New Convert...

[hm_murdock]

The thing that nobody realizes is that everything actually sucks. Some things suck less than others.

When you realize that nothing is actually good, and everything is only varying degrees of shit, then you'll live happier.

[Pathos]

glass half empty hah?

[hm_murdock]

Nah, things aren't really that bad. It's just that things aren't super duper good in technology. We're still way too early for anything to be "great".

[piratePenguin]

BUT...gentoo seems so slow. With the gnome gui gedit takes 4 seconds to startup, and another 2 to allow input. Why? These machines were far more powerful than mine yet struggle with this simple application. It takes 2 seconds to start the gimp on mine. 0.1 seconds to start up Notepad2 my favourite text editor. I do notice how ever the OS is always instantly responsive when a program hangs unlike Windows.

Just found this: http://live.gnome.org/MemoryReduction

The plan is to reduce the amount of memory that Gnome applications consume. Gnome is barely usable on a machine with 128 MB of RAM; contrast this with Windows XP, which is very snappy on such a configuration.

At least they're working on it.

[Pathos]

These machines had 512mg ram and over 100mg free.

Linux apparently runs applications in "user mode" for security unlike microsoft which would explain it. But I think its just that gedit is not well optimised.

[worker201]

If you'd rather build all your apps and packages by hand using --with-target=whatever and with sse2 enabled, feel free.  You can totally optimize your packages.  Hell, you can optimize the whole damn kernel if you want.  But it's just plain easier to use generic rpms.

I'm with Kintaro - Linux is not for whiners.  Get tough or get out.  You can't complain unless you are paying for development or leading development yourself.  Linux can do anything and everything you ever dreamed of and more - but it's up to you to make it happen.  If you want to sit back and have eye-candy spoonfed to you, then perhaps Linux isn't for you.

[Pathos]

I just downloaded Damn Small Linux only four hours on the 56k (surfing as well), it sounds really cool, going to try it now.

[Pathos]

I didn't show the gui when I tried to make it boot with specific vga setting.
It worked when I didn't choose any settings.
Now it doesn't no matter what I do...

Welcome to linux pathos.

I know its got something to do with the graphic mode which narrows it down.

[Jenda]

Yeah, welcome to Linux, Pathos.

[WMD]

You see, commercial platforms have a market-driven userland, which is mostly standardized, like in Windows. Software can be prelinked against system interfaces during compile-time, and so they work fast as hell.

In GNU/Linux you have no standards, no single userland to prelink software with.

Unfortunately for you, there is a program called Prelink that will link binaries against the system.  Some new distributions (RHEL4 for example) will automatically run that in cron every once in a while.

I just did some timings myself:
Gedit: 6 seconds (longer than usual...wtf)
Emacs: 3 seconds
gVim: 1 second
AbiWord: 4 seconds (not bad considering it has to load some Gnome libs first.  Inside Gnome, it would be maybe half this)

More importantly though, I find that Linux apps are very fast once they are loaded, even if they take slightly longer to load.  Making it even more moot is the fact that MS Notepad is 95% the same app that it was in 1990, when it took about 3 seconds to load on a decent machine.

Also, I believe in loading programs and keeping them loaded, even  on Windows.  I never quit Gedit or anything else because I'd just have to reload it.  I recommend doing this unless you have 256MB RAM or something.

[worker201]

With the 4 concurrent desktops that most Linuxes offer, there's no point in closing oft-used programs like gedit, terminal, and Firefox.

I might just be blowing smoke here, but I have a theory on why programs might load slowly.  I don't think Gnome keeps the desktop in memory at all times the way Windows does.  The proof is that if you download something to your desktop, it won't be visible until you refresh.  So loading a program causes you to dump the desktop from memory before loading the program into memory.  Which would account for the extra seconds.  Of course this leaves more memory to use in the program, and prevents you from having to fuck around with paging files, thrashing, or "illegal operation" issues like Windows.  For people that like to drop stuff to the desktop, though, this can get kinda frustrating, since you have to get into the desktop folder and refresh or logout to get things to show up.

IF this is the case, then I will gladly take a few seconds opening hit in tradeoff for more and better managed memory.

[MarathoN]

I used to think WindowMaker was all the rage, until I used XFCE, which is so easier to use and faster than anything I have ever tried (Including the recent KDE and GNOME), that I'd recommend people use it.

The themes are very good too, I currently use a Mac OS Classic theme, which brings back memories of System 7

Here's a picture :-

[worker201]

The last thing I want my computer to do (especially my Mac) is remind me of System 7!

[Pathos]

I got it working again with the Failsafe option.

Gonna have to design my own style file and write a new master CD once I've got it purring how I like.

Its just like Linux should be, simple and fast. I love it.

[skyman8081]

There is a single menu bar in Mac OS, it is of the current application.

Pinstripes are visible on an unfocused app.

The theme you do have is Platinum, which was introduced in Mac OS 8.  And was NOT in System 7.