BTW it is GNOME and KDE that are dog slow but that is the new "modern" stuff while "old" X and fvwm still runs fast and light (and looks better too).
Someone who I agree with!:)
I keep saying "it's not X but what you run on top of it" that makes linux on the desktop feel slow. X + twm loads quick even on my old AMD K6-2 450 MHz. Not that I use twm, but I have tried it to see how fast it is in comparison to KDE/Gnome.
X is too dependent on networking protocols and is just pretty goddamn slow all-around
IMO, X is NOT what is slow! It is KDE/Gnome/[insert slow desktop/window manager here]. If you want to see the speed of X all by itself, try typing 'X' at the command line. The X server pops up damn near instantaneously (minus anything useful though) on my P4 1.7Ghz, and it is still quite fast on my K6-2 450 (yeah I still have one of those). Also, I have noticed that recent versions of Gnome have improved startup times. Faster than KDE on the same machine in my personal experience. (I still use KDE though.)
All I have to so is switch to a lighter destkop (i.e. twm) and the startup time from 'startx' to "ready for use" is dramatically reduced. I see plenty of "X sucks" lately, but I don't see it as being X.
"I don't wanna hear how you're so driven" some more stuff, then "If you say it, mean it, if you mean it, do it. You can't live your live through me, if you do it, live it, if you live it, say it, action is the air you breathe."
ahh yes;) Anthrax's CD "The Sound of White Noise". I have that one, it's great. And Packaged Rebellion (track 4) is one of my favorite tracks.
I never ever saw a pricing scheme in which a cable company would sell you additional connections for additional TVs
Time Warner charges per TV if I remember correctly (read it once). I didn't "log that into memory", as I don't have cable TV ( I have DirectTV, although I do have Road Runner service (with multiple computers behind NAT)).
Correct me if I am wrong, but the only time that it starts to write to your page file is the moment that the amount of data passes the amount of RAM you have.
That would be the logical conclusion... However, from my experience on Windows 2000 that is not what I have seen. I have 512MB in this system. I highly doubt that with a web broswer, email client, and a couple instant messangers I am using all 512MB, yet Win2k insists on using approx 768mb swap. For what?! I have this machine set up as a dual boot, and besides Win2k, it also runs Red Hat 9. I have had evolution, mozilla (with several tabs open), gaim, licq, a couple konsoles, and usually quanta is open as well. (and I use KDE as my desktop). With that said... Linux doesn't even TOUCH the swap partition (if I'm running KsCD to play an audio disc, there is some usage of swap to buffer playback, but very little used still). And most of the physical ram is being used to cache the disk (instead of the other way around). I keep the memory info open so I can watch it now and then and it just amazes me how little swap my machine uses under linux, yet Windows with that many apps open is using 3/4 a gig for swap! I know there was a big deal about the VM in the kernel during the early 2.4.x days, but as far as I can tell, that's long been fixed, and puts windows to shame now.
I'm sorry, but what the *hell* are you talking about? The only thing I can imagine you're talking about is the "approved for Windows NN" logo campaign, which has been around since Windows 95 came out. The logo is completely optional (unless you want to sell your product in Office Depot or wherever it is) and does nothing but show that you comply with and support a bunch of Microsoft's latest pet technology. It does not force you to "sign over the rights" to anything, not even your soul.
Are you really trying to say that Microsoft is trying to control what software you can sell for Windows, and that you need to sell it through them? If you are, you'd better come up with a few shreds of proof.
I think he is refering to something I read once (which may have just been rumor). I remember something about all software that runs on Windows in the future needed to be approved by and digitally signed by MS. I don't remember where I saw that, so I don't have a link. Peronally, I agree with you that MS isn't so stupid as to kill their market like that. After all, there are only 2 things that keep MS where it's at: 1) Applications, 2) "User-Friendliness".
1) This isn't about XFree being fast for you. And if it performs as well as (say) Windows 2k or XP on modern hardware, then you've spent alot of time tweaking X, and probably your kernel. X should be decent out of the box, and it isn't. "Works good enough" isn't something that I personally like settling for.
2) Standardization is absolutely a point of X. I don't know how you can think otherwise. One of the biggest objections to this port is the possible breaking of the X standards.
3) There is no reason whatsoever that XF86Config needs to be the monster that it is. A logical hierarchy of settings would be a good first step. Alot of the crap in XF86Config is handled by drivers using a standardized interface in Windows - this is a reasonable model to copy. That would help eliminate the need for every distro that's trying to be user-friendly to write it's own hardware detection program.
=======
1) X isn't really that slow. Quite quick for me, and out of the box, too! Just type "X" at the prompt and watch it pop up there nice and quick (with nothing else, granted;) What makes it feel slow are the window managers (or more correctly, complete desktop environment a la KDE/Gnome). For example: I have had Mandrake 9.0 on both a K6-2 450Mhz machine and this Pentium 4 1.7Ghz. (FYI: P4 has 512MB Ram, and the K6-2 has 128MB RAM) If I run KDE or Gnome on the K6-2, then yes, it is slow slow slow. Now, if i switch to say a light weight window manager like XFCE, then X w/ XFCE loads almost as fast as the P4 that is twice the computing power and more ram. (And by that, I mean loading XFCE + X on both machines.) X just isn't that slow.
2) I think it is possible to fork and not break the standards.
3)Um, it is hierarchial last time I looked? BTW, Mandrake's user-friendly program is really cool (IMHO). There just needs to be a standard one like it that ships on every distro. Who wants to write one?:)
I have linux here at home and at work. Yet, as of right now I'm waiting on my first set of OpenBSD 3.2 CD's that I ordered from their site. *The real kicker: I'm to set up OpenBSD servers at work!*
Actually, I'm quite happy: I get to learn something new.:)
This is my first post on Slashdot [Yay!], but I have to use it to do something that most people probably won't like, defend Microsoft.
You're allowed to do that, just be sure you have some valid points ready;)...
Yes, I loathe the general instability of their products and the outrageous prices, but Microsoft is a company. A company in a capatilist system.
I believe the word you were looking for was "capitalistic" (although, that might have two L's I'm not completely sure:) heh).
Why do we punish them for doing their job? People say they need to cripple a successful company in order to let lesser ones compete, but what companies are they helping?
Well, the Linux distributors certainly qualify, but think about the fact that there has not really been another commercial OS to make inroads into the desktop market.And don't quote superiority of Windows on the technical level, I might choke on my drink while laughing! I mean really, MS got where it was because, 1) a PR department from HELL, and 2) evil business practices (of which I won't detail, as this post is going to be longer than I wanted).
What OS is there that the general public [People on the AOL level of understanding] will want? I know Linux is great, but it is not something for the general public in its current flavor. Most end users won't understand what compile even means.
I couldn't tell you the last time I needed to compile something on Mandrake. And that is the distro targeted at the AOL-level users out there. I wouldn't know about Lindows, never used it, and don't plan to in the future, either. OTOH, compiling is handy if you have a piece of hardware and you need to compile a module, and that's something that shouldn't happen on an AOL user's system anyhow.(**Disclaimer: I use Mandrake on the desktop, Slackware on my server.)
My point in general, I guess, is that Microsoft does have a product for the general public, yet everyone sees having a good foothold on a market as a tyrannical thing.
Oh, they have more than a "good" foothold... And let's not spend too much time on HOW they attained it. Not to mention those same methods are still in use to maintain it.(And since they are declared a monopoly, they aren't allowed to use those methods.)
If people don't want to use Windows' Media Player, they don't have to. I use WinAmp, and it works perfectly. I don't worry one bit about WMP, I see no reason that Microsoft should be forced to rip away the Media Player for one, which would most likely lead to many more holes in the code which could cause even more errors when visiting web pages with any kind of audio or movies or even inserting a CD
True, you can use WinAMP in place of WMP. That's not completely the issue. Think about the "AOL user" as you put it earlier. If there is already an application of the sort the user needs, why are they going to bother going out to get another one. AOL users (generally) are too lazy to do that, they will just use what is available.
Hmm, thing is... everyone who has replied to this thread has complained about 50 pin cables... I haven't had a 50pin scsi hard drive in about 3 years. The 68pin cables aren't that big of a pain to me really (like routing an IDE cable IMO, except available in longer length & more connectors).
Other than hard drives, I do have a scsi cdrw drive... It is on a 50 pin cable, but doesn't get in my way.
0K SCSI drives tend to be pretty loud and run quite hot. I think that the 10k IDE drives will probably imploy some sort of technologies to keep them quiet and cooler, since IDE drives generally live on the desktop.
While that is generally true, I have a late model 10k rpm Cheetah in my file server that is quieter than my Maxtor IDE drives in this desktop machine. My other cheetah however, is an early 10K rpm scsi that is VERY noisy.
Oh, and by the way, ctl-alt-+ and ctl-alt-- changes your resolutions in X on-the-fly,
As much as I love Linux/X11, I find the method you mentioned as less than desirable. Yes, it changes the resolution. It also leaves me with a virtual desktop size of the default resolution. Thus, to see all of the desktop at once is not possible, requiring me to mouse to the edges and have the "view" scroll around.
if you compile your quality sound driver and insert it into the kernel, you'll have reliable sound,
Oh, I agree completely that a quality sound driver in the kernel is reliable. The sound daemons for the X11 desktops aren't so great (arts for kde comes to mind). Of course, joe user compiling a sound driver for the kernel is an interesting thought (READ: not going to happen).
xfreee86 +xinerama works great for MULTI-monitor setups, not just dual-monitor setups.
I have tried both using xinerama and not using xinerama for my Matrox card. Xinerama gave better overall results, but liked to crash under certain applications. Without Xinerama, the crashes didn't occur, but I didn't get what I wanted across multiple screens. All this was done on Red Hat though. On Mandrake, it was setup for me by the installer, and it worked a lot nicer. I didn't check to see if it was using Xinerama or not.
Sorry if I come off as harsh
You did.
but I hate this type of thinking.
You hate thinking along the lines of "easy to use"? Remember, easy to use for an adept and a common user are tottally different things (and a lot of people have better things to do, the computer is just a tool to them).
Some people are so lazy, but expect the world of others. Parasites.
"Some people" as you put it, also cannot program. Like myself. You don't want me contributing to (insert project here), because the code would suck (which is why I left the comp sci program and went into admin instead). Obviously, "normal users" need a computer to do certain tasks (productivity apps, etc..), but cannot contribute. By your definition that makes them parasites, but they cannot do anything about that.
Yes, I can read man pages. Yes, I can use vi to edit the X config file. Yes, I edit apache's config in the same way. But I am in the field. The average office worker isn't. And at home, there is no help desk other than emails and newsgroups -- non-instantaneous help. (Users like instant help).
I'm not sure what version of Windows you are running, but unless it's nt/2k/xp I don't think it works with > 512megs of ram. I could be wrong on this, but I remember reading it in more than one place
You can run Win9x on more than 512MB of ram. (Notice I said can and not should;) heh) The problem with more than 512MB of ram was getting "out of memory" messages when you clearly had plenty of RAM. See Here for the MS article on this problem.
(Summary): You can only have 512MB maximum at install time. Afterwards, you add a line to your system.ini file, under [vcache]:
[vcache]
MaxFileCache = 524288
That sets the maximum cache to 512MB. Then you can install the rest of your RAM.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW it is GNOME and KDE that are dog slow but that is the new "modern" stuff while "old" X and fvwm still runs fast and light (and looks better too).
:)
Someone who I agree with!
I keep saying "it's not X but what you run on top of it" that makes linux on the desktop feel slow. X + twm loads quick even on my old AMD K6-2 450 MHz. Not that I use twm, but I have tried it to see how fast it is in comparison to KDE/Gnome.
X is too dependent on networking protocols and is just pretty goddamn slow all-around
IMO, X is NOT what is slow! It is KDE/Gnome/[insert slow desktop/window manager here]. If you want to see the speed of X all by itself, try typing 'X' at the command line. The X server pops up damn near instantaneously (minus anything useful though) on my P4 1.7Ghz, and it is still quite fast on my K6-2 450 (yeah I still have one of those). Also, I have noticed that recent versions of Gnome have improved startup times. Faster than KDE on the same machine in my personal experience. (I still use KDE though.)
All I have to so is switch to a lighter destkop (i.e. twm) and the startup time from 'startx' to "ready for use" is dramatically reduced. I see plenty of "X sucks" lately, but I don't see it as being X.
Just my 2
"I don't wanna hear how you're so driven" some more stuff, then "If you say it, mean it, if you mean it, do it. You can't live your live through me, if you do it, live it, if you live it, say it, action is the air you breathe."
;) Anthrax's CD "The Sound of White Noise". I have that one, it's great. And Packaged Rebellion (track 4) is one of my favorite tracks.
ahh yes
I never ever saw a pricing scheme in which a cable company would sell you additional connections for additional TVs
Time Warner charges per TV if I remember correctly (read it once). I didn't "log that into memory", as I don't have cable TV ( I have DirectTV, although I do have Road Runner service (with multiple computers behind NAT)).
Correct me if I am wrong, but the only time that it starts to write to your page file is the moment that the amount of data passes the amount of RAM you have.
That would be the logical conclusion... However, from my experience on Windows 2000 that is not what I have seen. I have 512MB in this system. I highly doubt that with a web broswer, email client, and a couple instant messangers I am using all 512MB, yet Win2k insists on using approx 768mb swap. For what?! I have this machine set up as a dual boot, and besides Win2k, it also runs Red Hat 9. I have had evolution, mozilla (with several tabs open), gaim, licq, a couple konsoles, and usually quanta is open as well. (and I use KDE as my desktop). With that said... Linux doesn't even TOUCH the swap partition (if I'm running KsCD to play an audio disc, there is some usage of swap to buffer playback, but very little used still). And most of the physical ram is being used to cache the disk (instead of the other way around). I keep the memory info open so I can watch it now and then and it just amazes me how little swap my machine uses under linux, yet Windows with that many apps open is using 3/4 a gig for swap! I know there was a big deal about the VM in the kernel during the early 2.4.x days, but as far as I can tell, that's long been fixed, and puts windows to shame now.
My personal favorite quake mod was Thunder Walker CTF
;) LOL
The sounds were hilarious, and the runes made gameplay.. umm.. interesting!
I loved that game!
I'm sorry, but what the *hell* are you talking about? The only thing I can imagine you're talking about is the "approved for Windows NN" logo campaign, which has been around since Windows 95 came out. The logo is completely optional (unless you want to sell your product in Office Depot or wherever it is) and does nothing but show that you comply with and support a bunch of Microsoft's latest pet technology. It does not force you to "sign over the rights" to anything, not even your soul.
Are you really trying to say that Microsoft is trying to control what software you can sell for Windows, and that you need to sell it through them? If you are, you'd better come up with a few shreds of proof.
I think he is refering to something I read once (which may have just been rumor). I remember something about all software that runs on Windows in the future needed to be approved by and digitally signed by MS. I don't remember where I saw that, so I don't have a link. Peronally, I agree with you that MS isn't so stupid as to kill their market like that. After all, there are only 2 things that keep MS where it's at: 1) Applications, 2) "User-Friendliness".
1) This isn't about XFree being fast for you. And if it performs as well as (say) Windows 2k or XP on modern hardware, then you've spent alot of time tweaking X, and probably your kernel. X should be decent out of the box, and it isn't. "Works good enough" isn't something that I personally like settling for.
;) What makes it feel slow are the window managers (or more correctly, complete desktop environment a la KDE/Gnome). For example: I have had Mandrake 9.0 on both a K6-2 450Mhz machine and this Pentium 4 1.7Ghz. (FYI: P4 has 512MB Ram, and the K6-2 has 128MB RAM) If I run KDE or Gnome on the K6-2, then yes, it is slow slow slow. Now, if i switch to say a light weight window manager like XFCE, then X w/ XFCE loads almost as fast as the P4 that is twice the computing power and more ram. (And by that, I mean loading XFCE + X on both machines.) X just isn't that slow.
:)
2) Standardization is absolutely a point of X. I don't know how you can think otherwise. One of the biggest objections to this port is the possible breaking of the X standards.
3) There is no reason whatsoever that XF86Config needs to be the monster that it is. A logical hierarchy of settings would be a good first step. Alot of the crap in XF86Config is handled by drivers using a standardized interface in Windows - this is a reasonable model to copy. That would help eliminate the need for every distro that's trying to be user-friendly to write it's own hardware detection program.
=======
1) X isn't really that slow. Quite quick for me, and out of the box, too! Just type "X" at the prompt and watch it pop up there nice and quick (with nothing else, granted
2) I think it is possible to fork and not break the standards.
3)Um, it is hierarchial last time I looked? BTW, Mandrake's user-friendly program is really cool (IMHO). There just needs to be a standard one like it that ships on every distro. Who wants to write one?
Network transparency is used in more places than you probably realize...
I need it, that's for sure.
... 'nuff said! :)
... and one that I don't have an answer for.
:)
I have linux here at home and at work. Yet, as of right now I'm waiting on my first set of OpenBSD 3.2 CD's that I ordered from their site. *The real kicker: I'm to set up OpenBSD servers at work!*
Actually, I'm quite happy: I get to learn something new.
3 of those 7 are apache-on-windows alerts... so that leaves 4 for *nix... that's less than the five for IIS 5.0 :P
This is my first post on Slashdot [Yay!], but I have to use it to do something that most people probably won't like, defend Microsoft.
;) ...
:) heh).
:)
You're allowed to do that, just be sure you have some valid points ready
Yes, I loathe the general instability of their products and the outrageous prices, but Microsoft is a company. A company in a capatilist system.
I believe the word you were looking for was "capitalistic" (although, that might have two L's I'm not completely sure
Why do we punish them for doing their job? People say they need to cripple a successful company in order to let lesser ones compete, but what companies are they helping?
Well, the Linux distributors certainly qualify, but think about the fact that there has not really been another commercial OS to make inroads into the desktop market.And don't quote superiority of Windows on the technical level, I might choke on my drink while laughing! I mean really, MS got where it was because, 1) a PR department from HELL, and 2) evil business practices (of which I won't detail, as this post is going to be longer than I wanted).
What OS is there that the general public [People on the AOL level of understanding] will want? I know Linux is great, but it is not something for the general public in its current flavor. Most end users won't understand what compile even means.
I couldn't tell you the last time I needed to compile something on Mandrake. And that is the distro targeted at the AOL-level users out there. I wouldn't know about Lindows, never used it, and don't plan to in the future, either. OTOH, compiling is handy if you have a piece of hardware and you need to compile a module, and that's something that shouldn't happen on an AOL user's system anyhow.(**Disclaimer: I use Mandrake on the desktop, Slackware on my server.)
My point in general, I guess, is that Microsoft does have a product for the general public, yet everyone sees having a good foothold on a market as a tyrannical thing.
Oh, they have more than a "good" foothold... And let's not spend too much time on HOW they attained it. Not to mention those same methods are still in use to maintain it.(And since they are declared a monopoly, they aren't allowed to use those methods.)
If people don't want to use Windows' Media Player, they don't have to. I use WinAmp, and it works perfectly. I don't worry one bit about WMP, I see no reason that Microsoft should be forced to rip away the Media Player for one, which would most likely lead to many more holes in the code which could cause even more errors when visiting web pages with any kind of audio or movies or even inserting a CD
True, you can use WinAMP in place of WMP. That's not completely the issue. Think about the "AOL user" as you put it earlier. If there is already an application of the sort the user needs, why are they going to bother going out to get another one. AOL users (generally) are too lazy to do that, they will just use what is available.
Well, I'm done on this post, have a good day
Hmm, thing is... everyone who has replied to this thread has complained about 50 pin cables... I haven't had a 50pin scsi hard drive in about 3 years. The 68pin cables aren't that big of a pain to me really (like routing an IDE cable IMO, except available in longer length & more connectors).
Other than hard drives, I do have a scsi cdrw drive... It is on a 50 pin cable, but doesn't get in my way.
(which they got off the internet for free. Do these people do *anything* on their own?).
:)
Yeah, unoriginal bastards... Kinda reminds you of MS doesn't it?
However, the 15k drives (seagate) were outragous. Not only were they loud and untouchably hot
I've never had a 15k rpm so I'll take your word for it.
they had this funny sound like something was rattling around in them (they all did it, so I guess it's by-design rattling..)
LOL!
0K SCSI drives tend to be pretty loud and run quite hot. I think that the 10k IDE drives will probably imploy some sort of technologies to keep them quiet and cooler, since IDE drives generally live on the desktop.
While that is generally true, I have a late model 10k rpm Cheetah in my file server that is quieter than my Maxtor IDE drives in this desktop machine. My other cheetah however, is an early 10K rpm scsi that is VERY noisy.
Yes, bring on Prescott and PCI Express :)
I *SO* hope IBM wins this...
Too bad it wasn't done using the Tenebrae engine! That would have been sweet. :)
Interesting... I'll have to look into that.
Oh, and by the way, ctl-alt-+ and ctl-alt-- changes your resolutions in X on-the-fly,
As much as I love Linux/X11, I find the method you mentioned as less than desirable. Yes, it changes the resolution. It also leaves me with a virtual desktop size of the default resolution. Thus, to see all of the desktop at once is not possible, requiring me to mouse to the edges and have the "view" scroll around.
if you compile your quality sound driver and insert it into the kernel, you'll have reliable sound,
Oh, I agree completely that a quality sound driver in the kernel is reliable. The sound daemons for the X11 desktops aren't so great (arts for kde comes to mind). Of course, joe user compiling a sound driver for the kernel is an interesting thought (READ: not going to happen).
xfreee86 +xinerama works great for MULTI-monitor setups, not just dual-monitor setups.
I have tried both using xinerama and not using xinerama for my Matrox card. Xinerama gave better overall results, but liked to crash under certain applications. Without Xinerama, the crashes didn't occur, but I didn't get what I wanted across multiple screens. All this was done on Red Hat though. On Mandrake, it was setup for me by the installer, and it worked a lot nicer. I didn't check to see if it was using Xinerama or not.
Sorry if I come off as harsh
You did.
but I hate this type of thinking.
You hate thinking along the lines of "easy to use"? Remember, easy to use for an adept and a common user are tottally different things (and a lot of people have better things to do, the computer is just a tool to them).
Some people are so lazy, but expect the world of others. Parasites.
"Some people" as you put it, also cannot program. Like myself. You don't want me contributing to (insert project here), because the code would suck (which is why I left the comp sci program and went into admin instead). Obviously, "normal users" need a computer to do certain tasks (productivity apps, etc..), but cannot contribute. By your definition that makes them parasites, but they cannot do anything about that.
Yes, I can read man pages. Yes, I can use vi to edit the X config file. Yes, I edit apache's config in the same way. But I am in the field. The average office worker isn't. And at home, there is no help desk other than emails and newsgroups -- non-instantaneous help. (Users like instant help).
That's funny... my problem is just the opposite... I'm always typing 'ls' in a Windows command shell! lol
I'm not sure what version of Windows you are running, but unless it's nt/2k/xp I don't think it works with > 512megs of ram. I could be wrong on this, but I remember reading it in more than one place
;) heh) The problem with more than 512MB of ram was getting "out of memory" messages when you clearly had plenty of RAM. See Here for the MS article on this problem.
You can run Win9x on more than 512MB of ram. (Notice I said can and not should
(Summary): You can only have 512MB maximum at install time. Afterwards, you add a line to your system.ini file, under [vcache]:
[vcache]
MaxFileCache = 524288
That sets the maximum cache to 512MB. Then you can install the rest of your RAM.
If the source were actually released by M$, all you'd have to do is wait a month or so for all the bugs to be fixed.
I think it would take a little longer than that; I mean there is a LOT of lines of code to go through.