Apple by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I use Windows for work and games and Linux for home and am a web developer by trade. I've been using these boxes for well over 20 years now

      And how long have you been using your time machine?

      Uh, that's one of those questions you don't want to think about too much. My head is already locking up.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    47. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it doesn't.

      -Slow Down Cowboy!

      Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

      It's been 7 seconds since you hit 'reply'!

      Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

      Slow Down Cowboy!

      Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

      It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment

      Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

      fucksfuckslashdotfuckslashdotfuckslashdotfucksla sh dotlashdot

    48. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I've seen XP blue screen, and I've also seen it restart for what seemed to be no reason.

      It turned out it was caused by a bad third party video codec.

      A VIDEO CODEC. A piece of non-system software that turns one stream of bits into another stream of bits somehow has the ability to totally lock up and reboot the operating system.

      2k and XP may be stable by themselves, but stability in the face of poorly written code should also be a consideration.

    49. Re:Apple by DotNetGuru · · Score: 1

      Based upon what you describe it sounds like either your video drivers are killing you or you have some bad memory. Given that both Diablo II & VS are crashing so erraticly I would put my money on the memory.

      You can test the memory with memtest86. If it is the video drivers though unfortunately there isn't much you can do (as you said you already have the most recent drivers).

      But given that you've seen one machine work GREAT for you (and I would imagine with Diablo II, or do you only play that at work? :) ), and you have one machine that's flaking out, how can you determine it to be the operating system? That's clearly not what's different between the two machines!

    50. Re:Apple by software_tweaker · · Score: 1

      2000 will restart by default on a blue screen, so yes it is probably your RAM or a video driver.

      --
      -NTidd
    51. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Computers are deterministic; everything they do has a cause.

      Computers are detrministic; Windows is NOT. My experience on win2k and XP echoes a lot of others here: some days I breeze through with no problems; the very next, doing exactly the same tasks, it is reboot hell!

      Any system that is complex enough looks chaotic. The fact that things may be deterministic underneath it all is absolutely no consolation when you are working on deadline.

      I've noticed the tendency here to blame memory errors a lot for underlying ills in Windows. It is tough to prove (in spite of memory diagnostics - most of the ones I've seen are pretty poor) and seems to have become the catch-all for Windows instability. This in spite of the fact that I have seen the very same hardware moved to Linux and the problems just go away (disclaimer: server situations, I have NOT seen the same thing with a desktop; with the apps we use, a Linux desktop just isn't practical - yet!).

      As a final argument against all win2k/XP problems being hardware or driver related: I also use win2k/XP every day. The number of minor, annoying bugs that I see in the UI of Windows every day is apalling. I'm not even gonna try to list them because it would triple the size of this post. If you use Windows every day then you know what I am talking about. Now, if they can't get the simpler things in the UI right, what makes you think they've been so perfect in the underlying OS?

      Windows QA has gone up a notch or two in the last few years BUT they are not at the point where I would use the OS in a mission critical application yet!

    52. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Computers are deterministic; everything they do has a cause. My bet would be faulty memory.

      Uh, I'm afraid that a hardware problem, such as faulty memory, will cause nondeterministic behavior.

    53. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i reply to this if no one else does, third part software is the bane of any OS, get me a printing engine on Linux or a WINTV driver working and ill use it, cocksuckers with no printers annoy me...

    54. Re:Apple by Erwos · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if I 100% agree. In a modern CPU, simple caching mechanisms will cause non-deterministic behavior, or so I've heard. IIRC, this was the reason that some RTOSes don't use cache even if your computer has it - you can't stop RIGHT THE HELL NOW if your computer might have to take a nanosecond or two to do some caching activity.

      However, on a macro level, I agree - if there's a problem with crashing, there's some combination of causes causing it to happen (duh).

      -Erwos

      --
      Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
    55. Re:Apple by saiya · · Score: 1

      Keep in mind that this is the OS that can be crashed by writing text to a terminal. Being crashed by a video codec is par for the course for Windows.

    56. Re:Apple by Hobophile · · Score: 1
      If it is the video drivers though unfortunately there isn't much you can do (as you said you already have the most recent drivers).

      You could try rolling back to earlier versions. I know that the latest versions of nVidia's video driver pack caused me no end of issues on GeForce3 & GeForce 4 cards. I saw a blurb somewhere that suggested that the newer stuff (50 series) was only really meant for the FX cards.

      The 40 series drivers are pretty much rock solid though (at least the WHQL ones I've tried.)

    57. Re:Apple by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1
      Just unplug your PPC2002 handheld while syncing via USB under XP.

      Three different machines "blue-screen" over here, with a Toshiba 310e...

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    58. Re:Apple by RoadkillBunny · · Score: 1

      Last time I say a 2000 restart for no reason was when I was doing a simple search in the public library. I typed in a few words clicked search and the box went down...

      --
      Cheers,
      RoadkillBunny
    59. Re:Apple by strike2867 · · Score: 1

      My code was not running on the machine, I just store my program on the server machine instead of my own. Its just more comfortable since I have to test it on a lot of different systems.

      --

      Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
    60. Re:Apple by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      If you had windows boxen up for 120 days or more, then you weren't patching them or keeping them up to date at all. Guess some IRC skript kiddies are having fun using your boxes as DDOS drones.

      Don't forget, every microsoft update carries a reboot with it. It's still one thing that makes me think Windows is primitive in comparison to linux. Will Longhorn end the damn reboot cycle?

    61. Re:Apple by cosmo7 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Remember, it begins with the phrase "nondeterministic behaviour" and ends with your office full of sacrificed animals.

    62. Re:Apple by Nataku564 · · Score: 1

      I have had a win2k server box running my home webserver and ftp server for several months - the only real reason it has been down at all is because I moved recently. The win2k server I have running at work has been going strong for even longer - and thats on some really crappy hardware. I have had my redhat box running a cvs/ssh server for just as long - only took that down because I wasn't using it.

      Guess it is just personal experience really, depends on what hardware you are running on, what build of linux/windows, what third party software - etc.

    63. Re:Apple by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      I've actually had the memory swapped out on the machine a couple of times.

      What leads me to believe that it's the OS is that while my coworkers don't have identical problems, everyone has problems. Crashes, odd behaviour, slowly degrading performance...all of it. The degrading performance also seems something of a giveaway. (I can't restore performance by shutting all my apps down and starting them up, either. Once performance has degraded sufficiently, only a reboot seems to clear it up. Again, I'm tentatively pointing a finger at VS.NET. That stupid thing gives me no end of trouble. That's why I do all of my editing in emacs and compile on the command line.)

      And, since I use a G5 at home with an odd trackball, yeah, I only play at work. :)

    64. Re:Apple by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      Ah, that makes sense. How annoying.

      Anyway, It was sort of an aside that VS.NET doesn't scroll text very well. My machine is a dual 1800+ MP, and I don't really care WHAT the problem is. I should never, ever have problems scrolling TEXT. Fork the intellisense crap onto a seperate thread or something, but let me scroll the text!

    65. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, we have some Windows 2000 boxes reboot by themselves every week or so. Had one that would reboot almost every day. It's definitely some kind of hardware problem, that's for sure.

    66. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My WinTV card has worked on Linux for as long as I've been using it. That means at least the 2.0.x days.

      WinTV drivers are a part of the standard kernel. You don't need to install third party nothing.

    67. Re:Apple by Ween · · Score: 1

      I once had a flaky motherboard back about 5 years ago. I had random computer lockups in windows(98) like you wouldnt believe. I was dual booting linux. Linux never once locked up on me ever. When i switched motherboards, my windows problem went away. Now you tell me, who has better code and working with errors returned from faulty hardware.

      --


      Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
    68. Re:Apple by RoundSparrow · · Score: 1

      If you want, you can contact me off-Slashdot... I'm at Stephen@IPCoast.com - BTW, we are hiring at cheap rates for starters. Great at SQL, Perl, or C#? JObs@IPcoast.com

      Anyway - I can give you access to live systems I have running FreeBSD 4.9 and Windows 2000... both are unstable.

      My point? The computer industry as a whole is not mature. OpenBSD is dog slow and horrible for applicaitons as it crashes if you do do many fork() calls or push the systme too hard.... but it makes a great firewall (pf is awesome, we use it to protect Windows 2000).

      I mean... too many people here on Slashdot are hung up on Microsoft... not realizing that ALL LOF US have problems! Even if things are 30% better... in 5 years what difference will 30% make?!?! we are talking major changes still gong on.

      Honestly, Apple is great because they show that controlling the hardware matters. (Because of Customers...) But they seem destined to be only 5% or less... and it hasn't changed since 1984 and likely won't change in the next 10 years. If I thought market share would go to 20%... but they deserve it. Just that hardware invoation hasn't slowed down any more than software... and putting the two together is going to cause price problems...

      Last response :)

    69. Re:Apple by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

      By boxes I meant the IBM PC compatible range which was released in 1980, so that's over 20 years now. Windows itself is a lot younger but has it's roots in good old DOS, so it's no spring chicken either.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    70. Re:Apple by Vancorps · · Score: 1
      And that's why you read my comment fully. I said, when you don't have a box with that has internet exposure then you don't need to worry about the updates.

      As for requiring reboots, most updates actually don't require reboots, you just need to stop the service it is updating for you. The only difference between how a standard linux distro does updates and how Microsoft does is that a linux distro will stop the service automatically for you.

      I'd say it would be best if you used an SUS server and approved every patch that was applied, then you'd know which patches effects which services and you will then only need to update for the deep down changes which occur maybe once a year like a linux kernel upgrade.
    71. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Re:Apple (Score:5, Informative)

      Defending Windows on Slashdot is probably asking for bad karma...

      Shut up, you karma whore. You know perfectly well that the secret to good karma is posting something that is either entertaining, or has the appearance of being logically sound or informative.

      Taking the "devil's advocate" position will get you modded up as long as you don't sound like a blatant troll. It's not difficult to seem more balanced than the average frothing slashbot.

      What you got away with, which is kind of surprising, is the blatant karma taunt. This does not always go over so well with the mods.

      I give you my congratulations, you've earned them.

    72. Re:Apple by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      Most updates don't require reboots? I guess that's why it almost always says 'you must restart your computer now, ok or cancel'.

      What you were saying about services I already know. That's what Linux does, just sends a sighup to the service then it pops back up running the updated version. My question, which you didn't answer, was when is Microsoft going to implement something this simple and effective?

      My guess is that Windows is so inbred and ingrown now that restarting services affects so many parts of the OS that you have to restart the whole machine. I never understood why Microsoft works this way.

    73. Re:Apple by dusty123 · · Score: 1

      My opinion is that Linux servers tend to have a lot higher uptimes than their MS counterparts.

      This is not only an issue with stability, although MS Servers tend to "ask for a reboot" after some time, maybe after a week, or after a month. Linux does not seem to suffer from this, they happily run for years.

      In Windows there are many cases where a reboot is recommended or even required, e.g. when changing the Workgroup. These occasions occur less with XP than with NT but they are still there. Many software installations ask the administrator for a reboot and it's up to you to decide if it's really necessary or not.

    74. Re:Apple by kommakazi · · Score: 1

      But really who's the karma whore? You couldn't even log in to post this because you know damn well you'd get modded down.

    75. Re:Apple by Vancorps · · Score: 1
      The restart is because there are often 3rd party services that interoperate with say svchost.

      You ask a question of which there is already an answer. An SUS server can install all updates and patches silently. On your servers if you know which services it effects then you can safely use the silent install options and never have to reboot. Its done purely as a safety measure, if the updates screws up something important you can boot up with the last known good configuration and things will be alright again. Self-healing is a bitch for servers but a godsend for the workstations.

    76. Re:Apple by gnuman99 · · Score: 1
      Believe it or not, I think Windows 2000 / Windows XP is as stable as linux

      So why did I crash 2k every time I passed a wrong value to DirectSound? Or Direct3D? It locked up the entire OS and sometimes it just rebooted.

      With X on Linux, no crashes. If I start passing weird values to X, it just craps out my program, at the very most. Most of the time it just ignores the functions (I get a return code that says it say that there was an error). I never managed to crash X with any app that was screwing around with X, video modes, and OpenGL.

      Windows has a long(horn) way to go. It appears that the crashes I saw with DirectX will not be "fixed" until managed code is used. I hope that MS can actually seperate processes completely and the GUI is 100% crashproof (from userspace, of course).

    77. Re:Apple by nomel · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I took apart my usb web cam to remove the hotplate so it could see IR (and it did). But, while I was doing it with the USB still attached, if I would put my fingers in just the right spot on the exposed PCB, it would bluescreen and completely kill windows. A bluescreen button!

    78. Re:Apple by rixstep · · Score: 1

      A. Apple have a pretty interesting programming community, considering how many came in from NeXT.

      B. Not everything is improving. Although Panther can be faster on much older machines, it can be a lot slower on more recent hardware.

    79. Re:Apple by chthon · · Score: 1

      One word : memtest86

    80. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Instead of claiming that people have not even seen XP, why don't you tell us poor XP-users HOW THE F**K YOU DO IT? I see people claiming high uptimes for windows in lots of places, people claiming that windows crashes are user faults, etc, but NOONE CAN TELL HOW THEY DO IT.

      Apparently Windows is not userfriendly enough to make it possible to even RUN IT without being both MCSE and MCAD, and even those people don't know enough to actually explain HOW to make this piece of shit run.

    81. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you want me to believe that it was pure luck and a hand from above, please tell me how you do it.

    82. Re:Apple by Dr.+Shim · · Score: 1

      So, you have an infrared cam now (IR)? That's pretty funny. A BSOD button... Could you drill a wee hold in the camera's cover, and make a fake button touching that area of the PCB? Might be a useful feature.

      --
      People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
    83. Re:Apple by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      Some days, I have no problems. Other days, the problems just stack up. I occasionally have the machine lock up on shut down. I used to have the machine crash 2 or 3 times a week, but I stopped playing Diablo II so much.

      I'd seriously consider the hardware as the culprit. Heating problems? Flakey memory chips?

      I really don't remember when was the last time one of our W2k or XP machines went down involuntarily. And we develop software. Our w2k office server stays up for 30-40 days between reboots (which are usually patch mandated).

      Sure, noone will argue that Unix is more stable, but Windows have gone a long way from the crahs/reboot/crash/reboot days of win95/98...

    84. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      i just had my Windows XP up for 132 straight days, and i only restarted it for an upgrade.
      But has it crashed now?
    85. Re:Apple by nomel · · Score: 1

      offtopic...whatever.

      Yeah...it works pretty good. Has trouble getting a sharp picture though (couldn't before either realy..but slightly worste). Ideally, you would replace the IR blocking filter with a piece of glass so the lense would still focus as it did before (just need same index of refraction). Using a remote control for my satellite, I can easily light up my entire shoe from a couple feet back in pitch black.

      I even, for a couple of minutes, was able to convert a camcorder (an old VHS by Sharp) to an IR camera. That one worked GREAT. Just to give an idea, using a 150w incadescent bulb caused the camera to overexpose...in the shadows with a shutter speed of 1/100 at the opposite corner of my room!!! Didn't get to test it with a remote cause I killed the camera a couple minutes after that. Left the eyepiece unplugged...and...with their bad design, sparking and smoking ensued. But, it manual and autofocused great. I have a feeling it would have been MUCH more sensetive than the quickcam just because of it overexposing like that.

      I have a broken camera that I'm trying to fix right now. Much more modern/complicated/in pieces than the other camcorder. I already "converted" it...just need to put it back together.

      It's super easy to do if you have/find/buy any old cameras around. Just need to get to the lens assembly. Take that off and you should see the hotplate over the CCD. On all the ones I've taken apart, it's above a protective glass covering, so, the CCD will still have something in front of it and just pops out. It's always been about three screws and sometimes snaps. On the quickcam, I had to cut it out though. On my sisters webcam, it just snapped out though (pulled it out and put it back).

      In a couple of years, we could easily buy old digital cameras (2 megapixel or so) for cheap and convert them to IR for cool IR pics (look them up if you haven't seen them).

      man...got me all excited...i'm gunna go try to put the camera back together...

      oh, and as a cheap/low quality IR filter, you can use exposed film (where it's black). It'll only pass the IR well (stack them for a better effect). I think I remember mylar (floppy disk) as passing the IR also(?).

    86. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use both OS's every day and find both to be remarkably stable and easy to use. Perhaps it's not the OS thats the problem.

    87. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, ive also got this problem with VS.NET.. if i scroll too much in the file then it stalls for a long time.. :s

    88. Re:Apple by Renegrade · · Score: 0

      > Meanwhile over in Windows Land, Joe sixpack can't even load the program because he has about 10% resources free

      The NT-series windows (NT, 2K, XP) use automatically extending resource stacks. That issue is a thing of the past.

      Of course, there are still many outstanding issues such as registry rot, badly written drivers, useless new security holes, err, features, etc...

    89. Re:Apple by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      Like I said, there're no hardware problems that we can find.

      As for the last line of your post, that's what I responded to in the first place. Someone was saying that XP is just as stable as Linux, which is false. It's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more stable than its predecessors, but it's still a long way from Unix. :)

    90. Re:Apple by rcamera · · Score: 1

      it's quite simple actually. don't download and run things you aren't sure are safe. every month or so, run adaware. defrag memory if you need. don't pour water or other liquids on the hardware. do not use third-party screensavers. keep your registry lean and mean either by hand or using reghealer or other software (every time you uninstall, make sure the registry is cleaned). do not run beta drivers. make sure you have recent drivers. if there is a new version of your bios, get it.

      i am not mcse or mcad - but i'll take that as a compliment.

      --
      Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
    91. Re:Apple by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      I once had a box running Win98SE that bluescreen+locked up about twice a week, and I KNEW it was spywared (by the manufacturer, no less). Threw Win2K on it, and it was quite stable (when the motherboard wasn't screwing up - I will never buy HP computers again).

    92. Re:Apple by el_gordo101 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. This problem only seems to creep up on me when I have more than a few different files open in the IDE (say 12 or more). I find that if I close out any files that I am not working on, the IDE is much more responsive and less likely to hang/crash. Though I do often encounter a situation whereby the IDE crashes/mini dumps on me whenever I select "Debug Source Files" from the "Soloution Properties->Common Properties" panel...

      --
      TODO: Insert witty sig
    93. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wowzers, 320V for a desktop PC? Does it have one of those large washing machine-type plugs?

    94. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think the camera died due to bad design.

    95. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      As a developer under windows, I can definitely say that XP is pretty pathetic in terms of stability. If the machine doesn't crash on me at least once every two weeks, I've witnessed a miracle. Alas, the miracle is empty, since the system slowly bogs itself down as time goes on, and I end up having to reboot anyway.

      Or maybe you're just a shitty developer...

    96. Re:Apple by Jumpin'+Jon · · Score: 1

      Crappy Hardware = Problems
      Decent Hardware + Crappy Drivers = Problems [*cough*Creative]

      Sure, I can grind XP to a halt on a whim by attempting to mount a DVD-R coaster, for example. I'm sure I could do that with numerous other OSs too.

      I mean, install some apps from Symantec and you'll soon get to know your Blue Screen codes off-by-heart. I hate their stuff with a passion, what with me being the "Family 24/7 PC Repairman and Support Line".

      Build a system with quality components and decent software and you'll get no problems.

      JJ

    97. Re:Apple by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 1

      Common sense. Don't download viruses. Don't install adware. Close programs you don't want open (using task manager).

    98. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. It's been up for 15 days now.

  52. Not too horrible.. by dave1212 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ..for a Windows build, in terms of window colour (brushed metal, like OS X). As far as everything else, it isn't needed. These screenshots show how nothing has really changed.

    Come on x86ers, save up for a Mac (even a used one) and get more stuff done more enjoyably. If you're going to spend $ on new hardware (which Longhorn will surely require for 95% of the pop.), don't run the risk of it not working with your setup.. and you can still run *nix or a BSD.

    must not post while Bob is involved.

    1. Re:Not too horrible.. by LousyPhreak · · Score: 1

      Come on x86ers, save up for a Mac (even a used one) and get more stuff done more enjoyably. If you're going to spend $ on new hardware (which Longhorn will surely require for 95% of the pop.), don't run the risk of it not working with your setup.. and you can still run *nix or a BSD.

      except for the fact that a mac costs about 4 times as much as an equally fast x86. not even talking about most games which dont work on macs

      so atleast ill stay on my x86 dual booting linux and windows and keeping my costs down, although i do admit that i really would like to try that osx once.

      --
      -- Karma: beyond good and evil - mostly affected by posting political
    2. Re:Not too horrible.. by PhoenixFlare · · Score: 1

      Come on x86ers, save up for a Mac (even a used one) and get more stuff done more enjoyably. If you're going to spend $ on new hardware (which Longhorn will surely require for 95% of the pop.), don't run the risk of it not working with your setup.. and you can still run *nix or a BSD.

      No.

      Y'see, silly as it may sound, many of us "x86ers" have games that either run in an inferior fashion or not at all on a *nix/BSD system.

      More people use their systems for entertainment than you might think, and until Mac and *nix proponents stop thinking that all anybody might ever want to do is development, web browsing, or email - alternatives to Windows will not take off among many (if not all) home users.

      The arrogance many Mac/*nix users seem to have is unbelieveable, assuming that everyone should be able to switch platforms and be perfectly fine - who cares about the gigantic amount of purchased Windows software out there with no alternate versions, right?

    3. Re:Not too horrible.. by geekoid · · Score: 1

      I have found that most, if not all, games I'm interested in do come out for the MAC.

      Not too mention the has a different processor, so to gauge solely on cycles is ignorrant, at best.

      An no, I don't own a mac.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:Not too horrible.. by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "who cares about the gigantic amount of purchased Windows software out there with no alternate versions, right?"

      Such as?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Not too horrible.. by MasonMcD · · Score: 1

      Come on x86ers, save up for a Mac (even a used one) and get more stuff done more enjoyably.

      Absolutely. I imagine I will hear how expensive macs are from folks cobbling up their current PCs until Longhorn rolls around, at which point they buy a new beefy box and all of their software will have to be upgraded.

      Keep your Win2K box as is, buy a mac, and have the Longhorn experience now. Mac OS 10.3 was actually *faster* on the same hardware as 10.2, which was faster than 10.1, and that faster than 10.0. When's the last time you saw that? I have 10.3 happily chugging away on a non-upgraded (except for 320 MB RAM) 233 MHz, 4 gig drive rev. B bondi iMac from 1998.

    6. Re:Not too horrible.. by PhoenixFlare · · Score: 2, Informative

      Such as?

      Pretty much every game ever made, except for the Unreal series, Quake 3, and a relative handful of other titles. A quick eyeball of the listings in the Macintosh section at www.gamefaqs.com suggests probably a couple hundred titles available, with most being fairly old. Compared with the amount of games available as Windows-only, Mac support is only a drop in the bucket. *nix support is even worse...Even with WINE, I think the last time I tried to do a count, there was something like twice the amount of non-working titles as those that were.

      As for non-gaming software, I agree that I may have less of a case there, but my original post was centered on gaming, and there I stay. Just from my personal knowledge though, the Mac is pretty strong in the area of office and design software, but beyond that I don't really know. *nix is less sure, relying more on stuff like WINE/Crossover. Feel free to fill me in on specifics if you like, but i'm not going to hunt down a complete list for you.

      As I stated before, anyway, many people use their systems for entertainment, and switching to a platform that doesn't support many options for that entertainment will severely limit things.

    7. Re:Not too horrible.. by obeythefist · · Score: 1

      It's true that Mac hardware is of a good quality level. It's true that equivalent level hardware can be purchased for an AMD/Intel platform at lower cost, so long as you do a basic amount of research and are aware of the technologies available to you. Why, Macs are even using very similar graphics accelerators from the same manufacturers as the AMD/Intel ones. It's true that AMD/Intel systems perform better. Before the arguments come flooding in, I'd like to point out that I'm not seeing a lot of Macs taking over from the old Mainframe and Midrange market segments in the data centre here, and there aren't a lot of favourable framerate comparisons up on Toms Hardware or Anandtech for the gamers. I certainly wouldn't trust benchmarks from Apple, I haven't seen more deceptive benchmarking practices in my life. So the hardware argument is a pretty open/shut case. The only reason anyone would buy more expensive Mac hardware than equivalent/better quality cheaper standard parts is because you want to run OS/X instead of Windows/Linux/BSD. I can run Windows on lots of different hardware, and we all know Linux can run anywhere. OS/X is the most proprietary OS you can buy nowadays (apart from maybe Unixware). For this reason there's not a whole lot of application support for OS/X, I heard even MS was starting to cut back on the Office releases for OS/X. Is there any software that runs on OS/X that I can't get for Linux/Windows? What's so special about OS/X? I already know how to use the left *and* right mouse buttons on my mouse, so OS/X won't save me any headaches there. My Windows and Linux installs run very stably on my hardware at home already (uptimes in the months, only thanks to some blackouts a while ago). Someone enlighten me?

      --
      I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
  53. Windows 98 by SimonInOz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last Friday, I had to fire up an old, tired PC running Windows 98. Gosh, a real dinosaur - 166Mhz, 256Mb RAM, MS Office.
    It was weird. It booted quickly, and the whole thing felt snappy. Menus actually popped up on screen immediately. Explorer did things, instead of hanging about "thinking" all the time.

    Windows XP doesn't feel like that, even with my brand new 3Ghz, 1Gb RAM machine.
    Why is this so? Why are the menus so slow - and what have they done to Windows Explorer to make it so snail-like?

    --
    "Cats like plain crisps"
    1. Re:Windows 98 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Do you have a lot of mapped drives on other machines on your LAN? I find that to be the #1 cause of IE/Explorer sluggishness on Win2K, even when you're not doing anything that involves the mapped drives.

    2. Re:Windows 98 by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Who really needs all that power. While I know I am talking to a group that loves more power and can find ways to use ever bit of their processor. The average computer user uses their computer for Word Processing, Excel, E-Mail, and internet. Do you need 3ghz and a gig of ram. No. that windows 98 machine will work wonders, and honestly is probably more efficient than having something with a bunch of bells and whistles.

      I was asked to help out with a friend of mines company when they purchased a bunch of new computers. He was going to use them for word and e-mail and that was about it. He brought this list of a couple computers he was thinking of purchasing each about $1000, I was like here we can go buy 3 computers at that price that are a little older and you are set. He now running 5 machines with 98 all networked and with a networked printer for what he was planning on spending for 2 new computers. And they work great.

      --
      30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
      Score:5, Troll
    3. Re:Windows 98 by Tango42 · · Score: 1

      You're running Win98 with 256MB of RAM? Of course it's going to be fast. 256 was top of the range when 98 was made. I turned on a Win95 machine with 16 meg of ram this weekend... not a pleasant experience.

    4. Re:Windows 98 by xpl_the_myst · · Score: 1
      I long for those good old days when I ran Win98. If there weren't so many security issues around, it would still be my choice of a good working platform.

      Everyone seems to love working on linux, but I find that X with KDE/GNOME hog too many resources than Windows. And it feels very unresponsive. Maybe the 2.6 kernel will make a difference.

      --
      This sig is empty.
    5. Re:Windows 98 by BubbleNOP · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have a dual 350Mhz Pentium II w/ 256mb RAM running XP Pro and it's very snappy. For starters, go to Control Panel, System, Advanced, Performance, Settings and set it to "Adjust for best performance" on Visual Effects.

    6. Re:Windows 98 by SimonInOz · · Score: 1

      My Windows XP (3Ghz, 1Gb RAM) IS adjusted for "best performance" ... but the menu delays persist. Why?

      --
      "Cats like plain crisps"
    7. Re:Windows 98 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I agree totally with parent. If you are also into the "behind the curtain" stuff, download TweakUI for XP. Look around in there, for instance: were you cognizant of the fact that Windows 2000/XP actually inserts time delays when opening menus? (TweakUI can set those delays to 0, if you wish)

      Anyway, thought perhaps that could be one source of your irritation.

    8. Re:Windows 98 by BubbleNOP · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can try starting regedit, going to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and setting MenuShowDelay to 0.

    9. Re:Windows 98 by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1
      If you just require desktop functionality and Internet access, Windows 98 is a perfectly reasonable OS to use if you can put up with the poor memory management and lack of support for some later hardware.

      Windows 98 does not contain a "full" IP stack and does not run lots of services in background so, in many respects, is a more secure OS from the point of view of Joe Sixpack who does not understand the finer points of securing Windows 2000 or XP fully. Sure, IE is buggy and difficult to remove but Mozilla runs perfectly happily on it together with the endless non-Microsoft mail clients.

      Although Linux is my main OS, I run Windows at home for games and a few applications. I only upgraded to Windows 2000 here recently, from Windows 98, purely because of Windows Explorer which seemed to suffer wierd slowdown problems when dealing with folders with large numbers of files in. Otherwise, with a bit of messing around in config.sys and autoexec.bat, I got some degree of stable memory management going (though not as good as Windows 2000 admittedly) and was fairly happy with it.

      As for Windows XP, I won't touch it. It may be stabler and better than Windows 2000 but I find it far too "patronsing" - the desktop is far too bloaty and filled with unnecessary features and I don't like all the decisions about commonly run programs, etc.

      But you are right about one thing - Windows 98 does seem a lot more responsive than does Windows 2000 and my (limited) experience with XP once you've tweaked Windows 98 a little.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    10. Re:Windows 98 by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1
      I had the "sluggish mapped drives" problem myself for a while in Windows 98 but I found out a lot of the problem was from running IPX/SPX (for some older games) in parallel with TCP/IP.

      Once I took this off and applied all the relevant Windows 98 updates, it ran most reasonably.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    11. Re:Windows 98 by paranoidsim · · Score: 1

      Well, I do not know about everything else your experiencing, but to speed up your XP menus (and believe me, I do) search your registry via regedit and find the key "MenuShowDelay" change it from its default 400 (ms) to a more reasonable 50 (ms). Voila.

    12. Re:Windows 98 by Tuqui · · Score: 1

      If you set it to "Adjust for best performance" you have almost Windows 2000. Then XP is a performance downgrade to Win2K.

    13. Re:Windows 98 by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      You fooked him in the networking though. It's so much more painful. It fails for no reason and you have to reinstall processes and reissue I.P.'s etc.

      And the printing my god the printing.

      Everyone has a couple things they think are better in XP you just need to look really really hard.

    14. Re:Windows 98 by BubbleNOP · · Score: 1

      More eye candy usually leads to lower GUI performance. Just compare KDE3 and fvwm2 on the same machine. You can't infer OS performance in general from GUI performance alone.

  54. My money is on WindowsFX by sethadam1 · · Score: 1


    WinFX is the new API framework. I'm willing to put my money on Windows FX.

    1. Re:My money is on WindowsFX by Technonotice_Dom · · Score: 1

      I hope not... most people off the street have a hard time as it is remembering "XP"...!

      "Windows FX" would just confuse them even more than they currently are... most get confused between Win 2000 and 98 (thinking they're in the same series).

  55. Pick the raisins by Tyrell+Hawthorne · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's great to see betas leaked. While we in the free software world of course shouldn't just follow in Microsofts path, we should keep a close eye on them. Hopefully, by the time Longhorn is released we will have most if not all improvements implemented. In this release, I don't see much to copy. Actually, it was more of Microsoft playing catch-up with free software (Firefox).

    Of course the UI has changed a bit, but other than new colours there didn't seem to be much enhancements. I guess I'll go back to study the screen shots more carefully. I'd better hurry before the rest of you make Flexbeta grind to a halt completely--it's already slow!

  56. Report from the inside. by Lord+Graga · · Score: 0, Troll

    Okay, I know a dude who recently got Longhorn installed on his machine, because he's inside the M$ business.

    He reports:
    - It's totally unstable. - It is unuseable on his 2.6 Ghz machine with 1gig of ram (as far as I remember)

    I do not know which build, but it's probably still hella unstable, and seriously what can we use their RAM muncher numbers for when the system is unstable, filled with debug, and probably won't look much like it when it's done?
    Still it's nice to hear a "status report", I love those little gems ;)

  57. Not sure if people have made this joke before by chiyosdad · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, first he calles it micro - soft, and now he's calling it long - horn?

    micro. soft.
    long. horn.


    I think that makes my phallic implications painfully obvious. My work here is done.

    1. Re:Not sure if people have made this joke before by Quarters · · Score: 1

      I would suspect most people haven't. At least most people who are older than say...13.

    2. Re:Not sure if people have made this joke before by dannannan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually I think it is codenamed "Longhorn" after the "Longhorn Saloon" in Whistler, BC. Originally, after "Whistler" (Windows XP codename), the next major release was supposedly going to be called "Blackcomb" after the other mountain at Whistler. After the goals for that release proved to be too lofty, they decided to scale back the design and shoot for a simpler release, codenamed instead after the bar at the base of Blackcomb mountain.

  58. Hello? by cperciva · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's called debug code. Just look at FreeBSD:

    fafnir# ls -l /boot/kernel/kernel
    -r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5940286 Feb 26 00:52 /boot/kernel/kernel
    fafnir# ls -l /usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC/kernel.debug
    -rwxr-x r-x 1 root wheel 30170033 Mar 7 21:31 /usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC/kernel.debug


    Enabling debugging options makes the FreeBSD kernel five times as large; if anything, I'd expect Microsoft to have even more debugging code in their pre-release builds.

    1. Re:Hello? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least do an "ls -lh", man. AFAIK FreeBSD's ls supports the -h flag.

    2. Re:Hello? by Nate+Eldredge · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, but most of the stuff in the kernel.debug binary is just debug symbols -- they live in the file but aren't loaded into memory. If you compare the two with the 'size' command you'll probably find they're much closer. But this Windows thing apparently (article site is down just now) has 483 meg resident -- which is gigantic, and debug symbols would have no effect on this.

    3. Re:Hello? by LousyPhreak · · Score: 1

      so....

      xp was just a debug build...

      *ducks*

      --
      -- Karma: beyond good and evil - mostly affected by posting political
    4. Re:Hello? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent up. People don't seem to understand that debugging symbols won't cause the bloat the article is referring to.

    5. Re:Hello? by spitzak · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's almost all debug symbols.

      Actual code and memory usage for debug programs I have seen be anywhere from 1.5x larger, to smaller (apparently due to loop optimizations that bloat the code).

  59. Re:Who cares? (No really! Who cares?) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Newsforge is the Slashdot of 5 years ago. Try them for "Borg" bashing.

  60. That's four times as much memory as I have, sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm typing this from a 400Mhz PII with 128 megs of ram. Linux 2.4, Xfce4, gaim, Epiphany and assorted daemons currently have my memory monitor at around 50 megs. I know this is a debug build and that the final optimized release could use as little as half as much memory, but I can't for the life of me imagine what functionality could possibly justify using even that much. I'm about to build a new pc that will have at least 1gb of ram in it, but I want that space to be used for applications, not some retarded dog that should have died with MS BOB.

  61. And XP is 2600. by sethadam1 · · Score: 1

    XP gold is build 2600. And I haven't used NT 4 in a long time, but I think every boot the blue screen told you the build number, 1381.

    I find it kind of interesting that 4053 is just out when 4051 was handed out months ago at the PDC. I was under the impression (and think I remember reading somewhere) that MS made a new build every day, and that it took something like 12 hours to compile Windows each night.

    Anyone else remember that?

    1. Re:And XP is 2600. by leifm · · Score: 1

      This is a leaked build I think, so who knows what build MS is actually on internally at this point.

      --

      "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
    2. Re:And XP is 2600. by paulerdos · · Score: 2, Informative

      (i work at microsoft)

      what you say is correct, the build numbers for the most part go +1 each day. but for releases and such, they have jumped numbers for convenience's sake (e.g. xp gold wasn't actually 2600, it was something like 25xx, but they made it 2600 b/c this is convenient.) also, they branched out the longhorn build while the xp build was still being finalized, so they made these start at 3000 (iirc) to keep them separately identifiable. so, 4053 doesn't nec. mean 1053 days after 3000.

    3. Re:And XP is 2600. by wideBlueSkies · · Score: 1

      Sounds about right. From everything I've read MS ususally does a build once a day.

      It takes 12 hours these days because of all the module/unit testing incorporated into the build.

      I also remember reading that once the build is done, they roll it out to devloper desktops. Making the guys work with the OS they're working on sounds like a good way to help with QC.... If you're responsible for a buggy build, your peers are going to them and make your life miserable.

      Milestone builds, which happen less frequently, apparently get rolled out to corporate desktops.

      Maybe 4053 is a milestone build. Or maybe it's just an old leak.

      wbs.

      --
      Huh?
  62. Obvious? by MuParadigm · · Score: 4, Interesting


    "At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources."

    MS typically aims at having the OS consume, or fit into, about a quarter of whatever amount of memory is considered standard at the time.

    Now, by the time Longhorn rolls out in 2007 or so, it's likely that 2 GB of RAM, if not 4, will be standard on most new systems. So I'd say MS is probably aiming at a 512 MB base for Longhorn. Maybe 256 or 384, but there's nothing in MS's history to indicate that they would have a problem releasing an OS that consumes 512MB.

    1. Re:Obvious? by Sj0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      And I bet there will STILL be people who will swear that they can run it on 64mb of ram! :)

      --
      It's been a long time.
    2. Re:Obvious? by fitten · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I guess you folks have never worked with a debug version of Windows before, or a debug version of anything I guess. Even on Linux you can easily get 4x or more the executable size compiling for debug.

    3. Re:Obvious? by justsomebody · · Score: 2, Funny

      And yet, it's still less than 640, which billg set as limit long time ago. :)

      ???

      Ohh, yeah, that were KB

      --
      Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
    4. Re:Obvious? by Gildor · · Score: 0

      I'm no Microsoft lover, but Bill Gates actually never said that.

    5. Re:Obvious? by fastgood · · Score: 0

      there's nothing in MS's history to indicate that they would have a problem releasing an OS that consumes 512MB

      It's not like this hardware currently costs hundreds of bucks and Microsoft is taking a chance -- try fifty bucks, right now.

    6. Re:Obvious? by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He said it right before Al Gore invented the internet.

      I really don't know if there is anyway to contain a widespread, untrue meme. The facts don't seem to matter if a fiction is repeated often enough and loud enough.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    7. Re:Obvious? by Imperator · · Score: 1, Funny

      Good luck just fitting the paging code into 64MB! :)

      --

      Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
    8. Re:Obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Now, by the time Longhorn rolls out in 2007 or so, it's likely that 2 GB of RAM, if not 4, will be standard on most new systems.

      I would hope so, but the fact that I still see systems sold with 128MB (with shared video no less), makes me doubt that 2-4GB of RAM will be 'standard' on the average mom-and-pop machine in 2007.

    9. Re:Obvious? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB

      This is crap...

      Testing both 4051 and 4053, even with all the 'extra features' turned on, the commit charge is around 240mb.

      Additionally, there are about 50-100mb of Services for Microsoft reporting that is running and is used ONLY for reporting to internal servers at Microsoft for the developers at Microsoft. And thse services can and should be turned off, since outside testers are NOT using these services.

      Some of our developers are running Longhorn in VMWare and VirtualPC with it set to 196mb and 256mb of RAM for the guest OS. And it runs better than expected for a pre-beta.

      Let's dog on Longhorn when it gets to RC1, the current Alphas are so far away from the shipping product it isn't even close.

      This reminds me of Windows 2000 when it was Beta 1 back in 1997, it was a TOTALLY different OS than even Beta 2 or RC1. Beta 1 of Windows 2000 had very few features working properly and was slow as hell compared to the release version.

      Considering the time table of Longhorn, 2 years is a lot of time for a lot optimization and it already has a solid NT core that the redesigned Windows Subsystem will run on.

      If all else fails, I would bet money that when longhorn releases it will run as fast as WindowsXP, even on comperable hardware, although you may have to turn off many of the 'resource intense' features of Longhorn to make it run well on lower end hardware.

      TheNetAvenger

    10. Re:Obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The facts don't seem to matter if a fiction is repeated often enough and loud enough.

      This hasn't worked for "Linux is ready for the desktop" yet, so there is some hope.

    11. Re:Obvious? by chthon · · Score: 1

      If every 18 months the ram capacity increases for the same price, then I should be able to buy a computer with 1 Gb RAM for 235 EUR within 36 months.

      I bought my father a barebones system with 256 Mb RAM, 40 Gb HDD and 2 GHz processor, so this means that when Longhorn hits the streets, a barebones PC should come with 1Gb RAM, 160 Gb HDD and 8 GHz processor.

    12. Re:Obvious? by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Yeah , says a lot about the ability (or lack thereof) of MS coders that they need so much memory to do so little. I'm sure someone will pipe
      up bleating about how many services the thing has running in the background etc. Well so what? I used an HP-UX system 10 years ago that could support
      all the standard unix services and 100 users concurrently on 20 megs of RAM. No doubt there are even older readers who could find even better examples. Frankly any OS that needs half
      a GIG of memort just to run is farcicle.

    13. Re:Obvious? by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB

      Worse yet, a couple paragraphs later he points out that some service is apparently leaking memory non-stop... so who knows how long it had been running by the time he got around to checking memory usage?

      The whole article was pretty lame. He could saved everybody some time by just saying, "Build 4053 is basically the same as the PDC build 4051. Thanks." Or perhaps by not bothering with the article at all.

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    14. Re:Obvious? by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      We haven't yet reached the rest of the world with our message, so there really is more than hope. Part of the inertia that must be (and is being) overcome is the idea that Linux is a CLI interface only OS.

      As much as I disdain Lindows and hate Walmart, I cannot deny that they are doing much to create acceptance of Linux as a viable alternative to Windows.

      And honestly, Linux isn't ready as my primary desktop. I'm a very happy OS X user (also a koolaid drinking fanatic). However, at some point I have no doubt that Linux will surpass OS X and when that happens, I won't look back.

      I will still recommend Linux as the low cost desktop alternative to my favorite OS. All arguments of TCO aside, some people are unable or unwilling to spend more than $400-$500 for a computer. It's a great thing that there is a good alternative for these folks.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  63. Re:Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL co by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The parent post doesn't even make sense. It appears to be a poor attempt at trolling lightly enough to get modded up as "Funny" by people who don't understand it.

    "X-Windows" (a common misnomer for the "X Window System") isn't any code, it's a standard. XFree86 is an implementation of a server and client for this standard. XFree86 is largely under the X11 open source license, not the GPL. Other X11 implementations are licensed under the GPL, but they're not exactly the ones that come to mind immediately. Finally, how is there any correlation between XFree86's memory usage and the article's bloated debug build of Windows? Other X11 implementations are even lighter on memory usage than the completely reasonably memory usage of XFree86.

  64. 4053 Tweak Guide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Longhorn 4053 Tweak Guide ...

    Found this over at Neowin ...

    1. Re:4053 Tweak Guide by emurphy42 · · Score: 1

      That link doesn't work. Fortunately, the folks at Neowin fixed it.

  65. It's Subliminal! by JM+Apocalypse · · Score: 1

    483 is surprisingly similar to 384, isn't it?

    Run!

    http://guessthatnumber.craftyidiots.com

    --

    - - - - - - -
    Orppf urp mf y.ppcxn. yflcbi otcnnov C am yflcbi yr n.apb Ekrpatv (Dvorak -> Qwerty)
  66. Stop your... by quantaq · · Score: 1

    ...bitching. I mean, this sounds like a new Ferrari owner complaining about the gas mileage.

    (Looks for nearest exist in case someone doesn't get the joke.)

  67. That page looks like SHIT by ErichTheWebGuy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    In Mozilla 6.0 and Firefox 0.8

    --
    bash: rtfm: command not found
  68. Does it have SCO binary compatibility? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since SCO will win its case and the
    deal they made with Microsoft includes a
    bin compatibilty util.....

  69. Commit charge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is a commit charge?

  70. Ah, Here We Go Again! by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    First out of the gate, somebody says Microsoft will find some crap to put in to eat up any resources they gain by optimization.

    Next, the Microsoft trolls pounce, claiming that the same statement is true about Linux (no doubt they more precisely refer to the KDE and GNOME desktops, but hey...)and even if it isn't, if a Windows troll said it, the Linux trolls would pounce, so it's a valid complaint (as if anybody on /. would care about validity).

    These guys must still be using Windows 98 because Windows 2000 is a very slow-starting OS compared to current Linux. Windows XP is better but still not good. Both also take an eternity to install compared to current Linux. Reread that statement about how long Longhorn takes to do "hardware detection". Knoppix Linux does it in the two minutes it takes to boot up.

    The bottom line however is that Longhorn has a database file system which HAS to be a resource hog and slow as hell - requiring all new hardware, and all new applications to be BOUGHT and installed. And the Windows trolls claim Linux is hard to use for a newbie. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I'd call having to upgrade your hardware on every release of the OS to be hard on newbies.

    Note that the article states that that over-400MB of commit charge is WITHOUT applications running.

    What kind of "debug" does Microsoft run - a full 256MB simulation on top of a 256MB OS?

    Give me a break. This thing is going to be a nightmare to run, a nightmare to install, a nightmare to administer.

    They finally admitted in Windows 2003 Server that the 2000 Group Policy menus were a nightmare to figure out and put them in an MMC Console. How long before they have to put everything on a Console in order for anybody to figure Longhorn out.

    And the trolls think Linux is hard to use!

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

    Microsoft software is crap. (Linux is crap, too, but at least it's FREE crap.)

    Mod this flamebait, mod this troll, mod this up your grandmother's ass, I could care less.

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  71. Linux will be the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People, let's get realistic here. Think about desktop Linux now: back in 1999, KDE 1.x required 16M to run (and preferably 32). Today, KDE and GNOME need 64 and preferably 128. Add on top Mozilla and OpenOffice.org, and you need 256 to run comfortably.

    By the time Longhorn ships, we can expect Linux desktops to require 512 at this rate.

    1. Re:Linux will be the same... by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1


      Which will still be HALF the requirements of Longhorn with NO applications running.

      What part of NO APPLICATIONS RUNNING don't you understand?

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
    2. Re:Linux will be the same... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 0, Redundant
      You are not comparing "like-for-like".

      You cannot compare "Linux" to "Longhorn" because it is meaningless. I know (or care) little for Microsoft products but I am assuming that a Longhorn machine will function as a desktop or as server machine.

      In Linux, a purely server machine does not require any form of desktop functionality so there is little point in installing a "heavy" desktop like KDE or Gnome - you might install X-Windows and a light Window manager in which case the memory footprint will be much smaller. With Windows, you are always required to run the GUI environment with all the overhead that requires.

      If Longhorn currently has a 480-odd MB memory imprint then if you use it for desktop work, you will probably find 1GB RAM to be more an ideal amount of memory once you start running Office and graphics applications - otherwise, you will get a lot of slowdown due to file-paging.

      Memory is not a real issue because of its cheapness but the type of Linux distribution you use will heavily impact memoey usage - Mandrake, SuSE or RedHat are likely very memory hungry distributions whereas Slackware and Gentoo can be slimmed down very considerably.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    3. Re:Linux will be the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, and this is pre alpha, and beta... pre optimization, pre a lot of stuff.

      The final release will not take that much RAM. The other AC is right. Linux is getting just as bloated. As better machines come out, the more resources developers will take up. Why? Cuz they are there.

    4. Re:Linux will be the same... by binford2k · · Score: 1

      Only if you want to run the extras. I'm running XFCE on my laptop (P2.2 w/ 512MB), got everything I need and it screams.

      I also run XFCE on my old laptop (Cyrix 166 w/ 32MB) and it is very useable.

  72. Windows vs ./ ? by builderbob_nz · · Score: 0

    Geez, with the time it took for the artical to open up you'd think that Flexbeta was using this thing.

    --

    Karma? Hey I just call it as I see it.
  73. Slashdotted, so I'll have to speculate by Snork+Asaurus · · Score: 1, Troll
    At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB

    Of which 256 MB is related to DRM?

    --
    Sigs are bad for your health.
  74. At least its less of a hog than Windows XP then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ;P

  75. Release early and release often by Uggy · · Score: 1

    They stealing our mantra? Sounds like they've been reading the _Cathedral and the Bazaar_

    OR

    They want to keep the hounds slavering and aware of their hunger. You want that, boy? You want that? Take a good sniff. Hmmm. You can have it later, though.

    Meanwhile the poor dog who had forgotten his growling belly is now killing himself trying to get at the bone.

    --
    Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
  76. Re:Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL co by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lemme guess... you're one of the "GNU-slash-Linux" bastards, aren't you?

  77. Re:Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL co by Ice_Balrog · · Score: 1

    Just so you know: X mmaps all your video card's RAM. So if your video card has 256MB of RAM, X will appear to be using 256MB of RAM.

    --
    #include "sig.h"
  78. .NET by owlstead · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am not surprised. They probably used .NET to build it all. That means a few things:

    - they are now using components (with .NET style SOAP XML messaging)
    - they use bounds checking all over
    - more meta information on objects is stored
    - libraries are probably more extensive - makes reuse better
    - more things are service-driven, so more is in memory all the time

    This all comes down to more memory use. Look at Java. It's fast enough nowadays, but it still uses a lot of memory resources. You get more runtime functionality (reflection etc) in return. .NET does essentially the same, but it will have the same drawbacks as Java - slower execution and larger memory footprint.

    This is a good thing though, it's a one time performance penalty returning huge benefits. It won't favour small/old machines though.

    The future is runtime.

    1. Re:.NET by johnnliu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      .NET can compile down to the native image for your current CPU.

      Check out ngen.exe - it's part of your .NET runtime installation.

      I'm certain that if .NET was to be used in an OS and performance is required, a simple command line would be all that's necessary to turn .NET code into a lower level binary. This can be easily done when you install the OS (like when you install .NET, I think all .NET runtime are compiled with ngen as part of the installation)

    2. Re:.NET by owlstead · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, but that would negate all the benefits of having .net in the first place. Most of the time when such performance is required, better security and good interprocess communcation will be required as well. Think about which components you would like to compiled to native code.

      The scheduler will probably be native code (well, it has to be, hasn't it:) and the core kernel components as well. But a kernel + default services will be much larger than those components.

    3. Re:.NET by BradleyUffner · · Score: 2, Informative

      SOAP and XML are not the only options in .NET, those are just used for high compatability with other OSs. Most likely over 99% of function calls in .NET are traditional old Binary calls.

    4. Re:.NET by shadow_slicer · · Score: 2, Insightful
      it's a one time performance penalty returning huge benefits
      How so? Isn't the performance bad every time you run it?
      A one time penalty would be checking bounds at compile time, or actually writing it correctly the first time. Neither ".Net" nor Java are "one time penalties".

      The future of small custom programs is runtime. For apps that require realtime characteristics (like games, media players, device drivers, operating systems) the overhead of a runtime language like .Net or Java is excessive.

      Runtime languages will take over for small custom apps because they allow the development to proceed more rapidly, but for everything else there's no replacement for languages that interface directly with the machine.
    5. Re:.NET by Dan+Guisinger · · Score: 1

      Actually .NET automatically compiles a native version and caches it the first time it is ran. The only time it ever recompiles is if it detects an updated byte code binary.

    6. Re:.NET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he meant one time like during boot, as opposed to every time you launch an app.

      Given you boot your box every once in, (and do spare the bill-makes-unstable-software, the modern desktop version of windows is stable enough), it is indeed a tradeoff that I believe we benefit from. Even if we have to add 100$ worth of RAM to our setup.

      Besides, if you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to upgrade.

    7. Re:.NET by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 1


      I think he means one time penalty as in it will be a penalty going from XP to Longhorn because we go from native code to interpreted but when going from Longhorn to Blackcomb there won't be a similar penalty because Windows will already be mostly interpreted.

      --
      "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
  79. Longhorn == KDE 3.2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry, but there are no features in longhorn that kde 3.2 in Linux has that I desire. KDE 3.2 also dosen't take 483Mb of ram, looking at my memory usage I am using 48% of my memory (768MB), and most of that is disk cache, only about 140Mb is "Application Data".

    So skip the longhorn and get KDE instead, preview the future, today!

  80. New features + 64 bit CPUs? More RAM, please! by fuzzy12345 · · Score: 1
    Presumably they're still adding functionality to this thing, and not just taking out debugging stuff between now and release.

    And we'll all be on 64 bit CPUs by then, so you can multiply everything by 2*(% of pointers in the resident set).

    Remember, wasting RAM funds terroris... oh, wait, that's oil.

    --

    Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
  81. Tolerable? Maybe if you're running 1 app. by weston · · Score: 2, Informative

    XP is tolerable with 128

    What, if you're running one application? I've got 512MB in my XP machine at work, and I've turned off all the snazzy effects and play-skool skins, and there are still times that my machine just suddenly decides to be completely unresponsive. This on a recent model Sony VAIO. I do tend to run back and forth between a lot of applications (Photoshop, Fireworks, Word, Excel, Thunderbird, Mozilla, IE, text editor, and when I'm feeling brave, Illustrator), but after a few days of uptime, even if I'm running only 2-3 of those, funny little things (like, selecting a drop-down menu) just start to crawl.

    I'm suspecting it's something to do with disk performance, rather than memory, of course, but if I had 1-2 GB, maybe I wouldn't have to swap out so often.

    1. Re:Tolerable? Maybe if you're running 1 app. by bwoodring · · Score: 1

      If your computer is starting out fast and getting progressively slower, it isn't your memory or HDD, it's a bug in some piece of software you are running. If you are using 500MB of memory for software, it should pretty much perform identically now or two days from now.

    2. Re:Tolerable? Maybe if you're running 1 app. by cookd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. You are correct about the disk performance. Laptop hard drives are ridiculously slow when compared to desktop versions. I am also using a very recent VAIO. My desktop has a 1.8 GHz P4, and the VAIO has a 2.0 GHz P4. At purely computational tasks, the VAIO is slightly faster, as you would expect. But the desktop can do a clean build of the project I'm working on more than twice as fast as the VAIO.

      2. With XP, 512 MB is enough memory for most daily work, unless you are running memory-hog programs. However, I happen to know that Photoshop is a major memory hog. All of the others you listed can be, depending on how they are set up and used. Memory hogs are less of a problem on a desktop where there is a snappy hard drive available: when the disk cache is reduced to allow for more programs, you don't feel it much (you've still got the 8MB cache built into the drive, and cache misses are filled more quickly), and when you start using the swapfile, again the disk is faster and has built-in cache. But on a laptop, once you cross the line and you start feeling the memory pressure, you start hurting really fast.

      3. I've never noticed XP itself to significantly slow down with increased uptime. I do a lot of programming at work (translated: I stress my work machine a lot, running buggy programs and killing a lot of processes), and sometimes I'll go for a month or so without needing to reboot (and the reboot is usually due to driver reconfiguration, hardware installation, etc., not unresponsiveness). My VAIO also goes a long time between reboots (lots of suspend-resume cycles, but few reboots). However, some programs tend to gradually accumulate resources until they reach a critical mass and drag the computer down. MS Messenger and MS Outlook are the ones that I tend to notice. Logging out and then logging back in usually makes everything all better.

      --
      Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
    3. Re:Tolerable? Maybe if you're running 1 app. by Nameles · · Score: 1

      I have uptimes of 1-2months+ on average for my desktop xp box. One of the major problems I realized is that explorer sucks ass at staying up for longer than a month or so. I switched to Blackbox for Windows, and it's been running nicely. I haven't tried the official 0.0.90 release, but the beta is ok, a little flakey, and 0.0.80 is good.

  82. Bigger is better! by Maljin+Jolt · · Score: 1
    At idle, with no applications running, the commit charge is at a whopping 483 MB!! Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

    Of course it will not, All we expect it to be as much as 16x more. That's why it cannot run on current hardware...

    --
    There you are, staring at me again.
  83. MS is not doing wrong by gad_zuki! · · Score: 0

    >Everyone walks away richer (well except all of us who will have to throw away our current computers).

    Dunno, afterall this is slashdot where every change in technology or even price drops get posted as articles and geeks salivate over future purchases. You're going to buy a new PC anyway, unless you're buying a mac or building your own. What do you think a PC in 2007 is going to look like?

    The consumer PC market is quite comfortable with getting their OS as attached to their new computer. Its like buying a car, after x amount of time the car simply isn't worth repairing so you might as well buy a new one with better MPG and safety equipment.

    The comments here contains a lot of false outrage and have been modded pretty high. MS is designing an OS for 2007, maybe even 2008, do you really expect them to make it usable on the beater you're using today when technology changes so quickly? I mean look at how fast and cheap RAM is and 64bit computing for the home is right over the horizon.

    Conversely, if MS wasn't planning ahead and released nothing more than XP with some tweaks there would be a whole lot of complaints from the same people complaining here that MS is just trying to make money by re-naming their existing product like they pretty much did with WindowsME.

    There are some real things MS gets wrong, focusing on how much RAM is used on an alpha release and turning into some MS hatefest only helps to label all anti-MS people as nuts not worth listening to.

  84. of course it doesnt! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux doesn't have an integrated web browser afterall. How much RAM would Linux + XFree86 + Gnome + a window manager take up? What if this combination of things was as feature rich as even windowsXP? And what if Longhorn uses memory as disk cache? Lets compare apples to apples, here.. I'm sure Longhorn -does- have a disk cache, why wouldn't it?

    1. Re:of course it doesnt! by DashEvil · · Score: 1

      Linux + XFree86 + KDE 3.2 = More feature rich than WindowsXP.

      Seriously, check out your default Windows XP install sometime, there just ISN'T much there.

      --
      -If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
    2. Re:of course it doesnt! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe - but OS X still beats the tar out of both of them. I can't believe people still bother with *nix...

    3. Re:of course it doesnt! by DashEvil · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because *nix supports more platforms than OS X does. :P

      --
      -If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
    4. Re:of course it doesnt! by davebarz · · Score: 1

      And is free for the home user.

    5. Re:of course it doesnt! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ahhh. get a grip dude, who in their right mind is gonna choose crappy old linux for their desktop boxes, only the insane, or those in academia. (are you a student, you have a lot to learn)

      Who the f*uck would choose linux over windows...... You're in fairlyland, ask the corporates what is the most difficult to use, most on TCO and most tricky to set up on those uncompromising boxes that we all have, windows every time, LINUX IS SHIT AND DOESNT WORK....

    6. Re:of course it doesnt! by DashEvil · · Score: 1

      You completely missed my point.
      My comment was DIRECTLY in response to someone saying that 'even if' a Linux default install (With GNOME/whatever) had more features than a Windows default install.
      My comment was that, yes, for example, Linux with KDE does have more features than Windows. It's when you start adding on the 3rd party software that Windows can do more than it.
      You can't argue that. KDE 3.2 comes with the works, media players, rippers, a pdf viewer, a brower, etc, etc. It has EVERYTHING a Windows XP default install has, plus more. A Windows XP default install is, as I said before, pretty weak on the feature side.
      But you can, if you wish, paint me down as a Linux zealot. I don't even USE Linux, and I'm not going to say what I DO use (it isn't windows) because quite frankly it isn't any of your buisness and you're just going to attempt to somehow judge my opinion on it.
      Now let's go over this again. My opinion is that a Linux desktop (read: RedHat, Mandrake) with has, on a default install, more 'features' (read: Is capable of doing more) than a Windows XP default install. Are you going to dispute that? Because you complete trailed off topic with something I wasn't even ARGUING about and then proceeded to launch insults at me.
      Not appreciated, and it's also very immature.

      --
      -If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
    7. Re:of course it doesnt! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah - free as in herpes.

  85. You people are stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An OS should use all the memory all the time or else it is not doing its job. Thing is, without looking at the code, you do not know what that job is. It is entirely possible that it will release memory as applications are loaded.

  86. Performance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Build 4053 is a debug-mode release w/o any form of compiler optimization. To add to the performance hit, 4053 doesn't actually put a WinFS partition on your disk - It runs a WinFS emulator, which is basically trying to simulate a RDBMS using a normal untweaked and non-indexed file system. Also adding insult to injury, half the OS frontend is running a debug version of the .NET 2.0 Framework WITH profiling turned on.

    In other words, yeah, its slow as balls. If your company has a MSDN Universal Subscription, you can get a non-debug build which runs much much faster, but it still relies on WinFS emulation, so memory usage is through the roof.

  87. When Bill Gates said by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 0

    '640K ought to be enough for anybody'
    He must have meant 640 MB :D

  88. Bigger is Better by samael · · Score: 1

    My PC is vastly faster than my PC was a few years ago. Windows XP uses about 2% of system CPU overall (and mostly sits between 0 and 1%). I don't see much payback for making the OS faster.

    I _do_ see payback in putting more functionality into it.

  89. How about the site? by r.jimenezz · · Score: 0, Troll

    Does anyone know if it's a debug build as well? Its commit charge seems to tend to infinity at this time :P

    --
    The revolution will not be televised.
  90. Re:Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL co by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not as far as I know. I can't remember ever correcting someone on it (one can normally understand what someone is getting at) and when I do write "Linux" I intend to mean "Linux: the kernel", needing no such differentiation on my part; otherwise, I just mention the distribution (encompassing Linux, the GNU userland, and a whole lot of other stuff) as far as I can recall. He's trying to be somewhat derogatory and being nonsensical in the process, I don't feel that I'm being overly pedantic in my response (although it is a bit pedantic, I'd agree).

  91. Obviously? by frovingslosh · · Score: 1, Troll
    Obviously, the final release or even the beta releases will not consume this much of the system resources.

    Bullshit.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  92. Mixed thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I've been keeping up with Longhorn and Indigo. One of the new features I question is LongHorn will have a kernel level Transaction manager. For those who have tried to perform concurrent transaction or medium weight transactions in .NET it's notoriously tricky. This is from first hand experience. To get around all the scalability issues with more complex transactions, LongHorn plans to have a kernel level transaction manager. It's great MS is finally getting around to building a real transaction manager to make sure transactions work efficiently. Chris Brumme's latest blog goes into detail about how the Sql Server team implemented the database VM to use light weight threads they call fibers. In Yukon (the next release of Sql Server), sql server can call .NET assemblies directly, but it wasn't easy. According to .NET developers, they had to delegate thread related processes to Sql Server's VM. The details are far more complex than that obviously.

    It seems to obvious the better solution is to implement real POSIX threading. Not only would it make it easier to scale Sql Server, .NET and transactions, but it would provide the ability to switch modes for dedicated servers. The feeling I get is now MS will have multiple components that by pass the default system threading and implement their own POSIX like threading to get around existing scalability issues. One on hand, it will be nice to get reliable transaction management, but having a kernel level TM just feels wrong. LongHorn's WinFS is also suppose to provide full ACID capabilities, but I don't think that will really solve anything in terms of implementing shared memory for Sql Server. I'm no expert, but that's not how Oracle implements shared memory architecture to achieve dynamic table distribution at runtime within a cluster. I'm sure some of my assumptions are wrong, since I'm guessing based on what I can find.

    1. Re:Mixed thoughts by spitzak · · Score: 1

      This is just a lot of random blather from somebody trying to fool people into modding it up. He has no idea what he is talking about.

      POSIX threading is a library and can be implemented atop the NT kernel today. (it is true that the kernel lacks certain synchronization primitives so that you have to do a lot of work for something that should be a primitive, but it can be done).

    2. Re:Mixed thoughts by f00zbll · · Score: 1

      I believe the original post was the typical post before you think comment, but I also believe there's truth to it. I've read the blog by Brumme and I think the details support the post more than it disproves it.

    3. Re:Mixed thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I believe you're mistaken. I am no expert, but I know that POSIX is a set of standard and specifications. I also know that windows primarily uses Mutex threading with a preemptive scheduler.

      POSIX threading is a library and can be implemented atop the NT kernel today. (it is true that the kernel lacks certain synchronization primitives so that you have to do a lot of work for something that should be a primitive, but it can be done).

      Here is a short quote from Brumme's blog. There are several book on the internals of Sql Server that state the same thing as Brumme's blog in terms of threading and how Sql Server uses it's own light weight threading that uses 256kb instead of the default threads (1Mb). Back up your view with real facts.

      Threading and Synchronization

      One of the most interesting challenges we struggled with during Whidbey was the need to cooperate with SQL Server's task scheduling. SQL Server can operate in either thread mode or fiber mode. Most customers run in thread mode, but SQL Server can deliver its best numbers on machines with lots of CPUs when it's running in fiber mode. That gap between thread and fiber mode has been closing as the OS addresses issues with its own preemptive scheduler.

      A few years ago, I ran some experiments to see how many threads I could create in a single process. Not surprisingly, after almost 2000 threads I ran out of address space in the process. That's because the default stack size on NT is 1 MB and the default user address space is 2 GB. (Starting with V1.1, the CLR can load into LARGEADDRESSAWARE processes and use up to 3 GB of address space). If you shrink the default stack size, you can create more than 2000 threads before hitting the address space limit. I see stack sizes of 256 KB in the SQL Server process on my machine, clearly to reduce this impact on process address space.

      Of course, address space isn't the only limit you can hit. Even on the 4 CPU server box I was experimenting with, the real memory on the system was inadequate for the working set being used. With enough threads, I exceeded real memory and experienced paging. (Okay, it was actually thrashing). But nowadays there are plenty of servers with several GB of real - and real cheap - memory, so this doesn't have to be an issue.

      In my experiments, I simulated server request processing using an artificial work load that combined blocking, allocation, CPU-intensive computation, and a reasonable memory reference set using a mixture of both shared and per-request allocations. In the first experiments, all the threads were ready to run and all of them had equal priority. The result of this was that all threads were scheduled in a round-robin fashion on those 4 CPUs. Since the Windows OS schedules threads preemptively, each thread would execute until it either needed to block or it exceeded its quantum. With hundreds or even thousands of threads, each context switch was extremely painful. That's because most of the memory used by that thread was so cold in the cache, having been fully displaced by the hundreds of threads that ran before it.

      The blog is rather long, but in way does it back up your assertion. If anything, it backs up argument more than anything else.

    4. Re:Mixed thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      POSIX threading is pre-emptive multitasking. There's no point in changing the APIs that SQL server calls from being the Windows APIs to the POSIX APIs, unless MS wanted to port to Unix. They're both pre-emptive multi-tasking.

      I would assume SQL server has already abstracted the multi tasking APIs though. In their abstraction they probably either do-the-fiber-thing, or do-the-thread-thing (because Chris says they can support either). So they could replace it with a POSIX library, but that POSIX library on Windows is probably just going to call the NT or Win32 APIs. Therefore there's no point in this at all.

      I don't understand the grandparent's assertion that NT's sync primitives are lacking. I always thought NT had richer synchronization primitives. Events are a little different from condition variables I suppose, but lacks isn't the word I would have choosen.

    5. Re:Mixed thoughts by spitzak · · Score: 1

      I don't understand the grandparent's assertion that NT's sync primitives are lacking.

      The _WIN32 api lacks an actual way to do a atomic "unlock this lock and wait for this signal". This makes the POSIX pthread_condition impossible to implement. Apparently you can get around this with literally hundreds of lines of code that use many semaphores to safely do it, but it complicates the use of semaphores by requiring a wrapper around them as well to keep these conditions up to date.

      Supposedly newer versions of the WIN32 api added something to this, but this does not work on NT, and it requires kernel objects, and I would like to use CriticalSection, which are much more equivalent and light weight like posix mutex (I also use Linux's recursive mutexes, so I prefer the recursive behavior of CriticalSection and it would be nice if pthreads had a standard way to get this).

      Instead of the solution for a "real" POSIX emulation, you can do what I did which is to add a timeout to the WaitForSingleObject call I use to wait for a signal. This means that if it locks up it will only lock up for the duration of the timeout (.5 second in my case), and pthread_cond_wait is allowed by definition to return when the condition has not been flagged so I am not even breaking POSIX compatability (though lots of programs mistakenly assumme this does not happen, which may be why the complex solutions are at all popular).

      In my software the chances of the lockup are perhaps 1/100000, for instance people can run the program without the timeout for many minutes before it locks up. Therefore I figure the hugely reduced overhead on every semaphore is saving more time than the .5 second delay that happens every few minutes.

  93. games by crazyhussar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The average household must not have any games. Sure, some people may be happy playing the same games 7 years later (off the top of my head estimate at how old a P200 would be), but not your average gamer. Sure, your average household may not be your average gamer. However, many home pc sales are fueled by games. For example, take a (mother|father|pair of parents) who works very hard trying to give their children a better life than they had. This is part of the American dream, no? Due to working long hours, this perental mass feels guilty over not spending as much time with their children as they want to. However, computer games make this child act happy. The parent can rationalize spending to much time away from the house, as it allows them to buy computer hardware/games, which make them happy. (Ok maybe this includes console gaming as well, but that appears to be getting closer and closer to desktop hardware). Anyway, the point is, that new games, a HUGE market, create a need in a household for new hardware.

    --
    Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself.
  94. True by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

    This is because adding another 32MB or ram is a lot (two words for those that don't know) cheaper than 200 bucks.

  95. That's fascinating! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I run Mandrake 9.1 with Gnome on 128!

    I didn't know three-toed sloths used computers!

  96. Everyone does this... look at OS X by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 1

    Dude, this is alpha software. Moreover, MS is applying a new display system similar to Quartz Extreme. That thing is going to use up a LOT of resources until MS gets it down solid.

    My OS X box has 1.25gigs of RAM. Right not I'm only running 1 major application, Safari. However, my system has about 40+ process open.. with only a few actually running and using the CPU. Those processes in include the dock, the window server, core services, etc etc.

    370megs of RAM are being "used" by my machine right now. about 150megs of that is inactive. Because I have 1.25 gigs, my machine tends to stretch out and get comfortable. Nevertheless, OS X uses a shit load of RAM.

    Operating systems like OS X and Windows have quite a few toys and tools that slackware does not have. ...These things require ram.

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    1. Re:Everyone does this... look at OS X by noewun · · Score: 5, Insightful
      370megs of RAM are being "used" by my machine right now. about 150megs of that is inactive. Because I have 1.25 gigs, my machine tends to stretch out and get comfortable. Nevertheless, OS X uses a shit load of RAM.

      OS X will use as much RAM as it can - it caches apps and data you use a lot to cut down on time accessing the disk. I have a gig in my machine and OS X is using 892.8 megs, with 12 days of uptime and ten apps currently running. However, I bet that bits of apps I don't have launched right now, like Photoshop and Preview and Acquisition, are cached, because I tend to launch them a lot.

      I'm not saying that modern OSes don't use a lot of RAM, cause they do. But the fact that the OS is using almost a gig of RAM on my machine is not a sign of inefficiency.

      --
      I am a believer of momentum and curves.
    2. Re:Everyone does this... look at OS X by Selecter · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Shit. "Looks like Quartz Extreme"? I bet it *IS* Quartz Extreme, a nice little secret. Why should MS develop a whole new display system that looks like QE when it can just leach it from Apple with some minor changes and dare Apple to sue them?

      "Looks like Quartz Extreme" indeed. I'd bet anything they "borrow" the technology.

    3. Re:Everyone does this... look at OS X by cypherz · · Score: 1

      > OS X is using 892.8 megs

      "Free RAM is bad RAM ". My current workstation has 1 GB, after getting to KDE and loading Mozilla, and newsticker etc, top shows almost half in use.

      Cpu(s): 26.8% user, 4.2% system, 0.0% nice, 69.0% idle
      Mem: 1032264k total, 483440k used, 548824k free, 51840k buffer
      Swap: 1052216k total, 0k used, 1052216k free, 184236k cached

      I wonder at what point will Longhorn start to seriously swap. Windows has always had a very aggressive swapping strategy.

      --
      This sig kills fascists.
    4. Re:Everyone does this... look at OS X by tb3 · · Score: 1

      Doubt it, because Quartz Extreme uses OpenGL to pull its tricks, and there's no way Microsoft would use something like that when they can re-invent the wheel again.
      That said, I'll bet they go for a DirectX-based system. That way, you'll be caught in an endless loop of upgrading video drivers and DirectX modules. :P

      --

      www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

    5. Re:Everyone does this... look at OS X by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Microsoft own SGI now, and with that acquisition came SGI's intellectual property? Didn't SGI make a shitload of OpenGL code?

      Now let's see...OpenGL...Quartz Extreme...Microsoft. I think you see where I'm going here. Don't be surprised if Microsoft actually uses OpenGL and 'extends' it via some wacky DirectX wrapper.

    6. Re:Everyone does this... look at OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, The article is over a year old. The answer to your question is is no, Microsoft does not own OpenGL. Code written for OpenGL API? Who cares... They could have gotten that for free off of sourceforge.net, they are a closed source company after all...

      Regards

  97. say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love how everyone here seems to tweak there linux system for days to get it running just right, but dont do shit to Windows. Just install it and start complaining. On my xp install, with Symantec Enterprise AV starting up with it, it only uses 60mb.

    Maybe you all need to learn how to run your systems correctly and stop bitching. Idiots.

  98. Old news and a link to a similar article by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Informative

    Now that the link is slashdotted, I'll post another review / info page about this alpha build from PDC:

    http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn_4051. asp

    There are no apparent differences between that reviewed build (4051) and the one in this article.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  99. Troll my ass by brain_not_ticking · · Score: 1

    I made no mention of DDOS attacks. These "zombies" could be used for a zillion things, some even useful. Take a look at the setiathome project. There are plenty of uses for zombie machines that have more processing power than bandwidth.

  100. New Internet Explorer features by srcosmo · · Score: 0, Troll
    Ah, it has a popup blocker, and a download manager!!

    Where would we be without MS innovations?

    --
    free speach
    Did you mean: free speech
  101. Games vs. OS's by Barkmullz · · Score: 3, Insightful


    First of all, I am sure it was compiled in degug mode - resource hog.

    Secondly, whenever ID Software claims:

    -"Our next game, DoomQuad, will require that you travel forward in time and get yourself a system powerful enough to run it. Unless, naturally, you are content at playing the game at -2 FPS".

    ...everyone starts foaming at the mouth with excitement.

    Now M$ has a product that requires you to have a somewhat beefy system and everyone starts bitching.

    Why am I not surprised? This is slashdot after all.

    --
    Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
    1. Re:Games vs. OS's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I'd like to see you try to run DoomQuad on Longhorn then. Maybe then you'll understand why the operating system should be in the background, consuming as little system resources as possible.

  102. Jesus H... stop ripping Apple off. by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So now MS is even stealing Apple's least liked ideas... brushed metal.

    Does Microsoft, a multibillion dollar company tied the richest man in the WORLD, even own a god damn industrial design department?! They contract other designers to make their icons (mac geeks of course, http://www.iconfactory.com/ ), they acquire 99% of their photography from Getty and Corbis, and their desktops are completely devoid of anything intuitive.

    I'm sure MS spends a butt load of money on overrated geeks who have been specifically schooled in HCI / Human Factors. However, they don't seem to have a staff that understands graphic and, more importantly, interactive design.

    These bizzaro Apple desktops are getting old. MS has the money and power to make a NICE and ORIGINAL desktop... but for some reason they chose not to. Why is this?

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    1. Re:Jesus H... stop ripping Apple off. by spitzak · · Score: 1

      Actually I thought '95 was quite nice.

      I agree that what they have done since looks like the worst Enlightenment themes ever designed. I guess they felt they had to steal something from Linux, and decided to take one of the worst things!

    2. Re:Jesus H... stop ripping Apple off. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You suck!

      . ____
      .// ..7
      .(_,_/\
      . \ .. \
      . .\ .. \
      . __\ .. \__
      . (,,, \ ,,,)
      . \_____\__/

  103. Re:Win 2000 stability by Merdalors · · Score: 1
    I develop under Win 2000 (VS6, MFC). I run for several weeks without having to reboot. There might be a problem with your hardware or one of your apps.

    I have never seen a BSOD. Used to get them all the time with NT 4.

    If Linux were as popular as Windows, it would also attract buggy drivers, and be unstable.

    --
    Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
  104. That sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    483MB at a standstill?

    What, are they stealing code from Gnome?

    *insert rimshot here*

  105. You can buy machines preloaded with longhorn alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, I found out today you can buy computers pre-loaded with the alpha version of Longhorn - the store was all white with wood floors, and they were selling these cool MP3 players too.

    My laptop came in this cool aluminum case, and it's running pretty well. Searches were really fast and the new browser (I think they are calling it Jungle or something like that) was really great. Plus I had no viruses even when I connected it to the internet for a minute without thinking!! And in this version they made that huge bar on the side of the screen you could see in the article screenshots resizable. So I think Longhorn will do just fine.

  106. Windows 2000 / NT / 2003 is stable - hardware by RoundSparrow · · Score: 1

    Exactly!

    In my orignal post, I didn't say just _Windows_ I made the point that _hardware_ and _hardware drivers_. Even third-party drivers like Norton Anti-virus can make a big difference in system stability - and they aren't hardware drivers!

    Also consider that most people who use Windows get whatever OEM's put on them. Frankly, most OEM's put crap on them and tweaks to the default settings... or uncertified drivers to boost performance. Microsoft gets all the blame by the end user.

    Personally, I reformat and load from scratch... old skool. I don't want three bands of computers all having their own crappy DLL's and anti-virus releaes.

  107. Re:Depressing thoughts by edxwelch · · Score: 1

    A program with a huge memory footprint will always be slower than a smaller one, even if you have so many gigs of memory that it can run without paging. Moving huge amounts of data in main memory is slow. A smaller footprint means more of your program can fit into the L2 cache.

  108. Upgrading 1M customers vs. 80M by RoundSparrow · · Score: 1

    Pick on grammer and don't even respond to my _main point_.

    Microsoft has a much larger customer base. I think they long ago (Windows ME timeframe) decided that each release was going to have a longer lifespan.

    Your Apple user also tends to have a much narrow range of hardware budget and size of computers. I bet the average Apple user spends 2x as much and has twice the quality of hardware.

    1. Re:Upgrading 1M customers vs. 80M by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pick on grammer and don't even respond to my _main point_.

      We could pick on your spelling as well as on your grammar.

    2. Re:Upgrading 1M customers vs. 80M by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      We Mac users have had our share of 3rd party hardware compatibility issues, especially during the transition to OS X. This seems to be settling down now, thank god.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  109. Why the negativism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does /. only say negatives about M$ and not about Linux betas? BiAS

    1. Re:Why the negativism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what bad can you say about linux betas?

    2. Re:Why the negativism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is plenty bad stuff. it sucks for 1.

  110. What a strange argument by Prof.+Pi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If Linux were as popular as Windows, it would also attract buggy drivers, and be unstable.

    Is that meant to spoof the old "more Windows viruses because it's more popular" myth?

    If a company has to write 2 drivers, which one are they more likely to spend time writing and testing properly: the one that will be used on 95% of desktops or the one that will be used on 5% of desktops? Even the large companies that can write decent drivers often write their Linux drivers in a rush, usually after some big customer asks for it and they're facing the loss of a big sale.

    Of course, one could argue that a company that doesn't have the resources to make a decent driver won't even bother with the Linux market. But such no-name companies mostly just use common chipsets anyway, most of which have good drivers.

    1. Re:What a strange argument by RoundSparrow · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I really believe open source has a real edge on drivers... because the HW Mfg's can study dozens of source examples for ideas.

      WIndows (and OS/2) really suffers from closed source drivers. The SDK examples are good starting, but the lessons learned 'in the real world' in terms of specific hacks for certain motherboards/chipsets never seems to make it back to the SDK...

      Look at a driver like the Realtek Ethernet on Linux... it is a pefect example of something that shows the 'real world' side in terms of slight differences on motherboards and with the Realtek chips themselves.

    2. Re:What a strange argument by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      "If a cracker has to write 2 viruses, which one are they more likely to spend time writing and testing properly: the one that will be used on 95% of desktops or the one that will be used on 5% of desktops?"

      Still want to claim it as a myth that Windows has more viruses because it's more popular? More targets, more possibility of damage. Who would it hurt if a OSX worm got out into the public? A fuckload of graphic designers, and a few weirdos that are using Macs as web servers.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    3. Re:What a strange argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IIS is less used then Apache, yet Apache volnurabilities are much more rare. Argument invalidated. People attack the easy target that has a base. Microsoft is the easy target. They want to produce as many viruses as they can, not spend a year manufacturing each one for it to get patched within 24 hours.

    4. Re:What a strange argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny... that's the *only* example I ever see used by the OSS zealots. In any case, most, if not all, of the worms that have gone around in the past while have been exploits through Outlook, not IIS.

      I'm not knocking anything off of Apache, it is a fine piece of software. However, it's the *only* example I see you guys use.

    5. Re:What a strange argument by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      (Disclaimer: I'm a card carrying, banner waving, koolaid drinking fanatical mac zealot.)

      One reason why Windows viruses and worms are so devastating to EVERYONE is because of the magnitude of the vector. An OS X worm, if someone could actually create one, would not have a sufficient base and the vector would soon peter out before gaining enough momentum.

      The problem with MS windows is threefold: Overwhelming market share makes it a perfect vector, overwhelming market share makes it a target of opportunity, and lousy security implementation makes it an easy target.

      If OS X had the same marketshare AND deficiencies that Windows does, we'd be in the same sorry state of affairs.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    6. Re:What a strange argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably because it is the most obvious argument and
      it makes the point clear. Want another?
      Okay, how about outlook exploits versus mutt,pine, sylpheed or mozilla-thunderbird exploits.
      Or how about internetexplorer vulnerabilities versus mozilla,opera or lynx vulnerabilities.
      Or how about mssql vulnerabilities versus mysql or postgres vulnerabilities.
      Or how about visio vulnerabilities versus xfig or dia vulnerabilities.
      Or how about ms steelhead router vulnerabilities versus zebra/linux router vulnerabilities.
      (hehe that last one is just for fun)

    7. Re:What a strange argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      None of these you mention have the same properties of that in the other post. In the other statement, Apache was called out because it has more of a user share than IIS and it was also exploited less was the claim. None of what you mentioned above fits that.

    8. Re:What a strange argument by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

      If a company has to write 2 drivers, which one are they more likely to spend time writing and testing properly: the one that will be used on 95% of desktops or the one that will be used on 5% of desktops?

      Neither--there are plenty of extremely poorly-written drivers for the "95% of desktops" that is Windows. For years, even ATI itself was crash-worthy. Get real.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    9. Re:What a strange argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

  111. Funny, beta versions of Linux don't have this prob by Adolph_Hitler · · Score: 0

    Ive used beta linux, apple, beos software, alpha linux kernels and gnome, and none of them consumed a gig of ram for no reason. Debug? Oh I admit mozilla was slower than netscape when it came out but mozilla was a total redesign.

    --
    People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
  112. DOS setup screen? by bl8n8r · · Score: 1

    > No more will we see the plain DOS like setup screen How many more revisions of Windows are going to claim to be the death of DOS? I don't think the market MS is pimping to even knows what the hell a DOS is anymore... hmmm.. then again, if they use Outlook, they may be quite familiar with Denial Of Service.

    --
    boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
    1. Re:DOS setup screen? by BradleyUffner · · Score: 1

      when will poeple learn that a plain text boot screen does not mean it's running DOS?

  113. Why would someone with a new system pick longhorn? by Adolph_Hitler · · Score: 0

    Why not just install their copy of windows98? or XP? Why downgrade to longhorn?

    --
    People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
  114. Windows stabe vs. Linux or FreeBSD by RoundSparrow · · Score: 1

    Last friday I saw win 2000 server restart on our server for no reason.

    Are you using logic here man? There IS A REASON this system crashed. Computers are not items with feelings...

    Faulty drivers, faulty hardware are most causes of things that 'seem random'. In most cases, a OS crash itself (Windows 2000) should be reproduced if you can figure out what sequence of events lead to it...

    1. Re:Windows stabe vs. Linux or FreeBSD by Billnvd65 · · Score: 1

      Turning it on being the single largest contributor! Seriously, my wife runs 2k on a decent system with supported hardware and current drivers. While her system is not grossly unstable, it generally folds after 5-15 days of use. Use involving several browsers, html editors, a few games, winamp, mailmoa, etc. I have not spent the time to isolate if it's just 2k or something oddball in her system. Nothing she does however is considered "loading" the system.

      2k is good, but it is hardly "all that" in the world of stability and crash resistent. Plain jane user space apps can and do bring it down hard. You just have to wait a few days and the BSOD comes a knocking.

  115. prove it by Adolph_Hitler · · Score: 0

    Ive used mozilla in debug mode and linux and while it was bloated, it was never this bloated. Windows is not a rewrite, Longhorn is a patch over XP. So why are we treating it like a rewrite? Of course its going to be slower, its a patch over the already slower than win2k/XP, which was a patch over NT.

    --
    People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
    1. Re:prove it by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Informative

      Longhorn is a patch over XP.

      Not really. Windows XP was over 2000 though. There are some huge underlying changes -- not a 100% rewrite -- but some major rewrites anyway. For example is the Windows programming API switched from Win32 to WinFX, and a whole lot retrofitted for the .NET framework for managed code.

      In total, I'd expect Longhorn to bring about as many rewrites as there was from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  116. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By the time Longhorn is out our co will be running Linux on the client.

  117. Re:Win 2000 stability by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

    Linux developers don't have to work to the same release schedules as the MS guys so they tend to release better drivers, even if it takes a little longer. The number of users will not affect this, it is the business model that drives the crappy driver problem. Instead of trying to bang out some code to score more cash from the consumer market they should look into making the code quality higher and the stabilty better.

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
  118. Re:Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL co by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not as far as I know. I can't remember ever correcting someone ... and when I do write "Linux" I intend to mean "Linux: the kernel", needing no such differentiation on my part; otherwise, I just mention the distribution (encompassing Linux, the GNU userland, ...[blah blah blah].

    Christ, get the stick out of your ass.

  119. A Pause button in the download manager by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Yep, and who says MS doesn't innovate...

    See: Download Manager

  120. Re: NT Is actually a microkernel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Yes. That's why you should switch to Linux. Windows can't just be "simplified", they have created a monster in the form of NT kernel and now they need to deal with it. Switch to a lean, mean POSIX kernel.

    Ummm, actually the NT kernel itself is a microkernel as opposed to a monolithic kernel.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(computers)#Mi crokernels

    It's all the crap M$ have shoved on top of the kernel (Internet Exploder anyone?) that causes the bloat.

  121. You don't have to use SOAP for .NET components by melted · · Score: 1

    Good ole binary marshallers are OK and much more efficient.

    1. Re:You don't have to use SOAP for .NET components by BigBadBri · · Score: 1
      You don't have to use SOAP for .NET components

      That's fscking good news for most /. readers...

      --
      oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
  122. Linux's greatest challenge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Instead of just pathetically saying 'it's a memory hog' why not look at it the way MS looks at us?

    It's a huge threat.

    We need to take all the good features of Longhorn (nice install, clean and simple desktop) and do them better in the OSS world.

    These are the features that MS thinks the world needs, and they do have a monopoly on the desktop market even now.

    Let's trump them at every trick.

    Simplicity of use is the next big challenge for OSS.

  123. The Jig is UP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Monopoly$oft apologists continue attempt to make a virtue of Windoze 2008's bloat or attempt to ignore it, as they always did.
    Meanwhile the PC market has matured and buyers these day's are looking critically at just why they should keep throwing away hardware just to keep up with fashion. People want more RAM for desktop video editing etc not simply to boot the goddam OS and they know it. Whether the shills like it or not, buyers are questioning previous behavior. Just look at the accelerating uptake of Linux world wide.

  124. "Grove giveth and Gates taketh away." by Mipmap · · Score: 1

    This quote from Bob Metcalfe, of Ethernet fame.

  125. Re:Finally proof that Microsoft is stealing GPL co by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On the one hand, my writing makes me appear to take things too seriously. On the other hand, with a little work, I can pretend that I'm a law student or something like that. I'm not really posting these comments-that-will-never-be-seen for any good reason or motivation (probably the same reason you replied, heh), so I'm not really sure why I do it.

  126. Greek technology by Dolda2000 · · Score: 1

    So the new UI is called Aero? We already have Aqua. If only GNOME or KDE could rename themselves to Lito and (lacking anything better) firefox would take the name Ignis, we could move technology even further back in time. Archimedes would be proud.

  127. Take timothy's advice -- Look away!!! by the+JoshMeister · · Score: 1


    Eww! I really hope they reconsider that dismal, brown desktop pattern. That thing would scare anybody away from using a PC!

    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some retching to do...

    (Heard echoing from the toilet bowl) BWAAAWWFF!!! ROWWLLLFF!!! BLOORRPP!!! ... WHOOOSHHHH!!!

  128. 2005? Its 2007 earliest, according to Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Microsoft says the earliest for Longhorn at this point is 4th quater 2007 and its likely to be delayed, saying who said late 2005?

  129. Why not just stick with linux? by Hackeron · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/longhorn/Imag e29.jpg

    lets look at this image for 1 second, lets calculate how much percentage of the screen goes to some useful usage, 30%, 35%?... And you are paying a few grand (software + hardware), for a bit more eye candy which makes you less productive? am I missing something?

    Now lets look at a typical linux session:

    http://images.mandrakesoft.com/img/screenshots/m dk 91-scr7.jpg

    KDE now has all sorts of integration, and gnome is heading the same way. So soon, if not already, there is nothing windows has to offer that doesn't already exists in linux open source with open standards that can be used on ANY platform.

    I do not have a single complaint or problem with linux except for less than perfect hardware support, which requires you to pay a little extra for better quality hardware.

    In linux, I can do graphics, video animation, I can program, I can use the wonderful openoffice, I can record sound and edit sound in highest quality (with some commercial programs), and these are the very reasons why Crysler, Disney, IBM and other leading companies use linux. Not to mention the reliability, control, and power both as a server and a desktop machine.

    I for one am now getting an OQO, (oqo.com), that is the size of a typical handheld with 500mhz P3 equivelent speed and 256Mb ram and 20Gb hard drive. And I will run linux with KDE, and it will work more than adequate to use. Then I'll become a lot more productive as this will replace both the PC and the laptop for me and since its low power CPU, battery lasts up to 6 hours with standard battery and 15 hours with extended.

    I do not see longhorn ever rising personally and microsoft knows it and tries postpone the release as long as it can, as it will be seen as an instant failure. So instead, microsoft invests in companies like sco to try to slow down linux.

    And I for one plan to use 1ghz PCs for a long time to come, I just do not see a reason to update as each new versions of KDE and the linux kernel focus on making it run better on both older and newer hardware, and with every release, I enjoy using linux on my 400mhz laptop more and more.

    And as someone in one of the comments said, while you spend time rewriting a program to be cleaner, someone will come up with a better, more full featured product, and that someone is linux.

    Can someone please tell me how there is a potential advantage to use windows? because I am completely lost how such a pointless, expensive, slow, unstandarized, closed standard product can be even discussed seriously as an alternative to linux.

    1. Re:Why not just stick with linux? by dedazo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      lets look at this image for 1 second, lets calculate how much percentage of the screen goes to some useful usage, 30%, 35%?... And you are paying a few grand (software + hardware), for a bit more eye candy which makes you less productive? am I missing something

      Yes. You can turn it off, customize it, etc. Unless you never touch it again after the first boot, but that's your choice. Did you base your entire sermon below on this screenshot of software that's 3 years away from being released?

      KDE now has all sorts of integration, and gnome is heading the same way.

      Like... cut 'n paste?

      I do not have a single complaint or problem with linux except for less than perfect hardware support, which requires you to pay a little extra for better quality hardware.

      You know, the other day I set up RH 9 on a new box with an Abit mobo. I had to compile the fucking ALSA driver in order to get sound. Would that count as a complaint? Not that I complain, mind you. Unless you compare that to, say, Windows.

      In linux, I can do graphics, video animation, I can program, I can use the wonderful openoffice, I can record sound and edit sound in highest quality (with some commercial programs), and these are the very reasons why Crysler, Disney, IBM and other leading companies use linux. Not to mention the reliability, control, and power both as a server and a desktop machine.

      OK now, "the wonderful open office"?? Lesse - on my laptop (again with RH9) it takes about 15 seconds to load Writer. This is a machine where MS Word takes about 1/2 second to load (and yes, I disable the MSO cache). And everything else... well, I can do all that, too. I mean, did they port Photoshop or Quark to Linux yet? Guess not. Depends what it is you want to do.

      I for one am now getting an OQO

      Give me a break that's been vapourware for what now, 4 years? Hell, even PalmOS is better on devices. Why do you people want to run Linux in everything that has a power plug?

      I do not see longhorn ever rising personally and microsoft knows it and tries postpone the release as long as it can, as it will be seen as an instant failure. So instead, microsoft invests in companies like sco to try to slow down linux.

      Looks like you've got it all figured out. That proves that ESR's FUD is working, I guess.

      And I for one plan to use 1ghz PCs for a long time to come, I just do not see a reason to update as each new versions of KDE and the linux kernel focus on making it run better on both older and newer hardware, and with every release, I enjoy using linux on my 400mhz laptop more and more.

      That's nice. So what you're saying is that KDE 3.x runs just fine on your 400MHz laptop with all the eye candy turned on, right? Because it's KDE, so it must be magically faster than Windows? I run Windows 2000 on 450MHz machines just fine, and I'm not upgrading until I upgrade the boxes. Microsoft has EOL'ed W2K but will still continue to provide fixes for it so I'm jiggy. If I had made an investment on RH desktops on the other hand I'd be screwed!

      And as someone in one of the comments said, while you spend time rewriting a program to be cleaner, someone will come up with a better, more full featured product, and that someone is linux

      Yeah. You know, OO.org is better than Microsoft Office... 97. Really now, have you ever used commercial software? Or is this your first foray into "free" computing?

      Can someone please tell me how there is a potential advantage to use windows?

      Nope, not to you at least. You just spent half an hour typing up the worst piece of fanboi drivel I've read here in a while so don't sweat it. Nobody wants you to switch to Windows or OS X or anything else. Stick to what you know.

      because I am completely lost how such a pointless, expensive, slow, unstandarized, closed standard product can be even discussed seriously as an alternative to linux.

      I think the

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    2. Re:Why not just stick with linux? by Hackeron · · Score: 2, Informative

      1) Again, most corporations these days use linux for their professional design needs, server needs and efficient desktop usage. 2) By KDE integration I mean you can integrate any piece of software directly into any part of KDE, like you can run openoffice from within konqueror, or vim from kwrite. 3) As for your redhat remark, SERVES YOU RIGHT!, dont use redhat until fedora is finished, try something designed as a windows replacement desktop use like the commercial Xandros 2, and I bet it works OUT OF THE BOX just like it did on the 15 machines I tested it on. 3) As to openoffice, I have shown it to all my friends, and once you use the preloading software (oooqs), it also starts in 1,1/2 second time, so la di da. And I've become more productive with it in seconds, I can do better looking documents, all the menus are better organized, and all my projects look way superior and now I can directly export to pdf. And news to you, you CANNOT turn off the preloading of explorer and MS office components. 4) As for running linux on anything that has a power chord, that just shows its functionality, and its mornally for just a learning experience rather than real usage, the OQO however is a COMPELTE PC!, it has a hard drive, ram, screen, cpu, and runs on the transmata based motherboard with complete linux support, how exactly is your comment relevent? 5) Windows will fail, and it is obvious, there is too much proof that it will fail, 1) investing into hardware, 2) investing into digital management 3) investing into sco 4) postponing release of their new product 5) being sued by just abount anyone and having to take off functionality of their OS.. Its just obvious this OS will not work, it is clearly NOT designed for home usage, and will only appeal to some companies that want the standarized, closed source control of information so there are no potential leaks, but that wont work either. And as for the software being away 3 years, that is NOT relevent, I don't give a crap about it being 3 years away, I've looked at the list of potential new features, and it all exists in linux already, why wait for something I can do now?

  130. 483mb by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    By the time it comes out, 1gb will be dirt cheap, so they will 'require' 512 mb, 1gb reccomended..

    Oh, and a 5gh processor..

    Hey.. bloat sells more hardware for Intel and Amd. Plus will help usher in DRM'ized hardware to the masses...

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  131. This reminds me of when I visited Ford by Stevyn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I recently visted Ford's design lab. They were working on the 2007 Mustang. Those guys didn't even have the engine designed! I mean what the hell? The car can't even drive for god sakes!

  132. But this isn't a beta... by brucmack · · Score: 1

    Longhorn is still a long way from the beta stages, so I don't think this really works as an analogy...

    I would guess that for the beta they try to put out the system that is there best candidate for actual release... in other words, they would turn off much of the extra debugging and try to get results from people running the system as it should be run.

    The other thing is, MS is packing a lot more into this release, as evidenced by the release schedule. Keep in mind that IE hasn't had a major revision since XP either, so there are probably a ton of changes there as well. And I'm sure MS is testing a bunch of features that aren't necessarily decided on just yet.

    Sure, it's possible the commit charge could be that high. But it is very likely not going to be, because even MS can't get away with making something that bloated. What corporations are going to migrate to Longhorn if all of their machines that are current now can't even fit the OS into main memory?

  133. Regarding your .sig by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I know it's a joke, but. . .

    Even an idiot like me can set up a webserver/fileserver with MacOS. You've got to give Apple ease of use points for that.

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    1. Re:Regarding your .sig by hachete · · Score: 1

      In fact Macos X makes the perfect cross platform file server - with NFS, Samba and AppleShare, it makes the ideal choice for people like me who want to use it as a repository for build products. The only problem is getting cdrecord to work on it with the correct format of Apple resource forks under the BSD file system. Which is why we still use RedHat and EtherShare to mount Macs - cdrecord understands ES representations of resource forks on a unix fs. If I could crack that for MacOS X, I'd love to get one or two of those Xserves. You mean, they have the temerity to *sell* those 1U boxes for server racks? The ignorance of slashdotters these days...back in the day...

      h.

      --
      Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
  134. for reference by Imperator · · Score: 1

    Finally! I'm important!

    --

    Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
  135. Cheer up by nunofgs · · Score: 1

    10 years from now you're gonna be laughing with your friends about how that 'oldie' longhorn only used 483MB of RAM, as opposed to the 3TB you have now

  136. You can improve XP performance with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Control Panel
    -> System
    -> Advanced (it's a tab)
    -> Performance "Settings" button
    -> Adjust for best performance

    You can also get "TweakUI" from Microsoft (google for it), and adjust the time delay before windows come up.

    XP is fast with these changes (and is only slow when something locks up for a while).

    --
    Yow

  137. similarities??? by snero3 · · Score: 1

    Being a linux user and only reading reviews of OS X and Windows (haven't used either for more than 5 minutes in the last 4 years) I find some of the screen shots on this page shocking similar to this Anyone else find that?

    --
    It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
  138. As Bill Gates Said by CPlusPlusOwnsYou · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Users don't need more then 640k of mem

    --
    "Software is like sex: it's better when it's free."
  139. Re:Apple (maybe OT) by cypherz · · Score: 1

    > Oh, and its dual-processor support is pretty
    > pathetic. The load balancing seems incredibly
    > naive. (And, this may not be an OS problem, but I
    > find that I have problems scrolling text in
    > VS.NET in a timely fashion.

    I too have seen this on my (older) dual-proc Intel box. There seems to be a sharper "knee" in XP's loading curve than on W2K. I hope that Longhorn doesn't suck even more than XP on SMP boxes.
    I write Windows-based client-server business software. After a while I just had to accept that I was _way_ more productive with a Linux desktop and Crossover Office. Now I run my Windows IDE with Crossover on SuSE Linux.

    Linux has better SMP support, than XP and _way_ better support for my dual monitor setup. KDE and Xinerama kick ass when combined with kpager. And because I this is swerving seriously OT, I won't mention about how Linux has seriously better developer tools than Windows.

    Microsoft would REALLY have to show me something cool about Longhorn before I would ever think of switching back to developing _for_ Windows whilst actually _on_ Windows. There is however the QA bit that has to be actually performed on Windows but thats another story.

    --
    This sig kills fascists.
  140. Mozilla is innovating -- IE is stagnant by Chuck+Messenger · · Score: 1

    The reverse is true: IE hasn't improved much in functionality over the past 2-3 years. Meanwhile, Mozilla, which was re-written from scratch to be easily expandable, has bounded well ahead of IE. I'm thinking of things like tabbed browsing, popup block, junk filtering, XUL. Perhaps IE would benefit from being written re-engineered from the ground up...?

  141. The most interesting quotes by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here are the most interesting quotes:

    "For those of you that are lucky enough to have snagged a copy, remember this, Build 4053 is still a baby, not even in Beta stage yet, so we will not go in depth into subjects such as the theme, sidebar, etc."

    "The layout is clean and clutter free. Minimal icons are presented on the desktop, which is one of my pet peeves; I go to great lengths to maintain an icon-less desktop. The sidebar is definitely going to have its share of protestors, me being one of them. To me, no matter what is docked on the sidebar in the final release, it is a huge waste of space and system resources that a vast majority of users will just turn off. There will be more applets applied to it in the end, search bars, link bars, etc, so as the sidebar comes of age, we will examine it once again."

    "At this point in time, build 4053 is basically Windows XP with a different theme, even though some new technologies are being created and there are dribs and drabs of them in this build."

    "The layout and orientation of the windows has been vastly improved. All links and graphical elements have been fine tuned and are now neat and organized. All in all, the current theme applied to Build 4053 (Slate) is very clean and well organized. Hopefully, Microsoft will learn from the vast amount of people that apply a patched dll in order to obtain and apply themes other than those provided by Microsoft, and add on an the ability to apply various themes from the thousands available. But we will talk more on the theme with Microsoft's User Experience (Aero) and the new Drawing Model (Avalon) in a little while."

    "Certainly there is a long way to go with the new Aero Experience, but there are bits and pieces here and there. Aero is not only the look and feel of Windows, but also the experience that a user has with Windows. How a user interacts and feels about using the Windows environment seems to be a major focal point for Microsoft."

    "Avalon will allow for scaling icons, which at the moment utilizes bitmaps at a small pixel rate. This will be changed in builds to come. At the current pixel range, icons that are scaled larger appear more and more pixilated due to their initial size limit. The final drawing model will most probably utilize vector image files or larger bitmaps up to 128 x 128 to allow for clean icon scaling or a combination of both."

    "Not much is different from Windows XP in build 4053; most features are exactly the same. But don't be disappointed, there is still a long way to go with Longhorn and vast improvements are sure to be made." [emphasis added]

    All in all, a great article.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
  142. WinFX? by Rich+Klein · · Score: 1

    Is WinFX what I remember from running WinNT on an Alpha, that would allow you to run (some) x86 programs on the Alpha under Windows?

    --
    -Rich
  143. moot, not mute by attonitus · · Score: 1

    They don't even sound the same when you say them out loud. Or should that be outlawed?

  144. Err... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

    Yes...but keep in mind that OS X, the initial release, was a terrible resource hog. I'd go so far as to say that OS X was at least a year away from being completed when released. Apple just needed something other than classic Mac OS ASAP, and was running really late.

    I want to see what all the people laughing now are saying in two years or three years, when we see how much memory Nautilus and Konqueror are using, the latest version of X (probably freedesktop.org's release by then, which will likely use more memory), with Mono possibly in use (and perhaps Java as well.

    KDE/GNOME/Mac OS X are not particularly svelte when it comes to RAM usage. They are, in fact, rather fat.

    You can build a much more peppy Linux desktop -- sure. I use sawfish and gkrellm. It uses a lot less memory, but I'm sure that a lot of people would be dissatisfied with this combination.

  145. Mod parent DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uninformed troll...

  146. Pirates of silicon valley by Pretsel · · Score: 1
    This isn't surprising.

    If you watch the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" you'll see that all Billy G/Steve Balmer did in College was read porn and play poker.

  147. The parent poster is trolling by Nailer · · Score: 0


    Yes. That's why you should switch to Linux. Windows can't just be "simplified", they have created a monster in the form of NT kernel and now they need to deal with it. Switch to a lean, mean POSIX kernel.


    Oi, I'm a longtime Linux user (I contract for $MAJORDISTROVENDOR too) and that's a complete troll. There's stacks of cruft in Linux (the OS) and Windows (the OS - because we're talking about OSs, remember). I nthe case of Linux, applications store their configs in a stack of different config file formats, major apps like XFree are filled with cruft, the /etc/passwd file typically stores everything but passwords, there's syslog facilities for nntp and uucp but not anything useful (like http, or ldap) etc.

  148. aesthetics by p4ul13 · · Score: 1

    A brushed-metal skin on an OS? Well it's a bit crazy, but I guess it could work.

    --
    Paul Lenhart writes words!
  149. Bill Gates's Low by n3m3sis · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Speed of Software havles every 18 months, So I think when Longhorn will be released, We will need at least 5 GHz to run it properly

  150. Unix process creation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fork() is an abomination. When it was originally implemented, it was the best of a bad lot, and at least matched the hardware of the time pretty well. I'm sorry that you're too stupid to realize it, but this is one thing that Windows NT really gets right that Unix systems ALL SUCK at. fork()+exec()==REAL SHIT THAT ONLY A MORON WOULD PUT IN A MODERN NON-LEGACY OS.

    I don't know about Plan9, but considering that all the other kernels you mention there are Unix kernels (even Mach, the microkernel designed for making a microkernel based Unix), I think your view on kernels is very narrow. The heaviest influence on Windows NT came from VMS. Considering that 1960 was already three decades ago at the time, this was a Very Good Decision.

    PS. Windows NT kernel for x86 is about two megs non-pageable. That compares favorably with modern Linux systems. I don't know how the comparison would go on PowerPC embedded versions of each.

    1. Re:Unix process creation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fork()+exec()==REAL SHIT THAT ONLY A MORON WOULD PUT IN A MODERN NON-LEGACY OS.

      Very well reasoned. It's really quite simple. How much time does it take to fork() a new process and exec() a new executable? Less time than any one of the 50 different incarnations of spawn and the various support functions that make up for the lack of a fork().


      I don't know about Plan9


      Then you don't know shit. Plan9's rfork is just a more versatile version of fork.

      The heaviest influence on Windows NT came from VMS.

      VMS was a bloated, slow, rat's nest of an OS. But it was a lot more stable over its lifespan than NT/2000/XP has ever been.

      Considering that 1960 was already three decades ago at the time, this was a Very Good Decision.

      Anyone who knew anything about OS's knows that modern Unix had its start in the mid 70's, a couple years before VMS. Unix didn't exist in 1960.

      I find it amusing that the average Microsoft automaton loves to abuse the phrase "1960's-era technology" but also is eager to point out that NT also supports pipes, ioctls, sockets, mmap(), bit buckets, links, mountable file systems, scripting... and all that archaic stuff.

  151. Microsoft is still stuck in pretty picture land by Gary+Destruction · · Score: 1

    Microsoft spends entirely too much time trying to make the desktop look pretty and not enough time trying to make things more stable and more secure. The ever-growing resource usage in Windows is also linked to a big security affliction of the OS. Integrating apps creates some serious problems. A) It uses signficantly more resources; B) It puts the entire OS's security at risk; C) It leaves the user with no option to uninstall them and D) It makes securing the OS more difficult and problematic. And to top things off, web integration is found throughout the OS. Web integration causes drag and latency because IE has to render the content of the windows. Personally, I find it stupid and a waste of resources. And other companies including Intuit, Symantec, McAffee and others have followed suit with their programs' GUIs. And now Microsoft is doing something with XAML and XML from what I understand. And this has been incorporated into the GUI as well. Microsoft has a history of system requirements increasing as newer Windows and NT-based versions have been released. Not suprisingly, the GUI gets clunkier and has more clutter with each new release.

  152. [OT] Re:WinFX? by Craig+Davison · · Score: 1

    That was FX!32.

    1. Re:[OT] Re:WinFX? by Rich+Klein · · Score: 1

      Ah. Thanks for reminding me!

      --
      -Rich
  153. RE: stability by King_TJ · · Score: 1

    IMHO, you're already comparing two different things if you're talking about only the netcraft charts.

    Most of the people saying "Windows is just as stable for me as Linux/BSD" are referring to using it as a workstation. Netcraft charts only measure relative uptimes in server environments.

    I've used quite a few Linux releases over the years, and while I can guarantee most worked for me "rock solid stable" as things like web or ftp servers, they were fairly "quirky" if I did lots of different things with them inside an X environment with a Gnome or KDE type desktop.

    By contrast, I can actually get quite reliable "uptime" out of a Win2K or XP system that's left on all the time, but the overall reliability performing tasks like web serving via IIS is *much* poorer than Apache on a Linux machine.

    In other words, it really boils down to how well the respective OS's handle the applications you choose to run on them.... Right now, most of the "core" Internet server type services work much better on the Unix type OS's, while gaming and multimedia heavy things are likely to run better on a Windows environment. (Linux doesn't really have something like Microsoft's "Direct-X" support, for example.)

  154. Deja Vu! ( MacOSX) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    has anybody got a deja vu when seeing the screenshots? :)

  155. It's not the RAM's fault. by Inoshiro · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's XP. XP's VM is total shit. The moment you minimize a window, the VM will page it out to the swap space. When I was doing Windows development for 3 months, the trick I found was to use a third-party tool which allowed window shading, and then I just shaded windows which didn't require my immediate attention.

    512mb of RAM was thus able to sustain VS.net, Mozilla, Firebird, WinAmp, and a couple of extra windows all at once without choking like a 5$ hooker.

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
    1. Re:It's not the RAM's fault. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
      When you minimize an application, it's *not* paged out, the system just trims its working set. When you start using the app again, the pages will be soft-faulted back from memory. You can use perfmon to prove it to yourself that there is no disk activity when this happens.

      Resource kit has a tool that actually tries to page out as much memory as it can. After you run it, all applications have to read their stuff from disk, and everything is so slow that you can literally see your wallpaper repainting.

      It can be argued that there's not much point in trimming working sets when an application is minimized, but it definitely doesn't have such a huge impact on performance as you describe.

    2. Re:It's not the RAM's fault. by de+Selby · · Score: 1

      It can be argued that there's not much point in trimming working sets when an application is minimized, but it definitely doesn't have such a huge impact on performance as you describe.

      It sure looks like something causes this huge imact on performance from where I'm sitting...

      I also thought it was paging on minimize and that it took so long on my XP laptop because laptop HD's are so slow.

    3. Re:It's not the RAM's fault. by CProgrammer98 · · Score: 1

      try switching off the indexing service... I had a machine that would just grind to a halt with disk access light on solid... Switched off indexing and now it's as sweet as a nut (well, as sweet as an XP box can be...)

      --
      And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
  156. slate: a tribute? by wolftone · · Score: 1

    am i the only one thinking the skin 'slate' is beautifully similar to kde's 'plastik'?

  157. SSDP by valmont · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Same Shit Different Package. While m$ windows is busy trying to reinvent a square wheel made of snazzy buzzwords, Apple is moving forward with a strong, stable, lean, mean operating system with very nicely separated yet integrated layers, each of which are subject to exponential innovations: UNIX subsystem powered by collaborative work of the open-source community and Apple developers, journaling filesystem, graphics/video subsystem, user-interface.

    meanwhile Apple is also busy developing aspects of computing life people actually care about, meet iLife. Say hello to email with built-in bayesian spam filtering and built-in support for ISP-supplied spam-canning frameworks. Say hello to iSync, Address Book.app, Calendar.app, Mail.app, iChat.app, all insanely intuitive independent applications, yet tightly integrated thru open APIs. Apple is already moving forward with consumer electronics vendors: digital still cameras, digital video cameras, PDAs, cell-phone manufacturers to all get them to adhere to Apple's very-well defined APIs and standards so their products will "just work" with Macs, without installing a single piece of additional software, beyond what comes out of the box with the mac. iSync currently lets me sync my contacts and calendar, to my iPod, my sony ericsson t610 bluetooth phone, my online .MAC account, and my powerbook laptop with built-in bluetooth, all with the single press of a button. If i make a modification to contacts or calendar on any device, the next sync reflects it on all other devices. I could buy a Palm Pilot and have it work in the exact same way, without even using Palm's desktop software.

    Apple gets it.

    1. Re:SSDP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get what you're saying, but the way you say it, your words could just have well have been cut and pasted from Apple's web site...! "Say hello to..."?!?

  158. almost... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    haha they are almost copying apple with there bursh metal look, hehe wonder how far they can get before ppl catch on that is is just cheap copy

    j

  159. My two cents by Fringex · · Score: 1

    With the evolution of hardware and the constant expansion of code, software continues to drive the expansion of hardware. The costs of hardware for the performance received has drastically dropped. With all this that has happened in a relatively short time and the application of Moore's Law we will notice something.

    Before I go on I will attempt to quote Bill Gates:

    "No one will need more than 670KB of disk space."

    Well we all know that was wrong. Right now my system contains 512MB of Ram, a 40GB HDD, an Athlon 1400 proc and a 128MB Radeon 9000. In 1997 my first computer contained a 133Mhz Pentium with 32MB of RAM, a 1.44GB HDD and a 1MB gfx card. Things have drastically changed.

    Then again the windows 95 system the old computer ran only took up a footprint of 16MB. The current system I am running takes up 80MB. Nothing is running in the backround that is 3rd party on either of these systems. Now with the evolution of hardware and the growth of code to meet user needs and specifications in the market that computers are demanding.

    Is it so hard to believe that a system will need 400MB of Memory to contain it?

    This comes as no shock to myself since the standard system is continually receiving bigger numbers as we progress in years. Is it so hard to believe that in a few short years the standard speed of a computer will be around 100Ghz? Or that gfx cards will have 3GB of memory on board? Or that the standard system will have 8-10GB of memory and HDD's will be in the terabytes? All for a home end user.

    I quote my dad when I showed him my laptop in 1997.

    "Man that thing is blazing fast. Wow! I have never seen a computer run so quickly."

    Now the thing is so sluggish by comparison of my current system that I would fear running any game other than MDK which at the time was resrouce hungry and now? Is frankly a joke. I think Mozilla takes up more memory than that game did.

    400MB as a footprint on the ram doesn't even phase me. It seems that it is the proper direction for the evolution of computers to take. We have all seen it.

  160. Will someone moderate stupid anti-Microsoft posts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe many ./-ers must be annoyed by stupid template-like anti-Microsoft (or anti-commercial) posts that prevail on the forum.

    Most folks are interested in quality software that can improve on what's been done, not in useless and repetitive posts about bloated this bloated that, SCO this SCO that, it's-all-about-control, etc.

    About this post:
    1) By the time it is released, 512MB RAM will probably not be available even for PDA's, not to mention PCs. Even now, most reasonable users get 512MB RAM to start with. Besides, RAM is cheap.
    2) Linux is equally bloated, if not worse than Windows.
    But the open sores zealots seem to forget that. The attribute seam to be reserved for closed source software, the same like "control" and such.
    I used to run Win2K Professional on my 64MB RAM notebook. I couldn't do that with Red Hat 9.

  161. XP is stable enough.. by SenseiLeNoir · · Score: 1

    I also agree. XP is more than stable enough as an operating system. Take the Microsoft factor out of it, and what you have left is a stable OS. I think most people get their crashes due to faulty drivers, and underspec hardware. I to used to get random crashes and lockups, whcih I then resolved with a new powersupply. Since then, I have yet to see XP bluescreen on me. I use Firefox, Apache, MySQL, and many stuff on the core operating system, and speeds are great for what it is.

    Sure I am a Linux user too, and I find Linux intresting for what it can do, and what it promises, the Open Source factor. However, in stability I woudl say that both are pretty much equal, and certainly (pre 2.6 kernel) Windows XP is noticeably faster.

    The only reason I do not liek WIndows is due to some of the other dodgy addons. If WIndows was a Open source project, I certainly would NOT use Linux. I woudl compile a version of XP which is as lean as possible, and use that.

    --
    Have a nice day!
  162. One size fits all by inkswamp · · Score: 1
    Disclaimer first: I'm no fan of MS and do not use Windows.

    Second, what's with the one-size-fits-all interface? It seems that every interface for every function looks about the same. Is that was MS is moving toward? That would drive me bat-shit. A flexible interface following consistent rules of behavior is the way to go. But making everything look like it was generated out of some kind of web page template...? Weird.

    --
    --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
  163. Gaming OS by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

    Now I heard this somewhere I don't know where but wasn't this OS designed with gamers in mind? It supposed to have taken out all the old trash and really minimized it's feature set while centralizing it's option menu's and data areas?

    Have to stop believing Microsoft mission statements

    /me hits self with baseball bat.

  164. Wow... brushed metal innovation by Bob[Bob] · · Score: 1

    Well, hmm, don't those new innovative Microsoft windows look rather similar to Panther's... even down to the strange waste of space at the top middle...? http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/finder/

    The last time I got excited (to use the term loosely) about something MS did was when the first shots of the Windows 95 UI came out... and wow, if it didn't look just like the Amiga (well you know, those bevelled square buttons and stuff.)

    I guess this is how you make billions of dollars though...

  165. Avalon by leandrod · · Score: 1

    Is Avalon MS trying again to estabilish a proprietary technology over an already-deployed one, in this case its own drawing model over Adobe's PostScript as present today in Mac OS, GNUStep and soon X Cairo?

    --
    Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
    DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
    GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
  166. More windows issues and computers in general by trezor · · Score: 2, Interesting
    • My machine is a dual 1800+ MP, and I don't really care WHAT the problem is. I should never, ever have problems scrolling TEXT.

    I remeber back in the days of fixed-spec computers. Tandy Color Basic, Commodore 64, Amiga 500... Computers like that had more or less locked specs, which developers would have to keep in mind. Kinda like the gaming consoles these days.

    It's amazing how much better the software get's written, when there are absolute constraints which can't be tangled. That goes for back in the old days on FS-computers, and it goes today on the consoles. The developers will actually have to write efficient code.

    Totally unlike todays computers, where software authors really doesn't seem to give a shit. "If it doesn't run well, spend anotgher $2-300 on your setup allready". Does my current computer work that much faster than my 66Mhz 486 running Windows 3.11 and Word 6.0? No really, it runs faster, but heck, take into account my current computer specs.

    My computer is rigged with a Pentium4 2.4Ghz and 512MB ram. Running the "multi-tasking" OS Windows XP (yes I use it, software issue, say no more), inserting a CD/DVD (not to mention DVD+R) and any opening of (new) files gets lagged 3-6 seconds at least.

    Generally anything which involves disk-access will have to wait until Windows has properly detected (and performed an Autorun on, if not disabled) any removable media.

    Amazing. Multi-tasking my fscking ass.

    And for 486-comparison... If we say my current setupis aprox. 40 times faster. I'll say that a bloat-factor of 10-15 is applicable. That means 40/(10-15) is the actual speed increase.

    But that's just me, and this comment is getting way long.

    --
    Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
  167. One more thing by trezor · · Score: 1

    Heck, come think about it, my old Amiga multitasked better than Windows XP does.

    Natively my Amiga 500 with 1MB ram would react immidatly to application switching and load-scheduling.

    Ofcourse with only floppy-disks, the only problem was disk-access (which goes without saying really didn't work well at all).

    However my Amiga 1200 with harddisk and virtual memory never, ever had that kind of lagging you see on a well-loaded Windows-computer.

    And that is really kinda weird.

    --
    Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
  168. Wtf is "commit charge"?? by Viol8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Around these parts we call it memory usage. Has someone thought up a new buzzphrase to make themselves sound more with-it or something?

  169. Stupid, stupid, -stupid- kernel-paging by trezor · · Score: 1
    • "Free RAM is bad RAM ". .... I wonder at what point will Longhorn start to seriously swap.

    Good point. Regardless of system memory, free memory or any factor whatsoever, I have yet to see any Windows system where 50% of the kernel isn't paged at all time.

    With the huge amonunts of memory available today, I can't see any reason for kernel-paging at all.

    --
    Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
  170. The user interface sucks. by master_p · · Score: 3, Insightful

    By looking at the screenshots, I can say that the Longhorn GUI sucks. First of all, the sidebar is useless and takes too much screen space. Secondly, they have flatten the GUI too much, and suddently the user can't tell a label from a menu item. In previous versions of the GUI, the 3d elements made clear which parts of the window are editable and which aren't. Without 3d, it is much more difficult to quickly judge the borders of each area.

    The only good thing about Longhorn is WinFS. Something that the Linux community should embrace. I have said it previously, and I will say it again, that we need to manage information, not binary data. The operating system must be aware of the types of data stored on the disk. It is a task not to be left on the application layer.

  171. Longhorn? So What? by norite · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Personally, Can't say I give a toss, really. My association with MS ended with Win 2000, which I'm still using, occasionally. Aside from all the viruses, worms security problems and so on, their products are simply boring and uninteresting. At home, I'm letting Win2000 wither on the vine, while Linux gradually takes over for me....

    --
    -- Fuck Beta
  172. Voltage by DMNT · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I bought a nice, new, large case with 3 fans and a 320 V power-supply.

    And I thought that too low voltage would cause system crashes. I wonder if you live in Europe (and have 230 Volt sockets) or in the US (with 110 V).
    Anyway that's not as hazardous as doing the opposite, overvoltaging your power supply.

    Long live the SI!

    --
    ?SYNTAX ERROR
    1. Re:Voltage by Dr.+Shim · · Score: 1

      I lived in the US, now I live in Europe. But I lived in Europe previously before the US part. However, I bought my PC in the USA, so it ran (by default) on 110V. I also upgraded the PS in the US. I like Europian voltage much better. You don't just get a painful poke, you get flung across the room...

      --
      People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
  173. 640k enough for everyone - Part II by fedux · · Score: 1

    I wonder why Billy said that he can't imagine desktops apps using more than 4GB of memory.

  174. Beta = less features than final? by hughk · · Score: 1
    Um, I think you have just put your finger on MS's QA problem. You never, ever put any features in after beta. You just take things out that are considered unworkable and put fixes in.

    Seriously, I do feel that MS is more than a bit undisciplined about their release strategy (i.e., letting fixes provide new functionality) and that is one of the reasons that they get a bad rap for stability and security.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there
  175. Re:Why would someone with a new system pick longho by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

    Because most people don't know that *insert older version here* is sometimes better than *insert current version here*, and buy the box with the current version. They just run whatever comes with the box. Of course, on my parents' box, I offered to install Windows 2000, but they wanted to just get XP. They occasionally get annoyed by the handholding ;-)

  176. DirectX by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

    In addition, the entire desktop will be hardware-accelerated, using a "photorealistic" desktop interface they have yet to reveal, code-named Aero.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:DirectX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

  177. Commit charge? by FattMattP · · Score: 1

    Is that where you bill someone if their check-in breaks the build?

    --
    Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
  178. Vapourware != product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    This is still vaporware and most pundits put it 2-4 years over the horizon, if at all.

    Yes, I said if at all. One of the reasons that Microsoft employees were not allowed to exercise all of their underwater options in 2003 (and none in 2004), is that Microsoft is trying to promote "employee retention" by making them hold on untill 2005. 2004 could be the year that permatemps on up decide to look for a new employer.

  179. What the... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

    Perhaps Windows 98 had the better error detection and so would lockup instead of continuing to run.

    I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my operating system to keep on running on a faulty motherboard without telling me anything was wrong or behaving differently in any way. That just tells me the operating system has no idea what is going on. It's not unlikely that Windows 98 would encounter a fatal error in your motherboard and lock up, unwilling to risk data loss or memory corruption. You're telling me Linux would keep on running? I'd be scared for my data.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:What the... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

  180. Because, moron, it has nothing to do with Quartz Extreme or OpenGL. They're hardware-accelerating their desktop with DirectX.

    Whoever modded you as "Interesting" is a moron. That's like randomly claiming someone stole intellectual property without any proof or reason to believe so...in other words, you're acting like SCO.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:Uh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

  181. You Hypocrite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whoever modded you as insightful on this post would be interested to see the depth of your hyposcrisy--not only do you insult the parent poster but you also see fit to insult the person who moderated him up as well. What was that again about Slashdot being more mean these days? What was that Mr. Kettle? Mr. Pot wants to have a word with you.

  182. Very informative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please mod parent up. It is very informative. Parent has posted the most interesting parts and the rest of this article is basically in the lines of: "this feature sucks ass but we can all be absolutely sure that it will be wonderful when it is ready." All of the true interesting and insightful content is in the parent post.

  183. The real question should be... by jo42 · · Score: 1


    Why did Microsoft code name their next operating system after a big, stupid, stinky animal that produces copious quantities of methane (farts) and cowpies (bullsh*t)???

  184. Memory Leaks by BayBlade · · Score: 1
    There's a commonly misheld conception that just because a language does garbage collection for you, you don't get memory leaks.

    While the garbage collection does make generalized memory management easier (i.e. you don't have to worry about when or where to clean up memory you've allocated,) it doesn't really lend itself to the overlooked memory being cleaned up at all.

    The sad fact of the matter is that bad programming combined with dynamically sized data structures make it all too easy to keep adding things to an object collection and never releasing them. (i.e. caching them or just being unaware that the referrenced objects are no longer needed)

    The flipside is with modern envirnoments like Java and C#, even a crappy profiler will tell you what objects are sucking up your memory and why they're not being let go of.

    --

    The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.

  185. True. by essreenim · · Score: 1

    ..And no matter how much goodwork they put into longhorn, they still have to accept that
    It could always be faster.
    ..Because they lock the whole thing down (including non-security related elements) with heavy weight encryption, just so as
    no one can get a hold of their precious source code.

  186. Repeat after me: IT'S A BETA by bonch · · Score: 1

    This isn't the final interface. The final interface is codenamed Aero and is fully hardware-accelerated and "photorealistic."

    The only good thing about Longhorn is WinFS. Something that the Linux community should embrace.

    This is exactly why Microsoft have withheld Aero from these beta builds, because they are concerned that people will rip off their new desktop concept.

  187. Closer Outlook integration with system? by Kiyooka · · Score: 1

    "Outlook Express 7 has features that better integrate with system elements such as the Contacts."

    That worries me.

  188. OS memory usage misconception by sadangel · · Score: 1

    For one thing, memory usage detectors are notoriously inaccurate.
    For a second, unused memory is wasted memory. A good operating system will not leave loads of memory untouched. What good will that do? What a good operating system will do is use your memory most effectively so when higher priority applications need to run, they can, but when they don't more trivial things can be put in memory such as disk cache.

  189. Please by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 1

    Please mod parent up. It is very informative. Parent has posted the most interesting parts and the rest of this article is basically in the lines of: "this feature sucks ass but we can all be absolutely sure that it will be wonderful when it is ready." All of the true interesting and insightful content is in the parent post.

    Oh please... You are too kind... I strongly believe that posting Informative, Interesting and especially Insightful comments is my holy duty as a Slashdotter. I do it for the great people who are reading it right now and have a chance to become smarter thanks to my texts. I would like to dedicate all of my insightfulness to them. Thank you. Thank you very much, indeed.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."