You are not logged in.

#1 2004-06-10 09:45:32

robot5x
Member
Registered: 2004-01-26
Posts: 266

Is linux getting fat?

Found this interesting article on osnews
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=7324
- apart from extremely controversial statements -

Gone are the days when we could advocate Linux as a fast and light OS that gives old machines a new boost

and

XP also shortened boot time considerably, whereas with Linux it's just getting longer and longer and longer...

He says this -

The other mainstream desktop distros are equally demanding (even if not as much as Fedora, for example Arch Linux or Slackware run Gnome on 128 MB, but not very comfortably when you load 2-3 apps at the same time),

Arch is now a mainstream desktop distro!!
wowee!

Offline

#2 2004-06-10 10:46:05

Mr Green
Forum Fellow
From: U.K.
Registered: 2003-12-21
Posts: 5,899
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/l … BootFaster


maybe us Archers could figure out how to boot quicker than XP  smile

We have the power use it....

MrGreen


Mr Green

Offline

#3 2004-06-10 12:03:03

nesrecar
Member
From: Germany/Munich
Registered: 2004-06-06
Posts: 79

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Who cares the boot time? The runtime is interesting.


Public Key 0x24685E35 available from any key server you trust.

IRC: ssimon/Nesrecar

Offline

#4 2004-06-10 13:38:12

IceRAM
Member
From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2004-03-04
Posts: 772
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Idea no 1: Linux does give old machines a boost (depending on what you want to run on old machines) because Windows does not even start.

IMO, linux is big because:
1. there are loooots of libraries that do the same thing
2. at the begining, probably most of the end-user application developers concentrated on adding features and not on optimizing the current applications. Fortunately, many apps are now mature and devels started optimizing them. (end-user-app == graphical text editors etc. && end-user-app != web/ftp server)
3. ...

For example, take the KDE/Gnome applications. If you run only one of those types, you might find your system fast (but not faster than Windows).

Unfortunately, most of the users have mixed applications. The applications' interfaces are not consistent. This inconsistency is also followed by the memory loss.

Idea no. 2: boot-time is important for the workstation user - the user who wants to have fast access to the computer resources (not the server admins). Hmm... I wonder how fast would booting be if no text was shown on the screen (screen output is slow)... but I still think it would not be faster than Win.

IceRAM

Offline

#5 2004-06-10 13:53:00

cjdj
Member
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: 2004-05-07
Posts: 121

Re: Is linux getting fat?

I have several systems on my home network.  One is on all the time, and it is basically my server.   But the one my wife uses is an Athlon-700 with 256mb of ram. 

The boot up time into a console is very quick.  I'd say about 15 seconds after it has gotten thru the BIOS stuff.

But going in to KDE takes quite a bit longer.  Especially if using kdm and going straight to a KDE login screen.  Because then you login, and then it takes a minute to initialise whatever it is initialising.

So, what I consider boot time, is the part before logging in.  That is fast.

Its the "logging in" time that is more noticably slower.  My wife wouldnt notice if the "boot time" was 15 seconds or 2 minutes.  because she turns the computer on, does some other things and comes back to see a graphical login screen.  Then she logs in, it irks her to sit and wait for KDE to do its initialisation thing.  As much of that stuff as possible should be done before she logs in.  Even if the net start-up time is the same.  Its more noticeable between the time she logs in, and when she has a useable desktop.

Does anyone know what factors make the KDE startup time different?   On all my machines, I havent really noticed much difference in time for KDE to startup, even though I have a fairly different mix of applications on each one.

Offline

#6 2004-06-10 14:48:28

Bobonov
Member
From: Roma - Italy
Registered: 2003-05-07
Posts: 295

Re: Is linux getting fat?

At first I want to make a premise, I am a Linux/opensource supporter, I use it since 95.
I am only trying to see in objective mode some fact, naturally these fact are base upon my observation and therefore have to be considered as personal opinion.

Linux and windows are base on two different concept.

We do not have to forget that linux is still server oriented and windows is desktop oriented, even server version is derived from desktop enviroment concept.

At boot time there are several difference on beavoir between win and linux.

Basically linux start all the services (network, samba, cups, httpd..........) before starting the graphic enviroment, in this way for critical system -  read server - all the services are available as soon as possible, then the graphic enviroment is load.

On Windows at fisr start the graphic and then the services, in fact many times at the login windows the system is still loading services (the drive led is blinking)

In general, Linux load/unload library upon necessity
Windows load a lot of library (that's one of the reasons it use a lot of ram) and load other library upon starting of application.

Under Linux we should make some other distinction.
in general graphical application the first time load slow aftewards load fast, that means that application library (and graphic library) stay in memory even after closing the application untill more mmemory is needed and then unloaded.
Application that use the same graphic library of the desktop in use load much faster than other

In windows most (all) the graphic library are loaded in memory, in general all windows application use them so is convenient in general. Thats why word start so fast.

This is not appliable on linux were we have several different graphic library are used.

Parallel starting of application can be one of the faces of the medal to speed up Linux boot time.

Anyway WinXP is not a server system, so it is quite normal that in some cases start faster than Linux.
It do much less (has muche less service to start) than Linux.
I played a bit with win XP home ediction and I have to say that is only an evolution of win 98.
Pratically it has much less functionality and security option than win 2000 wrk  but it is sure an improvement compared to win98.

I dunno for the professional ediction but I think is quite the same.
I think at microsoft they decided to do a radical change in developing, and I have to admit that's good.
What I mean? Before if you want to have a secure desktop system the only choice was to use win 2000 wrk or win NT wrk.
All we know that they were basically the "poor brother" of the server version, the same weight (slow) of the server but with fewer option.

Now they decided to make a different move that affect both marketing, that is normal for M$, and developing.

The windows 2003 series has only server versions, different servers version based on the type of use and as workstation/home system you have to buy WinXP.
WinXP grants much more security versus the previous home system (Win98/ME) and is much more faster than Win2000wrk. But if you use it in a office and you need particoular restriction/access policy you have to use it with a WinServer.
Before in many office that needed basic security management windows 2000 wrk was used as little fileserver. Now with winXP this is not possible.

How does it affect developing? I think it is clear WinXP is much faster than win2000wrk, is much stable, it has better support for peripheral and for sure it has better game compatibility that for home use is foundamental.

One last observation on WinXP, with the time, and installing and uninstalling application the system became much slower than a fresh installation (as always happen with MS OS), normaly this does not happen with linux.

P.S.
I did not write much about linux because all of us know it well and I reconfirm that I love it.

Offline

#7 2004-06-10 20:35:19

punkrockguy318
Member
From: New Jersey
Registered: 2004-02-15
Posts: 711
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Hmm... Is there any way possible to load a graphical library into memory at startup?  Maybe loading GTK2 into the swap/ram?  I only really use GTK2 apps for day to day use (except XMMS).  I wouldn't mind not getting a speed boost for qt apps.


If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.   1 Corinthians 13:2

Offline

#8 2004-06-11 02:48:42

yak8998
Member
Registered: 2004-03-01
Posts: 143

Re: Is linux getting fat?

I think it is clear WinXP is much faster than win2000wrk, is much stable, it has better support for peripheral and for sure it has better game compatibility that for home use is foundamental.

WinXP (pro) is actually win2000 with some new componets, so it cannot be any faster than an identically configured win2k machine. Both are excellent OSs though (I prefer Win2k due to what I call the 'bloat factor' of XP).

Bobonov effectively said what I would've. The way the OS are built determines the bootup speed. If you could break down the Win startup/shell and rebuild it, I'm sure you could be sitting at a working desktop in under 10 seconds (I've seen Win98 machines do 15secs easy). You could probably get a linux machine booted that fast with a lot of tweaking too. But don't you enjoy the long linux bootup time, as you don't have to reset once a day like most people do with Windows?


"Ignorance is bliss, for stupid people."
"open-source is [...] programming Darwinism."
Vaughan-Nichols

Offline

#9 2004-06-11 02:56:12

Cobalt
Member
Registered: 2004-06-05
Posts: 10

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Gone are the days when we could advocate Linux as a fast and light OS that gives old machines a new boost

XP also shortened boot time considerably, whereas with Linux it's just getting longer and longer and longer...

This is BS, a linux system (especially arch) is only as bloated as the user wants it to be....with the exception of Fedora which installed everything i didnt ask it to all over my nice,clean,shiny, harddrive. I mean, there are dozens of ways somone could speed up their machine, to name a few:1.Compile your own kernel to include just the hardware on your system
2.Install only the packages that you use and their deps, nothing else
3.Tweak startup scripts to load only what you need them to load
4.You can compile many programs from source and optimize them for your machine
5.Configure the nitty-grittiest details by many assorted means
In effect, anyone that's complaining about Linux's speed is only complaining about their own doing, unlike in an XP environment where you end up with everything but the kitchen sink loaded at boot and on you harddrive all not under your control. Linux is all about choice...take advantage of that.

Offline

#10 2004-06-11 08:35:43

Egil.B
Member
From: Universitas Osloensis
Registered: 2004-02-14
Posts: 116

Re: Is linux getting fat?

cjdj wrote:

So, what I consider boot time, is the part before logging in.  That is fast.

Its the "logging in" time that is more noticably slower.

Its the same thing with Windows XP. When I turn on my fathers laptop, it doesn't take much time to get the login screen, but it isn't usable before 1-2 minutes after you logged in.

Offline

#11 2004-06-11 09:10:59

IceRAM
Member
From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2004-03-04
Posts: 772
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Cobalt wrote:

1.Compile your own kernel to include just the hardware on your system
2.Install only the packages that you use and their deps, nothing else
3.Tweak startup scripts to load only what you need them to load
4.You can compile many programs from source and optimize them for your machine
5.Configure the nitty-grittiest details by many assorted means
In effect, anyone that's complaining about Linux's speed is only complaining about their own doing, unlike in an XP environment where you end up with everything but the kitchen sink loaded at boot and on you harddrive all not under your control. Linux is all about choice...take advantage of that.

1. Is the Win2k/XP kernel compiled for my machine? > NO
2. Installed only the packs that I need? > YES (that doesn't speed up my computer, my computer is just not that bloated by apps)
3. Are the startup scripts tweaked for my machine... hmm.. NOT YET
4. Are the programs compiled for my machine? > NO
5. Are the "nitty-grittiest details" configured? > NOT YET
Under these conditions, Win2k/XP is faster than ANY linux on the same machine (just test a plain-text editor (any) <-> notepad / any word processor <-> MS Word).
Strange, isn't it? Windows is not even build specifically for my machine and it runs faster... what might be the cause... hmm.. THE LIBRARIES.

My dream: have lots of memory so different libraries in Linux won't have an impact on performance.

IceRAM

P.S. I am also interested in knowing if there's a (tested & working) way of preloading GTK/QT libraries into memory, for fast startup.

Offline

#12 2004-06-11 09:21:12

IceRAM
Member
From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2004-03-04
Posts: 772
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Egil.B wrote:
cjdj wrote:

So, what I consider boot time, is the part before logging in.  That is fast.

Its the "logging in" time that is more noticably slower.

Its the same thing with Windows XP. When I turn on my fathers laptop, it doesn't take much time to get the login screen, but it isn't usable before 1-2 minutes after you logged in.

I think this can be said about any desktop environment that loads lots of settings & apps on startup - take KDE for instance.

The day-to-day program usage is more important to me.

Offline

#13 2004-06-11 15:44:32

xerxes2
Member
From: Malmoe, Sweden
Registered: 2004-04-23
Posts: 1,249
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

If you run xfce4 and only use gtk2 apps Linux outperform any other OS. big_smile


arch + gentoo + initng + python = enlisy

Offline

#14 2004-06-11 16:20:01

soniX
Member
From: Oslo, Norway
Registered: 2004-01-23
Posts: 161

Re: Is linux getting fat?

what i find disturbing about this article, is that it sees the options of running linux in black and white.

its either kde/gnome or its fluxbox
its either slack without X or its mandrake

what happend to the middleground that is actually well suited for the 400-500 MHz machines with 128 mb ram ?

my laptop is a good example: with 500MHz and 192 mb ram, its running arch with xfce4.
logged in trough gdm it is using 31 mb of ram, and is fully usable to newcomers (my mom uses xfce4 and she has no problems with it)
with firefox running its using 41 mb of ram
running openoffice with a 105 page .doc file, its using 51 mb of ram

the typical office situation on my laptop is : firefox + openoffice + aterm + xmms = 64 mb of ram running in xfce4, and its snappy and responsive. (and this is with NO tweaking or hacking of any kind!!)

this article dont have anything to do with linux as an OS at all. Linux is not growing fat, gnome and kde are.

windows XP is not targeted at old machines, and neither is gnome/kde. they both provide the same huge amounts of bloat and "point-and-click-usability" and should be concidered as "alternatives" to each other.

what the mainstream distros should do is adding some "artificial intelligence" in their installers. how hard could it be for an installer to display the following message :
"Your machine has only 300 MHz and 128 mb ram, we suggest you choose xfce4 insead of the default gnome/kde as they will be too slow on your machine" (and since your machine is old and weak, we choose not to load every daemon known to man on startup, as we do on more powerfull machines...)

and there you would have, for example Fedora running smooth at an old machine...

the way he is talking about Linux's bloat is a pathetic way to get people to read hes article. What this article is about is just one guys bithing about the default-choices of mainstream-distro-installers, and gnome/kde's bloat. nothing more... kde/gnome could probably have been written better, but so could windows XP too... but on linux, at least we have alternatives....

Linux is about choices, this guy seems to have forgotten that...

soniX (on an old computer which is really fast running the HUGE AND BLOATED LINUX... ha ha)

Offline

#15 2004-06-11 16:36:30

sarah31
Member
From: Middle of Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 2,975
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

linux or anhy *nix can be fat or very thin. but the way many modern users set things up i would say linux is as fat as the rest of them.

personally i never believed or supported the claim that linux is light. frankly there is no os that is light. linux is efficient thought. windows is not.


AKA uknowme

I am not your friend

Offline

#16 2004-06-12 09:12:20

tmadhavan
Member
From: Wales :D
Registered: 2004-03-26
Posts: 441

Re: Is linux getting fat?

When I first installed Arch, bootup time was significantly smaller than it is now, so I guess bootup time isn't really a linux thing, but, as everyone has said, based on individual setups.

However, my system booting into KDE (which itself takes about 30-45secs to initialise) still takes a damn sight less time than my dads Windows box.

Also, Yak8998 makes a good point: how often do you turn on your (or rather, someone else's wink ) Windows box on in the morning, then turn it off at 12 midnight? I've never, ever managed that with ANY Windows box, but I do it without thought with Arch, as a routine. It's the things like that I've gotten used to while using linux, and I find I can't work with a Windows machine at all any more.

Linux will always be skinnier from my point of view big_smile

Offline

#17 2004-06-12 17:40:20

Bobonov
Member
From: Roma - Italy
Registered: 2003-05-07
Posts: 295

Re: Is linux getting fat?

No is still different, at least with arch.
In windows you cant controll what is starting and which dll are loaded.
In arch you can easyly controll all the process.

It is normall that a very fresh arch installation is light fast, at the begin it does not load any module and does not start any daemon

After time and experience you begin to runa more daemon at startup and load all the needed module (uso, usb printer, lp , usb storage, videocard etc. etc.) and the startup speed became light-1  wink

Window is able to slow itself without installing any application.

Offline

#18 2004-06-12 20:19:19

xerxes2
Member
From: Malmoe, Sweden
Registered: 2004-04-23
Posts: 1,249
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

The swedish prime minister is getting fat!  :shock:


arch + gentoo + initng + python = enlisy

Offline

#19 2004-06-12 20:22:35

mcubednyc
Member
From: New York, NY USA
Registered: 2004-03-17
Posts: 120

Re: Is linux getting fat?

tmadhavan wrote:

Also, Yak8998 makes a good point: how often do you turn on your (or rather, someone else's wink ) Windows box on in the morning, then turn it off at 12 midnight?

Before I started trying out Linux distros, I rebooted my PC (with WinXP Home as the OS) at most once a week, and that was only when some Windows Update required a reboot.  I just don't see stability as an issue with WinXP.  Once in a long while I get an Explorer crash (a much longer while these days, since I'm not using Windows much anymore), once in a not-as-long while an app will crash.  But then last Sunday, X crashed in Arch, for no apparent reason.  I wasn't even sitting in front of the machine when it happened, I was playing with the cat.  I was running fluxbox, GKrellm, a few WM dock apps, fbpager, xmms, and had an OO.org spreadsheet open.  Nothing unusual for me.  WinXP recovers from an Explorer crash with much less fuss & bother than any Linux distro recovers from an X server crash.

Not being a speed demon, I haven't sat with a stopwatch to time WinXP's or Arch's boot time, but I don't notice a big difference.  Using Archstats at boot/shutdown slows Arch some.  But when WinXP finishes, everything is ready.  With Arch, I prefer booting into console and starting x after pacmanning, then I need to mount a few partitions, so it's not exactly a fair comparison.  Some x-platform apps (Mozilla, OpenOffice.org) do take longer to start under Arch than WinXP, but once started they seem equally responsive to me.  I have recently installed Xandros, and that is SLOOOOOWW to boot -- easily twice as long as WinXP/Arch, though when it finishes, like WinXP, everything is all setup and good to go.

There are plenty of reasons anyone might prefer using a Linux distro to using a Windows OS, and this article's only real point is that developers should write better code.  Okay! If you want Linux to be blazingly fast & light, you can make it so, but then it won't be anything like the desktop OS that Windows is and you won't be using Gnome/KDE.  That's fine by me.


"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." - S. Jackson

Offline

#20 2004-06-13 10:48:09

tmadhavan
Member
From: Wales :D
Registered: 2004-03-26
Posts: 441

Re: Is linux getting fat?

I've had Arch crash only (I think this is the reason, anyway) when I have the news ticker running. That's the only time I have to do a hard reset, because I lose all sort of control, except mouse movement.

Apart from that, if I get any sort of crash from an app, or from X, ctrl-alt-backspace sorts it out in no time. I've never, ever been able to do that in Windows. I admit I haven't had extensive experience with XP, but a friend of mine has been using it for a while now, and it's awful. He has an average spec machine, and Windows craaaawls along. I can't actually use it, it's so unresponsive.

As for ease of use, this same friend (who has some experience on macs, doing art stuff in college) cannot keep his computer fixed up nicely. I've told him to run WinUpdate, AdAware, etc etc., and it still breaks. When I lent him Knoppix for a few weeks, it was all fine (tho of course he had probs finding things).

Because I rarely use Windows now, I can see the huge difference there is between it and linux - I'll never be able to use Windows on my home machine ever again, because it just seems so silly, garish, clunky, and just not a very nice user experience.

Linux is simple, efficient, does what you tell it to do, and (Arch) keeps up to date with Pacman -Syu. What more could you ask for?!?!

Btw, I agree that for linux to be blazingly fast it does have to cut out the bloaty graphical desktop bits. But compare say fluxbox to Windows, and there really isn't a contest in terms of speed, right?

Should be Galaxy/Linux - Why have cotton when you can have silk? big_smile

Offline

#21 2004-06-13 14:32:45

zeppelin
Member
From: Athens, Greece
Registered: 2004-03-05
Posts: 807
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

hmm, I'm not sure about Linux, but Linus *is* getting fat.
The guy is coding too much and doesn't receive proper gym so he takes somes kilos every year.
Does the poor guy Bill Gates know about this? I mean someone should inform him, Gates then should offer Linus a job, that would do nothing and only excercise his body.
So everybody will be much more happy.
Gates wouldn't have to put guys like the one in OSNews to blame Havoc Linus GNOME and don't know who else, Linus would be in a better form, and the guy in OSNews that wrote the article can easily after 2 or 3 years blame Linux for not "having proffesional apps, not being user frinedly, not supporting the latest kernel mode etc.."

Doesn't this make life a happier for everybody?
mister OSNews sumbitter, next time try to write 1000 lines of GTK or QT or kernel code and then come back and tell us your bullshit.

Offline

#22 2004-06-13 15:03:59

Bobonov
Member
From: Roma - Italy
Registered: 2003-05-07
Posts: 295

Re: Is linux getting fat?

I did not investigate realy the difference between windows desktop and linux desktop.
In general we can say this
Windows
the desktop is an integral part of the system, in this way is more near to the core and more fast in response, but in this way when it crash most of the time it need a restart
Linux
Linux system is console based. Upon this there is the X manager, on top of X manager ther is the desktop/windows manager
In this way the system became more slow but on the other side is more difficoult that the system freeze completly
Fortunatly the slowness is reduced by the more efficent resource management of Linux.

Linux and Windows Desktop peculiarity
As I wrote in another post under windows there is only one graphic system so most of the graphic library can stay resident in memory, on Linux things are different. Here is the big speed difference (as desktop response) by the two system, read my previous post.

Now this tread is started from an article in wich the person say that is needed a more efficent and clean programming to keep down Linux on resource demand and that is true.
Basically KDE and Gnome becamed fat and slow during the last years and in my opinion the reason is that in order to run towards windows functionality - I intend makeup functionality, desktop theme, sound for the events, and so on - they under evaluate the necessity to keep clean and efficent the code.

Anybody here has tried to confront the difference between KDE and XP? Me personally not but I think that KDE offer much more possibility than windowsXP. I am still speaking about the possible personalization you can do on the desktop.
Something that for sure was trascured in the article was the possibility to disable all the "addictional feature and effect" under KDE to speed up the system, I guess the guy tried the desktop with all the effect enabled.
In some way it is correct because the normal user that approach for normal desktop use want to see the system as beautyfull as possible.

Another suggestion for speeding up the system is to use the right kernel.
2.6 kernel is much more server oriented, it has more efficent management for multitread application (daemons) and better memory allocation/paging
2.4 is faster for desktop use

By using Linus Torvalds word: 2.6 is a server oriented release (read, to make more efficent and fast server system), for desktop use is still better 2.4
Next kernel release (so 2.7 developing and 2.8 release) will be desktop oriented (read, make more efficent desktop system)
Do not forget that Linux is still a Server oriented system, and untill now (last 2 years) no serious effort were made to make it a desktop system.

Offline

#23 2004-06-15 06:55:59

mcubednyc
Member
From: New York, NY USA
Registered: 2004-03-17
Posts: 120

Re: Is linux getting fat?

tmadhavan wrote:

Apart from that, if I get any sort of crash from an app, or from X, ctrl-alt-backspace sorts it out in no time. I've never, ever been able to do that in Windows. I admit I haven't had extensive experience with XP, but a friend of mine has been using it for a while now, and it's awful. He has an average spec machine, and Windows craaaawls along. I can't actually use it, it's so unresponsive.

It would be interesting to see how Arch performs on that same machine ... with and without KDE.  My guess is that Arch/KDE would crawl along at the same rate WinXP does.  Of course, the advantage of many Linux distros (Arch included, of course) over WinXP is that you don't need KDE if you have a machine that can't handle it.  (BTW, the X crash I had took out X and every GUI app I was running ... there was no ctrl+alt+backspac'ing out of it, it was gone.  So I had to restart X and everything that had been running.  When Explorer crashes in WinXP, it doesn't usually take anything with it, and it restarts itself.  Basically, you usually don't have to do anything except wait a minute.)

tmadhavan wrote:

Linux is simple, efficient, does what you tell it to do, and (Arch) keeps up to date with Pacman -Syu. What more could you ask for?!?!

Oh, I don't know ... beautiful fonts right out of the box, without hair-pulling and lots of experimenting and tweaking?  A default audio set-up that doesn't crash Mozilla when I inadvertently navigate to a page that contains embedded audio while I'm already playing music with xmms?  (Mind you, I loathe websites that do that, but alas they are legion.)  Preconfigured power-saving features you can download and install b/o your hardware without having to slog through man pages longer than most of Hemingway's stories?  Look, I'm not complaining, even if that's what it sounds like, but honestly, there is very little common ground between an OS like WinXP and one like Arch.  That's a good thing ... choice is good!  big_smile   But what more could you want?  C'mon, there is lots more people can and do want, and Arch is not for them.  Maybe WinXP is for them, maybe Mandrake or SuSE or Xandros -- but not Arch.

tmadhavan wrote:

Btw, I agree that for linux to be blazingly fast it does have to cut out the bloaty graphical desktop bits. But compare say fluxbox to Windows, and there really isn't a contest in terms of speed, right?

Wrong, unless I just don't know what you mean by speed.  I use fluxbox, and OO.org and Mozilla still take longer to open under Arch than under WinXP.  For a while, I used BB4Win (blackbox clone) under WinXP, not running Explorer at all.  Despite the savings in RAM, there really wasn't any noticeable difference in responsiveness.

Bobonov wrote:

Anybody here has tried to confront the difference between KDE and XP? Me personally not but I think that KDE offer much more possibility than windowsXP. I am still speaking about the possible personalization you can do on the desktop.

A good (and, I think, accurate) observation.  You can personalize the look and setup of XP a great deal, probably as much as KDE allows, but not without third-party software like StyleXP or WindowBlinds, neither of which are free.  There are plenty of free shell replacements for XP, however, if you really want to change the way things look and, to some extent, act.

Bobonov wrote:

2.6 kernel is much more server oriented, it has more efficent management for multitread application (daemons) and better memory allocation/paging  2.4 is faster for desktop use

:!:  This is the first time I've heard this!  So I should be using the 2.4 kernel?

zeppelin wrote:

hmm, I'm not sure about Linux, but Linus *is* getting fat.

ROTFL!  lol


"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." - S. Jackson

Offline

#24 2004-06-15 08:01:17

rasat
Forum Fellow
From: Finland, working in Romania
Registered: 2002-12-27
Posts: 2,294
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Its known in Windows (became ovious with win'98 ) its getting slower after each usage and requires to reformat the HDD twice a year to keep up with the speed. Nothing can be done though there is a Disk Defragmenter, which is good for one boot only smile


Markku

Offline

#25 2004-06-15 08:04:27

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: Is linux getting fat?

Bobonov wrote:

Another suggestion for speeding up the system is to use the right kernel.
2.6 kernel is much more server oriented, it has more efficent management for multitread application (daemons) and better memory allocation/paging
2.4 is faster for desktop use

By using Linus Torvalds word: 2.6 is a server oriented release (read, to make more efficent and fast server system), for desktop use is still better 2.4
Next kernel release (so 2.7 developing and 2.8 release) will be desktop oriented (read, make more efficent desktop system)
Do not forget that Linux is still a Server oriented system, and untill now (last 2 years) no serious effort were made to make it a desktop system.

the pre-emptive scheduler O(1) actually makes the desktop usage much quicker as well (at least in my opinion). A better scheduler reduces the amount of overhead due to context switching...


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB