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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."
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.
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.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
Whale
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.
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=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
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.
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?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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...
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
maybe ubuntu will cut out evolution from it's default.
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...
I see your Midori, and raise you HURD.
It looks like OSes couldn't escape the economic downturn as well.
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.
What could possibly go wrong?
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?
This is my sig.
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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?
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.
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.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
$ lsb_release -d /usr/sbin/cupsd
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
$ ps -ef | grep cupsd
root 6860 1 0 Feb08 ? 00:00:00
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.
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?
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?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"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?
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
It did most of what I wanted. Some tings have been added in the past 30 years.
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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?
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?
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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...
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
That's back when they called it Java, wasn't it?
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.
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.
Windows 7 will run [on] a spectrum
Great! They must have really stripped down the OS.
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.
..that I should pull my CP/M disks (8" DSDD floppies) and IMSAI 8080 out of storage again?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
So, to answer your question: IT ALREADY DOES THAT!
All Hail Linux!
P.S. Windows does this too!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
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...
Don't get too excited. As the summary says, the browser is set to replace the OS as the source of unnecessary bloat.
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?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
All of the following are valid implementations of a "Data Base":
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.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
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 kernel was less than 8K back in the day. It's probably 10K today.
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?
... 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.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Wow, they're going all out.
FAQs are evil.
Windows Server 2008, Recommended disksize: 40GB
bundled with Full-HD p0rn perhaps?
Additional details may be known to some outside of Apple, but are very likely to be covered by NDA until Snow Leopard ships.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
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
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.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
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!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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.
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...
thegodmovie.com - watch it
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.
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.
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.
After reading that, I think BV lost his battle with the waistline a long time ago.
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.
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.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
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).
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
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 !!!
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).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
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.
^..^
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?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
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/
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.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
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.
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...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I see your Midori, and raise you HURD.
I see your Midori and raise you Southern Comfort.
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.
... or Zenwalk ... problem solved... about 10 years ago.
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.
"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.
Now go to bed, I'll send your hot tea with the nurse.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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!!!
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/30/microsofts-midori-a-future-without-windows/
Smells a little like Plan 9...
K.
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*
I am not devoid of humor.
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).
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.
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?
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?
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest