(OS) The thing I hate most about Microsoft Windows.

Heidi van Wong · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 1

I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my precious
time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought GeoWorks
(GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple Macintosh
computers my friends and colleagues used.

Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.

Will Vista change this?

I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs on my
MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I play a
graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_ slowdown.

Will Vista deliver this?

Roy Schestowitz · External Since: Jun 26, 2005 Posts: 27715

__/ [ Heidi van Wong ] on Tuesday 19 September 2006 18:46 \__

> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
> just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my precious
> time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought GeoWorks
> (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple Macintosh
> computers my friends and colleagues used.
>
> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>
> Will Vista change this?
>
> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs on my
> MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I play a
> graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_ slowdown.
>
> Will Vista deliver this?

You must be thinking about an augmented environment that exploits, e.g. the
notion of virtual desktops.

Enter Linux.

http://slated.org/xgl_on_fc5

Best wishes,

Roy

PS - c**p. Only now do I realise it was crossposted wildly. [groups reduced
appropriately]

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Seeing bad movies only encourages them"
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Tasks: 125 total, 1 running, 123 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
http://iuron.com - knowledge engine, not a search engine

chrisv · External Since: Nov 02, 2004 Posts: 2331

Heidi van Wong wrote:

> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>
> Will Vista change this?

Doubtful. It will probably be worse.

It's a shame. 20 years ago I could download files and play Space
Invaders (Amoeba Invaders, actually) at the same time on my 7.14MHz Amiga.

ed · External Since: Nov 20, 2006 Posts: 877

On 19 Sep 2006 19:46:18 +0200
Heidi van Wong wrote:

> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking
> *that just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent
> my precious time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even
> bought GeoWorks (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the
> Apple Macintosh computers my friends and colleagues used.

DesqView could not multitask. It was not multitasking, it was not time
sharing, it was nothing more than paging out the Background Process (BP)
and leaving it there until the user swapped the FP with the BP.

The closest thing was OS/2. That is what you should have spent your
money on Smile

.

> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you
> know what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000
> and Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly,
> 20 years later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the
> whole system crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled
> 20GB RAM 90000Ghz FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great,
> but try copying files from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system
> will become unusable.
>
> Will Vista change this?
>
> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs
> on my MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I
> play a graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_
> slowdown.
>
> Will Vista deliver this?

The problem here might be the IO bottle neck, not the OS (although I
could be wrong).

Have you got the CDROM on the same IDE ribbon cable as your HDDs?

Have you got different busses for your different devices, such as SCSI
bus for HDDs or CDs (depending what you use most frequently).

Copying is not a task that the OS should be performing badly with, it's
normally simple work for the OS kernel to handle thought syscalls in the
userspace. Those calls then copy, usually in background. The read
however, cannot be done in background, really, or buffered, but the
kernels normally handle this well.

--
Regards, Ed :: http://www.usenix.org.uk
just another c++ person
Vin Diesel has a baseball cap made entirely out of ham.

Peter Hayes · External Since: Oct 10, 2005 Posts: 202

In Heidi van Wong wrote:
>
> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs
> on my MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I
> play a graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_
> slowdown.

What you're really looking for is a Windows OS where you can copy from a
CD, put songs on your MP3 player, manage your digital camera and burn a
DVD while you play a graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window at the
same level of performance as you would expect from the same machine
running Linux.

> Will Vista deliver this?

Vista RC1 on my Athlon +2500 shuttle PC with a Vista Experience Rating
of 3.2 is noticeably slower than the same machine running Windows 2000.
Read what you like, or nothing, into that.

--

Peter

My Cousin Perkoff · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 1

Heidi van Wong wrote:
> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
> just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my precious
> time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought GeoWorks
> (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple Macintosh
> computers my friends and colleagues used.
>
> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>
> Will Vista change this?
>
> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs on my
> MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I play a
> graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_ slowdown.
>
> Will Vista deliver this?

Hmm, I have no problems like these. Maybe it's the person using the
computer that has a problem. Not saying it's your fault, do you have
other people using your computer?

Erik Funkenbusch · External Since: May 27, 2005 Posts: 2428

On 19 Sep 2006 19:46:18 +0200, Heidi van Wong wrote:

> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
> just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my precious
> time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought GeoWorks
> (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple Macintosh
> computers my friends and colleagues used.

Uhh.. MacOS didn't multitask until OS7 (there was this crude thing called
"multi-finder that barely worked in OS6), which was released around 1990 or
so, about the same time as Windows 3.0.

> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.

ATAPI CD-ROM's are a bit of a special case, as they have very sensitive
timing requirements, which cause the OS to have to give them significant
resources to make sure there are no errors. Even Linux has this problem to
some extent, where a bad CD can bring the entire OS to a halt. This is
related to the absolute nightmare of hacks and timing issues in a typical
ATAPI driver. Try reading the source of the Linux ATAPI subsystem some
time for comments that will open your eyes.

Example:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/2/7/57

Larry Qualig · External Since: Nov 11, 2005 Posts: 1106

[H]omer wrote:
>
> The point is that Windows just doesn't seem to scale well. Its OK for
> one or two simple tasks (security and stability aside), but if I tried
> hammering my Windows box the way I hammer any of these Linux
> workstations, the damned thing would simply explode.

Well a researcher at the IBM Linux Technology Center disagrees with
you.

http://www.informationweek.com/software/linuxexperts/topic/sub_topic.j...l?pgno=

<quote>
Question: Does Linux scale like Windows?

Answer: Ken Rozendal, Researcher, IBM Linux Technology Center

Peerstone (Jeff Gould): How does Linux database scalability compare to
Windows Server?

Ken Rozendal (IBM Austin): Windows scalability has two aspects, the
operating system and the architecture it runs on. Traditional commodity
architectures don't tend to see a lot of large SMP [symmetric
processing] systems. Those that exist are targeted at HPC [high
performance computing], but this is more of a Linux market, so you
don't see a lot of Windows demand for SMP systems larger than 8 to 16
processors. As for the operating system itself, I would characterize
database scalability on Windows Server [in late 2005] as being in
roughly the same realm as Linux 2.6. That excludes HPC applications,
where Linux can go higher. But Linux has been improving its scalability
quite a bit faster than Windows in the last few years. For example, the
2.4 Linux kernel was quite a bit behind Windows Server, but 2.6 has
caught up to the same level.

</quote>

So unless you're running a HPC computer with over 16 processors there
really isn't much difference according to somebody who would actually
know the facts.

Side note: The OP (Heidi van Wong) is simply a troll. Zero posting
history. Makes this one post then vanishes forever.

Handover Phist · External Since: May 04, 2005 Posts: 512

Roy Schestowitz :
> __/ [ Heidi van Wong ] on Tuesday 19 September 2006 18:46 \__
>
>> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
>> just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my precious
>> time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought GeoWorks
>> (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple Macintosh
>> computers my friends and colleagues used.
>>
>> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
>> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
>> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
>> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
>> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
>> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
>> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>>
>> Will Vista change this?
>>
>> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs on my
>> MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I play a
>> graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_ slowdown.
>>
>> Will Vista deliver this?
>
> You must be thinking about an augmented environment that exploits, e.g. the
> notion of virtual desktops.
>
> Enter Linux.
>
> http://slated.org/xgl_on_fc5
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Roy
>
> PS - c**p. Only now do I realise it was crossposted wildly. [groups reduced
> appropriately]

Just this morning I'm reinstalling Windows on a computer for a client.
Windows decided, why I dont know, that the system volume should be
designated F:. After that even installing drivers became a pain in the
ass since they were looking to decompress in C:\%SYSTEM%, which had been
designated to a DVD drive. I couldn't change the designation of the
system drive so I have to format and reinstall *again* as I know this
situation will cause confusion for the client, and confusion for the
client is to be avoided religiously in my shop.

I much prefer the tree upon which filesystems are mounted paradigm to
the drive-letter for each "volume" thing. It's so much simpler both for
me and my clients.

--
Fascinating, a totally parochial attitude.
-- Spock, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8

http://www.websterscafe.com

Roy Schestowitz · External Since: Jun 26, 2005 Posts: 27715

__/ [ Handover Phist ] on Tuesday 19 September 2006 19:19 \__

> Roy Schestowitz :
>> __/ [ Heidi van Wong ] on Tuesday 19 September 2006 18:46 \__
>>
>>> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
>>> just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my
>>> precious time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought
>>> GeoWorks (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple
>>> Macintosh computers my friends and colleagues used.
>>>
>>> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
>>> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
>>> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
>>> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
>>> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
>>> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
>>> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>>>
>>> Will Vista change this?
>>>
>>> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs on
>>> my MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I play a
>>> graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_ slowdown.
>>>
>>> Will Vista deliver this?
>>
>> You must be thinking about an augmented environment that exploits, e.g.
>> the notion of virtual desktops.
>>
>> Enter Linux.
>>
>> http://slated.org/xgl_on_fc5
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Roy
>>
>> PS - c**p. Only now do I realise it was crossposted wildly. [groups
>> reduced appropriately]
>
> Just this morning I'm reinstalling Windows on a computer for a client.
> Windows decided, why I dont know, that the system volume should be
> designated F:. After that even installing drivers became a pain in the
> ass since they were looking to decompress in C:\%SYSTEM%, which had been
> designated to a DVD drive. I couldn't change the designation of the
> system drive so I have to format and reinstall *again* as I know this
> situation will cause confusion for the client, and confusion for the
> client is to be avoided religiously in my shop.
>
> I much prefer the tree upon which filesystems are mounted paradigm to
> the drive-letter for each "volume" thing. It's so much simpler both for
> me and my clients.

I actually thought about it (by no means for the first time) some time this
morning. I also said it to people's faces. What sense does it all make?
Floppy is drive A? Why? Why is a hard-drive assigned a C? Where has B gone?
It doesn't make any sense, unless people are stuck on the 'Windows mindset'.
And then come to consider the CD-ROM, which can be D, or E, or F, or who
knows what? And I sometimes have people ask me a question like, "do you get
access to drive K?". How is that in any way self-explanatory? Why make
virtual aliases rather than mount locations using a sensible structure that
is separable from device names (e.g. /dev(ice)/cdrom, /dev(ice)/floppy)? It
would never make sense to me, but it did _at the time_. When I was using DOS
and Windows, that is...

I wrote about it after some meeting in London where I had an argument over
this...

http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2006/07/20/the-correct-abstract...model-o

Best wishes,

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | (S)oftware (U)nd (S)ystem(E)ntwicklung
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
7:20pm up 61 days 7:32, 7 users, load average: 0.26, 0.48, 0.51
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project

Oliver Wong · External Since: Apr 27, 2006 Posts: 1398

"Roy Schestowitz" wrote in message

>
> I actually thought about it (by no means for the first time) some time
> this
> morning. I also said it to people's faces. What sense does it all make?
> Floppy is drive A? Why? Why is a hard-drive assigned a C? Where has B
> gone?

Back in the day, you were more likely to own 2 floppy disk drives than a
harddrive. So your two floppy drives were A and B, and if you were rich
enough to own a harddrive, the harddrive was C.

> It doesn't make any sense, unless people are stuck on the 'Windows
> mindset'.
> And then come to consider the CD-ROM, which can be D, or E, or F, or who
> knows what?

After C, it seems to mostly be a first-come-first-serve thing. If you
install a CD drive, then it'll probably be D. And if you install a harddisk
after that, it'll probably be E, and so on.

> And I sometimes have people ask me a question like, "do you get
> access to drive K?". How is that in any way self-explanatory?

Out of context, it's not self-explanatory, just like "do you get access
to /dev/cdrom?" On my computer? In general? Under which account?

> Why make
> virtual aliases rather than mount locations using a sensible structure
> that
> is separable from device names (e.g. /dev(ice)/cdrom, /dev(ice)/floppy)?
> It
> would never make sense to me, but it did _at the time_. When I was using
> DOS
> and Windows, that is...

DOS stands for Disk Operating System. It was disk oriented. As such,
each disk (whether floppy disk, harddisk, compact disk, etc.) is a first
class citizen and is assigned their own drive letter. It remains today in
Windows mainly due to momentum and backwards compatibility. NTFS allows you
to mount harddrives at arbitrary points in a folder hierarchy in the same
manner that UNIX does, but it's not a very popular feature. On some of my
older systems, I used to mount extra harddrives at "C:\Program Files" and
"C:\Documents and Settings" for example.

- Oliver

Erik Funkenbusch · External Since: May 27, 2005 Posts: 2428

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:22:54 GMT, Oliver Wong wrote:

> "Roy Schestowitz" wrote in message
>
>>
>> I actually thought about it (by no means for the first time) some time
>> this
>> morning. I also said it to people's faces. What sense does it all make?
>> Floppy is drive A? Why? Why is a hard-drive assigned a C? Where has B
>> gone?
>
> Back in the day, you were more likely to own 2 floppy disk drives than a
> harddrive. So your two floppy drives were A and B, and if you were rich
> enough to own a harddrive, the harddrive was C.

Even after hard drives were common, there was usually still two floppies,
on 3.5 and one 5.25" drive. When 5.25" floppies died, so did the need for
a second drive.

>> It doesn't make any sense, unless people are stuck on the 'Windows
>> mindset'.
>> And then come to consider the CD-ROM, which can be D, or E, or F, or who
>> knows what?
>
> After C, it seems to mostly be a first-come-first-serve thing. If you
> install a CD drive, then it'll probably be D. And if you install a harddisk
> after that, it'll probably be E, and so on.

Actually, the BIOS mounts primary partitions first, then logical
partitions, so the primary partition on drive 1 then drive 2 will come
before logical partitions on drive 1, etc..

>> And I sometimes have people ask me a question like, "do you get
>> access to drive K?". How is that in any way self-explanatory?
>
> Out of context, it's not self-explanatory, just like "do you get access
> to /dev/cdrom?" On my computer? In general? Under which account?

Indeed, a network can be mapped in any number of ways using SMB or NFS.

>> Why make
>> virtual aliases rather than mount locations using a sensible structure
>> that
>> is separable from device names (e.g. /dev(ice)/cdrom, /dev(ice)/floppy)?
>> It
>> would never make sense to me, but it did _at the time_. When I was using
>> DOS
>> and Windows, that is...
>
> DOS stands for Disk Operating System. It was disk oriented. As such,
> each disk (whether floppy disk, harddisk, compact disk, etc.) is a first
> class citizen and is assigned their own drive letter. It remains today in
> Windows mainly due to momentum and backwards compatibility. NTFS allows you
> to mount harddrives at arbitrary points in a folder hierarchy in the same
> manner that UNIX does, but it's not a very popular feature. On some of my
> older systems, I used to mount extra harddrives at "C:\Program Files" and
> "C:\Documents and Settings" for example.

Yeah, people seem to like the drive letter shortcuts. Also, there's still
a lot of legacy software that assumes drive letters only. Further, you can
access network drives using UNC's, like \\computer1\myfolder instead of
mapping the drive letter, but people like the drive letter anyways.

The Ghost In The Machine · External Since: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 3878

(rec.sport.pro-wrestling,alt.battlestar-galactica snipped.
Followups to COLA exclusively.)

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Heidi van Wong

wrote
on 19 Sep 2006 19:46:18 +0200
:
> I've used Microsoft OSes since MS-DOS 2.11. Back then multitasking *that
> just worked* was the OS holy grail for home computers. I spent my precious
> time warezing Desqview to achieve this magic. I even bought GeoWorks
> (GEOS). Spent *lots* of time using, and envying, the Apple Macintosh
> computers my friends and colleagues used.
>
> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.

Sorry. The only known liquid-nitrogen PC systems are Mac-based.

http://homepage.mac.com/schrier/plus.html

Smile

(The usual disclaimers apply.)

>
> Will Vista change this?
>
> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put songs on my
> MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD while I play a
> graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with _NO_ slowdown.
>
> Will Vista deliver this?

I for one am not hopeful. Vista looks to me like XPSP3.

--
#191, ewill3.RemoveThis@earthlink.net
Windows Vista. Because it's time to refresh your hardware. Trust us.

Oliver Wong · External Since: Apr 27, 2006 Posts: 1398

"The Ghost In The Machine" wrote in message

>
>> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
>> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
>> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
>> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
>> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
>> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
>> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>
> Sorry. The only known liquid-nitrogen PC systems are Mac-based.
>
> http://homepage.mac.com/schrier/plus.html
>
> Smile

>
> (The usual disclaimers apply.)

http://www.tomshardware.com/2003/12/30/5_ghz_project/

- Oliver

[H]omer · External Since: Apr 21, 2006 Posts: 2134

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> __/ [ Heidi van Wong ] on Tuesday 19 September 2006 18:46 \__

>> try copying files from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system
>> will become unusable.
>>
>> Will Vista change this?

No. In fact, if anything, things are about to get a whole lot slower.

>> I want to boot up a Windows OS where I can copy from a CD, put
>> songs on my MP3 player, manage my digital camera and burn a DVD
>> while I play a graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window with
>> _NO_ slowdown.
>>
>> Will Vista deliver this?

> You must be thinking about an augmented environment that exploits,
> e.g. the notion of virtual desktops.

MS could start by fixing their b0rken HAL and driver framework first.

However, the hardware also has a lot to answer for. The legacy of
prehistoric BIOS design and resource arbitration needs to be culled.

In particular, USB, much like packet writing, is a standard that is
rarely implemented correctly (on any platform), for reasons that have
never been made clear. Maybe the specs are too difficult for
manufacturers to follow; maybe the specs themselves are flawed; who
knows? Personally I'd rather the industry stuck to IEEE1394b, which is
a superior interface in terms of both speed and integrity.

> Enter Linux.

Linux will definitely solve a lot of issues WRT speed and
responsiveness (e.g. latency issues), esp. since the exact I/O
scheduler can be chosen from (currently) one of four. However, no
software can solve hardware issues; work around perhaps, but not
solve.

> http://slated.org/xgl_on_fc5

It is a good (albeit high speed) example of how an OS *should* be able
to handle a hell of a lot going on, *and* still produce the eye-candy,
if that's what you want. What's *not* obvious from that video, is that
there are also a are large number of services going on in the
background too. Try turning on e.g. indexing service in Windows, and
watch the system come to dead halt.

--
K.
http://slated.org - Slated, Rated & Blogged
Beware the Penguin:
http://www.victorialodging.com/video/Never_Trust_A_Penguin.mpg

Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux) on sky, running kernel 2.6.16-1.2133_FC5
19:27:28 up 93 days, 19:44, 3 users, load average: 0.52, 0.38, 0.16

Oliver Wong · External Since: Apr 27, 2006 Posts: 1398

"[H]omer" wrote in message
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> __/ [ Heidi van Wong ] on Tuesday 19 September 2006 18:46 \__
>
>>>
>>> Will Vista deliver this?
>
>> You must be thinking about an augmented environment that exploits,
>> e.g. the notion of virtual desktops.
>
> MS could start by fixing their b0rken HAL and driver framework first.

Wish granted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista#Drivers

[...]
>
> Try turning on e.g. indexing service in Windows, and
> watch the system come to dead halt.

Indexing service has been enabled on most systems I use, and in my
experience, the system does not come to a dead halt.

- Oliving

The Ghost In The Machine · External Since: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 3878

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Oliver Wong

wrote
on Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:42:33 GMT
:
>
> "The Ghost In The Machine" wrote in message
>
>>
>>> Enter Windows 3.11. It promised to make multitasking easy. But you know
>>> what? I've upgraded through Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and
>>> Windows XP and I *still* can't get my PC to multitask properly, 20 years
>>> later. If there's a speed bottleneck anywhere, it makes the whole system
>>> crawl. I could have a 5000-core liquid nitrogen-cooled 20GB RAM 90000Ghz
>>> FSB and it would edit 200 Notepad files just great, but try copying files
>>> from a CD-ROM or via USB cable and the system will become unusable.
>>
>> Sorry. The only known liquid-nitrogen PC systems are Mac-based.
>>
>> http://homepage.mac.com/schrier/plus.html
>>
>> Smile

>>
>> (The usual disclaimers apply.)
>
> http://www.tomshardware.com/2003/12/30/5_ghz_project/

Heh! Figures. What a neat hack. Smile

So which runs cooler, Linux or Windows, in such a beast? Wink

>
> - Oliver
>

--
#191, ewill3 DeleteThis @earthlink.net
Windows Vista. Because it's time to refresh your hardware. Trust us.

DaffyDuck · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 2

On 2006-09-19 10:46:18 -0700, Heidi van Wong said:

> Will Vista deliver this?

No

DaffyDuck · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 2

On 2006-09-19 11:29:16 -0700, Peter Hayes said:

> What you're really looking for is a Windows OS where you can copy from
> a CD, put songs on your MP3 player, manage your digital camera and burn
> a DVD while you play a graphics-intensive 3D game in a small window at
> the same level of performance as you would expect from the same machine
> running Linux.

Yeah, I guess that would be if you were running on a Mac OS X machine.

Linonut · External Since: Mar 31, 2006 Posts: 3492

After takin' a swig o' grog, Larry Qualig belched out this bit o' wisdom:

> [H]omer wrote:
>>
>> The point is that Windows just doesn't seem to scale well. Its OK for
>> one or two simple tasks (security and stability aside), but if I tried
>> hammering my Windows box the way I hammer any of these Linux
>> workstations, the damned thing would simply explode.
>
> Well a researcher at the IBM Linux Technology Center disagrees with
> you.
>
> http://www.informationweek.com/software/linuxexperts/topic/sub_topic.j...l?pgno=
>
> <quote>
> Question: Does Linux scale like Windows?
>
> Answer: Ken Rozendal, Researcher, IBM Linux Technology Center
>
> Peerstone (Jeff Gould): How does Linux database scalability compare to
> Windows Server?

Unfortunately, Larry, Homie was talking about Microsoft's workstation
OS, not a cluster or database.

I can attest to the lack of scalability of XP on a single desktop,
though some sets of tasks work reasonably well.

--
"When we do a new version we put in lots of new things that people (ask) for.
And so, in no sense, is stability a reason to move to a new version. It's
never a reason." -- Bill Gates, FOCUS interview
http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html

(OS) The thing I *hate* most about Microsoft Windows.

(OS) The thing I hate most about Microsoft Windows.