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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

[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 :-).

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.

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.

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

[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.

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...

Evolution

[coren2000]

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

Re:MS is working on a new OS architecture

[wisty]

I see your Midori, and raise you HURD.

Economy

[macaulay805]

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

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?

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.

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!

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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?

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?

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.

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?

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.

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!

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?

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.

microsoft shrinking? Yeah Sure!

[michalk0]

Windows Server 2008, Recommended disksize: 40GB

bundled with Full-HD p0rn perhaps?

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

"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!

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?

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: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: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.

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).

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.

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.