The Incredible Shrinking Operating System

snydeq writes "The center of gravity is shifting away from the traditional, massive operating systems of the past, as even the major OSes are slimming their footprint to make code bases easier to manage and secure, and to increase the variety of devices on which they can run, InfoWorld reports. Microsoft, for one, is cutting down the number of services that run at boot to ensure Windows 7 will run across a spectrum of hardware. Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half. And Apple appears headed for a slimmed-down OS X that will enable future iPhones or tablet devices to run the same OS as the Mac. Though these developments don't necessarily mean that the browser will supplant the OS, they do show that OS vendors realize they must adapt as virtualization, cloud computing, netbooks, and power concerns drive business users toward smaller, less costly, more efficient operating environments."

Comments

MySQL & LDAP?

[0100010001010011]

If Ubuntu is looking to unseat Windows, why do they need a SQL server and a directory service? Granted I use Apache and MySQL on my Mac so I can develop on the road, but not everyone does.

I use Black Viper's Windows services tutorial to decide what I can do without on XP. It makes a pretty decent difference in both RAM and CPU usage.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[alen]

a lot of linux distros ship with everything and you choose what to install. Ubuntu is trying to cater to the non-techie so they strip out anything a desktop PC for the average user won't need without confusing them during the install process.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[immakiku]

I thought there were plans to internally use MySQL for OS functionality. I don't remember what features exactly though.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Stormx2]

MySQL ships with Ubuntu? Since when? I've always had to install it myself :/

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[FrostDust]

I'm pretty sure it's used as a part of MythTv, so by extension, Mythbuntu

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[fyngyrz]

Yeah, but this isn't even remotely the same thing -- to add this functionality to Ubuntu takes a few clicks and downloads, all free, all easy, and with no limits on how many apps you can run, etc. You want CUPS or some other component that you consider a basic OS requirement? Click, wait while download and install completes, and you have 'em. This is simply an initially "lite" OS install, offered as a matter of convenience to the end user.

MS isn't offering a lite OS install with free option to get the parts that are useful to you. They're paring away basic functionality (like the ability to run 4 or 5 apps at a time) and the only way to get it back is to buy it. If you choose the wrong set of features, you'll probably have to buy again, unless you habitually buy the package with the complete feature set.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[0racle]

Ya, no one ever needs to use the Active Directory or Windows Internal Database/MSDE. Everyone only every runs a small gaming machine, why does Windows support these things in the first place?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[CodeBuster]

It probably wouldn't be a good idea. MySQL is not fast or efficient enough for kernel mode use and file systems, despite attempts by Microsoft and others to merge them with databases, file systems work best when they provide minimal functionality that can be built on top of (i.e. SQL implementations generally run on top of the file system as a separate service NOT as an integral embedded part of the file system). The minimal OS is really the way to go and the industry convergence on this consensus (with Microsoft being among the last to see the light on this one) is encouraging to see. The OS is supposed to mediate between applications and hardware to provide basic services; anything beyond that is an application and should be treated as such and NOT as an integrated part of the OS.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Black Viper was copying the work of people like APK from ntcompatible.com and 3dfiles.com circa 1997 onwards in this regards of trimming and tuning microsoft operating systems at those websites before there even was a website for black viper.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[FishWithAHammer]

Black Viper's stuff is iffy at best these days, too. I strongly doubt that it makes much of a difference anymore.

That, and he's batfuck insane.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[zappepcs]

I hoped someone would say this. There will be a lot of people that buy the full deal because it will be sold to them with the computer and they don't know better, and it's an easy sell.

Also, the 'initially lite OS' idea is fantastic. It's one of the reasons that I like Ubuntu. The upgrade to workforce nuclear powered pro Ubuntu is the same as any upgrade; free and easy. You lose nothing by starting lite, and potentially remove a number of vulnerabilities that the end user may not be aware of in software that they may never use or need.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[cayenne8]

"Yeah, but this isn't even remotely the same thing -- to add this functionality to Ubuntu takes a few clicks and downloads, all free, all easy, and with no limits on how many apps you can run, etc. You want CUPS or some other component that you consider a basic OS requirement? Click, wait while download and install completes, and you have 'em. This is simply an initially "lite" OS install, offered as a matter of convenience to the end user. "

It struck me as kind of strange that they'd strip out something like CUPS...I mean, don't even most normal users like to print documents?!?!

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[toadlife]

You're being too nice. The guy is a dolt. He's spent half his life studying and dedicating a website to what any decent IT person would consider offhand knowledge.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tweenk]

The paragraph about Ubuntu is bogus. It doesn't have MySQL or LDAP installed by default. MySQL is installed in Kubuntu though, because it is required by Amarok and Kontact/Kmail. It has SQLite, because it is needed by Firefox, but it works without a server. I don't see Ubuntu removing CUPS because that would leave us without printing support.

I think they are referring to the Netbook Remix edition, which I can imagine doing without CUPS and a lot of other things.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS isn't offering a lite OS install with free option to get the parts that are useful to you. They're paring away basic functionality (like the ability to run 4 or 5 apps at a time) and the only way to get it back is to buy it.

Actually, the article is talking about Windows services that are off by default to slim down the OS. Those services are still there, and can be turned on with a mouse-click. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Starter Edition -- which is available at an extremely stripped-down price on extremely low-power computers that can't really handle more than a couple applications at a time anyway, and only in emerging markets.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[speculatrix]

print? very rarely - only if I need to file a record (e.g. tax). if the information isn't accessible through free text search, it might as well not exist!

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tawnos]

I have you friended, so you must have said something I thought was clever before...

The trolltastic headline this morning about "only 3 apps" is highly misleading, and it's caused by speculation and rumors. The starter version of Windows is not something that is either available to the general public (in developed countries) or will be widely deployed on netbooks. It specifically exists to target the very low end computers in third world countries, not to be what's shipped on a netbook.

Yes, features are stripped from the version of windows being sold to OEMs for third-world deployment. If they were the same, there would be a huge rise in black market sales of the "starter" OS - it would give people a "legal" CD-key for the full OS at 1/20th the price. This does not mean we are paring away basic functionality and forcing you to buy it back. In fact, care was taken to make sure Win7 didn't fall into the Vista trap with overlapping feature sets. Each version has a superset of features from the lower one.

First world markets only need worry about Home Premium or Professional, and Ultimate(/Enterprise) if Bitlocker and Direct Access are desired.

For more information, and not something that's based on /. "logic" see here. It's an official source, and not speculation.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tweenk]

It ships with Kubuntu as a storage backend for Amarok and Akonadi (Kontact/Kmail data server). It doesn't ship with vanilla Ubuntu.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Vectronic]

Personally, I consider "batfuck insane" as an admirable attribute and adds greatly to character...

However, he lost me at "I resist change as much as I can." which, as far as I am concerned, removes his batfuck status.

None-the-less I still generally point people who are curious about their Windows services to his site, even though many of his suggestions are questionable.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[fermion]

There are a couple different things here. First, the ability to download an application does not equal the ability to use the application. Many of these require quite a bit of configuration, location of dependencies, and the like. Developers are buying the Mac because Apple, as a system builders, is handling all those things i house. All I need to do is buy a mac and I have a web server, an database server, etc.If one does not need those things, they are simple to turn off. From my work in Linux,the ease of adding components is variable. I have not used Ubuntu, so perhaps there is plug and play there.

Second, there are always practical limits to how many apps can run before the user begins to call customer service. While I do not know why MS would want to limit the number of Apps that can run, one reason might be that the hardware vendors don't want the customer service called. Hey, I bought this netbook, and am running OO.org, downloading movies in Gnutella, chatting in Pidgin, and checking my mail every minute, watching a DVD, and hey, the computer is slow. It might be that the netbook people are doing the same thing that Apple did with the iPhone. Making a multitasking OS a single tasking OS until the cheap hardware becomes advanced enough to go back to multitasking.

I am not MS booster, but the one thing that MS Windows has is applications. They may be applications that I think are dumb and a waste of bits, but there are applications. And by in large they are one click installs, fully configured, ready to run. If they have made one mistake, it is building excessive number of these utilities into the base OS instead of leveraging the ease of installing new functionality.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[cayenne8]

"print? very rarely - only if I need to file a record (e.g. tax). if the information isn't accessible through free text search, it might as well not exist!"

REally?

I guess maybe I'm old fashioned. I mean, I read and study a LOT online, but, for things I want to really remember, to use as reference, I really like to have dead tree copies.

I often mark them up, highlight passages, doodle in the margins...etc.

I find that by doing this...I can remember and even find information faster than I could doing a web or local directory search. When I was in school, I'd often do the doodles and markings in my books and notes, and during tests...I could 'see' those pages in my head...even turn the pages in my head to find where the information was. I find I can't do that as readily on a computer screen....

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[omi5cron]

i have been using his guides for about 4 years, and did notice an appreciable gain in performance. that was for XP, and on several machines built solely for gaming, nothing else. he may seem a bit off, but this IS slashdot, so would fit in well with the present company! having said that, i have not tried his Vista tips (no Vista for me). i was one of the ones who was worried went he went "missing" for more than a year. (thanks to all the mirrors). yes,this is offtopic, but thought i should contribute my one cent. (can't afford two cents)!

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Stormx2]

Ah, thanks :)

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[UnknowingFool]

Depends on what the purpose of your computer. I once built a router out of an old Pentium computer. I didn't install CUPS. For my Linux server, I have it but since it is a server, I rarely print from it. I do print from my desktop more often though.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[lukas.mach]

BTW: SQLite is running on all installations of MacOS X and on all iPhones.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[speedtux]

CUPS is overkill for occasionally converting a document into a printer language and then sending it off. Worse, CUPS doesn't even do that all that reliably (OS X is stuck with the same flaky printing system as Linux).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[westlake]

They're paring away basic functionality (like the ability to run 4 or 5 apps at a time) and the only way to get it back is to buy it.

Where?

Windows Starter Edition was always limited to three open "apps" -

though these apps can be as rich in functionality as a full version of MS Word -

and its target is the absolute beginner in third world markets.

The alternative UI like Sugar has often been single-task.

Which makes perfect sense for an inexperienced user with bare-minimum hardware support for any mass-market OS.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[kaffeinekiwi]

None of the windows 'home' editions can join a domain. As has been stated earlier, you can add this functionality back to Ubuntu free, but to upgrade from a home version to a business windows version costs money.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Lord Bitman]

my old PC in 1992 could only "handle" about two or three full-blown applications at a time. So: I didn't run more than two or three at a time.

But if every now and then, I needed to open five different things, I /could/. It was slow to the point of being unworkable, but I never got a "You can only run three of these" message. An "out of memory" error sometimes (I get those plenty today, too), but never "we've hard-coded something, sucks to be you."

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[spikenerd]

That's the beauty of a simple package manager. If it's easy, even trivial, to install functionality, then there is no need to install even things that "most" people will use. There's no reason that the few people who never print need to have it installed.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[speculatrix]

I've found I've never needed to use printouts when programming either, even in the days when an editor only showed 40 rows of text or so (ah, the good old days of VT100s!)

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Godji]

Black Viper's site is great. I never noticed much of a difference on XP, but on Vista it is night vs. day.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[von_rick]

There are several apps in the Gnome distro that are totally useless to many users, especially the newbies. Ubuntu could be far more "lite" if they took out Evolution, Ekiga, Gnome-games, tracker-search-tool, etc.

I'm really glad that the tracker-search-tool has been taken off the default apps list in the upcoming Jaunty Jackalope release. What would be really cool would be having some of the extras installed by default, like build-essential, restricted-extras, flashplugin, etc. Most people have to install them eventually and they agree to the flash/adobe/realplayer license when they install the third party apps. Why not add that in the agreements during installation and provide a fully functioning distro from the get go?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for most people but as a student I know very few students who own their own printers: the university provides printing services (at a per-page fee).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tuoqui]

I think that it is more along the lines of shrinking that 600mb behemoth that people have to download to install down because MySQL and LDAP would more than likely be accessible via apt-get or similar.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[ivucica]

Excuse me, taking out Evolution? Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better. What about games -- many users want at least basic entertainment while waiting for download of extra content to finish. (We can argue that xbill would be sufficient instead of whole load of Gnome games, but meh.)

You could also install XFCE (as part of Xubuntu) instead and get lite/r Ubuntu automagically. How about going for Debian + well-configured IceWM? It could work, it could function. Same as WindowMaker; quite usable, but not well maintained in Debian (as far as other packages come, at least).

Both much liter than either Gnome or KDE.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[BigBuckHunter]

It struck me as kind of strange that they'd strip out something like CUPS...I mean, don't even most normal users like to print documents?!?!

It is not being "stripped out" in the sense that it is no longer available, or must be installed via the package manager. It is installed on demand (when you setup a printer). It is much like how Ubuntu handles samba. Samba is not installed untill you right click a folder and select "share", at which point the user is told that Samba is being installed. I believe the user prompt is actually nicer than that. Something to the effect of "Ubuntu is installing the software necessary to complete this operation".

Cups is not necessary unless you have a printer installed (whether physical or virtual).

Occasionally, Ubuntu does things that seem odd though. When setting up an encrypted array via MDRaid, one of the dependancies is a mail server. Ubuntu decided that I would be best served if it installed "Citadel", a full groupware solution, rather then sendmail or postfix. This would be the equivlent of windows installing Exceed if an app had a dependency on an SSH client.

BBH

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Eravnrekaree]

MySQL and LDAP should be included with OS but user should be able to choose to opt out of installing them. Many OSs allow a minimal installation for that. I think that it is important, and best, to include a large number of features with an OS, and then allow the user to opt out of installing them. The user should have control and the system should work and be set up the way the user wants it to, not have some minimalists idea of what should be in the OS make it unuseable for others. Some may like editing configuration files and using Vi. I dont. I like configuration dialog boxes, click and dragging files rather than having to remember arcane commands and 10,000 configuration fil formats. Both the configuration file and a GUI front end should be avialable, everything should be able to be done in CLI and GUI and then let the user choose which to use. Users haev different preferences so we have to remember to include different modes of use and more than one way to do it to suite different needs. User friendliness comes not from scarce features, but large numbers of features and flexibility, and then allowing the user to choose which to use. At the GUI level, its in layout, the number of features should be large and extensive, but less used features go into advanced configuration screens. Software should come with reasonably configured defaults and run out of box, adn then a user if they want can fine tune. users gradually move into and learn more of the software, and this allows them to easily do that. People can grow into software and gradually use more of its vast feature set and use how few or how many features they want. This keeps software both novice and expert friendly, both easy to use and configurable, flexible and customizable to the max. It does not have to be one or the other, Systems should can be novice and expert friendly at the same time.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[farmer11]

I used to use a similar methodology. Then one day I said "F@&K this, I'm tired of writing stuff down." and I've never looked back. The only effects I notice are that I use less paper and I never have to bother writing stuff down. Has it affected my memory? Can't tell.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[JasterBobaMereel]

WinFS : Microsoft's aborted attempt at a database file system .... ...the same idea had been tried years before, was was fount to be not worth it, and people who looked at what microsoft had done said "we tried it that way initially, but it we found it couldn't work, so we did it a different way..."

Microsoft reinventing the wheel... again... badly....

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[rrohbeck]

Printing? Isn't that the process of making black marks on dead trees?

I can only remember printing one file in recent history (couple of months.) And that was to stick it into the fax machine.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Really? I don't see it -- my Amarok seems to use sqlite, and that seems to be the default.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[anss123]

Ubuntu decided that I would be best served if it installed "Citadel", a full groupware solution, rather then sendmail or postfix. This would be the equivlent of windows installing Exceed if an app had a dependency on an SSH client.

I bet it's for consistency. You should always get the same SSH client regardless of the order you activate features.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[tbannist]

I don't really think it matters. This is just more evidence that Microsoft doesn't get it, is out of touch with reality, and more concerned with their own profits that what makes them profitable in the first place.

Stop dicking your users around. According to the blog you linked even the limited version of Windows 7 will have all of the components of the top end in the image for it. Frankly, everything after that point about "piracy" is kicking your loyal customers in the nuts to spite the people who never buy your software in the first place.

Seriously, by putting this limitation on "third world OEMs" you're just ensuring that no one in the "third world" uses the legitimate OEM software. Why would they when the cracked version is cheaper and works better?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[PopeRatzo]

Thank you for pointing this out to me

I use a WinXP machine as part of my digital audio workstation, and I've always been a little unclear as to how many of these services I can get rid of. This Black Viper tutorial is the best I've seen on the subject.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[PopeRatzo]

This is simply an initially "lite" OS install, offered as a matter of convenience to the end user

That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[CAIMLAS]

How many 'average users' do you know who don't have a printer? I can't say I know many.

Printing is essential. It has been a part of core computer functionality for over 20 years, and was THE point of computing before that. CUPS prints, yet they are removing it; what are they replacing it with, if anything? Anachronistic lpr?

If you have a desktop system, you print. End of story. This is just a stupid move on the part of Ubuntu.

Everything else, I can agree with. Slimming down default installs will go a long way to making this IT person happy.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[INT_QRK]

re ivuica, I agree. I wouldn't recommend taking out Evolution, GNOME Games, etc. from Ubuntu default app load. In addition to being a POP and IMAP email client, Evolution also implements calender functionality, contacts management and notes. It's a good application. I like it and use it. That said, the issue of bundled applications in a GNU/Linux distribution seems to me as somewhat a red herring to the point of "lightening" an OS' footprint. I like having lots of apps available for my use, although I don't necessarily need a great many of them loading as a daemon or service incurring a performance trade that I don't ask for or need. That seems to be the issue, services on demand fine, services that I don't need all the time shouldn't be there all the time, or at all unless or or until needed.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[von_rick]

Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP

Shouldn't the 'most' part be given more weightage? People who are wise enough to configure POP and IMAP accounts would certainly know that they can install Evolution through package manager or command line. It not only installs evolution, but by default all the evolution notifiers are loaded at startup. Devoting boot time to an application that only few people use is mighty waste.

What about games -- many users want at least basic entertainment

We are talking about making the distro as lite as possible. Putting the entire games suite takes up another big chunk. I never understood the reasoning behind the "games suite" to begin with. Wouldn't it be better if people chose their own games?

You could also install XFCE (as part of Xubuntu) instead and get lite/r Ubuntu automagically.

I tried that as well. There is a reason why XFCE didn't make it to machines that are capable of running KDE or Gnome. The apps that are omitted from XFCE based Unbuntu (aka Xubuntu) are sometimes quite essential for most people. Axing the OpenOffice.org install isn't exactly lite, since after installation of the essential apps, you end up with the same system resource utilization as Gnome or KDE.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tawnos]

Concerned with profits, perhaps. That would be the basis of a for-profit company. I don't see how it makes us out of touch with reality.

The current reality is that, in many third world countries, it's not the guy torrenting windows off of the pirate bay that is a problem. It's the guy selling copies on the street corner for ten bucks. This looks to address that issue. It won't solve it, but it at least give some form of meaningful competition.

How is it kicking any customer in the nuts to say "there's a stripped down version available only to OEMs who want to make a highly discounted product for third world deployment."? It's not even offered to the "loyal customers" you say we spite. To those people, there are two main versions offered, and a third if you "gotta have it all." Home Premium is like XP Home - has most stuff that people need, doesn't have domain join capabilities. Professional is like XP Pro - domain join and a few other features that benefit small and medium business. Ultimate/Enterprise are the same with different licensing terms (retail versus volume). They provide extras like full disk encryption, direct access networking, etc. These target large companies and/or enthusiasts.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[kiehlster]

I probably wouldn't have gone with those examples myself. I didn't think MySQL even came installed by default. I thought it more interesting that the Ubuntu server edition did not include things like APM in the base install. That's great if you never expect the power to go out, but I think I would prefer my server to shut down when the individual or centralized UPS system is running low on battery. A real astonishment is if the main Ubuntu distro were to dump Gnome for Xfce--Essentially turn Xubuntu into "Ubuntu" and turn the current "Ubuntu" into Gnobuntu.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Improv]

In all the years I've used, administered, and helped people using Linux, from the clueless to fellow systems geeks, I've never met an Evolution user. I think it's part of GNOME largely for political reasons (before starting to make lousy stuff like Mono and gconf, Miguel made a few nice programs like gnumeric).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[jamstar7]

I can only remember printing one file in recent history (couple of months.) And that was to stick it into the fax machine.

Don't work in an office much, do you? I've been hearing the hype of the 'paperless office' for a couple decades now, but don't kid yourself, the bosses still have a religious belief in dead tree copies. Last place I had a 'real job' at, they went through at least 3 reams of paper a day, with mailouts over 500 pieces. The rest were file copies.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[PitaBred]

You would be correct, sir. I'm pretty sure you can use Postgres if you want to, but the default is most definitely MySQL for MythTV.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[jamstar7]

It also ships with the server pack. It's a full LAMP stack, the Linux server default.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[PeterBrett]

Amarok 2.x uses MySQL-embedded as the internal database. There was a big debate about it over on PlanetKDE a few months ago.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[MBGMorden]

Honestly, I think you may be part of a dying breed. I print out almost nothing these days. Even my tax returns I "print" to PDF's and store (yes, I have a backup plan in place). The actual filing is done electronically.

Literally, the only thing I've really printed in the last few years has been Mapquest directions, and even then if I forget to print them ahead of time and have my laptop with me (so no access to a printer), I've not found it too bad to just grab a notepad and ink pen and jot down the directions.

I actually had to switch to a cheap laser printer a few years back($50) because inkjets would simply dry up in between my prints :).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[rrohbeck]

Actually I do work in an office. But we work on relatively large SW projects where paper documentation is not feasible.
OTOH I get on the order of 100 emails per day.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[jamstar7]

So what's so bad about a 600 mb iso download? Big deal. Vista ships on a 4.something GIG dvd, with all available flavors on it. I can dl a 600 mb iso in about an hour. it's soooooooooooooo not an issue to me.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Ian Alexander]

I think Evolution is overkill for a POP/IMAP email client. There are some excellent GTK email clients that are much better on resources than evolution.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[MBGMorden]

Say what you will, but the idea behind WinFS (and database driven filesystems in general) is quite sound. It's the technical implementation that's difficult to get right. Microsoft tried, and goofed it up (like they do most things technical). That doesn't mean that the idea is without merit though. The simple truth is that storing files based on many pieces of metadata makes more sense that storing it in a single folder. Unix makes up for this somewhat with the ability to create symlinks in multiple folders, but that still doesn't have the fidelity that I want (which is essentially just the ability to search for files via something akin to a db query rather than simply drill down a directory tree or search just on the name).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[QRDeNameland]

The current reality is that, in many third world countries, it's not the guy torrenting windows off of the pirate bay that is a problem. It's the guy selling copies on the street corner for ten bucks. This looks to address that issue. It won't solve it, but it at least give some form of meaningful competition.

In a third world country where Microsoft's ability to enforce their licensing is nearly if not entirely non-existent, how does a $10 (legal) crippled copy compete with a $10 (illegal) fully functional copy when the distinction of legal vs. illegal is nil?

The downfall of DRM is all we need to know about efficacy of crippling digital media. It only punishes the dutifully honest, who will eventually end up wondering why the price of honesty is to pay more for greater frustration.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[von_rick]

Big deal. Vista ships on a 4.something GIG

You are comparing apples and ummm...Vista, or more accurately Linux and Vista. The talk ins't about the 700MB download, its about how the apps included in that distro affect the performance of the system. Some affect the booting time, while some make the foreground apps run slower.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[wastedlife]

They're paring away basic functionality (like the ability to run 4 or 5 apps at a time) and the only way to get it back is to buy it.

While I agree that they are stripping out some of the basic functionality that used to be free (remote desktop being one that comes to mind). The number of running apps is not a limit that most people will see. The "Starter Edition"(the only version that limits simultaneous applications) has been around since XP. It is not sold in "developed" countries. It is a heavily discounted version to try to combat piracy in developing countries. Needless to say, the restrictions on it mean no one would use it over a fully-functional pirated version.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Belial6]

I never really printed much, but there are many thing, particularly in the home that will still be printed for a long time in the future. Things like photos, mazes for my son, coloring book pages, or really anything for my son that entails marking it up. After all, coloring with crayons and clicking to color a page on the computer are entirely different activities. Sometimes he wants to do one, other times he wants to do the other.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[INT_QRK]

Hello Improv, this is INT_QRK. There. We've met. You can no longer say that you haven't met an Evolution user. I like Evolution - it's maybe not as elegant as Intelligent Design, mind you, but it suits me nicely. Seriously though, I used Kontact for a while when I flirted with KDE (dropped back to GNOME, just because I prefer it, no fights please), and it was alright too, as is Thunderbird as far as it goes, but Evolution also works well hot-synching with my Treo. Anyway, Evolution's certainly worth the price.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[steelfood]

A lot of people do their printing at work.

Ahem. I mean, I don't imply I do it, but I know a lot of people who do. *looks over shoulder*

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I find myself using my printer for these days is the occasional Rasterbator picture. Everything else is purely electronic.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Locklin]

Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better.

Is that a typo? I think people generally use *webmail* because they "don't know any better." That, or they don't use email much.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[wastedlife]

I think sqlite is used by beagle and firefox uses it as well. Haven't heard anything about mySQL being used for any OS functionality though.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Ew. It's not as though database abstraction layers are hard to come by.

But whatever. Embedded means it doesn't expose ports, doesn't need to be secured, etc, right?

That is, of course, not the biggest thing Amarok 2 fucked up. And pardon the profanity, but letting functionality break in the "stable" release, marking it "wontfix" because you're all working on the new release, though said functionality is not present in the new release, is a fucked up development process.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Jurily]

Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better.

Bullshit. I use POP because it's orders of magnitude lighter on my bandwidth, and I like offline copies.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[INT_QRK]

Concur

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[clang_jangle]

Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better.

That's kind of backwards, IMO. It ought to be:
Although many users use IMAP mail, most users still use webmail or even POP because they don't know better.
After all, using IMAP means all mail is accessible from any machine, and there's never any pesky browser evidence left behind.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Ultra64]

I have a desktop system. I don't print.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[sglewis100]

CUPS is overkill for occasionally converting a document into a printer language and then sending it off. Worse, CUPS doesn't even do that all that reliably (OS X is stuck with the same flaky printing system as Linux).

Wonder why OS X uses CUPS... must have something to do with Apple owning the project these days.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[zappepcs]

Hello :) I too, am an evolution user...

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Fallingcow]

Wow, I didn't know any desktop apps in Linux that needed a DB defaulted to anything other than SQLlite. Weird.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Patch86]

print? very rarely - only if I need to file a record (e.g. tax).
if the information isn't accessible through free text search, it might as well not exist!

I still find I have to use old-fashioned post a fair bit. If I need to send a letter, I type it and print it. That's probably pretty common, especially among older and less tech-literate users (the ones who don't know what "CUPS" is).

And thats not getting in to working at my office. I send 10's of letters a day, with all sorts of printed attachments. Receive plenty too, so there must be plenty other people/offices who rely on dead trees.

That said, I was under the impression that Ubuntu handles installing features like that on the fly without bothering the user too much, so unless you run an offline workstation it shouldn't matter too much anyway.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[INT_QRK]

As they say in Old Meh-hee-co, "!Jay!"(Imagine if you will, the first "!" rotated 180 degrees).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Grishnakh]

I print very little too, but for tax returns, while I also just save PDFs, for actual filing, I still use the old-fashioned method of mailing them in. Why? Because filing electronically costs money. Why would I want to pay the IRS to make their job easier for them? I prefer to print it out and mail it to them, and make them have a harder time with it (and possibly have a lower chance of catching any errors), and save a few bucks in the process. Besides, the IRS won't take returns (to my knowledge) in PDF format; you have to have special software like TurboTax, which doesn't run in Linux.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better.

Excuse me? I use POP & SMTP because all webmail is universally crap. People use webmail because they don't know better.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better"

Excuse me, but WHAT? Most use webmail because THEY don't know better.

I didn't realize it was so easy to misspell facebook.com as slashdot.org. Would you like me to provide you with a nice clicky link to get you there?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[MBGMorden]

I'll concede those uses, but I don't have kids, and honestly, if I did I'd probably go the even older fashioned method of getting coloring and other activity books from the store (just discussing this brings up the thought of those old "Sticker books". I wonder if they even make those anymore?).

Photos I do indeed take a lot of, but for my personal uses, I've just come to prefer and online service such as Winkflash. The quality is better than I've seen any home printer do, and when factoring in ink, paper, and the cost of the printer itself, the online service is as cheap or cheaper for me.

I certainly see no fault with anyone printing anything, but I can see (and have seen) it's decline happening.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[guruevi]

Not really. For me an OS should have an e-mail available so I can use it out of the box even if I'm not connected to the internet. There really should be 2 tiers to Ubuntu for Users on install-time:

Standard: Have all necessary applications installed for ease-of-use and have this the recommended

Lite: Have only the basic applications to get to a GUI with a browser and a package manager. I believe the simplest way would be to have a repository locally (on CD) or remotely (on FTP) as currently exists of your debs and use placeholders in the menu for the different programs and as you want to launch them it will ask you to put the CD in or connect to the network (automatically) and get the necessary debs and install them in the background. This could all be in a small application window saying: deploying application please wait... That way you would build your wanted distro over time and then you can backup a list of the set of applications on a USB stick so next time you install it, you'll have all of them automatically (or if you would like to deploy this distro to a large number of clients)

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[SleepingWaterBear]

a lot of linux distros ship with everything and you choose what to install. Ubuntu is trying to cater to the non-techie so they strip out anything a desktop PC for the average user won't need without confusing them during the install process.

It's worth noting that with Ubuntu's repo system it's very easy to add software after install. Ubuntu may not have MySQL out of the box, but all I have to do is type "sudo apt-get install mysql-server". 5 minutes later it asks me for an admin password, and then I have a working MySQL server. I've done some web design work, and from a base Ubuntu install I can type a couple commands, go grab a cup of coffee, and when I get back(in 5-15 minutes depending on my internet connection) I'll have a fully functional LAMP setup.

Really, I think this is the best approach. Only provide the things everyone uses by default, and make it trivial to get commonly, but not universally used applications and services.

Off topic, I know I shouldn't call Ubuntu an operating system, but what word (instead of 'operating system') should I use that includes Windows, OS X, and all the various Linux distributions? I managed to avoid needing the word above, but it would be useful to know!

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[AliasMarlowe]

I have a desktop system. I don't print.

So you essentially have a heavyweight non-mobile netbook?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[MBGMorden]

You can e-File with TaxACT. While their standalone app is Windows only, they do offer browser-based returns which work just fine on Linux ;).

Yes, it does cost a bit extra, but it's mostly a convenience cost. I don't mail anything these days that isn't a package (where postage is due in specific amounts) or a Netflix return (where it's pre-paid), so buying and keeping track of stamps is a hassle. Plus, when combined with direct deposit, when I e-File I get my refund within a week or two. The online TaxACT + e-filing expenses last year came out to around $20 all-together last year, so I don't consider that unreasonable. The PDF copies that I "print" are just for my own records.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh. First, I'm not typical to any group of people. Now that I've admitted that - I've used a lot of email programs over the years. (NOT OUTLOOK!) I fought hard to teach the wife how to use them, while avoiding Yahoo and AOL offerings. We eventually settled on something that was easy, but reliable, and used it for a long long time. But, Gmail today is sweet. There is really no setup to speak of, the server is reliable, spam filtering is in place and works well, and there is almost no administration burden. Once a month or so, I search out the little bit of spam that leaks through, flag it as spam, then delete it. I don't lose my mail if/when I decide to reformat. The ONLY functionality that I don't have, is the ability to read my mail when offline - but if I bothered to use an add-on, I could synch my mailbox for use offline. Webmail seems so much better, than the headaches I have dealt with in the past. My bandwidth usage isn't a concern, or I might feel differently - there are only 5 members in my family, and no business usage.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[dodden]

And for a hard copy file in the case your puter goes tits up and the data is un-recoverable for some reason? Hopefully, you have the file backed up offsite. Fire, Flood, etc... copy in the safe, copy in the deposit box. Never know when you might need to have a sit down with the IRS, heaven forbid...

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[MBGMorden]

As I said in my original post - I do have a backup plan. I have 2 NAS's at home. 1 sits atop my computer desk and runs 2 drives in a mirrored raid config. An identical unit sits in a storage shed/workshop roughly 75 feet behind the house (this essentially protects against the house burning down, though flood and such are still there to damage both buildings). My documents folder (and several other folders like my iTunes folders and such) syncs to the house unit every night at 3am and the shed unit every Monday morning at 5am (going out over the wireless is a good deal slower than the giga-bit wired connection inside so I only do the sync there once per week). I also make periodic backups of the folder to DVD which I then take to work with me and keep there (yes, they're encrypted).

And in a worse case scenario, since I do use the online version of my tax software, I can always log onto their site and print a new copy of my return if need be (they maintain the data from my previous returns).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tubal-Cain]

Also, the 'initially lite OS' idea is fantastic. It's one of the reasons that I like Ubuntu.

Then you should give Debian a spin. I plan on going back when Gnome 2.24 and kernel 2.6.28 are integrated.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW: SQLite is running on all installations of MacOS X and on all iPhones.

Presumably by "running" you mean "included", because SQLite is just a library.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's precisely because I work in an office that I have no problems not having a printer at home (and thus no need to have CUPS installed.) On the rare occasions when I need something printed out, I do it at work.

So I can echo what others have said about CUPS being a necessity that should be installed by default...it's not for me.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Aphoxema]

I've never printed things until recently, then suddenly I was enamored with CUPS working with my printer perfectly.

Uhh... until now where I have this thing where every first line of the first page I print it prints garbage. It's like the top half of the line is garbage then the lower half is stuff I actually meant to print. I have to print 2 pages of everything.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several apps in the Gnome distro

"Gnome distro"? Who's that?

Pleeze, Ubuntu is not "Linux", Ubuntu is not Gnome, Gnome isn't a distro. Ubuntu is a Linux distro featuring Gnome, okay?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

[With webmail,] I don't lose my mail if/when I decide to reformat.

With POP, I don't lose my mail if/when I decide to reformat, because I migrate my profile to the new system. And I don't lose my mail if/when my hard drives decide to die; this is what we call a functioning "backup" solution.

Additionally--and this is where webmail deliberately sucks--I don't lose my mail if/when I decide to use another provider.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This does not mean we are paring away basic functionality and forcing you to buy it back."

We? I knew it!

Who else but a Microsoft employee would consider selling a crippled version of Windows 7 to third world countries a good thing.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Arterion]

Has it affected my memory? Can't remember.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[ps_inkling]

We are talking about making the distro as lite as possible. Putting the entire games suite takes up another big chunk. I never understood the reasoning behind the "games suite" to begin with. Wouldn't it be better if people chose their own games?

For most Windows users, there are only four games -- Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Minesweeper, and (for some) the pinball game. When they see all of the games available from the live Ubuntu CD, they are interested in finding out more. As a selling point, seeing the list of games already installed has impact on end users. Showing them all of the games available for free via the package management system just seals the deal.
(Yes, XP has the Internet-enabled games as well. Meh.)

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my uni there's a similar service, and the fee gets non-trivial throughout the term, so I know quite a few instances of buddies teaming up and buying a second-hand office laser to share. Massive savings, it's several kegs of beer per term. :P

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

CUPS is overkill for occasionally converting a document into a printer language and then sending it off. Worse, CUPS doesn't even do that all that reliably (OS X is stuck with the same flaky printing system as Linux).

Stuck with it? Apple liked it enough that they employ the main developer.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[CodeBuster]

but that still doesn't have the fidelity that I want (which is essentially just the ability to search for files via something akin to a db query rather than simply drill down a directory tree or search just on the name).

Functionality which is already well provided by the Google desktop search application and now Microsoft Windows Search on top of the basic file system. This proves that it is already possible for an application service running locally on top of a file system, and probably using a file in the file system for its own database, to provide database like queries on files and their contents. These types of indexing applications could probably be generalized to include support for SQL syntax (or something similar) and arbitrary meta-data. All of these features are an extension of the underlying file system rather than an integral part of it which really is a superior design (think of how Firefox and Thunderbird and countless other applications provide plug-in functionality rather than absorbing all possible features directly into the main application trunk). Database like indexing of the file system (which is bound to be different for different users with different needs) is NOT basic enough to be contained in the kernel along with the OS file system implementation(s). Good software design, which is MOST critical in the OS and it's kernel, builds functionality into carefully packaged layers, each one providing the most abstract and minimal possible service, which are then combined in combination to deliver various concrete services to the applications and users. If you want to take a dive into the subject then I recommend looking at Design Patterns and taking a look at the Gang of Four book of the same name.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Belial6]

We do buy coloring books sometimes also, and yes they do still have Sticker Books. But by the same token that I don't want to be limited to my local newspaper for news, my kid doesn't want to be limited by our local store for his coloring pages. Often the activity pages are part of an overall theme, so it is more fun to have the downloaded page.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[MBGMorden]

Actually I already not only design patterns, but that specific book while working on my degree ;).

Google and MS's searching systems essentially don't go beyond searches. They don't do much for the organization of files.

For instance, at work, I'm working with 2 projects right now, which are dealing with 2 separate companies. At the moment, my project files are organized into 2 folders: Project A, and Project B (not their actual names, but this is an example). Beneath those folders, I have further folders that break into various sub areas in the project.

That scheme works well, but it requires a hierarchical structure that becomes more and more narrow. Under both folders I have "Progress Reports" for example. If I want to go into the folder and find progress reports for either, then, I can do that, but the fact that "Progress Reports" is beneath Project A and Project B, I can only see the Progress Reports for one or the other at a time. Alternatively, I might also want to know which files involved various people in the company. Again, if I make them sub folders, then I can put them either under each project folder, where I lose my other categorizations, or under those categorizations, where I again segregate them.

It simply makes more sense in my eyes to associate user-definable meta-data attributes that can be assigned to the files.

I could define "Project" and assign each file either 'Project A' or 'Project B'. I could also define 'Subject' and assign each a certain type. I could also define 'Involved Users' and assign those. I could add 'Years in Service' and assign applicable values there. Either in a query like language, or, more easily for your standard user, via a set of expanding levels not unlike current directories (but essentially being tags rather than actual folders), I could descend down to the exact file that I wanted. While SOME of this can be built atop the filesystem (most media library apps included a dynamic playlist feature that lets you do something somewhat similar using song metadata), that basically leaves support of the concept to a program by program basis. Meta-data based systems needn't be overly complex. It's simply a different way to look at things than the traditional directory structure. Given enough development time, will will almost certainly work it's way into mainstream use.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[hedwards]

Windows used to do something like that, as far as I can tell if you want to do so now you have to make a custom winnt.sif to exclude the crap you don't want.

Win 95, 98, Me all allowed you to choose what you installed. There were somethings that were mandatory, but most of the other things you could opt not to install. If I recall correctly, you could even set things up with a floppy to remember what you really wanted, but unlike XP you didn't have to.

*BSD install for the most part in a minimal fashion requiring the user to add programs to the base system. Linux really depends which distro, but by necessity you're going to be installing a huge number of programs since Linux is kernel only.

As for OO.org, why bother? Unless you need more than just the spreadsheet and word processor it's ridiculously bloated. Personally I use Koffice and Gnumeric, both those compile in a small fraction of the time that OO.org requires.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[martinX]

"... and here is your new PC with Windows Starter installed."
"Wait, you mean Microsoft considers me to be living in a 3rd world country? Man, that's just insulting!"

Good luck selling this concept to, well, anyone outside North America.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[LWATCDR]

"why do they need a SQL server and a directory service?"
Well a SQL server can give you a standardized database system that scales. Databases are just too handy not to have. Of course for a desktop SQLite is a good choice.
Directory service? well you got me on that one unless it is the LDAP client they are removing.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Mozk]

The Elder Geek is another guide for disabling services. Both guides work well together, and they help you figure out what the fuck Windows Management Instrumentation and Distributed Transaction Coordinator do.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[dbIII]

You have missed the point that this is one of the things many computer professionals and users dislike about Microsoft Windows - the artificial limits imposed to make a system less functional. Cue the NT4 vs Win2k vs XP small office filesharing arguments or the crap where you need Vista "Ultimate" to get full Microsoft network compatability. If I have a 1GHz, 1GB netbook I would prefer it to run better than a 600MHz 512MB desktop that is perfectly capable of running XP and most likely MS Windows 7.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if there is a printer attached. If there is, then yes, install CUPS. But why have it as a blanket default?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[CodeBuster]

Google and MS's searching systems essentially don't go beyond searches.

They also don't represent the end all of what they might become in their present versions. They will probably improve with time and add more and better features as time and circumstances permit.

They don't do much for the organization of files.

If you have a way to index files for searches (ala search engine queries) and you can go right to any hits then why does this matter? Some people will organize their directory structure well and some will not. The organization of the files on the disk and searchability are really two different things.

I can only see the Progress Reports for one or the other at a time.

Why not run your search rooted at the parent of Project A and Project B and then sort the results by path so that the Project A progress reports appear grouped before the Project B progress reports?

Alternatively, I might also want to know which files involved various people in the company. Again, if I make them sub folders, then I can put them either under each project folder, where I lose my other categorizations, or under those categorizations, where I again segregate them.

That is a bit more of problem without metadata I will grant you, but would not Microsoft Search or Google Desktop Search index the text in those files and be able to find them in a query for "bob progress reports" or some such?

It simply makes more sense in my eyes to associate user-definable meta-data attributes that can be assigned to the files.

That could probably be done and added to the filesystem if it is not already a feature (doesn't NTFS for example already allow this with Active Directory?). However, we were originally talking about querying the filesystem ala SQL queries and the problem with that is that SQL has a very strict set of rules for data organization in order to enable the powerful queries; rules which may not be desirable or even feasible restrictions in a system designed to store large files. In fact, one of the things that SQL implementations have historically done poorly is storage of large non-queryable blobs of binary data.

Also, if you have ever worked with B-Trees on raw storage or looked at the source code of database engines then you will know that there are performance and other considerations if completely arbitrary attribute and file header sizes must be accomodated (as would be the case with arbitrary metadata). This would add further complexity to the file system implementation, possibly requiring paging or other memory mapping techniques to be used within the file system structure itself and slowing down performance even more (not sure, haven't tried to implement something like this, just going on intuition based upon previous similar work that I have done). You don't get something for nothing as they say.

Meta-data based systems needn't be overly complex.

That is true, but getting the right amount of complexity without too much getting in the way of running a simple file system will be the real tricky balance.

It's simply a different way to look at things than the traditional directory structure.

There has already been much experimentation with alternative methods of data storage, especially in the earlier days of computing, and the heirarchical directory structure has out lasted all challengers. For example, does anyone remember PICK OS? Database file systems have been tried before and found wanting. How will this time be different?

Given enough development time, will will almost certainly work it's way into mainstream use.

It has already had decades to work its way into the mainstream. The PICK system, fo

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

An economist or anyone who understands capturing the consumer demand curve?

Linux advocates who want to point to it as an example of evil?

Satan?

You tell me.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Tawnos]

If you have a 1Ghz, 1GB (of RAM) netbook with the equivalent graphics card as your 600Mhz 512MB desktop, it should run Windows better than the 600MHz, 512MB (of RAM) desktop.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Did you miss that netbooks won't be shipping with Starter unless you're living in, say, Nigeria?

Unless you're making the tired troll about how new OSes from MS don't run on old hardware, therefore they must suck. As someone on /. has in their signature: anything that isn't direct calls to the bios must be unacceptably slow, as it has to pass through an intermediary. At least for me, I'd rather the computer make use of the billions of clock cycles and bytes available than sit there idle all day. Index my movies or music or source code, cache my files, et cetera, please!

Or, are you saying that only one version should be released, and it should have everything, regardless of cost of additional engineering to produce (and support) the additional features?

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[ElectricTurtle]

/Signed

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I print very little too, but for tax returns, while I also just save PDFs, for actual filing, I still use the old-fashioned method of mailing them in. Why? Because filing electronically costs money. Why would I want to pay the IRS to make their job easier for them? I prefer to print it out and mail it to them, and make them have a harder time with it (and possibly have a lower chance of catching any errors), and save a few bucks in the process. Besides, the IRS won't take returns (to my knowledge) in PDF format; you have to have special software like TurboTax, which doesn't run in Linux.

I can't imagine the IRS charges you to file electronically, and if you're talking about connection time - you pay much more in postage.

Filing dead tree returns keep people working. Someone delivers the mail, someone opens the mail, someone batches similar docs together, someone stamps a DLN on the doc, someone marks up your document for processing, someone inputs said document correctly (or not), someone attempts to fix the mistakes, someone stores the document, and eventually archives the document.

The descriptions may be oversimplified, and not all documents need to be corrected, but that is the processing pipeline. I worked in input corrections for several years and I still file a paper return. I work in Exam now - too many people E-filing.

And no the IRS hasn't started taking PDF returns, though it would greatly simplify things if they did. Creating a parser shouldn't be too difficult, and if there's a problem it could be kicked out printed for processing. The only problem would be insecure delivery, it would need to be delivered directly point-to-point.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[dbIII]

It was phrased somewhere above as places like Nigeria (who IMHO would be better off with something other than a cynically limited MS Windows 7) AND netbooks - that is what I have refered to butI'm sorry if you heard a different rumour.

Personally I think a cheap Windows CE descendant (can't remember it's current name) would be better for just about everybody instead of sticking the deliberate brakes on the desktop version. Having something that looks like the real thing but is dramaticly limited to what is really a trial version you have to pay for is not what I would consider a good business practice unless your customers have little alternative.

As for the assumption as to why I think the Microsoft home operating systems suck, it's a bit off the mark so to get one of the real reasons type "malware" into google.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[dbIII]

Or, are you saying that only one version should be released, and it should have everything, regardless of cost of additional engineering to produce (and support) the additional features?

They have a history of including the additional features and then putting in some sort of artificial limit which is not in the more expensive version - eg. the five connection limit in file browsing. That is not the same thing as what you are describing.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the story is wrong.. Ubuntu Desktop ships with CUPS enabled by default.. and i see no sign of it being removed from the default 9.04/Jaunty installation.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[hitmark]

in my experience, koffice and openoffice have comparable storage footprints.

abiword and gnumeric on the other hand...

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[hitmark]

or it could be that they are using isp provided mail, and the isp do not provide anything other then pop...

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[hitmark]

iirc, osx have both cups and the older macos printing system under the hood.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

CUPS prints, yet they are removing it; what are they replacing it with, if anything? Anachronistic lpr?

According to earlier comments it will be installed *on demand* - i.e. when you define your first printer. This means that (say) a netbook which is never used for printing won't have CUPS installed unnecessarily.

The only objection is in the case where you don't have a Internet connection when you define the first printer.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Ultra64]

When you're being that vague any computer fits that description.

Also, you are implying that you can't print from a netbook.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[hedwards]

Perhaps, but it takes quite a bit longer to compile OO.org, and Koffice uses a lot of components that I need for other programs. Saves a huge amount of time and energy when compiling. It might end up the same size, but having to install and compile all those extra components in OO.org is kind or ridiculous. Granted they all use the same core bits, but it's still wasteful.

And yes some of us do compile all of our programs for optimization and efficiency.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Locklin]

I have a feeling that if you actually surveyed people who live off of email, and people who don't know, or don't really care about email, you would find the latter group using web interfaces more often.

From the sounds of it, you don't use email much -so it's really a moot point, but, while Gmail is pretty good, Gmail+imap gives you everything you just mentioned, plus a mail client.

Clients are much more flexible, have many more features, are usable offline, and are much faster. There is a reason that people resist ditching outlook - because once configured, a mail client fit's into a work-flow better than a web interface ever will.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[TClevenger]

I recently installed Ubuntu on my laptop, and was amazed at how much stuff fits on a single CD. Two video players? Complete office suite? Image editor? Fantastic.

Then I found out I had to install traceroute from the repo. Oops. :-)

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[DaVince21]

The point is that MySQL doesn't ship with Ubuntu where plenty of other distros do. Except the server edition (I think... never tried it, but it makes sense to me if they did).

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but why put up with that? I use Gmail hosting which allows IMAP access via my choice of MUA, and I get to use my own domain name. All it cost me is the few dollars per year for the domain. More professional and much better service than any ISP mail I've ever had. So IMO, using ISP mail does kind of fall into the "doesn't know better" category.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. For me an OS should have an e-mail available so I can use it out of the box even if I'm not connected to the internet.

Interesting.... email without internet

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[arthernan]

If I read this right this is really bad!! It would be nice to know which are these third world countries. China used to be one of them and I'm not so sure It's the same country that it was when the term was born.

I just don't get this idea that somehow people from "third world" countries are that different from the rest of the world. The fact that this ideal poor person can afford a computer to begin with suggests that they would have the extra 50$ (or whatever in may be) to get the next version. I mean how different can the hardware requirements really be. Locking the operating system to run only 3 apps doesn't really lower the hardware requirements.

Next time it will be "We made a new books for those poor third world countries, we only printed the top half of the page and they are half off"

Come on, there are poor people everywhere including guess who... the US. Unless they envision people on food stamps buying their operating system it does not make sense for poor people in "third world countries" either.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[ivucica]

Gmail, sir. Gmail.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[DarkVader]

THAT got a troll mod?

This is ridiculous. Slashdot is getting entirely too full of M$ astroturfers these days.

Parent should be +5 Informative.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[DarkVader]

At least I'm not the only one who caught that GP is in fact a M$ astroturfer.

Re:MySQL & LDAP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some corner from some capital in third world (SA): US$3 for Win 7 BETA .. $1,75 For XP SP3, $3 for any remixed version of XP (You better not ask or vista, You'll get laughed). They're selling 100~200 betas of Win 7 per week and most people knows that is not definitive and It will brick sometime this year but they will come back for the real stuff when it's out or so they say. I just don't see ANY FUTURE for the starter edition. Get it, third world does not love Windows piracy because of economics alone, Third world people just HATE to give their hard earned money to the most wealthiest person in the world.

posting anon because I have moderated - indi0

MS is working on a new OS architecture

[alen]

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=microsoft+midori&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f

Windows 7 is getting all the media hype, but MS has been working on a new OS architecture for a while now

I think the way it works there is the Tech Fellows and a small group of their best engineers spend years making next gen tech in secret and than pass it on to the lower level coders to build a finished product around it. I remember I read about what eventually became .NET years before Steve Ballmer first hyped it. It was a pet project of one of their top engineers.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[wisty]

I see your Midori, and raise you HURD.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[fyngyrz]

MS seems to me to be working on their own downfall. As RAM gets less expensive and more widely available, and processors supply more cores, and displays get less expensive and multi screen displays get easier and easier to implement...

MS is artificially limiting the number of apps you can run to just a few, releasing many varieties of the OS so that developers have a very inconsistent target to aim at, and pricing it in the $200 or so range so that it really hurts the pocketbook. It's not very compatible, very much like Vista, so that one of the key features (yes, I mean compatibility) is missing from the OS.

It is certainly their right to make these decisions, but I am just as certainly not going along for the ride.

XP will continue to work in its virtualized, insulated-from-the-Internet sandbox under OSX, and I'm perfectly happy with the performance and ability to run the older apps I came to depend upon before MS went off on the Vista/W7 boondoggle. In the meantime, OSX allows me to run as many apps as I like, including both XP and Linux in virtualized containers, and unlimited apps underneath those, too. I can't imagine what Microsoft is thinking, or if they are thinking at all.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[Profane MuthaFucka]

WTF will this OS be able to do?

From one of the links in the Google search:

"One of Microsoftâ(TM)s goals is to provide options for Midori applications to co-exist with and interoperate with existing Windows applications, as well as to provide a migration path."

OMFG it will run your old shit, AND your new shit!

"According to the documentation, Midori will be built with an asynchronous-only architecture that is built for task concurrency and parallel use of local and distributed resources, with a distributed component-based and data-driven application model, and dynamic management of power and other resources."

OMFG, it can run more than one program at once!

"In order to efficiently distribute applications across nodes, Midori will introduce a higher-level application model that abstracts the details of physical machines and processors. The model will be consistent for both the distributed and local concurrency layers, and it is internally known as Asynchronous Promise Architecture."

In other words, your OS is so fat when it runs applications around the house, it runs applications AROUND THE HOUSE! And what's with the Asynchronous Promise Architecture. Is this a little like I'll gladly give you an OS on Tuesday if you'll give me a little money today?

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[dougisfunny]

Maybe, what they are thinking is this way, only a few malware apps will be able to run at a time, since that is what a windows box is for right?

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a pet project of one of their top engineers.

That's back when they called it Java, wasn't it?

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[Vectronic]

I realize that most, if not all people are not fond of the idea of having limited processes.

But seriously, XP came with a Starter edition to, limited to 3 processes, yet you are perfectly happy running an XP VM, because it is not Starter Edition.

No one ever said that every single Win7 is limited to 3 processes, only the lowest of the low edition, which is nothing new, XP and Vista both came with it, both limited to 3 [user] Processes [with windows].

XP Starter Edition

Windows XP Starter Edition is a lower-cost version of Windows XP available in Thailand, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia, India, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. It is similar to Windows XP Home, but is limited to low-end hardware, can only run 3 programs at a time, and has some other features either removed or disabled by default.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[wastedlife]

I had the same thought. However, if you check that article, Windows 7 will have Starter Edition released world-wide for use on netbooks with the 3 app limit in place. Home Basic will take it's place as the OEM-only crappy version that is only sold in "emerging" markets. That leaves Home Premium as the lowest version of Windows 7 that will run unlimited apps.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[AliasMarlowe]

Maybe, what they are thinking is this way, only a few malware apps will be able to run at a time, since that is what a windows box is for right?

Rest assured that this feature will not be impeded in any way. Malware can attach itself to any running daemons in any of the traditional ways. These daemons are not constrained in the same way as applications that users might actually want to run.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[Dragonslicer]

I see your Midori, and raise you HURD.

I see your Midori and raise you Southern Comfort.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[Keith_Beef]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/30/microsofts-midori-a-future-without-windows/

Smells a little like Plan 9...

K.

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[DaVince21]

a small group of their best engineers spend years making next gen tech in secret and than pass it on to the lower level coders to build a finished product around it.

*cough*Songsmith*cough*

No, they're not.

[Just Some Guy]

Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half.

First, I can completely understand the justification for not including such services in the default install. There aren't many reasons on a single-user desktop for MySQL to be necessary over SQLite, and that's just one more subsystem to have to secure. Getting rid of them, though? That's not even remotely accurate. By that logic I'm not using Ubuntu right now because I'm typing this in Konqueror.

Re:No, they're not.

[Tarlus]

By that logic I'm not using Ubuntu right now because I'm typing this in Konqueror.

Well of course not, you must be using Kubuntu. ;)

I see what you're saying, though. It's poor wording in the article, so what they should have said was that Linux distros such as Ubuntu are simply not including those services by default with the generic basic installation. Anybody advanced enough to know what MySQL is (much less how to administrate/operate it) would know how to apt-get install it if they needed it, anyway.

Re:No, they're not.

[Dunkirk]

Anybody advanced enough to know what MySQL is (much less how to administrate/operate it) would know how to apt-get install it if they needed it, anyway.

And anybody advanced enough to know how to actually write an application against it would know how to emerge it.

Thanks, folks. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Re:No, they're not.

[kdemetter]

And anybody advanced enough to know how to actually write an application against it would know how to emerge it.

And wait 2 hours for it to compile :-).

Re:No, they're not.

[kdemetter]

Note to self : learn to use preview button.

Re:No, they're not.

[Dunkirk]

Sorry. I know this was a joke, but this begs a response, because it is a common misconception. My work machine is a low-end Dell business-class computer. It has a Core 2 Duo (E6550, to be precise). I've loaded 4 GB of my own RAM in it, and it has two hard drives in a mirrored configuration.

user@workstation $ time sudo emerge dev-db/mysql
real 5m43.320s
user 6m25.068s
sys 1m31.625s

Admittedly, when I made the switch to Gentoo (from SuSE) a few years ago, this was not the case. It would, literally, take me 3 days to get Gentoo completely installed on my old dual Athlon. Now, on my new main machine at home, if I can keep all the balls in the air while building up the install, I suppose it could be completely done, with both Gnome and KDE environments, in about 12 hours.

The only really stubborn package these days is OpenOffice. ;-)

Re:No, they're not.

[Tarlus]

You must be a pretty advanced user if you're using emerge in Ubuntu. :D

Re:No, they're not.

[tepples]

There aren't many reasons on a single-user desktop

Who says a desktop is single-user? See: NComputing.

for MySQL to be necessary over SQLite

SQLite, for one, doesn't enforce foreign key constraints. MySQL with InnoDB tables does. And has, say, MediaWiki been ported from MySQL to SQLite for things like a personal wiki on a USB drive?

I don't get the connection

[qoncept]

Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half. ... OS vendors realize they must adapt as virtualization, cloud computing, netbooks, and power concerns drive business users toward smaller, less costly, more efficient operating environments.

I don't see what removing MySQL and LDAP have to do with "slimming an OS." These are things that very few people are ever going to use on their desktop and made no sense to install by default, anyway. Of the home users, there is surely an inflated number of users on slashdot using them, but they could just as easily go install them after the OS install is complete. And for business users, I would guess almost no one is using them on their desktop.

Re:I don't get the connection

[nine-times]

I don't see what removing MySQL and LDAP have to do with "slimming an OS." These are things that very few people are ever going to use on their desktop and made no sense to install by default, anyway.

That sounds like "slimming down" to me. At least, I can understand what the poster is trying to get at. It seems like we went through a period of early operating system development over the past few decades where the stress was on throwing everything in, including the kitchen sink. It's at least interesting that Linux distros are putting in some amount of effort into pulling excess functionality out of the default installation while computers continue to become bigger, faster, stronger.

And I think it is pointing at something similar to what is going on with OSX, and it is a trend. We've hit some kind of a milestone, I think, where most of our computer functionality is "good enough" for most of what we actually use them for. Something about the development of computer systems right now reminds me of... whenever it was... 10 years ago?... when people were using their computers mostly for word-processing, and their computers were good enough for that, so there wasn't a huge drive to accomplish a particular thing. Then people discovered that they could rip CDs into MP3s and share them, and there grew this whole new focus on multimedia and the Internet.

Now we have those things handled, and it seems like the answer to "what's next?" is making both hardware and software smaller and less bloated. We're getting smart phones that are becoming something more like a real portable computer, and we're getting things like netbooks. I predict you're also going to start seeing better use of embedded systems, like maybe DVRs are just going to be built into TVs soon. Not sure on that one, but I think you're going to see things shrinking, devices being consolidated, and a renewed focus on making things more efficient and refined.

Re:I don't get the connection

[Tweenk]

Except they weren't installed by default at all, and that paragraph is bogus.

Re:I don't get the connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who runs MS Access on Windows on a desktop will run MySQL on Linux on a desktop. SQLite is ok, but users of Access have grown used to the idea of a database having some sort of power. SQLite is just too lightweight.

Home users maintain a lot of databases, whether they know it or not, and MySQL has the potential to be the server for those. There's a lot of value in doing things this way, rather than having scattered SQLite databases. Backups are easier, for a start.

However, ultimately, memory footprints are more critical than disk footprints. Forcing users to do things in more memory-intensive ways by slimming the packages supplied isn't going to help.

The solution is not to cut down on packages, IMHO, but to provide alternatively linked binaries and provide a sensible menu at the start. By forcing you to install packages you don't need, in order to circumvent issues thrown up by the distro's linking choices, distros end up bloated.

But adding more packages with finer-grained options IS NOT bloat, even though there is more actually stored. It is not bloat because the permutation you install contains only what YOU need, not what the distro maintainer THOUGHT you should need.

Re:I don't get the connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what removing MySQL and LDAP have to do with "slimming an OS."

This article is just astroturf for infoworld.

I mean, a stripped down version of OS X already runs on the iPhone.

Re:I don't get the connection

[wastedlife]

Anyone who runs MS Access on Windows on a desktop will run MySQL on Linux on a desktop.

Didn't know Access was a default application on windows. If you want MySQL, just use the distro's package manager to install it. I do agree that a distro with a central database would be fantastic compared to a sqlite database per app. For example, things like a personalized spellcheck could be accessed by any app on the distro. I'm pretty sure OS X has something like that for things like the "keyring". The problem is that popular distros would need to adopt this method and applications would need to be redesigned for this. So for now, MySQL is not needed by default.

Re:I don't get the connection

[Anonymous Coward]

like maybe DVRs are just going to be built into TVs soon.

Already happening, my Regza ZV500 can record/play shows directly to attached USB disks or NAS devices, the model above it has a HD integrated into it. They are both nearly a year old.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/09/toshibas-10-new-regza-lcds-3x-ethernet-built-in-dvr-and-much/

We'll see about that

[Protonk]

They all claim to be slimmed down and non-monolithic when they are in the development cycle. But when the rubber meets the road they have to contend with feature creep, backwards compatibility, turn-key (as it were) operation of heterogeneous devices and a finicky userbase. Sure, some of the formerly installed components can be offloaded to the download/update sites and some variations on a theme can be sold. And sure Linux distros can ship with widely varying functionality (at the cost of out of the box support for server functions). But to content that MSFT and APPL will substantially shrink their OS footprints is to be at variance with the last 15 years (or more) of software history.

Some anicllary concerns...

[Smidge207]

Well. There *is* an ongoing pressure to push function down-the-stack. For this reason the threat to the usefulness of the concept OS does not come from the top-side where you find application environments. It comes from the hardware side! IBM is growing a library of micro-code for the Power-Cell Architecture that allows a single image chip-set (one computer many parts) to execute multiple instruction sets, enabling multiple operating systems, running concurrently. This allows them to market a single box that hosts Unix-BSD-Linux, ISeries OS, zOS, running on Power, iSeries, and zSeries instruction sets.

Beyond that, the same architecture also hosts the Sony PS3 software stack on a Sony extended Power instruction set, and there is evidence and rumor supporting the conclusion that micro-code exists somewhere (some of it may not be IBM) that allows Power-Cell boards to run x86, Itanium, Motorola 68K, TI32K, and Mil-Spec-1750 (an imbedded 16 bit! processor) instruction-sets.

Now, "All that makes it a very flexible virtualization platform, but what does that have to do with the death of the OS idea?", you may ask. The point is this. What folks have come to refer to as a hyper-visor IS a REAL Operating System and most of that function is subsumed into the micro-code code-base for the Power-Cell architecture. I think we will be able to say the OS is dead, when the hardware takes over the function. Well O.K. hardware-microcode...

=Smidge=

Do OS's really need a diet?

[tjstork]

I mean, for cell phones and stuff they do, but, if you've got a 64 bit machine with 4 CPUs, and a couple gigs of RAM... having a database server bundled with the desktop might not be a bad plan. I think every Linux should come with MySQL and it might not be a bad idea to have a distribution where all the settings are in the database, rather than config files.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[Imagix]

Every CPU cycle that the "OS" uses is stealing cycles from processes that could be doing productive work for me. So yes, OSes can be slimmer. Regardless of how much memory or CPU exists. The attitude of "eh, we've got 4 GB of RAM" is why we have such bloated OSes and applications to begin with. As for your suggestion about a distribution with all settings in a database. It's called the Windows Registry, and we all know how well _that_ works.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[tjstork]

s for your suggestion about a distribution with all settings in a database. It's called the Windows Registry, and we all know how well _that_ works.

Well, I think it would be a bit presumptuous to call the Registry a "Database", don't you think?

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[LiENUS]

Well, I think it would be a bit presumptuous to call the Registry a "Database", don't you think?

Well, I think it would be a bit presumptuous to call MySQL a "Database", don't you think?

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[hattig]

Why should it be mandatory to include MySQL. What's wrong with PostgreSQL? Let's not have more people choose to use something crappy just because it is included with the base install.

SQLite is adequate for desktop database storage. It is what Mac OS X uses, and it's good enough for the iPhone.

I agree that there could be a "Developer" variant of a distro that would offer you install-time options for various databases, web servers, IDEs, and so on, on top of the basic "Desktop" variant's offerings.

I would also like to not install some of the stuff that Ubuntu installs by default. Evolution comes to mind - why not let me pick which email client I want to use. There's also all the games, which I never play.

To be honest, I will give KDE 4 a try when it hits 4.3, but am not expecting anything better in regards to not including the kitchen sink.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[jellomizer]

That is really the old way of looking at things. Back in them old days dowloading apps from the net was a paid, CD/DVDs get lost or stored away where you can't find it.

Today with people with High Speed Internet you can get a Just in Time install of applications. Why wast it when you don't have too. With a lot of apps installed each one taking a few Megs or more of ram or so. Starts to add up pritty quickly and lets say App that you don't use need another app you don't use which runs libraries that you don't need... You get a lot of waste. If you do virtualization you can max out your computer very quickly. But if your Host OS runs minimum and each Virtual OS runs at a minimum you can notice real performance benefits.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[Tweenk]

GConf is similar in concept to the Windows Registry (a unified configuration database), but it doesn't cause too many problems. The reason is that the keys are documented, and not used for settings that shouldn't be altered by the user...

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

As for your suggestion about a distribution with all settings in a database. It's called the Windows Registry, and we all know how well _that_ works.

If you're going to discount using any technology MS has a terrible implementation of we'll have to stop using everything, including OS's in general. Not that I think a database of configuration settings is necessarily a good idea, I just don't accept your logic against it.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[rrohbeck]

The CPU cycles are probably not the worst. It gets bad when one of those processes decides that it needs to do something it hasn't done in a while, pages in a lot of memory, which pages out much of your application(s). The next time you switch to one of those apps it takes more than a second to page in (at least from a slow-ish laptop drive.)
And unfortunately that is almost independent of how much RAM you have. Don't ask me how MS accomplishes that. I turned off paging some time ago and am much happier on average. Usually when I run out of memory Firefox dies (which is the biggest RAM hog anyway), but that only happens every couple of days.
Time for a 64-bit laptop with 4 or 6 GB I guess...

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[Wrath0fb0b]

Every CPU cycle that the "OS" uses is stealing cycles from processes that could be doing productive work for me. So yes, OSes can be slimmer. Regardless of how much memory or CPU exists. The attitude of "eh, we've got 4 GB of RAM" is why we have such bloated OSes and applications to begin with.

Every CPU cycle that the "OS" uses on my machine is stealing cycles from my system idle process -- which eats up 80% of my overall cycles anyway (and this is with speedstep that clocks my 2.4G processor down to 1.8G whenever the ACPI gods think that's a good idea). The idea that my scheduler is somehow chock full of productive work that's being held up by lack of CPU cycles (or RAM) is just not the case. YMMV, of course, depending on workload, but I'm going to venture that my situation is most certainly the norm.

On the other hand, when I hit up my OS search feature for a recently created document and it's not there, I have to spend at least 10 seconds, possibly a minute, navigating to it in a file explorer. Whatever amount of time the search indexer has spent crawling my system, it's paid back in just one successful query that avoids breaking my workflow. Of course, the indexer is also set to run with low CPU priority and throttled IO, that's just common sense, but it's become an indispensable tool.

The bottleneck in productive use of computers is not hardware resources, it's human intelligence and attention. Hardware is cheap and unlimited, human beings are expensive and finite.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[MrMr]

You should try fedora, or suse, or debian, or any other distribution except the dumbed down ubuntu installer. They all come with extensive package selection systems for people who know what they want.
Obviously these are now all considered inferior because they are not 'user friendly' (or as it used to be called 'idiot proof').

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[nxtw]

I agree that there could be a "Developer" variant of a distro that would offer you install-time options for various databases, web servers, IDEs, and so on, on top of the basic "Desktop" variant's offerings.

I would also like to not install some of the stuff that Ubuntu installs by default. Evolution comes to mind - why not let me pick which email client I want to use. There's also all the games, which I never play.

Before the current live-CD trend, distributions asked what package sets the user wanted to install. This is still the case for CentOS/RHEL when installed from a full DVD or over the network. A default "desktop" install would include either KDE or Gnome, a mail client, a web browser, etc. There were options for "development", "web server", etc. Now, live CD based distributions just copy whatever's on the live CD.

If you don't like what Ubuntu installs by default, use an installation method that doesn't simply copy the contents of the live CD. Ubuntu's text installer might do this.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[fyzikapan]

It's called the Windows Registry, and we all know how well _that_ works.

Pretty damn well? The registry cleaned up the mess of .ini files thrown everywhere (not unlike the giant pile of files in /etc (or whatever other location a particular installer decides to put its config info in)), and the b-tree structure means keys leftover by old apps have negligible impact (despite the alleged "winrot" that so many drone on and on about).

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[e2d2]

SQLite is adequate for desktop database storage. It is what Mac OS X uses, and it's good enough for the iPhone.

Android uses SQLite also

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[arndawg]

Well, I think it would be a bit presumptuous to call the Registry a "Database", don't you think?

Well, I think it would be a bit presumptuous to call MySQL a "Database", don't you think?

I'm starting to doubt Oracle. I think the only REAL database is foxpro.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[Dragonslicer]

Just about any single-system, single-user program that needs a database should be using SQLite. After all, that's what it's designed to do. Fortunately I don't use KMail.

Re:Do OS's really need a diet?

[dbIII]

GConf is similar in concept to the Windows Registry ... but it doesn't cause too many problems

Except you get one per user, and can't really import or export much at all etc etc - go join the mailing list for details of the horrible state of gconf and maybe help fix the thing.

Not so much

[AKAImBatman]

The center of gravity is shifting away from the traditional, massive operating systems of the past

I don't see how this is "the center of gravity shifting". Rather, the examples given appear to indicate a diversification of Operating systems rather than a general downward trend. e.g. While there may be a smaller OS X revision, the desktop revision gets larger with every release.

Windows 7 is not so much a shrinking OS as it is a recognition that Vista was a mistake. A huge, crufty, useless mistake. Windows 7 cuts back some of the cruft and makes the system usable again. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to push their embedded Windows for Devices product on the low end. Nothing new there.

Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half.

Cutting out MySQL and LDAP make sense. Why install services you don't need on a desktop machine? But why cut out CUPS? CUPS is pretty much the standard for printing these days. Doesn't cutting it seem counterproductive?

Re:Not so much

[daveime]

With E-Mail both and Instant Messaging supporting file transfer, and every man and his dog armed with a PDA or Mobile that can read typical document formats, I'd argue that NOT printing anything has become the standard these days.

Re:Not so much

[spud603]

I think you live in an insulated world. Most (non IT) businesses print reams of paper every day, and academia uses paper like it's going out of style (which I guess it is...).

Re:Not so much

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

I don't see how this is "the center of gravity shifting". Rather, the examples given appear to indicate a diversification of Operating systems rather than a general downward trend. e.g. While there may be a smaller OS X revision, the desktop revision gets larger with every release.

The next desktop version of OS X is expected to be much smaller than the current one. From http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/:

Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

While I agree with you that this story is a vacuous mix of buzz words, I do think that desktop OSes do get smaller indeed, and I think it's a good thing. But for different reasons. To me, it signals a shift on the OS developers' behalf, away from adding more functionality back to optimizing the code-base. Partly because their marketing strategy necessitates the system to run on mobile devices (Apple), partly because they have understood that the market is fed up with bloated OSes that get in the way (Microsoft). But regardless of the reasons, it's A Good Thing.

Re:Not so much

[Tweenk]

CUPS isn't going anywhere, I don't know where the fuck those people got that idea... It may be removed from the Netbook Remix, because printing from a netbook doesn't seem to be very common.

Re:Not so much

[ceoyoyo]

Maybe some academia. We use a whole lot less paper than we used to. I rarely print papers now, and if I do it's for the first reading only, rather than every time I want to give one to someone, or refer to it. We used to print a copy of a paper draft (huge, because they're double spaced etc.) for each coauthor, collect their changes, type them in, and repeat. Now we just mail around Word documents with change tracking turned on.

Still, printing is something that an OS should do. It really doesn't need to install support for EVERY printer ever made, by default, though. I trimmed gigs off my OS X install by deleting printer drivers I never use.

Re:Not so much

[rbanffy]

"massive operating systems of the past"

I wonder of what past is he speaking. I remember the time a decent Unix workstation had 4 megs of RAM and 100 of disk.

Heck. I remember the time when a decent personal computer had 16K of RAM. My first computer had 2K! I remember how incredible the upgrade to my first Apple II, with its 48K and 1 MHz 6502 processor (that ran circles around the ZX81-clone's Z80).

Re:Not so much

[asg1]

and academia uses paper like it's going out of style

While in college I worked at a major university and the printer for the floor was in the office i shared with fellow geeks. The damn thing would be running all day because of the non-geeks printing everything they could get their mits on. I would sit at my desk wondering "what in God's name are you printing?!?!" I sometimes felt sorry for that poor HP working harder then I was...

Re:Not so much

[Culture20]

Most (non IT) businesses print reams of paper every day

Concur, with an added insult: They print the documents, then throw them away in a locked shredding bin two minutes later. Biggest F'ing waste of toner and paper I've seen. I'm not an environmentalist by any means, but I was sickened by that at one company I worked for a few years back. At least the sysadmins who pipe their logs to lpr do it for a reason. These office people were printing because they needed to highlight portions of the documents for someone else to do data entry (oh yeah, waste of highlighters too).

Re:Not so much

[Dragonslicer]

I'd guess that reality is somewhere in between the two statements above. Most home users probably aren't printing more than a couple pages a day, maybe even less, but I have trouble believing that there are many home users that never print anything.

Re:Not so much

[curunir]

But CUPS is completely unnecessary for a lot of us home users for the reason you just stated. Work has a much nicer printer than I'd ever buy and lets me print things out for personal use. Why would I ever need a printer at home?

As long as a reasonably large number of people won't need it, shouldn't it be kept out of the core install that everyone is forced to start with? I'd much rather explicitly install something when I need it than explicitly uninstall it when I don't, especially since installs are generally a lot more reliable than uninstalls.

Re:Not so much

[daveime]

I think you live in an insulated world. Most (non IT) businesses print reams of paper every day

Well yes this might be true, I am indeed in the IT business, and my boss was adamant that we be paperless office ... also as a lot of us work remotely, sending stuff by snail mail just isn't a viable option ... perhaps his motives are not due to any particular environmental bent, but simply because it makes no sense when there are so many alternatives that work.

Maybe non IT businesses could benefit from applying this also ... I'm sure a lot of inefficiency and errors comes from one department processing something, and then printing it out, just for the next department to transcribe it back into another system for further processing.

Re:Not so much

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how this is "the center of gravity shifting". Rather, the examples given appear to indicate a diversification of Operating systems rather than a general downward trend. e.g. While there may be a smaller OS X revision, the desktop revision gets larger with every release.

Really?

Less is Moore
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F28%2F1829251&from=rss
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12932356

Thin client
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client

Netbook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook

LTSP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Terminal_Server_Project

Multiseat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiseat

Re:Not so much

[spud603]

I'm sure a lot of inefficiency and errors comes from one department processing something, and then printing it out, just for the next department to transcribe it back into another system for further processing.

I'm certain of it. I've been on the receiving end of "transcribe it back into another system" far too many times.
I think most folks are moving slowly toward less paper in their workflows, but it's a long way before most offices are paperless.

Re:Not so much

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you're partying like it's 1999. (Yes, those technologies are THAT old.)

Re:Not so much

[jknapka]

[...] academia uses paper like it's going out of style (which I guess it is...).

I've always thought that idiom a trifle odd. When something is actually going out of style, people tend to use less of it.

"...uses paper like it's a new Facebook meme..."

Re:Not so much

[Anonymous Coward]

CUPS is owned by Apple. Maybe depending on Apple for his OS's printing takes away Shuttleworth's woody.

Woody, HA! I make joke.

And I say

[El Lobo]

Hallelujah... About freaking time...

Re:And I say

[ceoyoyo]

Don't get too excited. As the summary says, the browser is set to replace the OS as the source of unnecessary bloat.

Sounds Familiar.

[lobiusmoop]

Thin Clients
Mozilla Firefox

There's an apocryphal story that someone suggested a branch of Firefox that was leaned down by concentrating on the core browser functionality... what goes around...

Re:Sounds Familiar.

[rbanffy]

vt-100
X Terminals

Re:Sounds Familiar.

[shutdown -p now]

someone suggested a branch of Firefox that was leaned down by concentrating on the core browser functionality

Porting it to WebKit would be a good start there! ~

Re:Sounds Familiar.

[zaphirplane]

Oh please, firefox is mozilla with XUL for rendering the window instead of a c library. firefox is mozilla re-marketed. Oh great so the mail client code is stripped out, high five. Nevertheless well done to the firefox team for usability and innovation _after_ firefox 1.0

Evolution

[coren2000]

maybe ubuntu will cut out evolution from it's default.

Re:Evolution

[ehaggis]

I have never had any luck with Evolution. After an Ubuntu install I will try it - stall, error, crash. In 5 min., Evolution out, Thunderbird in. I hope you are correct and Ubuntu does make the default Thunderbird.

Re:Evolution

[coren2000]

What I hate is that Evolution (and its various sub-packages) are part of some other over-arching meta-package like ubuntu-desktop or something like that.

I get worried when I try to uninstall and it says "will need to uninstall ubuntu-desktop as well"

Good, maybe they'll boot faster then.

[Bearhouse]

I'm for it - too many services are automatically started for you by both Windows & many flavors of *nix. This leads to slow boots and reduced performance therafter...

Otherwise I'm less than impressed with this article which seems to be a sloppy Infoworld astroturf. The second link goes to one about XP, and not windows 7 for example...

Economy

[macaulay805]

It looks like OSes couldn't escape the economic downturn as well.

We can hope. . .

[JSBiff]

My main problem with a lot of O/S'es and Linux distros these days as that too much functionality is 'default on'. If a user needs MySQL, or network printing, they can turn it on, but it seems to me that having the OS install with as few background services as feasible running, is a great way to get OS'es both more secure, and more scalable. In addition, a little bit of engineering might be able to go a long way - for example, I've noticed over the last few releases of Ubuntu that the Gnome environment seems to be taking up a lot more background processes and memory than it used to. Is all that stuff in the background really necessary? Ok, I realize some of it is no doubt necessary (sound daemons, etc), but couldn't a lot of that stuff be loaded 'on-demand' as it were, and unloaded after a period of inactivity? For example - if I'm not sharing a printer on the netwrk, and I'm not currently printing any documents, does CUPS or any other printing system need to be loaded in memory? Why not load it when I actually try to send a print job from an application to the printer (this does, I realize, imply that there is a different background process extremely similar in concept to inetd which is monitoring for activity and loading the appropriate process on demand - but really, for services which aren't heavily used, what is wrong with the inetd model; I do realize that under heavy usage, the inetd approach becomes inefficient due to the overhead of starting and stopping processes, but I think that on a lot of 'personal' desktop/laptop/netbook situations, the usage would only be very occasional)?

Anyhow, you might be right that no real progress will be made on this front, but I still hold out hope - even on modern systems with lots of RAM, there is a benefit to keeping the memory usage low - it leaves more memory available for the actual applications you are using, whether that is a large database, a CAD system, 3D-or-2D graphics apps (Blender, Gimp, etc), video/audio editting, games, whatever. I believe that keeping a minimum 'background' memory profile is always a good idea for O/Ses, because people don't use O/Ses - they use applications.

Re:We can hope. . .

[hattig]

One thing I wish that Gnome didn't load on-demand was the Gnome menu (the single-icon variant that people end up configuring to save screen space, not the stupid default one at the top of the screen with several menus [being confused about being a Mac] with the clumsy quick launch icons to the right).

Log In. Click on Menu Icon. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Ah, there it is!

Seriously, on a fast desktop machine you might not notice it, but on a netbook it seriously sucks, and is an immediate thing you notice.

Re:We can hope. . .

[ToasterMonkey]

Ok, I realize some of it is no doubt necessary (sound daemons, etc), but couldn't a lot of that stuff be loaded 'on-demand' as it were, and unloaded after a period of inactivity? For example - if I'm not sharing a printer on the netwrk, and I'm not currently printing any documents, does CUPS or any other printing system need to be loaded in memory? Why not load it when I actually try to send a print job from an application to the printer (this does, I realize, imply that there is a different background process extremely similar in concept to inetd which is monitoring for activity and loading the appropriate process on demand - but really, for services which aren't heavily used, what is wrong with the inetd model; I do realize that under heavy usage, the inetd approach becomes inefficient due to the overhead of starting and stopping processes, but I think that on a lot of 'personal' desktop/laptop/netbook situations, the usage would only be very occasional)?

Anyhow, you might be right that no real progress will be made on this front, but I still hold out hope - even on modern systems with lots of RAM, there is a benefit to keeping the memory usage low - it leaves more memory available for the actual applications you are using, whether that is a large database, a CAD system, 3D-or-2D graphics apps (Blender, Gimp, etc), video/audio editting, games, whatever. I believe that keeping a minimum 'background' memory profile is always a good idea for O/Ses, because people don't use O/Ses - they use applications.

I think you're really underestimating your OS's ability to manage memory efficiently on its own. How would aggressive use of inetd be any better than letting the OS swap out/in when needed? In both cases it will stay in memory after you're done using it, then it will either be swapped out, or freed, needing to be read from disk again. You need to understand how virtual memory systems to how similar these processes are.
Also, your applications don't benefit from having extra unused memory. If they can load and run, that's pretty much it.
The OS will use available memory to cache filesystem data, but that probably wont benefit your application much unless you're shutting them down and restarting them often.

You're trading the burden of managing memory yourself for charging the OS with swapping things out as necessary. In either case you can't USE too many applications at once, or you'll be swapping excessively. You're really not saving yourself much trouble by closing things often, unless you are very familiar with how much your system can take before being forced to swap, and you're at the limit.

What I'm basically saying here, is that unless you're an old timer running Windows 95 on a system of that time, you should have enough RAM to run many applications simultaneously. Manually stopping them is a waste of time unless they are significantly large, and you need to switch back and forth frequently. In that case, performance will still suck balls - you'd really need more RAM. Don't second guess your OS VM system, buy more RAM.

Re:We can hope. . .

[im_thatoneguy]

Or you can just buy more RAM.

Those who use Max, Blender, Maya or XSI tend to buy enough RAM to actually run their applications plus excess.

RAM is cheap. I know people who do a lot of fluid sims who have 32GB of RAM on their workstation. I agree you shouldn't be running a MySQL server if you don't need to be. But I suspect that managing services and turning them on and off would have a far greater overhead than just letting them sit in memory and let the OS do its thing: manage and prioritize processor cycles.

promising..but...

[furby076]

Sounds promising, until you go to open Notepad and you find out you need to install it. Or you need to install Java to run a java app on the web. Or need to install .net so you can run other apps. While some, especially the moer tech savvy, will say "bring it on", grand-ma and grand-pa will be confused. Slim-down, cut-out the fat products help the more savvy (advanced installation users) but really hurt those who have no clue.

A better way - make the install disk's advanced installation give a list of components that can be removed from the install, while the basic user can get the full install. oh, wait.

Re:promising..but...

[IANAAC]

Or you need to install Java to run a java app on the web. Or need to install .net so you can run other apps.

It's this way now with these two examples on Windows. Neither are installed by default.

Re:promising..but...

[Cormacus]

>> "Sounds promising, until you go to open Notepad and you find out you need to install it"

user@box> vim
-bash: vim: command not found
user@box> sudo apt-get install vim
    .
    .
    .
    .
Done.
user@box> vim

Seems to work ok to me!

Re:promising..but...

[Janek Kozicki]

I get the impression that you have no idea what package management is, and how good it is for grand-pas and grand-moms.

Re:promising..but...

[rrohbeck]

Sounds promising, until you go to open Notepad and you find out you need to install it.

Hallelujah! Then I might as well install a decent text editor.

Now, the main question is: Why exactly doesn't Windows have a repository/installer system?

Re:promising..but...

[furby076]

I get the impression that you have no idea what package management is, and how good it is for grand-pas and grand-moms.

And I'm pretty sure neither does grand-ma or grand-pa. That's the point of my OP.

Re:promising..but...

[lidocaineus]

You should be using aptitude, not apt-get.

Re:promising..but...

[Minwee]

More like this, actually:

$ vim
The program 'vim' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:

sudo apt-get install vim
-bash: vim: command not found
$

Short of holding the user's other hand, bringing a cup of coffee and providing a back-rub while installing the updated package, I don't see how much easier that could get.

Re:promising..but...

[Culture20]

Short of holding the user's other hand, bringing a cup of coffee and providing a back-rub while installing the updated package, I don't see how much easier that could get.

It could be aptsh (aptitude-shell, a fictitious combination of the best of aptitude directly with bash)

$ bo
The program 'bo' is currently not installed. Automatically installing it for you...
Package bo not found in standard repositories. Automatically adding multiverse repository...
Package bo not found in multiverse repository. Automatically adding third party repository from some guy's basement in China...
The package is not digitally signed. Automatically accepting permission to install potentially dangerous unsigned package...
Automatically re-running "bo"
$ bo
Permission denied.
selinux prevented "bo" (pid 3407) from accessing restricted resources
Automatically re-running "bo" with root privil^Ceges...
^C$ sudo b^C^Co
aptsh detected an attempt to break out of current process; doing so could adversely affect the apt installation database. Are you sure [Y/N]? Y
Automatically selecting N...
$ sudo bo
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo

Re:promising..but...

[Cormacus]

If you are running Ubuntu it might look like that. Not all distros pop up the same message. Try Debian, for example. I like the package you mentioned though - I would love a cup of coffee and a back-rub when installing packages. Is that an add-on to Aptitude, or can you only get that with something like Yum?

Re:promising..but...

[Cormacus]

er . . . aptitude brings up the "gui"; apt-get is the command line tool.

// Or did I just "whoosh"?

Re:promising..but...

[Anonymous Coward]

user@box> sudo apt-get install vim
-bash: sudo: command not found
user@box>

????

Re:promising..but...

[amazeofdeath]

You can use aptitude like "sudo aptitude install vim".

Re:promising..but...

[the_one(2)]

It's a python script called command-not-found. It's called by bash when a command is not found (If I understand correctly)

Re:promising..but...

[LingNoi]

They do, it's called "the registry" and according the them there is no better way to do it.

*rolls eyes*

Re:promising..but...

[Erikderzweite]

Well, a grand-son who sets up the whole system is more than capable of explaining how "Add and remove" program works. And if that fails -- there's always ssh to the rescue.

Re:promising..but...

[shutdown -p now]

.NET (3.0) is installed by default starting with Vista.

Re:promising..but...

[shutdown -p now]

Good man. Now try to install bash, starting from init.

Re:promising..but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It has better dependency resolving tactics and functions as a drop in replacement for apt-get. the gui is only invoked if you run it with no command line arguments or commands.

Re:promising..but...

[chris.evans]

basic functions: drivers for eth0/wireless a web browser file manager notepad with a link to microsoft online store to get the rest when needed.

This is a duh moment

[jollyreaper]

I never understood why so many services were running by default in the first place.

I always thought it would make more sense to provide three big buttons on setup as well as an advanced tab. Those buttons are the presets: everything off, the most popular stuff on, and everything on. The advanced tabs would let you tweak the specifics.

There's so much extraneous crap running on a typical Windows install it just blows me away. I'm less familiar with Linux and OS X but from what I've seen they are as guilty at times.

Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

I understand that modern software is really complicated and I'd feel a little less free to complain about bloat if I knew everything that went on in the background. Well, I still wonder what things would be like if I were God Emperor of the World and said that nobody could buy faster machines for a decade, they had to stick with what they had. We see that happen with video game consoles, having a fixed platform to develop for over a period of years, the optimizations that are developed. PC's move so damn fast that by the time anyone figures out the hardware there's something new to write for. And management pays for new features, not optimization. But if they couldn't just demand people buy a faster computer, if they had to work within the resources at hand, I bet our stuff would be running two or three times faster by the end of the decade, just from doing it right the second time.

Re:This is a duh moment

[godrik]

Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

I believe a windows user will want its RPC service updated as soon as an update is released since it is a very common malware vector. But I agree you don't care that much that MSN changed its fancy colors.

You probably a system to manage how often EACH software is updated. Probably in groups such as : "critical", "i am using it frequently" and "what is this software doing ?"

Re:This is a duh moment

[tbuskey]

I never understood why so many services were running by default in the first place.
 
 

Hear, hear. With poor explanations of *why* you want that running. I never print from my home laptop. I don't want CUPS running. My wife's laptop gets spoolv.exe taking up 100% CPU all the time and she's just web browsing.

I always thought it would make more sense to provide three big buttons on setup as well as an advanced tab. Those buttons are the presets: everything off, the most popular stuff on, and everything on. The advanced tabs would let you tweak the specifics.

There's so much extraneous crap running on a typical Windows install it just blows me away. I'm less familiar with Linux and OS X but from what I've seen they are as guilty at times.

It's typically easier to find info on what those services do on a Unix box. And they're not always focused on Joe sixpack that just wants things to work.

Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

Or one updater that *every* program can use. On Windows you have Windows Update, Java, Anti-virus, Google, Adobe, Software Manager.

On Fedora or Ubuntu, I have one.

Re:This is a duh moment

[isorox]

There's so much extraneous crap running on a typical Windows install it just blows me away. I'm less familiar with Linux and OS X but from what I've seen they are as guilty at times.

Install a default ubuntu server, you dont even get sshd installed. Ubuntu has bugger all listening by default.

Re:This is a duh moment

[LoRdTAW]

I have to agree with the parent. Why cant Windows be more like Linux in the sense that we can build up the OS to our liking? I realize windows is a huge hodgepodge of code but when Vista is sitting idle it consumes 1.2GB of RAM. And whats with the laundry list of services? And why have they still not moved away from the security nightmare of the default user is admin.

I just recently installed Ubuntu 8.10 from the server CD with no server software on a Pentium 2 400 with 128MB of ram. I then installed Xorg, IceWM (it sucks but user wanted a windows like interface) CUPS and some other important software. I was pleasantly surprised that at idle htop shows only 36MB of ram used and it can comfortably run Firefox 3 and Open Office Writer simultaneously with ease. Its no rocket ship but it does the job. Even on my 512MB P4 desktop at work with Ubuntu 8.04 (built up from a base install and using Fluxbox) the idle memory usage is about 150MB with all sorts of stuff running.

The only software that should require gobs of RAM are games and media software. Sloppy programming is to blame for the bloat of today's software and an OS requiring at least 2GB of ram is disgusting. The OS should be small and compact and do its job. Let the applications determine the users minimum CPU and memory requirements.

Re:This is a duh moment

[nine-times]

Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

I think Microsoft and Apple need to take a serious look at Linux package managers. It's funny, because a few years ago everyone was complaining about how installing Linux applications was too annoying, but with most things, you can open up the package manager, click on a few things, it will figure out all the packages you need, and then you hit "install" (or whatever). Even if it's some piece of software that isn't officially supported by the distro, a developer can run his own repository, and I can add the repository to my package manager, and so I can use a single package manager for everything. The result is much simpler to deal with IMO.

My point is developers shouldn't really be given room to make annoying updaters, because it's something the OS should do. Rather than having each app install its own updater, Apple and MS should open Software Update and Microsoft Update to be more like Linux package managers. Then the only issues are the security concerns of insuring the validity of repositories, making it clear to users what each repository is giving them, and making it easy for administrators to add/remove repositories.

Re:This is a duh moment

[Rich0]

See the post below about package management. This is a BIG need for windows.

Half the pain of windows background services isn't the fact that some program is constantly in RAM checking for updates. The pain is that 14 separate programs are constantly in RAM checking for updates.

Why can't MS just release some update manager that uses next to no RAM/CPU and handles this stuff. All you need is an RSS feed, an update interval, and a program to execute when it changes. Software would register for updates, and then it would get a callback when there is something worth looking at.

Re:This is a duh moment

[pavon]

Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

Actually, I hate it when an application checks for updates at start-up (like firefox does). When I'm starting up an application it's usually because I have something I want to do right now, and then the application decides that's a great and break my train of thought. So I always say no, and then forget about it till the next time I start the application and am annoyed again :) The system tray is much less distracting.

And reboot is no good either because I never reboot my laptop. But I agree with your first suggestion. It would really be nice if there was a single system updater on windows which checked for critical security updates daily and other updates weekly, rather than a half-dozen updaters all using system resources and behaving differently.

Re:This is a duh moment

[Culture20]

The latest Windows Apple updater seems to run as a scheduled task once a day. Most other programs _should_ use a time-based schedule, but they often are lazy and just use a login script to start up a background process. So, the functionality's already there in the task scheduler, but the third party software vendors don't want to use it.

Re:This is a duh moment

[Blakey Rat]

Half the pain of windows background services isn't the fact that some program is constantly in RAM checking for updates. The pain is that 14 separate programs are constantly in RAM checking for updates.

Yeah, but Windows already has a feature to prevent that: Task Scheduler. It's not Microsoft's fault that third party developers aren't making use of it.

Re:This is a duh moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

I'll second that 100%.

Hell, I go through every app I can & shut down those updates.
Despite this, my outbound firewall logs are full of applications constantly trying to reach out & touch update sites, DRM sites, etc. you name it. I've got to the point where I have only a few that do it, having managed to replace most of the offenders with alternate software solutions.

I think the worst was Realplayer(?) but it's been awhile since I had to deal with it on a relatives machine. I seem to remember at least 4 or 5 different places to 'turn off' the update checker, none of which turned it off.

And people wonder why my computer is "so fast" when it has 1/2 the RAM and CPU of their uber-gaming machines. It's all that extra garbage Windows is time-slicing and memory swapping for.

Without the OS bloat, "extra" features of applications, and all the gee-whiz look nice but doesn't do jack shit features, I could run a modern OS on legacy hardware.

Re:This is a duh moment

[houghi]

Package Manager? I go to the website and click on what I want to install with openSUSEs one-click-install.

Yes, you can still use YaST.

Re:This is a duh moment

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have never thought I'd say this but I really hope MS gets it right in case they decide to go that route, which they never will, at least in the current form of Linux package managers. If you believe a production server can survive regularly running 'auto updates' or whatever it's called in your distro, think again: it will for sure destroy the installation sometime; you can't tell when, and that adds to the fun. And rebooting won't fix it, in Linux land, you make sure the machine is able to boot before you tell it to.

Re:This is a duh moment

[tepples]

Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot?

Reboot? What's that? Servers don't get "rebooted" often, and neither do PCs with working ACPI.

Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.

That doesn't help for background services like instant messaging software or the Google software you mentioned. You only "start" them when you reboot; see my previous point. If a patch and then an exploit kit come out between when you start the program and when you use it, you're owned.

CUPS

[sciurus0]

$ lsb_release -d
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
$ ps -ef | grep cupsd
root 6860 1 0 Feb08 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cupsd

Re:CUPS

[godrik]

Using your trick, I found that the most time consumming application was:

root 7275 6982 0 Jan23 tty7 01:46:49 /usr/bin/Xorg :0 -br -audit 0 -auth /var/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7

I do not an X movie organizer, I should get rid of it.

Standard in embedded systems world

[Animats]

If you really want to see "slimming down the operating system", check out QNX, which is a true microkernel used mostly for embedded systems. The kernel just does memory, CPU, timer, and process management, plus interprocess communication. Everything else is optional. Networking, disk/file system support, display support, window management, etc. are all user-level processes that you can include, or not, when making a boot image.

The unusual feature here is that the components really are independent. You can have networking without a file system, or a file system without networking. If the machine has no display, you don't have to include any of the "console" stuff. Even error logging is an option, and can be connected to a display, a window, the network, or a file.

But this isn't what the original article meant by "just enough operating system". They're thinking more of bloated distros.

I hope "just enough operating system" means the ad-funded preloaded crap goes away. Remember Dell charging $50 extra to get rid of all that junk?

Re:Standard in embedded systems world

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the QNX 1.44MB demo disk? That was a slimmed down OS!
http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html

Re:Standard in embedded systems world

[Eravnrekaree]

X is not a part of the Linux kernel. As well many parts of the Linux kernel are modules, and as well it is possible to create drivers that run as seperate processes. Linux has many of the characteristics already of a multiserver system. the goal of an OS should not be to provide a scarce number of features, but provide a large number of features, and then let the user decide which to load.

Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

When Microsoft created Vista they forgot that the os is a tool not a destination. Add all the nifty features you want, but you still only use it to open other programs.

Apple doesn't want desktop OS on iPhone

[WiiVault]

Apple does not want to run the same version of Mac OS X that is designed for 1024 X 768 and above on a 480 x 320 device. That would be insanely unusable. Icons would been teeny, menus unnavigable, a total UI nightmare. If they mean the underpinnings of the OS, well that is already a reality.

2(MySQL+CUPS+LDAP) = Linux?

[EddyPearson]

"Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half."

Can somebody define "footprint" in this context, and then explain how MySQL, CUPS and LDAP could possibly account for half of it?

Re:2(MySQL+CUPS+LDAP) = Linux?

[Just Some Guy]

Can somebody define "footprint" in this context,

Footprint = memory usage or startup time; pick a metric.

and then explain how MySQL, CUPS and LDAP could possibly account for half of it?

Key word: including. Those are meant to be examples of things that won't be started by default anymore so that the system can boot faster and use less memory.

Not that I agree with the summary, which was just dumb, but the idea is commendable and something I'd like to see done.

Re:2(MySQL+CUPS+LDAP) = Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw that comment title and thought 2 cups 1 girl = Linux?

Re:2(MySQL+CUPS+LDAP) = Linux?

[CannonballHead]

Keyword is "including."

my first UNIX was on 128KB PDP

[peter303]

It did most of what I wanted. Some tings have been added in the past 30 years.

Summary is Inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu does not come with LDAP (Server or Client) support out of the box, nor does it come with MySQL.

Summary is inaccurate.

Re:Summary is Inaccurate

[Inner_Child]

The summary is accurate.

Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half.

I know this is /. and people have extremely short attention spans around here, but re-read that sentence. What it says is that MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, are included in what's being stripped. The wording isn't great, but really, is it that tough to understand?

Re:Summary is Inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you had better re-read that sentence.

You can try, but you will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Ubuntu and Window$ are bloated by default. It's virtually impossible to cut them down without breaking something. Only way to do it is start slim and add on, not the other way around.

Small is Beautiful

[Cornwallis]

Remember when Windows was called a shell that sat on top of DOS? Isn't this what the aim should be... pretty pictures as an *optional* cover *to* an efficient OS, minus all that bloat that has been added over the years?

Re:MyFood

[cayenne8]

"That, and he's batfuck insane [blackviper.com]."

I dunno if I'd call it insane.

I've met a number of people who are extremely picky eaters. You find that people like this, who are very limited in what they like to eat...get this way. They find a place out that has something that they absolutely love. This is a big deal to them, because of their limited appetites for variety in food, leaves them VERY few choices, especially for dining out. When something can eat...is dropped or changed, it does blow their minds a bit.

I can understand it a little...when I was growing up, I was a bit of a picky eater, that is, until I came to Louisiana for college...and discovered that people down here would eat anything that didn't eat them first....and make it taste good.

Thankfully ever since then, I'm game to try just about any food, and I find there's honestly not much I don't like.

My battle with the waistline can attest to that at times.

:)

did you read...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Incredible Sinking Operating System" too?

I thought "what the hell, ms. me again?"

Let's get rid of some more...

[91degrees]

Remove some of the "essentials" as well. I don't need to telnet into my Linux box. People who do most likely know how to set it up to do so. I actually would prefer not to have a swapfile. My RAM is 8 times the size of my first hard disk. It should be possible to fit a few apps in that space. Hard disks are slow and a lot of the time when apps are swapped out, they're unusable.

Re:Let's get rid of some more...

[Xtifr]

I don't need to telnet into my Linux box.

You're using a Linux distro that comes with telnetd installed and enabled by default? Let us all know what it is so we can avoid it like the plague! (And maybe point and laugh--that's almost as bad as setting up the user to run as root by default, like Lindows/Linspire.) Not that I'd really refer to telnetd as "bloat", but it's still: Do Not Want!

What I read

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 will run [on] a spectrum

Great! They must have really stripped down the OS.

Apple "appears headed" ?

[rinoid]

In all fairness to the description of the story.
"And Apple appears headed for a slimmed-down OS X that will enable future iPhones or tablet devices to run the same OS as the Mac."

Am I missing something?

After 17 million iPhones and I don't know how many millions of iPod Touches sold this is more than being headed in a direction.

When Apple launched the iPhone it was announced as an OS X device.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/09/apple-announces-iphone-stock-soars/

So apparently Apple is clearly in the space of running a mini version of a monolithic OS.

Anyway, interesting as heck topic.

Re:Apple "appears headed" ?

[vitaflo]

Not to mention Apple says right on their site that Snow Leopard (10.6) will be much smaller in size than Leopard (10.5):

"Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

Re:Apple "appears headed" ?

[Phroggy]

Not only that, but Apple has publicly stated that it took a lot of work to optimize Mac OS X to run on the iPhone, and that they'll be incorporating a lot of those changes into the next version of the desktop OS (10.6, code-named "Snow Leopard"). Indeed, their web page says:

Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

and

Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X features optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content.

Welcome to the death of PCs

[jjohn]

The long predicted death of PCs and the rise of compelling PDA/phones (like the iPhone) is finally here. While I won't speak to the phone bit, I will say that I've been working with thin clients from Wyse, HP, Igel and Sun for years now. They are like vt220s, but better! Better than maintaining PCs anyway.

It makes sense that OS producers are targeting these stripped-down environments. I suppose that's the essence of cloud computing -- the apps are on the net and you just need enough smarts in your device to get to them.

Again, sounds like vt220s all over again.

Re:Welcome to the death of PCs

[LordSnooty]

No doubt The Next Big Thing. Find an OS that loads just enough to give network & browser/app platform. The thing is, people in the *nix world should be well placed to help in the effort. There's already plenty of examples of such. Of course as you say it's old news anyway, we were promised this even before the dotcom bubble.

However, as long as we power users can defend the general-purpose computer, I see no harm in allowing the general public to migrate to restricted devices. Could that turn out to be an unexpected benefit? The key is keeping hold of the hardware - should we start collecting good examples of everyday general-purpose hardware today, in case it suddenly becomes scarce in 10-20 years?

Re:Welcome to the death of PCs

[AliasMarlowe]

The long predicted death of PCs and the rise of compelling PDA/phones (like the iPhone) is finally here. While I won't speak to the phone bit, I will say that I've been working with thin clients from Wyse, HP, Igel and Sun for years now. They are like vt220s, but better!

Behold the all-conquering almighty VT420! Oh, wait...

So does this mean..

[kheldan]

..that I should pull my CP/M disks (8" DSDD floppies) and IMSAI 8080 out of storage again?

Yep.

[gbutler69]

The Linux Kernel handles that automatically. Just because a process is in the process table, doesn't mean it is running. In fact, most processes are "sleeping" most of the time. When they are "sleeping" they are candidates for paging out. The kernel will do this if memory requirements exceed available physical RAM. In fact, the executable image itself is just "mmapped" to virtual memory and when needed to be "paged-out" it happens painlessly by marking the physical page as available and the virtual page as "swapped". If the virtual page is needed again, it is read from the on-disk image as needed.

So, to answer your question: IT ALREADY DOES THAT!

All Hail Linux!

P.S. Windows does this too!

Userspace apps needs to be sanitized too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well. not only OS's need to slim down. Of the ~350 MB of ram in use on my system, Firefox is responsible for 1/3 of that. Ant that is with 4 tabs ( gmail, google reader, /. and another webmail). What is going on...

One more thing that should be excluded from the default install is the mta's (sendmail, procmail, postfix etc ), very few desktop users really need those...

Re:Userspace apps needs to be sanitized too...

[amn108]

RAM is for being used. Unused RAM is waste. Firefox gives up its allocations by the way at the request of the host system, a request both at least Windows kernels do when either real or virtual memory is close to running out, and also when minimizing application windows. Not sure if Linux does that though. If you want Firefox to take less space, take out a RAM module, that will force Firefox to be more modest. But it is pointless, is it not?

The real question is, does Firefox allocate as little memory as it can do with and provide exactly as much performance and features that the user requires?

As a programmer, I had plenty of occasions to version my algorithms into variants where one would work fast but cache stuff into memory, thus blowing up its commit charge (used memory), or work slower but use much less memory while working. I do not know how Firefox devs decided how much RAM is a good usage on average, but with the size of Firefox code, they, I am sure, had plenty of chances to version their algorithms too, and they decided to give it some good speeds AND ability to slow down the way I described. You can search Google for Firefox 3 memory optimization.

is there something that isn't overkill?

[Trepidity]

Saying it's "overkill" implies it's a heavyweight solution for something that has a light-weight alternative solution? Or are you just implying that there ought to be one?

Re:is there something that isn't overkill?

[aix tom]

lpd is still a smaller than CUPS, and should be good enough if you only have one (or even a few) printer and you don't need a fancy web interface to configure and administrate them.

Re:is there something that isn't overkill?

[hitmark]

can lpd deal with a network connected hp printer/scanner?

No, not presumptuous at all....

[gbutler69]

All of the following are valid implementations of a "Data Base":

• One big ASCII Flat-File
• A series of ASCII Flat-Files in a Single Folder
• A series of ASCII Flat-Files in a hierarchy of folders
• An XML File
• A Series of XML Files in a Single Folder
• A Series of XML Files in a hierarchy of folders
• A binary file...
• etc...
• PostgreSQL
• MySQl
• MS-SQL Server
• Oracle
• etc...

Only some of those mentioned above are "RELATIONAL DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS" that support SQL-style DDL (Data Definition Language) and DML (Data Modification Language) and DQL (Data Query Language). That doesn't make any of the other myriad of possibilities (Object Databases, Registries, Gnome Config, Berkley DB, custom whaznath binary flim-flam database) any less of "Data Bases".

You simply possess a very limited understanding of what a Database is.

Re:No, not presumptuous at all....

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the one kind of database you are most likely to encounter in the typical office setting:

a big, humungous Excel file using at least 7 fonts and a couple of colors.

Awesome.

Re:No, not presumptuous at all....

[steelfood]

A list of database types and you forget the most popular one:

spreadsheet

What, you think all those fancy graphs and numbers on the nice-looking charts come from thin air? (that last one's directed at the GP)

Re:No, not presumptuous at all....

[dbIII]

You simply possess a very limited understanding of what a Database is.

Some databases even become complex and unweildy enough to become self aware and post stuff on web forums.

too much generalisation

[Device666]

There are many different user goals, even so different devices and software which runs on those. The mobility market is very much in the news, and so do smaller/shrunken OS'es. There are many different distro's so it's nonsence to do such claim. Windows 7 is only just runnable on netbooks. Windows 7 doesn't run on smaller mobile devices (comparable with let us say an Iphone). I would rather say flexibility is getting more attention of those who design OS'es. This helps customers to make better use of their devices. This a great thing, a lot of people buy gadgets they do not use because they're not practical or not usable.

QNX had it right after all

[Digitalman65]

QNX kernel was less than 8K back in the day. It's probably 10K today.

Re:QNX had it right after all

[itsybitsy]

Oh, the horrors of software bloat! 2k extra, how could they! Before you know it it'll be 12k and then 14k! At that rate it'll use an earth shattering 64k in about 80 years! ;--)

Re:QNX had it right after all

[Compumyst]

So, good ol' Bill was right! 640K of RAM is all you'll ever need!

Re:QNX had it right after all

[itsybitsy]

Hell yeah!!! 640K is way more than anyone needs! (For the Kernel ;-)

Heck who can argue with a guy who releases mosquitoes into a room of rich high level people while giving a talk on malaria and doesn't tell them for a minute that the bugs don't have the bug! That's Bill's form of terrorism for you - along with bloated kernel's and apps that is.

Just a thought...

[rickb928]

... but is it possible that the OS vendors are realizing that you don't really need that much to run a browser, email client, and word processor? And you may not need every feature at boot to deliver the user experience?

Or that the PC of tomorrow might be something about as powerful as my G1?

Remember the analogies between cars and computers, where cars of today, if they innovated at the same rate as computers, would cost $150, get 200MPG, require service every 3 years, and offer you the same interior as your four-star hotel?

Why do operating systems turn that on its head(*), so that a car, if innovated like modern OSes, would get 7 MPG, requiring a minimum 500HP engine since the chassis weighs 7,000lb+, has a museum-quality interior but takes 3 parking spaces, and goes from 0-60 in 19 seconds downhill...?

If only we could see the effort at slimming the OS that you see in mobile systems expanded to desktops. Imagine an Atom processor being all you need, and 1GB RAM more than enough.

Oh, wait, is that Ubuntu?

(*) - I know the answer to this. Windows and OS X have tried to include every wiz-bang feature and enhancement imaginable, from DCOM to NetDDE, and with the result that Windows is an entirely hospitable environment for all variety of malware. OS X is better at preventing system abuse by malware, but not entirely immune. Linux ditto.

Re:Just a thought...

[El_Oscuro]

Windows 98 ran in 24M of RAM and took about 500MB of disk space. While Windows 98 was a total POS, it had all of the basic desktop functionality that exists today (TCP stack, HTML engine, USB support, etc).

Think about it. XP (and 2000) was essentially the NT 4.0 kernel with most of the device manager/USB/HTML support from Windows 98. NT 4.0 ran just fine on machines of the Win98 era too. So why do you need a gig of RAM and 5 gig disk space to run XP? And don't get me started about Vista/Win7/Server2008.

They would go so far as to...

[dgun]

Microsoft, for one, is cutting down the number of services that run at boot

Wow, they're going all out.

microsoft shrinking? Yeah Sure!

[michalk0]

Windows Server 2008, Recommended disksize: 40GB

bundled with Full-HD p0rn perhaps?

Snow Leopard is on a different sort of diet

[Gary W. Longsine]

I suspect that the author of the article summary was thinking about Snow Leopard features. There are no indications that Snow Leopard is shedding features to make this possible, however. I've seen speculation that the disk savings come from either dropping support for Universal Binaries (PPC + Intel), or storing the multiple platform code in some more efficient way. So far as I know, the following is the only public statement from Apple on this topic.

Snow Leopard
"Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos."

Additional details may be known to some outside of Apple, but are very likely to be covered by NDA until Snow Leopard ships.

Re:Snow Leopard is on a different sort of diet

[slyn]

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/27/solving_the_mystery_of_snow_leopards_shrinking_apps.html

Most applications installed by default with Snow Leopard are 1/3 or less the size they are in Leopard. The article guesses that its because of simple background compression. Other reasons could be dropping 32-bit code, no more ppc support, resolution independent svg's everywhere, and/or just plain old cleaned up code (Snow Leopards TL;DR is: Leopard refracted and optimized + a few major (or minor depending on what your coding) developer features).

Stripping out CUPS?

[Torodung]

Okay, this is probably a dumb question, but how do you print anything without CUPS?

What is the alternative printing system they're going to use, and does CUPS really present that much of a footprint? Is the claim that personal printers are too much of a hassle and we should all send our stuff out to a printing service?

--
Toro

Re:Stripping out CUPS?

[rnturn]

``Okay, this is probably a dumb question, but how do you print anything without CUPS?''

The same way one did before CUPS was shoved down everyone's collective throat: lpd/lpr or LPRng.

Probably not too difficult to ferret out my opinion of CUPS from the above, eh? Perhaps I'd feel differently if the documentation was more complete. I find that it has either a lot of holes or that there are just some things one cannot do using CUPS that were possible using either of the alternatives. I keep hoping that I might stumble onto some better documentation or HOWTOs in the future; it's eluded me so far.

Re:Stripping out CUPS?

[value_added]

Okay, this is probably a dumb question, but how do you print anything without CUPS?

Enscript and lpr? I've always used postscript capable printers. And to make life even easier, I rely on network capable printers.

Give the printer a hostname (DNS or /etc/hosts)
Create spool directory
Create a filter script to detect and/or convert to postscript
Create an entry in /etc/printcap
Enable lpd
Use lpr to print

nc myprinter 9100 < myfile.ps
enscript -o - myfile.txt | nc myprinter 9100

Re:Stripping out CUPS?

[Torodung]

Okay, so basically you either upgrade to a Postscript enabled printer, or you have only ASCII/EBCDIC text printouts, like the old-school lineprinters? I mean, a 14" text drawing of Snoopy in a Santa hat is fun, but there's a lot of non-postscript hardware out there, and I can't see that as being sufficient for much of anything these days.

I use HP-LIP over CUPS for my venerable DeskJet 812C printer. While I'm sure that sounds like an inefficient piece of cr#p to some, it's what I've been using for the last 8 years. It can't handle Postscript files, because it assumes all the PCL stuff is going to be done in software, and sent down a serial or USB cable.

Here's what I'm unsure of: CUPS provides a common interface, which allowed HP to design the LIP software. So that any kind of output hardware, especially cheap, non-postscript hardware, can talk to a common interface and get the correct output instructions for the specific device. Right?

And Postscript and networking add to the cost of the printer. Right?

If so, what you described above sounds like a resourceful, shrewd, but expensive nightmare from where I sit. ;^)

I'm assuming, of course, that Ubuntu without CUPS will be for netbook and iPhone style computers. Situations where any printer doesn't make much sense. I think they're looking to make a portable or embedded version of it.

Thanks for the answer. The other guy really hated CUPS, and I wouldn't dream of teasing him with a reply like this. Thanks for the info on how to print at the command line. ;^)

--
Toro

Re:Stripping out CUPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always used lpr for printing. I've never figured out how to use cups.

Re:Stripping out CUPS?

[tepples]

I've always used postscript capable printers. And to make life even easier, I rely on network capable printers.

How much do those cost at Walmart*?

Gentoo is Linux's answer

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Want Linux to be able to run as efficiently as possible, with everything you need, and nothing you don't?
Don't want to lose features you want, or be forced to deal with bloat?
Want it tuned for your hardware?

Gentoo Linux lets you do all that.

Re:Gentoo is Linux's answer

[amn108]

Are you talking about re-compiling things with leaving out features you do not use or like? Disabling unneeded functionality at the source code level?

Re:Gentoo is Linux's answer

[El_Oscuro]

Gentoo runs my hard-core gaming rig. Yes, it drives my hardware just fine. And there is no unnecessary bloat.

Re:Gentoo is Linux's answer

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

You can include or exclude whole packages AND you can enable/disable features at the source code level.

sry for GNU promotion :) ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but well this route was taken already several years ago by politically motivated developers

see dynebolic.org

"Grow smaller" . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I was actually on a conference call concerning an Open Source thingie, when someone stated that, "We're planning in the future to 'grow smaller'"

I don't think he even believed it himself. But the sheer audacity to let those words over his lips truly amazed me.

Nuthin' ever gets 'no smaller, except your pay check, after taxes, and you take inflation into account.

Well, maybe your retirement fund . . . and the value of your house . . .

The gas tank of my car seems to be getting bigger . . . it used to hold only 50 euros of diesel, now it can hold about 75 euros! Wow, that's innovation, a growing gas tank!

Re:"Grow smaller" . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

was it FSCONS 2008 in Gothenburg? as it looks in this video and the slides where there is an articulation about "refusing scarcity" also closely connected...

InfoWorld = FAIL

[Gothmolly]

Somehow MySQL is the same as an operating system? Daemons and Services are the same as device driver support? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

This is drivel.

Re:InfoWorld = FAIL

[HikingStick]

I don't know if you are trying to read the article as literally pertaining only to the O/S, but it seems pretty clear to me that they are trying to reduce the amount of bloat that is installed with a typical O/S install. Therefore, while removing MySQL is not actually trimming the O/S, it is reducing the footprint of the install.

Re:InfoWorld = FAIL

[Compumyst]

First, let me admit that I have not yet RTFA, but let me place a rebuttal anyway.
No, Daemons and Services are absolutely NOT the same as device driver support. That being said, all operating systems start up several different services, etc, by default. Using MySQL as the example, several Linux distributions apparently start MySQL by default along with several other programs. Most users of these distributions often never use MySQL, so the maintainers are removing it from the default startup script. Whilst the software itself may still be included with the operating system, the change of not starting it by default increases overall computer performance (due to fewer programs being run). The comment that this idea can make the operating system run on more hardware is then technically correct regarding slower CPUs and/or less RAM.

Re:InfoWorld = FAIL

[Gothmolly]

You READ the article???

Apple on 10.6

[jbolden]

I agree that Windows and Linux are moving downmarket but Apple:

1) Is switching the the LVVM compiler which means code will run better with multiple cores. Apple is clearing starting to move towards 4,8, or more core machines as the standard.

2) Is changing virtually component of the OS so their 32 bits will drop in performance a tad while 64 bit will get much better.

3) Is putting in all but the last piece of the puzzle to move beyond 8gb limit on ram

4) Is continuing to have OS components that use expensive graphics chips

5) Continues to run complex services automating all sorts of connections

I don't think it is the case that they are moving in the direction of cheaper hardware.

Re:Apple on 10.6

[pohl]

With regard to #1, LLVM also helps code run better on diminutive CPUs such as the ARM in the iPhone and iPod Touch. LLVM's optimization passes are not multi-core specific, so I'm not sure how it ads weight to your argument, let alone the operating system.

I'm having trouble parsing #2. Not sure what you intended to say there.

#3 is an odd observation. I'm not sure how pointing to a feature intended for high-end hardware says anything about an operating system's footprint. How much RAM is taken up by the memory manager routines? Disk space?

#4 seems a lot like #3. Sure, the system can use an expensive GPU. But it can also use a low-power GPU. In the case of the iPhone, for example, playing H.264 movies on dedicated hardware is probably a better utilization of battery time, versus having written the codec such that it did not exploit such a hardware feature.

You'd really need to be more specific about #5, and provide some support for your use of the word 'complex'. Are you talking about the Zeroconf daemon? If so, I think you're imagining it to be larger than it actually is.

Other people have already quoted Apple's stated goals with regard to reducing the footprint in Snow Leopard. Why invent 5 strangely-vague bullet points to argue that they have no such intent?

actually I hear this before

[crodrigu1]

and before and before and before oh just wait a sec, is just a filler from the lack of news? Yes it is

The problem is in the ways OSes are designed

[amn108]

I do not understand which problem we are trying to solve by leaving out packages out of the distribution? Is it the fact that the system runs faster without MySQL, for instance? If that seems to be the problem, I assure you the real problem is not in the total size of the installed software, which is handled easily by large hard drives even netbooks these days have, but in the archaic rigid logic of todays software where unused features somehow still end up eating CPU cycles, getting in the way of user experience. The situation where unsuspecting novice laptop customers get SPAM loaded Windows systems that needs thorough cleaning before getting usable, is THE perfect example that illustrates the problem and its nuances.

Re:MyFood

[SBrach]

After reading that, I think BV lost his battle with the waistline a long time ago.

Microsoft Slimdown ? Where ?

[rwe]

Last I looked, Windows XP install was about 2-3GB. Windows Vista/Vindows 7 is about 11GB. No matter how you look at it, thats not Slimmer, Thats FATTER !!!

stripped-down Windows only for third world...

[AliasMarlowe]

How is it kicking any customer in the nuts to say "there's a stripped down version available only to OEMs who want to make a highly discounted product for third world deployment."? It's not even offered to the "loyal customers" you say we spite.

So why not offer this to your "loyal customers" in the rich world also?

Perhaps it's good enough for some of them, so they could buy the right-sized offering, rather than being forced to overbuy. My mother and her sister (both aged 80+), for instance, rarely run more than two applications (email & browser) at a time. The only other application they use on their PCs is solitaire (and the browser & email are probably closed).

Re:stripped-down Windows only for third world...

[Tawnos]

The truth is: business. By your logic, why not just give the product away? Fire all the engineers, support, et cetera. Who cares about the number of jobs lost, the number of mouths unfed because of laid off computer engineers?

I stated above the reason for a ultra cheap version. It attempts to provide some comparative parity to the black market, without sabotaging the main product. Many ask "why not just get a fully featured product from the guy selling it illegally?" I think the reason is pretty clear: those willing to take without payment will do so regardless. There's no way to eliminate that black market. However, providing the lower tier for those people who will pay at a smaller price, but at a price that is not uniformly sustainable for the company (yet still greater than zero), captures that consumer demand.

The fact is that the world operates on balance and trade-offs. Trying to provide a one-size-fits all utopia to different demands (both consumer and business side) only results in bankruptcy. Hence, the various versions, of which only a couple are actively shown to the developed world.

On a side note, the versions of Win7 are similar to those of XP. XP came in Starter, Home, Professional, Media Center, and Tablet. There was also Windows XP embedded, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, and WEPOS, a version of embedded specifically targetted for point of sale systems. This is really a historical curiosity, but I point it out to show that having many various versions of Windows isn't new. Now, it's just much better thought out than in the past, with a Russian doll model instead of a multi-domain model for features.

Re:stripped-down Windows only for third world...

[AliasMarlowe]

The truth is: business.

So, they plan not to offer a product in rich countries, even though it would suit many of their customers better than the products they will offer, and at lower cost. Your explanation is that it's for business reasons. Business plan: ream your customers to the extent that they have money.

By your logic, why not just give the product away?

You attack a straw man of your own making (Microsoft logic at work, perhaps). My post neither suggested nor implied any such thing.

windows 7

[TheUz]

Perhaps folks are comparing windows 7 to vista, rather than to xp. Vista, due to added "features" like DRM, was and is unusable to me. I have tried windows 7. Windows7 is also useless to me. The services and their dependencies are a complete cluster-fuck. For instance, if you turn off network services, you may no longer configure your network card. If you turn off cryptographic services, windows7 cannot phone home anymore, and tells you that it will be shutting down in ten minutes. Windows7 is vista sp2, and both are dogshit.

What used to be accessible in one or two clicks now takes three or four clicks to get to. This is improvement? This is smaller? Microsoft oughta buy up Damn Small Linux, roll up the directx API as a binary kernal module like nividia's driver, and start selling a usable OS again. Hell, I'd even give them money for that.

Link to OS replaceing browser?

[sgt scrub]

Though these developments don't necessarily mean that the browser will supplant the OS

I want to test this super cool replace the OS with an application designed to display textual information stuff. Does it come with a boot loader?

Don't have to wait long

[yabos]

Snow Leopard is already known to be coming with slimmed down applications http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/06/29/solving-the-mystery-of-snow-leopards-shrinking-apps/

Compare with Amiga OS

[Zobeid]

Amiga OS 2.04 (my favorite version) comprised a 512K ROM and four 880K floppies. So there's the basics of a modern OS in 4 MB of data. That has become my benchmark for the size of an OS.

Now, a lot of people I know scoff at that. Today's OS has to do a lot more than Amiga OS ever did. Today's OS has to support OpenGL, Postscript, Java, video decoding, a HTML engine, not to mention you have to include an email client, a word processor, a browser. . . oh, and a TCP/IP stack, which Amiga OS didn't even have.

And that, they say, is why today's OS *can't* be smaller than about, let's say, 2000 MB. You just can't fit all that stuff into a space less than 500 times the size of Amiga OS, and you were foolish to ever imagine that anybody could.

And then I open up Slashdot and see this headline about the incredible shrinking OS. But, but. . . How can that be possible? They told me it can't shrink! They all said nobody could figure out how to make them smaller, you just have to learn to live with the gobsmacking huge OS.

And yet, now the netbook concept comes along (years if not decades overdue, in my view), and suddenly they can figure out how to make a fully functional Linux distro in only 200 MB (a mere 50 times the size of Amigs OS). My oh my, how the worm has turned.

Re:Compare with Amiga OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I was using Linux back in the 0.92 days (1992-ish) and a full system was on two floppies. You booted with one, then it would ask you to insert the second floppy which contained the root filesystem and away you went!

Re:Compare with Amiga OS

[ErikZ]

If the Amiga OS was written today to take advantage of the 64 bit processors and memory addressing, wouldn't it automatically take up more space?

Re:Compare with Amiga OS

[Zobeid]

Why would you need a 64-bit processor, or a 64-bit OS, on a netbook? And even if you did, would that make the OS footprint 10 times bigger? I don't see it.

"Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out.."

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality

If that's the case, why is it still bloatware?

Slackware ...

[opypod]

... or Zenwalk ... problem solved... about 10 years ago.

No CUPS does not mean no print...

[Anonymous Coward]

It struck me as kind of strange that they'd strip out something like CUPS...I mean, don't even most normal users like to print documents?!?!

CUPS is a print server... that is, it allows a unix machine to receive print jobs from other machines. A normal user doesn't need a print server running on her/his machine. Even without CUPS normal users will be able to print.

Like Xerox did in the 80's.

[ClosedSource]

"IBM is growing a library of micro-code for the Power-Cell Architecture that allows a single image chip-set (one computer many parts) to execute multiple instruction sets, enabling multiple operating systems, running concurrently."

Xerox was doing this in the 80's. Some of their high-end printers downloaded micro-code to Mesa processors from the main disk at boot time.

That is allright grandpa

[jotaeleemeese]

Now go to bed, I'll send your hot tea with the nurse.

MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP are not part of the OS.

[jotaeleemeese]

They are services, they run on top of the OS.

What may be slimmed down is either a distro (bad idea) or what is installed (great idea).

From a security point of view to start LDAP, CUPS and MySQL in every machine is nonsense.

Slimming down software systems, NOT OS's

[Fri13]

So the article writter got all wrong, because he does not even know what is the OS.

Because the OS is that part of software system what manages the hardware and software and serves the hardware resources for the applications so they can serve other applications etc.

You can not get slim OS by disabling system services, because then you do not even touch the operating system itself.

Example, there is operating system called Linux. I do not know how many of you have heard it but that operating system is monolith. Many people believes that Linux is just "the kernel of the operating system" but only few smart knows that Linux kernel is THE operating system.

If you want to slimm down operating system on Ubuntu, you need to touch only to Linux. Not to MySQL, Apache or CUPS. Those are just system (software system) services and not parts of operating system.

The whole IT-world has gone grazy about marketing pushing their own "special OS" when they use Linux, because someway they need to bring them itself up. And it is not so great to say "Yes, we use Linux OS" because then other people say "Great, again a new Linux distribution". So they got marketing term "Operating System" and they hide the real information that Linux kernel is the operating system.

MS already slimmed down their NT OS on the MinWin project. They got it to under 50 megabytes. Linux takes only a few megabytes if even that... I can have whole software system, with graphical desktop and firefox browser running on it with slashdot. Just under 20 megabytes. When I start abiword and I type few sheet letter, it takes under 25 megabytes.

And still I am using one and the same OS than Ubuntu users, The Linux, but I just dont have same system services running as they do. I do not use Gnome desktop environment but simple windowmanager.

If the article writer does not even know what is the operating system, the whole article is meaningless and only marketing hype about Ubuntu and Windows seven. Without anykind techinical point or facts, even whole article relays for them!!!

The reason all of these services run is....

[Burnhard]

Firstly, the reason why a lot of extraneous services start up in Windows when you do a fresh install is given here: Service Controller. If you watch the interview, you'll see there are problems in pre-7 Windows determining exactly what needs to run. Some of these issues are fixed in 7.

Next, this whole debate is somewhat stale; what you mean by an Operating System is not the same as a general user's understanding of what an OS is. The whole Windows Kernel is something like 25mb on disk. I'm not sure about Linux, but the minimum system required to get up and running is probably of a similar order of magnitude. For the user, the operating system is a whole lot more than a kernel, it's a whole load of applications, ease-of-use widgets/applets and an entire basic framework of applications to get you up and running (at the very least).

With respect to RAM, you should hold fire until you know what the OS is actually doing with it. I have 2gb of RAM and Windows 7 reports that 700mb are free and 800mb are "cached". I'm running a few apps at the moment, but as far as I'm concerned the OS can use as much RAM as it wants on the assumption that the OS knows better how my RAM should be used than I do (not always the case, but in general it's true for the average user).

Catch-22

[tepples]

Click, wait while download and install completes

You'd wait forever because the Internet is not reachable. You can't print out the WLAN card compatibility list because you don't have CUPS, and you can't reach the Internet to download CUPS because you don't have a compatible WLAN card.

Not everyone has a 3G card

[tepples]

user@box> sudo apt-get install vim

apt-get: debian.org: no such domain

What can you do when you find yourself without access to the Internet?

What about OS on big iron?

[siriuskase]

These are all little micro machines. Are OS on Mainframes and whatever Oracle ans SQL run on also shrinking? How much alike are the little things and the massive corporate sized things?