Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX
The Fast-Food Syndrome: The Linux Platform is Getting Fat
Aloone_Jonez:
Oh and another thing, what percentage of system memory do you think an operating system shroud use by default?
I would say as little as possible, 10% would be acceptable.
A swap file should only be used when memory is running low.
Memory usage has grown disproportionally to hard disk space usage, this is clearly unacceptable.
When I mean Linux I mean the kernel, and all the other crap needed for a reasonable user interface. (X window manager, KDE or other desktop)
How would you define "Bloat"? I would say it's extra resources wasted with no extra features or crappy retarded features that no one REALLY NEEDS.
I can give examples of this in both Linux and Windows:
WinXP:
The fucking annoying search character.
Bitmaps an other shit on the folder displays.
You can turn all this shit off.
Even when you disable the animated search character you still have to put up with the search wizard for retards.
Red Hat 9:
The skins on the windows and GUI widgets. At least with windows you can turn these off, I gained some speed by changing the theme to Windows.
The X window manager seems to be the culprit, it's native theme even has skins. This is the sort of feature that some people of course love, it should be contained within another module and only loaded when the user requests it.
I would guess that the code for the crappy effects (menu animations and other eye candy) gets loaded even though I never use these "features".
flap:
quote:I would say as little as possible, 10% would be acceptable.
--- End quote ---
So what's the point of having the other 90%? Linux uses utilises most of your memory because it can, not because it has to.
quote:The X window manager seems to be the culprit, it's native theme even has skins. This is the sort of feature that some people of course love, it should be contained within another module and only loaded when the user requests it.
--- End quote ---
You can turn all of that off; just don't use KDE/GNOME.
Zombie9920:
quote:Originally posted by Aloone:
This is so true, Linsux and Winbloze are both bloatware.
It's stupid you shouldn't have to buy a new PC every three years to run the latest software, you don't with any other appliance. I've not up graded my CD player for over 14 years, and it still plays the latest CDs.
A history of my past upgrades:
1993
386 33MHz 4MB RAM, 43MD disk, 640x480 16 colours, DOS 6 & Win 3.1
Soon upgraded to 8MB RAM, 800x600 64K colours (slow) sound card CD-ROM drive.
1994
New mother bored upgraded to 486 100MHz, 100MB disk.
1997
P200 32MB RAM, 4GB disk, Win 95.
2004
1800MHz, 256MB RAM, Xpee, 40GB disk, DVD ROM CD Burner.
I was excited I thought no more swap files surly 256MB is more than enough, disapointed with Xpee, 336MB swap file .
Soon bought another 80GB disk to run, Redhat 9, disapointed with Linux, it guzzels just as much if not even more memory.
Notice a pattern. - My upgrades are becoming less an less frequent. I have never bothered with the latest hardware. I only upgrade when I have to.
The only thing I do with my new PC that I couldn't do with my old one is burn CDs & watch DVDs.
Fuck this for a lark, time to hop of the tread mill, I will not upgrade for another 10 years or maybe even never. By then I hope that Windows is on it's death bed and Linux has got it's act together, or some better OS has replaced it.
--- End quote ---
It is a good thing that our computers are so fast and high-tech these days. If they weren't we would still be playing shitty looking(pixelated) FPS games like doom, pixelated TPS like the original tomb raider, 2D side scrollers, etc. Nowadays our games look beautiful(damn near lifelike) due to having such powerful hardware. Hardware that wouldn't be so powerful if it wan't for OS makers(namely MS) upping the minimum sys requirements each time they released a new OS.
Nowadays a person who does professional Audio/Video/image work can get alot more done in less time thanks to the speed of modern computers(not to mention the better hardware gives them better quality work as well).
Come to think of it. Any real work people use a computer for gets done alot faster now than it ever did back in the day due to our hardware being so powerful.
I also will add that prices are for the better now.
Back in the late 80's a complete 386 system w/8MB of Ram, less than 200MB hard drive, shitty video subsystem, etc. could've been as expensive as $5,000. The scenario was the same with the 486 when it was 1st introduced. The prices started getting a little better when in the Pentium age.
Nowadays though we can get/build a complete system that will simply run rings around that old stuff thousands of times in a minute for less than $700.
I remember back in the day a 16MB stick of 66mhz 72-pin EDO memory went for over $130.
Nowadays a high quality name-brand 512MB stick of 200mhz Double Data Rate(effectively 400mhz) ram(PC3200) can be had for less than $100. Obviously the modern, cheaper memory is infinitley better than what could be had for more back then.
The same thing goes for hard drives. Back in the day a 2GB hard drive could cost over $200. Now $200 will buy you a hard drive over 200GB. The old 2GB hard drives ran in PIO mode(mode 4 went no faster than 12MB per sec. and PIO mode used alot of CPU cycles). The modern 200GB+ hard drives are capable of doing 133MB per sec(PATA/133) or 150MB per sec(SATA) plus drive work/transfers do not use many CPU cycles at all because the IDE/SATA bus is doing all of the work kind of like how a GPU/APU takes the load off of the CPU because the GPU(Graphics Processing Unit/APU(Audio Processing Unit) is a little CPU on the Sound/Video card that is there to do all of the work of the card that the CPU used to do on old video/sound cards.
The evolution of technology is by no means bad and kudos to MS, game makers and professional work software makers for driving technology to be so fast and cheap these days. Back in the day you had to be rich to own a computer because of how much the damn thngs costed. Nowadays 90% of households hae a computer because they are very affordable now.
Back in the day the Internet was something rare and special. Nowadyas the Internet is a nessecisty.
Ok, I'll quit rambling because it is all going the same place. Evolution is not bad at all.
[ July 07, 2004: Message edited by: Viper ]
hm_murdock:
quote:old machines rock!!!
--- End quote ---
DAMN RIGHT! ::high five::
quote:This is so true, Linsux and Winbloze are both bloatware.
--- End quote ---
The stupid names... WITH THEM... STOP!
quote:It's stupid you shouldn't have to buy a new PC every three years to run the latest software, you don't with any other appliance. I've not up graded my CD player for over 14 years, and it still plays the latest CDs.
--- End quote ---
I have an iMac 500, and a 1GHz P3. Neither of them are so far gone that they're useless. The iMac is getting there, thanks to Apple's greed and ever-upward-spiralling reqs.
If there's any OS that has absurdly climbing reqs, it's OS X. When it was announced, it was going to be "for all PowerPC Macs", then it was for 604s and up, then it was for G3s and up, then it was for G4s, and they threw G3 users a bone and didn't lock them out. Now they're already starting to DROP INSTALLER SUPPORT for the early G3s.
Oh, and ever release of OS X gets more bloated with "features" and less stable.
Those are the reasons I snagged this 1GHz P3. XP still runs better than OS X on comparable hardware. Linux runs even better still.
quote:A history of my past upgrades:
1993
386 33MHz 4MB RAM, 43MD disk, 640x480 16 colours, DOS 6 & Win 3.1
Soon upgraded to 8MB RAM, 800x600 64K colours (slow) sound card CD-ROM drive.
--- End quote ---
Ow. I was running a 486-33 with 8MB, upgraded to 24 in 94.
quote:1994
New mother bored upgraded to 486 100MHz, 100MB disk.
--- End quote ---
Motherboard, not "mother bored".
quote:1997
P200 32MB RAM, 4GB disk, Win 95.
--- End quote ---
Your bad for not running NT
quote:2004
1800MHz, 256MB RAM, Xpee, 40GB disk, DVD ROM CD Burner.
--- End quote ---
Get more memory.
quote:I was excited I thought no more swap files surly 256MB is more than enough, disapointed with Xpee, 336MB swap file [FU] .
--- End quote ---
You could have a full GB and you'll still have a swap file. It has nothing to do with OS efficiency, but instead with the PC memory model. Protected mode uses flat, paged memory. To make as much room as possible for other apps, OSes page unused parts of themselves and idle apps off to disk. Every application thinks that it has 4GB of memory, and the OS does its best to keep up that illusion.
BTW, I run 512MB and don't have disk thrashing in XP or Linux
quote:Soon bought another 80GB disk to run, Redhat 9, disapointed with Linux, it guzzels just as much if not even more memory.
--- End quote ---
More. Memory. Get. 512MB. At. Least.
Why the fuck would you run 256MB? That's shitty.
quote:Notice a pattern. - My upgrades are becoming less an less frequent. I have never bothered with the latest hardware. I only upgrade when I have to.
The only thing I do with my new PC that I couldn't do with my old one is burn CDs & watch DVDs.
Fuck this for a lark, time to hop of the tread mill, I will not upgrade for another 10 years or maybe even never. By then I hope that Windows is on it's death bed and Linux has got it's act together, or some better OS has replaced it.
--- End quote ---
Doubtful either way. Windows isn't going anywhere. It's improved greatly over the last few releases, but we'll see how Longhorn goes.
As for Linux, its rate of improvement is phenomenal. Within a year or two, it'll surpass Windows for ease of install and usage.
quote:Oh and another thing, what percentage of system memory do you think an operating system shroud use by default?
--- End quote ---
By default? Wait... there's a setting that lets you choose? lol
There is no "default setting"
quote:I would say as little as possible, 10% would be acceptable.
--- End quote ---
That'd be nice. Now go install Slack or Debian sarge and run an OS that uses 10% of your memory. It happens all the time.
quote:A swap file should only be used when memory is running low.
--- End quote ---
You mean, the way they've always been used?
quote:Memory usage has grown disproportionally to hard disk space usage, this is clearly unacceptable.
--- End quote ---
But you can buy 512MB of RAM for $50, so it's not really that big of a deal.
quote:When I mean Linux I mean the kernel, and all the other crap needed for a reasonable user interface. (X window manager, KDE or other desktop)
--- End quote ---
X11 is not a window manager.
quote:How would you define "Bloat"? I would say it's extra resources wasted with no extra features or crappy retarded features that no one REALLY NEEDS.
--- End quote ---
If you don't need something, remove it.
quote:I can give examples of this in both Linux and Windows:
WinXP:
The fucking annoying search character.
Bitmaps an other shit on the folder displays.
You can turn all this shit off.
Even when you disable the animated search character you still have to put up with the search wizard for retards.
--- End quote ---
Search wizard for retards? What's wrong with the serach pane? it's certainly quite nice IMHO to have your search controls over there, out of the way, and that lovely large folder view that you can set to any available view.
quote:Red Hat 9:
The skins on the windows and GUI widgets. At least with windows you can turn these off, I gained some speed by changing the theme to Windows.
--- End quote ---
I assume you're referring to Bluecurve? Or do you mean the native gtk theme support? This doesn't slow it down at all. It's not a "skin". gtk themes are full libaries that define how gtk draws GUI elements. No theme is any faster or slower than any other.
If you want fast, then run twm and don't run any "nice looking" apps.
quote:The X window manager seems to be the culprit, it's native theme even has skins. This is the sort of feature that some people of course love, it should be contained within another module and only loaded when the user requests it.
--- End quote ---
X11 has no "native theme". X11 does not support skins. X11 simply handles screen drawing. It's quite possible you're running a generic, unaccelerated X server. I don't think you ever told us what your vid card was.
quote:I would guess that the code for the crappy effects (menu animations and other eye candy) gets loaded even though I never use these "features".
--- End quote ---
You're a dipshit.
flap:
quote:That'd be nice. Now go install Slack or Debian sarge and run an OS that uses 10% of your memory. It happens all the time.
--- End quote ---
No distribution uses only 10% of your memory. What would be the point of wasting available memory by leaving 90% of it unused? The system utilises all available memory because there's no reason not to.
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