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

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

Peter KÃ¶hlmann · External Since: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 1500

Larry Qualig wrote:

< snip >

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

You have exactly *one* guess who might have posted under such a nym
--
It's sweet to be remembered, but it's often cheaper to be forgotten.

Gregory Shearman · External Since: Jun 30, 2004 Posts: 492

Erik Funkenbusch wrote:

> On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:22:54 GMT, Oliver Wong wrote:
>
>> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups.RemoveThis@schestowitz.com> wrote in message
>> news:1454710.DveuxOJK0X@schestowitz.com...
>>>
>>> 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.

What made the second floppy unnecessary was the hard drive. Before the HD
you had one disk drive containing your system disk, and another with your
data disk.

I still remember using an Apple Mac at Uni back in the late '80s with one
floppy drive.... you were forever changing disks, you save your work, you
take out the system disk, put in the data disk, take out the data disk, put
in the system disk, take out the system disk, put in the data disk.... a
royal PITA.

--
Regards,

Gregory.
"Ding-a-ding-dang,My Dang-a-long ling-long"

Anybody · External Since: Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 2

In article <pan.2006.09.19.18.05.37.564080 RemoveThis @nospam.invalid>, chrisv
<chrisv RemoveThis @nospam.invalid> wrote:

> 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.

The Amiga was the first desktop computer to be able to "multi-task" and
that was decades ago ... in fact I remember sitting in a university
Computer Science lecture and the idiot up front saying "no home
computer can multi-task", and the more intelligent of us in the class
told him he was wrong.

It's only within the last few years that the Mac OS has really caught
up. Mac OS X was supposedly created to be able to "multi-task", but you
could actually do that under Mac OS 7 as long as the programmers knew
what they were doing when they wrote the application. I'm using Mac OS
9 and can happily read newsgroups, check for emails, download updates,
etc. at the same time ... even browse websites, as long as Microsloth's
Exploiter is behaving itself, for a change. Smile

Of course, there is a major snag here. Computer's only have one CPU
processor (at least until recently), one RAM access point, etc. so
everything the computer does has to pass through those. If you run
multiple applications that require access to those resources at the
same time, then the applications will obviously have to wait their turn
and therefore "slow down". As chips get faster the user notices the
slow down lass and less, and now multi-processor computers and
multi-core chips mean there's even less slow down ... as long as your
OS and applications know how to utilise them properly, so again it
falls to programmers knowing what they're doing.

For true "multi-tasking" you'd basically need a whole separate computer
for each task.

Peter KÃ¶hlmann · External Since: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 1500

Anybody wrote:

< snip >

> For true "multi-tasking" you'd basically need a whole separate computer
> for each task.

And here we have it, folks: The reason why even mainframes can't multi-task

Spot the flaw
--
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of
old ones.

Lars.Traeger · External Since: May 26, 2006 Posts: 11

Peter Köhlmann <peter.koehlmann.TakeThisOut@t-online.de> wrote:

> Anybody wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
> > For true "multi-tasking" you'd basically need a whole separate computer
> > for each task.
>
> And here we have it, folks: The reason why even mainframes can't multi-task
>
> Spot the flaw

You posted it.
--
Lars T.

Anybody · External Since: Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 2

In article <Xns98436CA2CBB76heidivanwong.TakeThisOut@217.22.228.20>, Heidi van Wong
<hvw.TakeThisOut@portablebar.co> 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?

Vista, like all versions of Windows, does do multiple things at once -
it can destroy your files, turn you CD-R discs into coasters, insatll
viruses and spyware, crash useful applications and completely fall
over, all at the same time. Wink

Lawrence D'Oliveiro · External Since: Oct 29, 2004 Posts: 548

In message <SwYPg.19380$KA6.14359@clgrps12>, Oliver Wong wrote:

> "[H]omer" <spam RemoveThis @uce.gov> wrote in message
> news:s1u5u3-fqc.ln1@sky.matrix...
>> 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

The trouble with closed-source systems is that fixing broken APIs often
makes the problem worse. The reason is that they still have to support the
old APIs as well as the new ones, which adds to this ever-increasing load
of backward-compatibility baggage that the system has to carry around
forever after.

Greg Kroah-Hartman mentions the example of USB driver APIs. Both Linux and
Windows (up to XP) had rewritten their USB APIs 3 times. The difference was
that Windows still had to keep the other two obsolete versions around,
whereas Linux could get rid of that cruft.

With Linux, the driver developers could update their source code to keep up
with current APIs. With Windows, often the source code isn't available any
more, so you're stuck with old, obsolete drivers running on top of an old,
obsolete architecture.

Mike · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 83

"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <ldo DeleteThis @geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote in message
news:eetihh$sg0$1@lust.ihug.co.nz...
> In message <SwYPg.19380$KA6.14359@clgrps12>, Oliver Wong wrote:
>
>> "[H]omer" <spam DeleteThis @uce.gov> wrote in message
> Greg Kroah-Hartman mentions the example of USB driver APIs. Both Linux and
> Windows (up to XP) had rewritten their USB APIs 3 times. The difference
> was
> that Windows still had to keep the other two obsolete versions around,
> whereas Linux could get rid of that cruft.

Yeah, that's what happens when you have actual users. Linux has none, so
it's easy to change things - no one notices.

Mike

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

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

> "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <ldo DeleteThis @geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote in message
> news:eetihh$sg0$1@lust.ihug.co.nz...
>> In message <SwYPg.19380$KA6.14359@clgrps12>, Oliver Wong wrote:
>>
>>> "[H]omer" <spam DeleteThis @uce.gov> wrote in message
>> Greg Kroah-Hartman mentions the example of USB driver APIs. Both Linux and
>> Windows (up to XP) had rewritten their USB APIs 3 times. The difference
>> was
>> that Windows still had to keep the other two obsolete versions around,
>> whereas Linux could get rid of that cruft.
>
> Yeah, that's what happens when you have actual users. Linux has none, so
> it's easy to change things - no one notices.

You are Scott Nudds without the coprolalia.

--
What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away.

Mike · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 83

"Linonut" <linonut.RemoveThis@bone.com> wrote in message
news:qKOdnR12iNuCIY_YnZ2dnUVZ_vydnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> Yeah, that's what happens when you have actual users. Linux has none,
>> so
>> it's easy to change things - no one notices.
>
> You are Scott Nudds without the coprolalia.

Wow - what a witty comeback. Who is "Scott Nudds"?

You couldn't refute my point, so you resort to (what you presume to be) a
personal attack.

Oh well. Personal attacks - the last refuge of a losing argument.

Mike

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

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

> "Linonut" <linonut RemoveThis @bone.com> wrote in message
> news:qKOdnR12iNuCIY_YnZ2dnUVZ_vydnZ2d@comcast.com...
>>> Yeah, that's what happens when you have actual users. Linux has none,
>>> so
>>> it's easy to change things - no one notices.
>>
>> You are Scott Nudds without the coprolalia.
>
> Wow - what a witty comeback. Who is "Scott Nudds"?
>
> You couldn't refute my point, so you resort to (what you presume to be) a
> personal attack.
>
> Oh well. Personal attacks - the last refuge of a losing argument.
>
> Mike

No personal attack involved. *You* presume it to be one; I do not.
It is simply my assesment of your posting history.

In essense, you post grossly incorrect statements in a manner intended
to insult.

As to not refuting your point, you had none to refute.

--
Apple executive Peter Hoddie asked Microsoft officials, "'Are you asking us
to kill playback? Are you asking us to knife the baby?'" He said Microsoft
official Christopher Phillips responded, "'Yes, we want you to knife the baby.'
It was very clear."

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

After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this bit o' wisdom:

> Correct, to some extent. Linux has few users, although
> the reasons as to the dearth are many.

Few users? Half the people I work with use it.

--
Real programmers don't use Visual Basic.

Mike · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 83

"Linonut" <linonut.DeleteThis@bone.com> wrote in message
news:ReadnY-zcLe5Zo_YnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d@comcast.com...
> After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this bit
> o' wisdom:
>
>> Correct, to some extent. Linux has few users, although
>> the reasons as to the dearth are many.
>
> Few users? Half the people I work with use it.

20 people is "few".

Mike

Mike · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 83

"Linonut" <linonut.DeleteThis@bone.com> wrote in message
news:ReadnYyzcLdyZ4_YnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d@comcast.com...
> No personal attack involved. *You* presume it to be one; I do not.
> It is simply my assesment of your posting history.
>

So it was a compliment? OK, thanks!

Mike

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

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
<linonut DeleteThis @bone.com>
wrote
on Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:50:44 -0500
<ReadnY-zcLe5Zo_YnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d DeleteThis @comcast.com>:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this bit o' wisdom:
>
>> Correct, to some extent. Linux has few users, although
>> the reasons as to the dearth are many.
>
> Few users? Half the people I work with use it.
>

[1] OK, how many do you work with?

[2] Are they using it on their desktops, or simply logging
in remotely using putty or Cygnus ssh into a Linux server?

[3] Which half? Smile

There's a certain inertia in the marketplace; we're not using, say,
hydrogen fueled autos for similar reasons. It takes time.

The only other comparison, which is admittedly not all that useful:

MSFT: market cap $268.19B
RHAT: market cap $4.75B

Over a 2 year period, RedHat has grown over 80% in market
cap, according to a very rough reading on Yahoo! Finance.
Microsoft is at 0% but only because it had a nice run up
from June to now, after a drop in late April or early May.

RedHat actually got up to 140% in early May, but has kinda
drifted downward since then.

So maybe there is hope after all, but at this rate RedHat won't
surpass Microsoft until 2017 or so. Smile

Google isn't being all that helpful regarding comparisons at this point;
it did cough up

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-236732.html?legacy=cnet

but that's over 5 years old.

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

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

After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this bit o' wisdom:

> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
> <linonut DeleteThis @bone.com>
> wrote
> on Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:50:44 -0500
> <ReadnY-zcLe5Zo_YnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d DeleteThis @comcast.com>:
>> After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this bit o' wisdom:
>>
>>> Correct, to some extent. Linux has few users, although
>>> the reasons as to the dearth are many.
>>
>> Few users? Half the people I work with use it.
>
> [1] OK, how many do you work with?

About 12. My point should be obvious. If half the professional people
I know use it, it is probably true that a lot of professional people all
over the world (even in this backwater country, the U.S.) use it.

Mike, of course, is being an idiot, probably deliberately.

He's merely a "lead them on with obtuse one-line responses" troll.

> [2] Are they using it on their desktops, or simply logging
> in remotely using putty or Cygnus ssh into a Linux server?

Home desktops.

> So maybe there is hope after all, but at this rate RedHat won't
> surpass Microsoft until 2017 or so. Smile

Who gives a rat's ass if Red Hat or Novell even come close to Microsoft
in marketing measures? My biggest worry is the maintenance of
debian.org and net neutrality.

> Windows Vista. Because it's time to refresh your hardware. Trust us.

I can run Windows-in-VMware and watch a DVD on a 4-year-old Linux box.

--
Convert your Billy-box to a Linus-box today!

Kelsey Bjarnason · External Since: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 1022

On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 16:57:49 -0400, Mike wrote:

> "Linonut" <linonut RemoveThis @bone.com> wrote in message
> news:ReadnY-zcLe5Zo_YnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this
>> bit o' wisdom:
>>
>>> Correct, to some extent. Linux has few users, although the reasons as
>>> to the dearth are many.
>>
>> Few users? Half the people I work with use it.
>
> 20 people is "few".

You really are stupid, aren't you? "20 people is 'few'". That's 20
people at one place. Not 20 in total. Of course, this concept is
obviously beyond you, or you wouldn't have responded as you did.

Kelsey Bjarnason · External Since: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 1022

[snips]

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:52:23 +0100, [H]omer wrote:

> And yet a quick Google reveals pages and pages of articles advising people
> to disable indexing service, in order to speed up their computers.

Not just speed them up - make them work.

Few years back I was developing some install code with InstallShield and
kept getting build failures. Turns out that it would modify a file, which
would then be re-indexed... but the indexing and IS's use of the file were
mutually exclusive. It couldn't read/access/lock/whatever the file
because it was in use, so the build would fail. Turn off indexing, the
app works.

Mike · External Since: Sep 19, 2006 Posts: 83

"Kelsey Bjarnason" <kbjarnason DeleteThis @ncoldns.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.09.23.00.18.06.431281@ncoldns.com...
>
> You really are stupid, aren't you? "20 people is 'few'". That's 20
> people at one place. Not 20 in total. Of course, this concept is
> obviously beyond you, or you wouldn't have responded as you did.

No, the point is that few poeple use Linux. Even if *everyone* you knew
used it, it still wouldn't amount to anything. Anecdotes <> facts.

Mike

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

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