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Is Ubuntu Getting Slower?
An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has a new article where they provide Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10 benchmarks and had ran many tests. In that article, when using an Intel notebook they witness major slowdowns in different areas and ask the question, Is Ubuntu getting slower? From the article: 'A number of significant kernel changes had went on between these Ubuntu Linux releases including the Completely Fair Scheduler, the SLUB allocator, tickless kernel support, etc. We had also repeated many of these tests to confirm we were not experiencing a performance fluke or other issue (even though the Phoronix Test Suite carries out each test in a completely automated and repeatable fashion) but nothing had changed. Ubuntu 7.04 was certainly the Feisty Fawn for performance, but based upon these results perhaps it would be better to call Ubuntu 7.10 the Gooey Gibbon, 8.04 the Hungover Heron, and 8.10 the Idling Ibex.'"
Let's see how that statement works in this situation:
It shouldn't be getting slower, but then again, performance isn't the reason Vista exists.
If you really want performance, run FreeDOS. Otherwise, shut up and get used to progress.
Were they testing each distribution on exactly the same hardware?
If so, that sounds completely fair to me that it would be slower. Go and (try to) install Vista on a machine that originally came with XP (pre-SP1) and see how much slower it is. Is that a fair test either? I think not.
As software gets more useful (and Ubuntu has, Vista not so much) it gets bigger and thus gets slower on the same hardware. Hardware advances at the same time though, so in real terms they keep about equal. When you test new software on old hardware of course it's going to be slower though.
He would have been able to finish, had Ubuntu not been so slow that he was never able to finish his papers and turn them in on time.
It's nice to see that the Ubuntu fanboys have moved so quickly to 'shut up and like it'.
It took Windows fanboys a decade to get there...
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
Why should I read this FA if the author apparently didn't finish high school?
The anonymous submitter and CmdrTaco's grammar skills have little to do with performance in Ubuntu. RTFA; it makes a good point and I for one hope that this observation is accepted by the Ubuntu developer's and something is done about it.
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See, there's this thing called an analogy. It's kinda like a car...
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
that's OK, I'm sure the next version, Moronic Monicker, is going to be a LOT faster.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
Would have been interesting to have the same benchmarks for Xubuntu, since that is the distribution that is targeted for computers where performens increase/decrease is very noticable.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Why should I read this FA if the author apparently didn't finish high school?
Because intelligence and wisdom have nothing to do with "finishing high school"? I've got nothing past GCSEs. Luckily for me, employers in the UK see past that.
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Real men don't upgrade their OS for exactly this reason. In fact, we don't even use OSes. To get maximum performance we write all operations directly to RAM in machine code, while the machine is running, using a needle and a car battery.
How many geeks have heard such phrases: " "That's quick" was the phrase my girlfriend after..."
Alas.
Complete bullshit article, doesn't offer any useful information beyond a completely obvious conclusion -- the more features that are added to a given piece of software, the higher the demands on your PC.
I would think that those increased demands should be mostly in the form of slightly (a few MB) higher memory requirements to store the extra code for those features. Adding new functionality should not impact existing functionality. Haven't you heard of the zero-cost principle (idea from C++ and apparently Perl, "you don't pay for (as in take a performance hit from) what you don't use")?
Ok, the article completely ignores this (as do most of the above posters it appears). Each version of Ubuntu tested seemed to have different kernel builds. How much of the slowdown is due to the kernel being patched for security and bugs and how much is due to the software that has been added?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
If you look closely you'll notice that (a) the benchmarks were run on a Thinkpad T60 laptop, and (b) there were significant differences on some benchmarks like RAM bandwidth that should have little or no OS components.
This sounds to me like the power management was dialing down the CPU on the later releases...
It's more likely the Ubuntu/GNOME moving all apps to run in mono. I doubt the kernel have anything to do with this.
c++;
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
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Some of the benchmarks were hardware testing, and those showed variation. They should not, unless the compiler changed the algorithms used to compile the code between distros.
Benchmarking a multi-tasking system like Linux is a tough thing to quantify. The Linux kernel recently had a big scheduler change, this alone could account for shifting benhmark numbers. It may not actually "slowing down," but running multiple programs more evenly. The effective work is the same or better, which would mean "faster," but an almost useless benchmark would look slower.
Reasons include:
1. Determining if the error is in the article or in the summary.
2. Determining if the article is riddled with errors or if the summary highlights an uncommon occurrence.
3. Determining if the article's substance is good despite presentation and communication problems.
4. Not having a knee-jerk impulse to ignorantly flame strangers on the internet.
The article could be written by a dyslexic, Sumatran orangutan, yet full of useful data. You'll never know.
Analogies are like matchbox cars full of chocolates... you never know how much spillover chinese paint you're going to get.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I may be a bit biased here. Full disclosure: I am an Ubuntu Member, User, Abuser. I think that Ubuntu is one hell of a Distro, and GNU/Linux is one hell of an OS. Ubuntu, however is not geared for the market where we squeeze every CPU cycle we can. For that you have to do a _LOT_ of cleaning, replace your kernel to something a bit more fit for a server environment. Ubuntu is, and will always be a distro that is Easy to use first, even if that comes at the expense of some kruft. Each distro is becoming more bloated, but one great feature in Ibex ( 8.10 ) is the "System Cleaner" ( for all you GNOME users, Applications --> System Tools --> System Cleaner ) that checks for unused packages. This may not be a whole lot, but before bashing speed, or claiming its fat, take a hard look at the distro really.
This is not a viral sig. Copy it at your peril.
"Slackware" -- an African word, meaning "Gentoo is too hard for me".
An analogy is a simile, metaphorically speaking.
Eschew Obfuscation
``As we add complexity and layers of abstraction things tend to slow down in general. If hardware keeps up, and actual human productivity increases, do we have an issue?''
You have that exactly right. Software getting slower is bad, but it's ok if it is offset by other changes, such as faster hardware or new, more efficient ways to perform tasks. In the end, it's our productivity that counts. Now the real question is, how do we measure that, how has it developed over time, and what changes have had the greatest impact (both positive and negative) on it?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
It's not quite that simple. Performance in Java and media encoding was almost halved in the two newest versus the older versions of the OS. It's hard to imagine why that would be the case unless "more features" in Heron and Ibex are using up half the CPU time (and based on the other benchmarks, they ain't). I'd suspect test methodology rather than some oddity of OS performance but it's still something that needs to be addressed.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
... they are.
Seriously.
I can see several problems with the testing methodology as is:
* The test suite itself: The Phoronix test suite runs on PHP. That in itself is a problem-- the slowdowns measured could most likely be *because* of differences in the distributed PHP runtimes. You can't just say "hey, version Y of distro X is slower than version Z! LOLZ" because, WTF. You're pretty much also running different versions of the *test suite* itself (since you have to consider the runtime as part of the test suite). Unless you remove that dependency, then sorry, you can't measure things reliably. Which brings me to my second point...
* What exactly are they testing? The whole distro? The compiler (since most of the whole of each distro version is compiled with different versions of GCC)? The kernel? If they're testing the released kernel, then they should run static binaries that *test* the above, comparing kernel differences. If they're testing the compiler, then they should build the *same* compiled code on each version and run said compiled code (which is pretty much what I gather they're doing). If they're testing the utilities and apps that came with the distro, then they should have shell scripts and other tools (which run on a single runtime, not depending on the runtime(s) that came with the distro version). Because if you don't, you have no fucking clue what you're testing.
Honestly, I was unimpressed by the benchmarks. I happen to do performance benchmarking as part of my job, and I can tell you, you have to eliminate all the variables first -- isolate things to be able to say "X is slow". If you rely on a PHP runtime, use *exactly* the same PHP runtime for all your testing; otherwise, you'll get misleading results.
No - it's Yoruba for "Come back after the rainy season - it'll probably have compiled by then, but if not, there'll be plenty of dried wilderbeest to snack on."
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "I'm sick of fucking with Linux in order to get it to do what I want but I really don't like the alternatives."
Yeah, I rocked Gentoo for a couple of years. I just want something that is fast, easy to use and gives me as little of a headache as possible. Linux is Linux and most of the knowledge learned in one distro will carry-over to another.
The game.
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A project gets late one day at a time. There's probably a similar proverb for this too.
I think that's a rhetorical tautology.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The GTK+ statistics are mind-boggling slow. That's what I notice most when I use Ubuntu or Fedora. On my non-Ubuntu laptop, I get the following results for GTK performance:
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs: 3.73s (on mine) vs 43-55s (Ubuntu)
GtkRadioButton: 13s vs 29-60s
I just think that's ridiculous. What did they do to GTK+ to make it so slow?
This is the EXACT same reason people are having problems with vista. New OS = New requirements sometimes. If you criticize one for it you must criticize the other.
Because Ubuntu uses generic kernel builds and starts up unneeded shit at boot time. You also have frontend apps for a lot of apps that don't really need it - that can explain the reason the memory is being eaten up. Suggestions? Learn how to compile a kernel, or use a distribution that doesn't have a list of memory eating apps specific to itself, like Slackware for example. I've never had issues with it, and I've gotten the kernel to finish booting in 6-7 seconds with only the device support and services i only need. Yeah I know - all these new Linux users don't like Slackware. It's so.. Linux like, and not Windows like. Perhaps Ubuntu can work on optimization and take care of the problem.
Because Ubuntu uses generic kernel builds and starts up unneeded shit at boot time. You also have frontend apps for a lot of apps that don't really need it - that can explain the reason the memory is being eaten up. Suggestions? Learn how to compile a kernel, or use a distribution that doesn't have a list of memory eating apps specific to itself, like Slackware for example. I've never had issues with it, and I've gotten the kernel to finish booting in 6-7 seconds with only the device support and services i only need. Yeah I know - all these new Linux users don't like Slackware. It's so.. Linux like, and not Windows like. Perhaps Ubuntu can work on optimization and take care of the problem.
what a way to waste my mod points but anyway here goes...
:)
There's no need to be so smug and condescending. If you're a supporter of F/OSS, then you should be happy people are trying out some distro. Of course you'll never get the same performance out of the one-size-fits-all approach of Ubuntu, but that's not the point of the more newbie friendly distros. The whole point of them (i'd include openSUSE, Mandriva and Scientific Linux) is to 'just work', or with as little mucking about in the terminal as possible. It takes time to learn the intricacies of a different OS, especially if you've never used any *NIX OS. Personally I started on a Sinclair Spectrum
If you have the time, desire, or need to have a highly optimised kernel, the you have the choice to use something like Gentoo or Slackware. For the rest of us, precompiled binaries work fine, thank you (with exceptions of course), and that kind of negative attitude puts people off trying out, and learning about GNU/Linux.
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I currently have three Ubuntu-based systems. I have customized the GNU/Linux distribution for each system. Anyone can do it.
One of the computers is an old (1998) Thinkpad notebook that doesn't have the video capability to run the full Ubuntu-Gnome GUI well. I do a minimal installation (the minimal CD is an official distribution of Ubuntu), then install about 25 select packages using a script that I call "Thinbuntu". This gives me a very functional GNU/Linux desktop for the old Thinkpad with the Long Term Support of the Ubuntu package system, including updates. It has all the features I need.
Microsoft simply can't compete with this.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I just read it and found it pretty devoid of information. It is one of those mindless performance reviews in as many pages as possible.
Where are any measurements that look at where performance was lost? Running just the distros does nothing to isolate what got slower. Trying different kernels and different X servers would at least show an attempt at understanding what's going on. Why didn't they compare at least one Ubuntu version with a similar Fedora version, let alone Kubuntu or xubuntu?
As I expected: If a site employs people who can't write and has no editorial control that would weed out a glaring error like this you can't expect anything but quick and dirty superficial work. If an error like this that just jumps at you isn't caught, how many subtle errors in the data should I expect?
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"Linux"--the Finnish word for "Many confusing forks"
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So the soul-removal procedure went well, I see.
Why do you think this? I mean do you have a good reason or is it just because you don't like mono?
Take a look at some of the tests.
"Computational: The Dhrystone 2 performance within the BYTE Unix Benchmark was also the fastest on Ubuntu 7.04. There was approximately a 20% drop in performance between 7.04 and 7.10 that remained consistent even in the 8.04 and 8.10 releases. "
This is NOT in mono.
"Database: In our SQLite test of measuring the time to perform 2,500 SQL inserts, the performance hadn't dropped off after Ubuntu 7.04 but instead after 8.04 LTS. In this performance drop it was over 2.5x slower. "
SQLlite isn't written in mono.
"but in our compilation benchmarks we spotted major performance losses following the Feisty Fawn release. It was noticeably slower to compile Apache, PHP, and ImageMagick in the 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10 releases."
GCC isn't written in mono.
I could go on and on but many of the benchmarks have nothing to do with mono at all.
Heck I am not a big fan of mono but your statment is baseless.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
In this case, anyways. The benchmarks had everything to do with X, GCC and Kernel performance numbers, which all slid over the intervals measured.
In other words, Ubuntus' not getting slower. The software that Ubuntu bundles is getting slower.
It's likely due to GCC's epic failure to better optimize code as 4.x progresses, but I'm not putting my money on anything until they've tested at least one other distro which builds with a different GCC version.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Ubuntu isn't really suited for low end machines anymore, IMO. Has to be at least 2ghz, with at least 512mb RAM.. Anything lower and it's going to be pretty slow.
I'm sure some people here are going to be comparing Ubuntu to Vista in regards of getting slower with release, but because it's Linux we have a few more choices.
They make distros that are meant to be lightweight- Anyone with a machine that's a little old, I urge you to try one of them. You'll be pleasantly surprised and maybe find a new favorite window manager/desktop environment in the process. Before you start talking about how joe sixpack doesn't want to try another distro or learn anything about Linux- I'm not talking to Joe sixpack here, I'm talking to you, a slashdot lurker.
Try one of these distros and be amazed at how fast everything is:
Crunchbang Linux
KMandla's GTK 1.5 Remix
Or, if you want to be more adventurous, get Arch Linux and grab a window manager like Openbox or PekWM. If you go that route, take a look at this Openbox guide that'll show you a nice panel to use, file navigator, and generally hold your hand through the process, here. But if you want your hand held even more, someone packaged a panel and file navigator and theme chooser and stuff like that together with Openbox already- Called LXDE. You can just grab that too, should be in any repository.
I do think it's unfortunate for joe sixpack that it's getting a little slower- But for them it's still faster than Vista and XP, right?
You know what they should make? They compile pretty much everything in the kernel as a module, and then they probe hardware and load the right modules each time you boot... It would be cool to be able to do a "Speed up my computer" boot where it loads the modules, and then compiles a kernel with the modules for the hardware it finds compiled into it. Disable things that it hasn't seen their computer use, etc., and then just still probe the hardware to fall back on another kernel if things have changed.
OR, how about loading modules when you actually need them..? And this goes for daemons, too. When you go to listen to something, and it returns that there's no module loaded for sound, how about loading the module then, and then starting the alsa daemon. Have you ever looked at the daemon list for Ubuntu? It's huge. I know I don't need all of those- I know because on the distro I'm on now I only run 3 daemons on boot, and everything works fine.
I don't know. Maybe that's not the solution. But those guys are clever, I'm sure they can come up with something to get rid of the extra daemons and modules running without sacrificing usability. Anyone here have any good ideas..?
Mod the parent up, I'm in the exact same boat. Ran Gentoo for three years, loved it, but realized that I was spending a lot more time tinkering with the OS than actually USING the OS. That's perfectly fine for a server of some variety where really the tinkering IS the interaction, but for a desktop or something you're going to use more interactively on a daily basis it became too much of a pain.
Ubuntu gives me some of the strengths I liked (such as a simple, straightforward package manager, wide amount of customization without too much screwing around) without too many of the weaknesses (compiling all software, praying emerging the world doesn't break my desktop, so on and so forth).
It's not a bad distro at all and it's tiring to hear of people slamming it for not being Slackware or Gentoo. This may come as a revelation, but Linux is about choice.
"Just a fox, a whisper."
Cache misses if the code is used. If it's not, it incurs no penalty except for the piddly bit of space it uses on the harddrive.
It's called Wirth's Law
Namely, graphics hardware. ATi graphics hardware and the FGLRX driver. FGLRX is known to have crappy 2D performance relative to its very strong 3D performance and the 2d performance that the open source driver excels at.
Meanwhile, 2D performance on Intel's hardware is smoking everyone else's pipe.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Apart from XP Embedded, where you can choose which parts of the OS are installed. It's not designed for home-use, but I've used it to make a 140MB version of XP that is blazingly fast. It can play media, has internet access, games, everything I need.
I believe that PIE (position independent executable) along with some other security enhancements were turned on in Ubuntu around the time the slowndowns showed up. This would definitely cause at least some slowdown on the 32bit version since there aren't enough registers to begin with. I'm not sure if it causes any noticeable slowdown on the 64bit version, since the amd64 architecture has a lot more available registers, which would correlate with the person mentioning earlier that the 64bit version seemed fast.
From those benchmarks the one thing that stuck out was that GCC is getting slower.
That's a well-known fact for us source-based distributions/OS users. Compiling everything from source on Gentoo, or the BSDs took a severe performance hit since GCC got more and more slow (for no apparent reason), esp. the C++ backend... But what's slowing Ubuntu down is probably the quality of ASM code generated by GCC, as well as programs being writting more and more sloppily by developers with very fast machines.
Maybe the source of the problem is actually GCC getting slower. This forces developers to use faster machines to shorten the compile runs; but those faster machines also hide the problem of software getting slower. Many devs simply don't care anymore for slower machines, because they simply don't see the problem on their own boxes. To them, the software is "fast enough."
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I was pretty much exactly the same.
Turning point for me was realizing that I was compiling more and more in, just in case I needed it, because rebuilding world just to enable that new USE flag was getting kind of old.
In other words, I was using it like Ubuntu. The only advantage I had was I would compile for -march=i686, and other optimizations which produce binaries which only work on recent CPUs (the '686' class) -- whereas Ubuntu was -mtune=i686, if I remember, so it was possible to run on a 486, but would run best on a 686.
And, hey, there were other things I would turn on that were Athlon XP specific, and so on... then I realized that, on amd64, the optimizations were basically exactly the same -- merely compiling for x86_64 gave me all the benefits anyway. At which point, what the hell -- Ubuntu would necessarily be at least as optimized as my Gentoo.
And, more recently, I've realized that since switching to Ubuntu, I spend much more time actually using the OS, rather than tweaking it. Despite having it already much more customized than any version of Windows ever was, I still don't spend as much time tweaking it as it takes to maintain Windows, let alone Gentoo.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
In which orifice?
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
I can disable services I don't want. I can uninstall (or simply not install at the outset) components I don't need. I have the control panel to customize, e.g., the video depth and turn off video-hungry components.
In all seriousness: at this level (not the recompile level), what's the difference?
Linux (and Unix for the most part) tends to be a lot more modular than Windows. Windows does provide options. But not to the same degree. If you want to really dig in to a Windows system, it takes a lot more shennanigans than it does with a Linux distro (and then you're at the risk of losing all your changes at the next service pack).
Note that this isn't an Open Source thing. Proprietary Unix environments tend to work much in the same way.
One final point - Linux is no silver bullet. You still have to make trade-offs. There are still dependencies involved and removing something might mean removing a desired application. However, I've rarely run in to a situation where that decision is all that difficult or unexpected.
FYI, actually having sex is usually more fun than declining it.
See Ubuntu bug #1 for your answer.
CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
Apart from XP Embedded, where you can choose which parts of the OS are installed.
I've heard of such a beast but never have seen it. I would hazard to guess that XP Embedded isn't accessible to most folks; it's not an option with their standard XP install. In contract, anyone who has access to Ubuntu could go this "Thinbuntu" route.
Whereas with Linux, I have to keep 180MB of files there which will remain mostly useless because I want to use Amarok in a Gnome environment but if I want to remove even one, it'll throw a hissy fit. Way to go...a small media player with 180MB of dependencies...
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Linux (and Unix for the most part) tends to be a lot more modular than Windows. Windows does provide options. But not to the same degree. If you want to really dig in to a Windows system, it takes a lot more shennanigans than it does with a Linux distro
Indeed. I might have to go install something like XPLite or create my own installation media with nlite/vlite. It's really taxing firing up a GUI and unticking a few boxes.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
What goal do you perceive Ubuntu to be moving toward
Fixing bug #1, of course.
"If you really want performance, run FreeDOS. Otherwise, shut up and get used to progress."
Jeez you're an idiot. I wouldn't have posted that under a registered nick either.
So people should just settle for bloat simply because of the advance of technology? Apple manages to make OS X faster than older versions. Other Linux distros do. Bad software isn't "progress".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"This may come as a revelation, but Linux is about choice."
But only if you choose correctly.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Sounds like it has something to do with to whether an application takes advantage of multi-threaded enhancements or how it does.
"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." -Asimov
In this case, Ubuntu is the sum of the software it packages. But if one piece of software is slower, then Ubuntu's not slower, that piece of software is slower. 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, 3 != 1.
This would remain true if Ubuntu were replaced with $DISTRO.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Not even talking about the advantage of being free:
- for optimization, I can select the window manager
- for optimization, I can select the desktop environment
- I get full compatibility with the open-source ecosystem
- I can install programs from the huge apt-get application universe (including programming languages and tools)
- I run it all from a very short script, unattended
- it is fully supported, with automatic updates and no nonsense
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I'll hitch on to your post and add a couple of thoughts.
First, I use ThinkPads regularly (due to deep discount available through a workplace contract with Lenovo). The closed-source ATI video drivers are constantly a little off (for example, compiz users will find that videos tend to flicker). I'd really want to exclude that can of worms if I could. Your question about other power-reducing features is also a good one. In any case, though...
The real thing the tests appear to show is that Ubuntu has evolved in such a way that any single process may be slower. However, we rarely use our computers as single-process systems. We want it to be doing multiple simultaneous tasks without allowing any single task to dramatically reduce performance in other areas.
I *believe* the new resource allocation methods in Ubuntu (and the kernel and elsewhere) have improved exactly this sort of performance. However, by not allowing single tasks to hog resources in a way that would degrade the user interface and other running software any benchmark run against that single task would appear to indicate that the system is slower.
The SYSTEM is not slower. The TASK is slower.
That's a trade-off. Do you want single tasks to be faster or the overall responsiveness of the system to be greater?
Life is short: void the warranty.
Wow. +20 jerk-off points for using other people (women, in this case) as props for your own ego.
I mean, misogyny may be the rule at old Slash U more days than not, but you, sir, are a grade-a special asshole.
I'd bet almost all of it is the effect of the scheduler. The benchmarks all show single tasks taking longer, but that's not taking into account multi-process performance. Is the desktop still responsive now even with a high-intensity background task running? I'd take that over the task finishing 5% faster any day.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Indeed. I might have to go install something like XPLite or create my own installation media with nlite/vlite. It's really taxing firing up a GUI and unticking a few boxes.
Yes, unticking boxes is easy. So's deleting a file. But what happens after the fact?
Those utilities do look like a step in the right direction. Pity they're from a third party and a complete hack (albiet a very cool looking one). What happens when Microsoft releases a service pack? What happens if you change your mind and want to install a component?
I know with Ubuntu I'm removing a package using the very same tools provided by the base distro. When I update, I only update whats installed. And I know I can always install / re-install anything missing at a later time.
The user's, of course
-- dnl
From time to time I download the newest Ubuntu and check it out to see what all the new fuss is. I am continually disappointed though, and it rarely makes it a week before being purged.
It's not just the bugs and the long app-launch times. It's more than just the gratuitous resource consumption. It's the whole thing... It's bloat on top of eye-candy bloat with a hefty helping of fanboy zealotry.
I love *NIX very much but it is precisely because I love it that I have to point out that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
When did the userbase of linux go so wrong? When did it start? Those of us that have been around for quite a while have watched the rockstar rise and subsequent plummet in the communities surrounding it. 10+ years ago you could jump into IRC type /join #[your distro] and be surrounded by people that truly loved their systems and would help you without being condescending, resorting to ad hominem attacks, or calling other *nix variants crap. A lot of those guys, myself included, were using Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, AIX, etc. during the day and spending some of our evenings just helping out others that were interested in or 'testing the water' with linux. The slackware community was great. Even a little more recently when Gentoo first really got rolling between 1.0 and 1.2 the community on EFNET in #gentoo was a shining example of what a userbase should be. I spent many an hour in there helping people figure out their CFLAGS, configuring their XF86Config, and the like.
With the influx of more and more folks that seem to be vastly more focused on hating Windows, Mac OSX, and even other UNIX variants, the face of linux has changed. People that used to use *NIX as a personal choice did so because they truly loved computers. Now it seems to be the equivalent of a battle standard. Your Operating System is your country, your flag, and your religion. Thousands of angry people focused on their hatred of anything that is unlike themselves. It's GNU/Xenophobia.
The programming ramifications of this have become pervasive throughout many of the more popular distributions. In fact, the fundamental idea of the ideological Bazaar has been replaced by the Cathedral of intolerance. Instead of a focus on excellence and listening to the end-users, more and more developers are dismissive and prone to flame. More time is spent developing completely worthless and unrelated 'features' than in solidifying and optimizing the current code. Instead of, say fixing GNOME's inability to remember where I want my launch icons on the panel, we get wobbly windows that add absolutely nothing to the value of the desktop. Instead of writing just one really, really good IDE for C development, we get oodles of feature-incomplete environments that can't even compete with older Visual Studios or XCode; and this is supposed to be forte of *NIX. As children we are reinforced to eat our meat and vegetables before we get dessert. Yet more and more developers focus on the candy and leave the meat (optimizing) and vegetables (squashing bugs) virtually untouched. It's not as exciting of course, but it is necessary. In *buntu I struggle with yet another audio layer to cover the other layers to figure out why my sound card is doing a darn good impression of a french mime when I try to play some music. Meanwhile, a thousand fanboys upload yet another Youtube video of a spinning desktop cube with a Moby soundtrack.
Perhaps it is the fate of those of us from the previous generation to make way for the new one, but as we do so there should be some guidance, some hope, and some direction given. Reading through the comments in this story really drive home how far this has gone and the need for a gentle hand to remind people not just of the Bazaar, but also that we need to eat our meat and vegetables before we get dessert. This reply has gotten much longer than I originally planned though, but perhaps this conversation can continue in another venue.
I agree about cars. I want to replace my 1990 MR2 Turbo which I bought in 2000 for NZ1313K. Now if I try and find a new car for $13,000 there is no way I can find any mod engined 200HP rice rockets. They are all old slow junkers or much more expensive than my budget allows.
They are also loaded with extra features like ABS brakes, adaptive dampers, airbags, pretensioning seatbelits, CD changers, run flat tyres, and all manner of other goodies that just add weight, not performance.
Just like new OS's I guess