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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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.

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

[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: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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.