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A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053

Posted by timothy on from the look-away-look-away-look-away dept.

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.'"

15 of 758 comments (clear)

  1. 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?

  2. 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
  3. 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.

    --
    Jonathanjk.com
  4. 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 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
    2. 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.

  5. 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.

    --

    GPL Deconstructed
  6. 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?

  7. 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!"

  8. 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.

  9. 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
  10. 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!

    --
    Write boring code, not shiny code!
  11. 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.
  12. 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.