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Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: zridling on April 14, 2008, 06:01 AM
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One of the things I've been impressed with from the start are the graphical capabilities on GNU/Linux. For example, programs that are coded — and not just ported — for Linux seem to have better graphics and UI than Vista. And while Vista's aero has grown on me, as has its customizability, the Compiz (http://compiz.org/) window manager is freaky-good.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ)
Glyn Moody says (http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=701&blogid=14): "I can attest to the fact that GNU/Linux is not just usable, it's a downright pleasure to use. In fact, I constantly marvel at how transparent open source has become: most of the time I'm simply not aware that I'm using it — it just works. This raises the interesting question: so what's missing? What more does open source need to do in order to capture the attention of the general user? I think the answer can be found on this YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ) video. As the aptly-named 'Digital Tipping Point' comments (http://www.digitaltippingpoint.com/?q=node/141)":
This video is a digital tipping point for several reasons. First, it is shows that Linux is now competing with market leader Microsoft's best products head-to-head on features. Second, this video is a digital tipping point simply because it has been viewed 3,312,062 times as of the time of this writing.
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LOL - Eye Candy is about right.
Trouble is Linux can compete on GUI Eye Candy but until serious software companies start producing Linux versions of software Linux is not really practical for the real world.
OK you can use it is an Office computer with Open Office - fine
Want to do anything with Graphics, Audio or Video - especially using pro type tools - then forget it.
I do think the video is disingenuous though - Windows is meant to be plug and play aware for hardware installation and in production versions of Windows it has (in my experience) done a pretty good job of acheiving that. A BSOD at a launch conference is pretty embarassing, true, but not as embarassing as Linux hardware support.
In order to run Linux effectively you have to buy hardware that is specifically supported - it usually isn't cutting edge hardware and in many cases you get an emulation of some clunky old hardware and non of the support for extra features for things like printers, scanners etc. just some generic driver that emulates an old Epson printer or similar.
Linux and WiFi - forget it unless you want to hunt down the odd adapter that works on eBay.
Anyway I thought one of the big criticisms of Vista was eye candy - why is Linux even trying to compete in the shallow eye candy stakes?
Sorry I promised I wouldn't write this response but couldn't stop myself.
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Compiz is unstable anyway (OK, so it's a few months since I played with it), and once you've played with it for some days, you generally end up turning off the eyecandy because it's too distracting anyway.
Oh, and OpenOffice is unstable too, at least on Windows :) (unless it's because of ClipX, clipboard extenders can cause weird problems... then again, I had those problems before using ClipX).
Anyway I thought one of the big criticisms of Vista was eye candy - why is Linux even tryi9ng to compete in the shallow eye candy stakes?
Because they're all a bunch of hypocrites, and because it's funnier writing graphical effects than documentation and bugfixing.
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As stated above, I dont understand what the big fuss is. Linux still lacks in application usability, compatibility, and functionality. You can dress it up all you want but even if you polish a turd, its still a turd. The lack of sufficient documentation for almost every application, the lack of an easy to understand and operate interface or option set, the abundance of bugs that are never fixed (check the age of some of the firefox bugs for an example), the feature wish lists added which are not added because none of the developers deem an idea as necessary. I can go on and on. There are several blaring issues that exist with linux which make it far from suitable as a desktop OS (I left out the biggest one, hardware support). Eye candy doesnt make an OS worthy, and I stand by this comment with vista as well.
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Gee, for some reason I must have missed the boat here...
According to the reasoning of folks who in all likelihood may be much wiser than me, I should have a spare fire extinguisher, emergency radiation suit and life insurance policy upgrade because I choose to run Linux at home.
I do all kinds of stuff with my Linux boxes, and less (I said LESS) headaches than I ever had with Windows. Seriously. I won't go into details.
If anybody has such an Issue with Linux, I have a simple solution:
Don't use it.
I too, fail to see what all the fuss is, so let us fanboys happily compute away with an operating system that somehow magically works for us and nobody else.
Sorry I promised I wouldn't write this response but couldn't stop myself.
Spot on, Carol. I've already said once that I was going to take my GNU and go home. :nono2:
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even if you polish a turd, its still a turd
-Josh
Have you tried this ?
I too, fail to see what all the fuss is, so let us fanboys happily compute away with an operating system that somehow magically works for us and nobody else.
-Edvard
Fine - I am not saying that Linux doesn't work or that Open Source OSes are bad in principle. The problem is that there isn't the software available that a lot of people need to make Linux a workable option and hardware support is at best patchy.
For example, I use PhotoShop a lot - the GIMP (whilst worthy) is not a viable alternative for me. Similarly for Sony Vegas etc. for video.
If all I wanted to do was to write letters, a bit of spreadsheet stuff, surf the web and send/receive emails then Linux would absolutely be the way i would go - and I would buy a suitable printer and scanner to make it worth my while. Unfortunately I want my expensive computer to do more than that.
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For example, I use PhotoShop a lot - the GIMP (whilst worthy) is not a viable alternative for me. Similarly for Sony Vegas etc. for video.
My point exactly. If those things work for you, please use them. I can't figure out Photoshop or Illustrator for the life of me, but I can't work up enough about it to complain, I'm doing amazing things in Inkscape (amazing to me, anyways), and I know of more than one professional who uses Gimp exclusively and no-one questions the quality of their work. To each his own, I guess.
If all I wanted to do was to write letters, a bit of spreadsheet stuff, surf the web and send/receive emails then Linux would absolutely be the way i would go - and I would buy a suitable printer and scanner to make it worth my while. Unfortunately I want my expensive computer to do more than that.
Carol, you know as well as I do that Linux can do WAY more than that, and do it well. From other things you wrote, I gather much of your beef with Linux is that there is not a Photoshop version for it, WiFi is still spotty, and it won't recognize your scanner. If I were in your shoes, I certainly would find those things annoying in the least, and those types of things are exactly the "Digital Tipping Point" we're all waiting for.
But don't blame those things on Linux, please.
Blame Adobe (they made a fully capable Adobe Reader for Linux, what's the hold-up with the rest of their offering?).
Blame hardware manufacturers with Microsoft's fingerprints on their bankroll that won't allow them to release a decent API for open source driver developers.
Remember, the folks coding the drivers and interfaces are most of the time flying blind in their spare time, and still they've managed to cobble together a serious contender to the biggest player in the field.
As for documentation and bugfixing, I agree. At least you can email and bug the author about them. Even if it doesn't get fixed, you have had your voice. Try emailing the author of MSOffice's "Ribbon". Oh wait... you can't.
Back On Topic:
Open Source has done more than it's fair share of trying to grab attention, and it has succeeded (you don't get sued because you sat in the corner...). As I just mentioned, what is needed is more support from outside, namely more commercial apps available for Linux. (Games and "Professional" applications are the biggies here...)and Open API's for hardware interfaces.
I can't think of much more, but those are certainly the big ones I can see...
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Blame hardware manufacturers with Microsoft's fingerprints on their bankroll that won't allow them to release a decent API for open source driver developers.
Please, don't blame Microsoft for this. Blame Linus for refusing to do a stable kernel ABI, and the GPL mentality of refusing closed-source stuff. And blame intellectual property, as well as the fear of being ripped off when you've paid millions of dollars for research and development.
Amazingly enough, though, AMD/ATI is opening up their graphics hardware documentation, Intel has already released very comprehensive full 2D/3D documentation for their embedded graphics, and it's rumored that Nvidia might be following suit.
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even if you polish a turd, its still a turd
-Josh
Have you tried this ?
-Carol Haynes
It's been done before!
Spoiler
http://goldenstool.org/
:o
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Blame Adobe (they made a fully capable Adobe Reader for Linux, what's the hold-up with the rest of their offering?).
Blame hardware manufacturers with Microsoft's fingerprints on their bankroll that won't allow them to release a decent API for open source driver developers.
-Edvard
Actually I have contacted a number of hardware manufacturers (including Linksys, Netgear and Canon) to ask why their hardware doesn't have Linux support. The two common threads in response seem to be first (and most important) money - why should they develop drivers for hardware that would sell in tiny quantieis for Linux - there is simply no return on such investment whereas supporting Windows (and even Mac) has a cash benefit. Secondly the number of competing distros makes developing anything much difficult especially as they all have their own quirks for installation and folder structures etc.
Carol, you know as well as I do that Linux can do WAY more than that, and do it well. From other things you wrote, I gather much of your beef with Linux is that there is not a Photoshop version for it
-Edvard
Not really - although this is a consideration. Photoshop is just an example - I'll stick with it because it makes the point but it equally applies to audio and video authoring software. If users have invested hundreds or even thousands of pounds/dollars in software it is unrealistic to expect them to move to an OS that supports none of that mainstream software and because of that the migration of the larger user base is slow to non-existant.
There are open source alternatives for most software titles but they are usually not as easy to use (the GIMP, for example, has always been impenetrable to me and I have tried to get to grips with it numerous times), usually playing catch up in terms of what they can do and don't produce file formats that are generally accepted in the professional market. At the end of the day the professional world drives the software market - which is why PhotoShop has become the de facto standard in image editing. It is unrealistic to expect Adobe to code products for Linux when there is no market to buy the product. This is also partly the fault of the open source community because most people who use Linux seem to expect that all software to be free and there is no way Adobe is going to spend millions developing a product which they give away for nothing.
As for documentation and bugfixing, I agree. At least you can email and bug the author about them. Even if it doesn't get fixed, you have had your voice. Try emailing the author of MSOffice's "Ribbon". Oh wait... you can't.
-Edvard
Really - how do I email somebody called zog somewhere in the Ukraine ?
Seriously - how would I write to the developers of the GIMP and expect an answer - it just isn't realistic. If it were there would be no development at all as they would be permanently swamped with good ideas from users.
Realistically if this is a criteria you should hope that Linux distros and apps remain a niche geek market - if it ever becomes anything like mainstream there will be major issues about contacting developers as there is in every major software market.
Parting shot and then I'll shut up - if Linux is so perfect (as most Linux worshippers seem to think it is) why can't they even give it away?
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even if you polish a turd, its still a turd
-Josh
Have you tried this ?
-Carol Haynes
It's been done before!
:o
-cranioscopical
;D
How do you come up with these things, Chris?! What search terms did you run through Google?
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Actually I have contacted a number of hardware manufacturers (including Linksys, Netgear and Canon) to ask why their hardware doesn't have Linux support. The two common threads in response seem to be first (and most important) money - why should they develop drivers for hardware that would sell in tiny quantieis for Linux - there is simply no return on such investment whereas supporting Windows (and even Mac) has a cash benefit. Secondly the number of competing distros makes developing anything much difficult especially as they all have their own quirks for installation and folder structures etc.
Both VERY bad justifications. Especially when NOT developing for Linux is going to LOSE them money to competitors who WILL. As for the folders thing, that's a cop-out. There are places where drivers go that does not change. They would know this if they did any serious research. As long as the kernel can communicate with it, and it does what it says on the tin, well... good. Nvidia figured this stuff out a long time ago, and I don't see them losing a dime over it. And if you want to install a fancy gui and some power user tools there's always /opt.
there is no way Adobe is going to spend millions developing a product which they give away for nothing.
They don't have to. Nobody ever said that just because you're running Linux, you're automatically looking for a handout from big bad software corporation. Yes, it's a niche market. But look at how many of the current software "killer apps" started out as a niche market? Adobe can charge the same price and nobody would flinch, they would be seen as a market leader and folks who have been itching for an excuse to go to Linux for whatever reason would now have one more reason to do so and Adobe wouldn't lose a customer. So far, nobody has been that brave. Adobe has already done it with Reader- a free product. Real has done it. Flash has been successfully ported to Linux. Trust me, when they figure out how to make money with it (and many already have) it will happen, period.
Really - how do I email somebody called zog somewhere in the Ukraine ?
If it's open source, you probably would never have to. But you could.
Seriously - how would I write to the developers of the GIMP and expect an answer - it just isn't realistic. If it were there would be no development at all as they would be permanently swamped with good ideas from users.
Personal response is not necessary. Read any major software project's bug tracking logs. All logged by users emailing or posting "I got bug X in build XYZ". Maybe not the most helpful, but at least there is a place for that to happen. Bugs get fixed the same way they do with other software... because enough people squawked. Easy bugs get fixed before hard bugs, and sometimes not at all, that's just the way it goes. Windows software is not immune from this either.
Parting shot and then I'll shut up - if Linux is so perfect (as most Linux worshippers seem to think it is) why can't they even give it away?
Some friends of mine had a dog they wanted to give to me. Purebred, all papers included, sweet tempered, loves children, house trained, everything. Perfect.
One problem.
I did not want a dog.
Nothing wrong with dogs, nothing wrong with this particular dog, but they could not give it to me because I did not want it. Under different circumstances, perhaps I would be overjoyed at my friend's kindness to me in offering such a wonderful dog for me to own, free of charge.
You do not want Linux....
P.S. I never said Linux was perfect, and worshipping it is absurd. I am only doing what (very) little I can to defend my usage of it against the torrent of misconceptions about it.
Now I'll shut up too...
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You do not want Linux....
-Edvard
Actually that is the point - I DO WANT LINUX.
I have downloaded numerous distros (Fedora, UBUNTU to name just two that get good reviews) installed them and tried them , I have downloaded boot from CD versions and have even bought 3 different 'Pro' versions of distros (Corel/Debian, Mandrake and SUSE) over the years in the hope that one day I can ditch Windows - it is even more important given the pile of poo that is Vista. Trouble is I have yet to find any version that works without a large amount of compromise - not even taking into account the lack of software availabilty even if you are willing to pay.
Until I can do it without chucking out practically everything I want to do with a computer or making seriously bad compromises I can't see how it is a viable option.
Since the first time I tried Linux I have owned 5 different printers (including HP. Lexmark and Canon) and 3 different scanners - not one of them had a driver that worked properly in any version of Linux I have tried. What am I supposed to do if I can't use my printer properly? I am not saying I couldn't print but the quality that the kludge drivers provided was laughable.
OK I can buy a proprietary piece of software that will allow me to use my current Canon printer (costs $30 so no big deal really) so the drivers are out there but even that, whilst providing good paper printout and specifically supporting my printer model, does not support all the functions of the printer such as choosing paper source or printing to printable CDs.
I have also had numerous sound cards - audio is important to me as I have my machine partly set up as a recording studio - and yet the only drivers I can find that work (sometimes, sometimes not) are ancient 16 bit Soundblaster drivers. Even windows has numerous open source projects for audio drivers (eg. ASIO4ALL and KMixer) so it can't be beyond the wit of man to produce something that works consistently for Linux and has something approaching quality.
I don't understand why I have been saying for years that I WOULD LIKE TO MOVE TO LINUX at least as a dual boot for most of my stuff but for the last 5 years it has simply not been possible.
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I, too, like the idea of a move to Linux.
Business stuff that I use (both hardware and custom software) locks me into Windows.
Were I to close out the business stuff I'd probably be happy to change.
For me, it's not worth the bother of running different OS's on different machines. I did that for enough years, in the past, that the fun has rather drained out of it. Come to think of it, it never was all that entertaining having to reconfigure the floppy drives (yet again) to handle a different dialect of, say, CP/M.
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Sorry, that was a response to your "parting shot" not an assessment of yourself :P
Seriously, my best advice would be to keep trying. You're in that percentage of potential users whose hurdles are higher than most, and folks like you are what the "community" is supposed to be for...
I have an HP all-in-one I bought about 5 years ago. When I first hooked it up, the driver situation was bad. Then again, the open-source drivers and toolkit was a fledgling project in a corner of HP's website and I was trying to compile on a Slackware 10 system. 2 years later I discovered Ubuntu and gave it a go.
Today, I am using Xubuntu and it all works. Printing, scanning, the whole bit (I haven't figured out faxing, but who in the heck faxes anymore?). Admittedly, the printing situation in Linux is in different territory from Windows and some things just aren't there, but the moral of the story is it will be.
I also had a Lexmark and well, we won't go there...
I have had more success with sound cards than with anything. What kind do you have?
I have used (successfully) a handful of different Sound Blasters, an Ensoniq 13-something and an Intel 4270 (i think) that doesn't work unless I set the sample rate to 48000 :huh: (but I get 8.4 msecs of latency... w00t! :thumbsup: ). Eventually I will upgrade to a M-Audio Audiophile or Delta-4 (at least), and I have been assured that Linux drivers for them are not lacking.
Yes, you will have to make some compromises, many painful. But if you want it bad enough, you'll get there. Really.
In my experience, you have to do a lot of reading to piece together what may be wrong when something goes wrong.
You have to spend a lot of time at a terminal to get at the guts of whats going on.
You have to spend a lot of time at the Google looking for answers and trying... every... one... (that's not easy on a dialup connection :'( )
I am sure there will come a day when every software package comes in a Linux version, all hardware works as well as it does on Windows, and sitting in front of a Linux machine will be a welcome break from Microsoft's train wreck, instead of the other way around. But it won't happen if people keep giving up.
Don't give up.
Business stuff that I use (both hardware and custom software) locks me into Windows.
This is exactly the kind of thing that is keeping a LOT of folks who COULD and WANT to switch from actually doing so. It's called vendor lock-in and it tastes funny. But if it works, and there is not an alternative, then "want to switch" isn't going to taste any better.
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Uh, I thought this thread was about Aero vs. Compiz... ;D
Going back to the original topic of the thread, both fail because they're in opposite corners. Aero is a wonderful technology, but Microsoft couldn't make anything remotely useful with it, Flip3D looks cool at first, but it does not enhance the computing experience in any way, and gets old after a while. Thank God for 3rd party developers (Microsoft, copy Expose, god dammit!).
Compiz is also really cool, but it's cloying IMO. They pack too many animations that does absolutely nothing, apart from getting in the way. One of my friends has this cool looking effect for minimizing windows in her laptop, which simulates a paper plane, but oh my, it's makes computing so slow. Thankfully, most things can be configured, though there are too many. I guess Mac OS X got it right from the start *hides*
BTW, I find funny the guy shows the superior 'hip' effect of Beryl, yet at the same time the guy seems to be working on something for "Rincón Macorisano" :D
Intel has already released very comprehensive full 2D/3D documentation for their embedded graphics
-f0dder
Intel + 3D graphics + embedded chips = Not computable :P. And they had sound cards as well? :huh:
For the record, I'd say that so far I had excellent luck with hardware support under Linux, all of my peripherals and components were supported out of the box, including the printers. Good karma, I guess :)
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Intel has already released very comprehensive full 2D/3D documentation for their embedded graphics
-f0dder
Intel + 3D graphics + embedded chips = Not computable :P. And they had sound cards as well? :huh:
-Lashiec
To be fair, not all of the integrated intel graphics are bad - won't do high-end gaming, but that's not the idea of integrated graphics after all. Also, I think a big part of the problem with integrated intel graphics the last few years is driver-induced, not because of bad hardware...
As for sound, I don't think they've actuall done sound cards (or integrated sound) - I thought they did, but it seems that intel's part is "just" the HD audio bus, while <whatever> other stuff is handled by 3rd party vendors, like realtek and analog devices.
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I can't speak for Compiz, but I rely heavily on AERO anymore to keep my workflow going (open ~15+ windows and try to talk to 5+ people online at once and see how far you go before you ponder insanity). :tellme: Several applications I use rely on the AERO interface to run (Switcher, for example). I hate having to use an XP machine anymore because I lose not only the "feeling", but also the capabilities that I have to utilize. No little pop-up images of programs in alt-tab or over taskbar buttons. No 3D window flipping. ObjectDock window previews don't work without AERO. The list goes on. And plus, it is just way more eye-catching than a big blue taskbar (or the gray one on Xubuntu). :)
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I can't speak for Compiz, but I rely heavily on AERO anymore to keep my workflow going (open ~15+ windows and try to talk to 5+ people online at once and see how far you go before you ponder insanity). :tellme: Several applications I use rely on the AERO interface to run (Switcher, for example). I hate having to use an XP machine anymore because I lose not only the "feeling", but also the capabilities that I have to utilize. No little pop-up images of programs in alt-tab or over taskbar buttons. No 3D window flipping. ObjectDock window previews don't work without AERO. The list goes on. And plus, it is just way more eye-catching than a big blue taskbar (or the gray one on Xubuntu). :)
-wreckedcarzz
That is all fine if you bought your computer/laptop this year. Compiz-fusion is much more "old hardware" friendly than aero, and, yes, compiz is damn fluid (and IMO, MS should be ashamed of Aero... All that money for... zzzzwwwaaaattth??). In any cases, I like/am used to my old windows classic theme... sorry! :-[
[off-topic] I haven't been using Linux a lot recently. Like Carol and others, I'm following the progress but have become a bit tired of trying to use it on a regular basis -- haven't got to many hardware problems with my dell Inspiron 6400 (really -- see my comments on that subject in another thread), but there are these software I just can't stand NOT having. :-[ However, I'm not loosing hope... To be fair, I find that Linux and OpenSource software have made incredible progress in the last 8 years. Really. Much more than windows, I'm pretty sure (compare the last PCLinux OS, Ubuntu or Mandriva with Caldera's Open Linux, or the old RedHat and Suse... And compare Windows NT 4.0 with XP/Vista. See which one progressed more... in terms of user friendliness, flexibility, stability, security, etc.). So I'm still hoping. Like Carol said : "Actually that is the point - I DO WANT LINUX."
And just for the sake of healthier (desktop) computing... Linux is an incredibly important player. No? [/off-topic]
PS : BTW the blue screen at the end of the video (zaine's link)... priceless. Buggy closed source software ? You bet. I've had sooo many bugs in software that I've paid for. Let's talk about those... Shall we ?
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Can't understand all this fuzz!
For me, eye candy is absolutely useless! I need Aero or any other graphical hype like a fish a bicycle needs. Meaning: NEVER!
There were really good programs, i uninstalled again only because their authors have the opinion to invent and use new graphical sensations in their GUI. Even if the program itself was a real pearl.
I want to work with my pc and so i prefer a fast, informational GUI without any whistles and bells. The only case i need eye candy is, when i play a game and need the "game atmosphere" as well. But then the games normally bring its own GUIs with them.
Go away from me with this cpu and hd-space consuming, irritating, candyshop, good for kiddies stuff.
Windows-XP Classic style for my desktop pc and bash shell for my linux server is all i need.
Sorry, call me a dinosaur or a philistine! But this is my opinion!
Greetings
JoTo
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Several applications I use rely on the AERO interface to run (Switcher, for example). I hate having to use an XP machine anymore because I lose not only the "feeling", but also the capabilities that I have to utilize.
-wreckedcarzz
Here is Windows XP. I have 12 applications on the taskbar - if I want to choose quickly between them I use a single mouse click which shows me an image of every task currently open on my desktop. I simply click the one I want.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
It is just as functional as Aero - thumbnails and scrolling 3-D nonsense. In fact I think it is rather clearer than the 3-D nonsense which I find simply distracting, plus you have to scroll through all of the windows to find the one you want.
What software an I using? A microsoft mouse with their driver MS IntelliPoint installed. I reprogrammed one on the side buttons on my mouse to do this (2 clicks in the driver settings). (There is also a freebie in the form of one of the Windows XP PowerTools that does almost the same thing - and not even Vista Ultimate gets the PowerTools any more - some of the most useful addons MS has ever produced for Windows!)
Actually if you want to scroll through your apps on Windows XP like the Aero interface it is built into windows ... Alt TAB does precisely that ... it also has the benefit that you see every application full screen and fully rendered.
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I agree with Carol
Yes the interface cleverness is important, but it is the applications that matter - else we would all be using next or OS/2
I regularly try linux/bsd on the desktop, and what stops me is not the window manager, it is the thought of having to relearn how to use a whole bunch of applications. Finding what to use to reproduce the tools and shortcuts that I use.
It's not really the big apps - I can imagine learning to use any of the linux photo software over time, and I havent had years of training and use in one piece of software to unlearn (which would be very hard - although there is a gimp add on which makes it more like photoshop in the interface and keyboard shortcuts, i am told). It is all the utilities, the email client, website archive, and all the little interface tweaks. It's 10 years of trying stuff and keeping the best and building a toolbox that fits me.
Comfort and habit with the tools is a good thing for productivity.
Even Vista irritates me, I am so used to XP
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I can't speak for Compiz, but I rely heavily on AERO anymore to keep my workflow going (open ~15+ windows and try to talk to 5+ people online at once and see how far you go before you ponder insanity). :tellme: Several applications I use rely on the AERO interface to run (Switcher, for example). I hate having to use an XP machine anymore because I lose not only the "feeling", but also the capabilities that I have to utilize. No little pop-up images of programs in alt-tab or over taskbar buttons. No 3D window flipping. ObjectDock window previews don't work without AERO. The list goes on. And plus, it is just way more eye-catching than a big blue taskbar (or the gray one on Xubuntu). :)
-wreckedcarzz
Funny you should say that,
I feel the exact opposite,...
I'm so used to 2d GUI's and minimalism, that whenever I get too much eye candy on my desktop I start to miss the 2d feel. And honestly most of it seems very impractical to me. I like the snappyness of a simple gui. I don't want to wait the extra 10ms for some thing to fade or flip or whatever other effect. Also, I find that many times the added visual complexity just works counter-productive. I have used compiz for about 2 weeks or so, until I finally got rid of it. At first I really loved it. The eye candy is really beatiful. I had the rotating 3d cube, wobbly windows, etc,.. It was very pleasing to the eye, however, after a while when the novelty wore off, I had to get rid of it, simply because I felt i was working less efficient.
[Off topic]
I've been using GNU/Linux as main OS for everything now. I havent' touched windows in a very long time and every time I do it feels very clumbsy. I couldn't imagine ever using it as a production OS anymore.
As far as wifi goes, I only recently started to use wifi, and I must say I'm impressed with the quality of the GUI tools. Using a linksys pcmcia card, which was immediatly detected. I never had to touch a config file. I'm sure it won't be the case with all hardware, but out of the 4 computers I run Gnu/Linux on, not a single one has had problems with drivers or hardware. It must be just me. :(
I'm honestly a bit dissapointed that this topic started with such immediate Linux bashing(which seems to be a trend lately in any topic remotely related to Linux) while instead it was about Compiz and Aero.
Obviously some people have a lot of beef with it, and for other people it works great, somehave a lot of beef with the mainstream OSes... I think we've been beating the dead horse enough now,...
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I agree with Gothic wrt. snappiness and eye-candy. 10ms is a loooong time to wait for a window to minimize/whatever. I like my visual theme simple & elegant - sworn user/lover of 2k/XP classic theme for quite a while. After seeing the screenshot in this post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=9493.msg98600#msg98600), I ended up patching uxtheme.dll (shame on MS for not allowing 3rd party themes...), then ran off and installed ClearLooks (http://hsn.deviantart.com/art/Clearlooks-0-6-Black-31325014). The widgets are approximately the same size as windows classic (ie., not much wasted screen space), and the look is pleasant.
Now, as for eye-candy, there's a (very) few Vista/Aero things I miss in XP. NT has been hardware-accelerated for quite a while, but not with double-buffered graphics. This means that if you move a window rapidly, you will see tearing/shearing - Vista/Aero does away with this. Also, the realtime updated taskbar-processes mouse-over and alt-tab views of what's going on in other apps is very nice. This can be faked on XP, but it does so clumsily and error-prone by taking screenshots.
Aero does require a bit too much juice on older computers though, I dunno if it's because of bad design or just some current driver issues etc. Also, the lack of customization possible when aero turned on is absolutely horrible, wtf. can't I change the "selected item bar" color, for instance? The aero default is about impossible to see on a laptop screen as soon as there's the smallest amount of sunlight.
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I've seen compiz runnnig fine on a laptop Aero refuses to run on. And compiz looks prettier to boot!
As I'm engaged in the great Vista experience at the moment, but having been used to OS X, Aero fails pretty miserably in functionality terms. And I founds apps as functional as Vista for XP for window managment. So Vista has nothing I can't get out of XP. Neither can get me close to the functionality I'm used to in OS X. And Vista utterly fails to run on hardware Compiz or OS X does. I still prefer Aero aesthetically to XP classic (though it still suffers from lots of little ugly details), and I intend to persevere with Vista as part of my experiment. But underwhelming is my experience of Aero so far. I've not had to work with compiz, but it looked more flexible from what I saw...
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Christ on a cracker ... I'm not even sure what topic to stay on at this point.
However...
As I'm apparently the only truly happy Vista user in the thread, I do have to say that Compiz win the eye-candy contest IMO.
But the purpose of the Vista desktop is not eye-candy, the purpose is that each rendered window is a independent 3D object that can be loaded, unloaded, manipulated & rendered in any size or location without affecting the underlying application. The pre-Vista bitmap rendered windows are/were nowhere near as forgiving or flexible. The eve-candy in Vista is just there to entertain the "kids".
I'm still doing battle with Slackware (sound) amongst other projects, because I see value in being familiar with thing *niX ... but I'm a Windows guy with no intention of switching.
To zridling I say thank you for sharing an interesting bit of information that I enjoyed.
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Stoic: I am one of the truly happy Vista users, I really dont see many problems with it.
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I've seen compiz runnnig fine on a laptop Aero refuses to run on. And compiz looks prettier to boot!
-nontroppo
I suspect the fact that Aero needs a DirectX-9 capable card (or integrated graphics processor) it's the answer to that. Of course, that does not mean Microsoft could have programmed it for older hardware, but considering Vista was a break in many aspects of the video system compared with older Windows versions, I think it can't be helped. Besides, considering the "Vista capable" debacle, perhaps it's all for the best that things are the way they are.
As Compiz uses OpenGL, it does not have those limitations. Ah, well, the wonders of a open API.
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Defending Vista/AERO:
While the extra second or two for an effect to occur may be annoying, it can be helpful too. The little minimize animation can help you find a specific window later on by sliding it down to its taskbar button, for example. And seeing through the edges of windows can help you find things below the active program; maybe it is just me, but I used to love the feel of Windows 95 (a friend has a 95 laptop I use on occasion) but now I, personally, cannot live without the... appeal (if you will) of being able to enjoy Windows, and not just work with it. It is just so much more inviting.
[(somewhat) off-topic]
Can this Compiz be installed on any distro/are there certain hardware requirements? Where can I get it at? This has me interested to play around with now... :P
[off-topic]
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Mmm, most distros carry Compiz, either in their repositories or installed by default. Check up its documentation (http://compiz.org/Documentation/Documentation), but IIRC, you should not have problems with it (you have a Radeon 2600 Pro, don't you?), well, apart from possible driver problems. I wonder how good is the new RadeonHD driver...
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And seeing through the edges of windows can help you find things below the active program
-wreckedcarzz
Haven't windows transparency options been available since Windows 2000 ?
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Yea, HD2600 Pro. I have the latest Linux drivers on my XUbuntu install, they run pretty good (the built in ones required a reformat after it corrupted the display).
Mine came with the XFE and Gnome desktop environments. Will have to Google it.
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I was able to get Compiz downloaded and installed and actually running today on my Xubuntu install, and sadly it does not work. Window borders disappear, effects don't work, and it is basically the Mac interface - the windows attatch to the top left and the menu bar for each program overlaps the next. Windows can't be moved and you can only switch back to the “xfwm4″ interface.
I'll have to wait for the next version/stable. *sigh*
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Like Lashiec, I've had good luck with drivers for my peripherals, specifically monitors, cameras, and printers (HP), and a variety of videocards, and since making the switch (http://www.thegsblog.com/?p=201) last October, I've never had more fun on my computer. My point in this post was what Glyn Moody suggested — if you think Vista's Aero is cool, then check out what's being done freely with open source software (Compiz) on the Linux platform. No one's arguing a switch to GNU/Linux, but just as you're aware of Apple's OS X UI, you can see what's on Linux these days (and that video was more than a year old).
I don't use my computer as a toy, but gawd, I know a lot of my friends do — gaming, social media, and youtube mainly. And their misperceptions about what GNU/Linux is are manifold among confusion with 'distros,' 'multiple desktops' (which saves me from buying that second monitor that so many invest in these days), the nature of open source, and why software must be bad if they're not paying for it. (IMO, DonationCoder.com is not about paying for software, it's about rewarding good, useful coding.)
I'm like JoTo: ...eye candy is absolutely useless... I want to work with my pc and so i prefer a fast, informational GUI without any whistles and bells. So I don't use Compiz because I don't need it. I also don't use Flip3D in Vista. But for users like JoTo, there are other, streamlined desktop environments like Xfce and Enlightenment that take up a microscopic amount of memory while providing an attractive (better than XP), efficient UI. As more software moves toward RIA, webware, and into the Cloud, you choice of OS is less relevant. All things being equal, GNU/Linux on the desktop is not part of any market, but I will get back all the money I've given companies like Microsoft for the past 22 years over time.
My intent is not to bash Windows, of course; that's a tired, flammable target that I don't have the energy for. I don't want that fight on DC, because I've become agnostic on OS choice. Use what you like, what you enjoy, what works for you. Meanwhile, I will keep posting positive, informative topics on GNU/Linux, and with the help of others, dispel the myths of open source software (http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd) and open standards (http://opensource.org/osr).
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I was able to get Compiz downloaded and installed and actually running today on my Xubuntu install, and sadly it does not work. Window borders disappear, effects don't work, and it is basically the Mac interface - the windows attatch to the top left and the menu bar for each program overlaps the next. Windows can't be moved and you can only switch back to the “xfwm4″ interface.
I'll have to wait for the next version/stable. *sigh*
-wreckedcarzz
I've had that problem before. When that happens, something is probably broken in the Compiz installation, or the emerald windows decorator is not enabled, or something like that. It usually happens when you install Compiz manually, edit your xorg.conf, goof around etc. ;)
But then your HD2600 Pro might not be well supported. But I thought it was.
Did you follow a tutorial, used the packages with synaptic etc?
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Zaine, that is the first time I've heard of enlightenment being referred to as light. From my experiences it is far from that and one of the more bulky desktop managers, more so than gnome or kde.
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hummmm... you're probably thinking of something else because enlightenment is indeed light and is known for it. It is not be the lightest, but very light despite all the candy. Actually lighter than many other Desktop environments, or even windows managers for that matter (but haven't tested that myself... or I can't remember). Btw kde and gnome are not strictly windows manager per se, but desktop environments that can actually use enlightenment as their windows manager instead of, say, metacity or kwm, or even Compiz (which is also a "composite manager").
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I disagree with Enlightenment being attractive, certain parts are, others suck hard, but it's true that it's quite light, it reminds me of LiteStep, not only for its low footprint, but also the general look.
Note that I'm not saying that XP is attractive, although some visual styles... I guess that despite the Fisher-Price or Teletubbie-esque look, it's well designed, does not get old, and it's easy on the eyes.
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I followed 3 tutorials (command line and package manager based), used 2 package managers (built in and Synaptic) and followed all FAQs and Troubleshooting guides I could find. No go.
Ironically, I gave up on making it work as of last night and followed a tutorial on how to make XFCE look like AERO. That one didn't work fully either, so I am still hacking away at that.
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As a developer, let me say that as far as I know, DWM (the Vista Aero engine) is technically as good, if not better, than Compiz/Quartz. The issue, as it always is with Windows, is that most of its neat features are not enabled by default in explorer, or even available to developers. We get a measly thumbnail api which lets us generate realtime previews, but not hook into the engine to generate pretty 3D effects like Compiz.
If Microsoft had in fact made the api public, it would be trivial to have Windows emulate any desktop manager in existence. And 90% of the problems people have with Aero performance can squarely be laid at the door of driver developers (Nvidia I'm looking at you!!).
The one thing which could be improved in Aero is that the desktop is 3d-composited, but the rendering of each individual window (non WPF ones) is still 2d and is not hardware accelerated. However on modern hardware 2d rendering is basically free, unless its a game/graphics intensive app in which case they probably use DirectX anyway.
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And 90% of the problems people have with Aero performance can squarely be laid at the door of driver developers (Nvidia I'm looking at you!!).
-MrCrispy
Are you saying that Linux drivers are more carefully crafted ? AFAICT, Compiz runs pretty smoothly on 5 years old hardware. The same cannot be said of Aero. Aero doesn't even run that smoothly on my father's laptop, bought a few months ago. And I'm not even talking about the fancy (and sometimes tasteless) 3d effects. Just the exposé-like effects and stuff.
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I disagree with Enlightenment being attractive, certain parts are, others suck hard, but it's true that it's quite light, it reminds me of LiteStep, not only for its low footprint, but also the general look.
e16 is relatively light, especially compared to gnome and kde today (e16 was considered heavy at the time when it was released). However their newest e17 which is and has been in pre-alpha since forever can get quite heavy, though many of the components can be disabled to make it as light as e16.
With e17 they wanted to redesign the concept of a 'window manager', and they developed a system to draw widgets/windows in a manner similar to Macromedia(or i should now say Adobe) Flash.
The new dr17 is very modular and with all features and plug-ins enabled i'm pretty sure it can be as heavy as - if not heavier than gnome.
If you're thinking of trying out dr17, you'll probably be disappointed because since they haven't even reached beta yet, it's full of bugs, random crashes, and missing functionality. It has been in development since 2000. 8 years and counting, I wonder if they can beat duke nukem forever...
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With e17 they wanted to redesign the concept of a 'window manager', and they developed a system to draw widgets/windows in a manner similar to Macromedia(or i should now say Adobe) Flash.
-Gothi[c]
Is that something similar to Plasmoids in KDE 4?
If you're thinking of trying out dr17, you'll probably be disappointed because since they haven't even reached beta yet, it's full of bugs, random crashes, and missing functionality. It has been in development since 2000.
8 years, and the page still describes it as pre-alpha... too many development time for being in that early stage, I wonder what happened in the interim (apart from Real Life, of course).
8 years and counting, I wonder if they can beat duke nukem forever...
Always bet on Duke Enlightenment ;)
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Are you saying that Linux drivers are more carefully crafted ? AFAICT, Compiz runs pretty smoothly on 5 years old hardware. The same cannot be said of Aero. Aero doesn't even run that smoothly on my father's laptop, bought a few months ago. And I'm not even talking about the fancy (and sometimes tasteless) 3d effects. Just the exposé-like effects and stuff.
-Armando
I was only talking about the technical capabilities of DWM. I believe Linux is lighter than Vista, and explorer in particular is dog slow, so I'm not surprised the 3d desktop experience in Linux is better. Which laptop does your father have? If its only a few months old is it Vista-certified?
And yes, its quite possible Linux drivers are better. Vista introduced (yet again) a whole new driver model (WDDM) which Nvidia and ATI haven't really embraced (partly cause its complex, but mostly cause they are lazy and incompetent). I forget the exact figure but ~80% of Vista crashes were directly caused by Nvidia drivers in the first year of Vista.
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Which laptop does your father have? If its only a few months old is it Vista-certified?
-MrCrispy
Can't remember if it was Vista certified, but came with Vista and is using the integrated GMA X3100 from Intel. It's certainly low end, but more powerful than a GMA900 which runs compiz very well IMO -- and needless to say, on most laptops compiz runs flawlessly on the gma x1300. Aero is slow and clunky.
And yes, its quite possible Linux drivers are better. Vista introduced (yet again) a whole new driver model (WDDM) which Nvidia and ATI haven't really embraced (partly cause its complex, but mostly cause they are lazy and incompetent). I forget the exact figure but ~80% of Vista crashes were directly caused by Nvidia drivers in the first year of Vista.
-MrCrispy
I understand about the crashes and everything in Vista. I haven't seen any recent benchmarks, but... I don't recall Linux being used for its great video card drivers... Linux experts like Gothi[c] would know better than me though...
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MrCrispy: remember that nvidia not only makes video drivers, but also chipset and network... those crash statistics were interesting, but afaik did not tell which nvidia drivers caused the crash. Also, it would have been interesting to see per-user frequency of the crashes - obviously nvidia has a higher percentage of crashes simply because they (afaik) has larger market share than AMD/ATi.
Afaik (hear-say, not verified!) Aero is implemented using shaders, and requiring SM2.0 - this has some requirements of the GPU and it's drivers. The newer intel integrated graphics is actually relatively capable, but still with insanely retarded drivers.
I dunno if Compiz is done with shaders or whether it uses fixed-feature OpenGL calls with a whole bunch of CPU massaging...
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Well, the system requirements for Vista Aero mention the presence of Shader Model 2.0, so they must be used for something :)
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Which laptop does your father have?
-MrCrispy
There's a great title for a thread of its own! :)
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The GMA X3100 is more than enough for Aero as well as any DX9 game - its actually a pretty capable graphics chip so I'm surprised it gave your problems.
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Well, flipping windows was not exactly the smoothest with the GMA X3100... But if you say that it should be smooth, I'll have to check that out. Maybe a driver problem...? :huh:
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Which laptop does your father have?
-MrCrispy
There's a great title for a thread of its own! :)
-cranioscopical
;D
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Well, flipping windows was not exactly the smoothest with the GMA X3100... But if you say that it should be smooth, I'll have to check that out. Maybe a driver problem...? :huh:
-Armando
Very likely a driver problem - intel has a track record of writing retarded graphics drivers, and crippling their otherwise OK/nice chips.
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OK since arguments are discounted: I use Linux because.
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First, I'd like to say that running an old hardware has never been a criteria of Windows. You have old hardware and Windows runs, cool. It doesn't, buy hardware. It's been the way for a LONG time. People have been complacent with the long time between releases.
Second, I have thousands of dollars of apps and utilities. Most of those do not have a counterpart in the *nix world. If there were a wide selection of apps and utilities available it would still be a reach for me to say "so long" to my investment. Then there is the time to relearn what I do with the tools I have.
For me, it is a matter of "Here's the one app that does thus and so". In any category with Windows I can choose among many apps at many price points. I'm certain to find what I'm looking for. With *nix, tain't so.
Ease of contacting the developer of this or that? Contacting and having your need/problem positively addressed are two different things. Lots of coders do it for their own use and other suggestions take a back seat. There are MANY orphaned apps on SourceForge and other like sites. What do I do if I had chosen one of them to do this or that?
Finally, eyecandy. I like it but it would never be a deciding factor for what OS I use.
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^ Thats a very good point. Lets also talk about a huge revenue source and target market for Windows - businesses. In a corporate environment, what are the values that absolutely cannot be compromised - being conservative and not flashy, backwards compatibility, features based on actual user feedback and customer demand.
Guess what, these are the exact areas Windows outshines OSX and Linux. It may not be sexy, and it has a bit of design-by-committee, but the features are put in after extensive user testing, not because some dev coded an overnight effect that looks good on youtube. 3d rippling windows is good - is it usable? The PDC builds of Longhorn (in 2003, before Compiz, beryl etc) had all kinds of 3d effects that were dropped.
Microsoft is also moving towards a componentized, modular Windows. CE has it, and Windows 2008 lets you mix and match what you want to run, so e.g. you can run it without a GUI. So I have hopes for reduced resource usage as well.
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In a corporate environment, what are the values that absolutely cannot be compromised - being conservative and not flashy, backwards compatibility, features based on actual user feedback and customer demand.... Guess what, these are the exact areas Windows outshines OSX and Linux. It may not be sexy, and it has a bit of design-by-committee, but the features are put in after extensive user testing, not because some dev coded an overnight effect that looks good on youtube. Windows [Server] 2008 lets you mix and match what you want to run, so e.g. you can run it without a GUI. So I have hopes for reduced resource usage as well.-MrCrispy
Interesting, and I'd like to break this down.
________________________________________________
(1) In a corporate environment, what are the values that absolutely cannot be compromised — being conservative and not flashy, backwards compatibility, features based on actual user feedback and customer demand.... Guess what, these are the exact areas Windows outshines OSX and Linux.
Really?
— I presume you mean XP (which Ballmer hinted may get its death sentenced commuted again), not Vista. But since we're in the now, let's stick with the current Windows: Vista.
— This doesn't account for MS-OOXML in Office 2007, and its lack of support for the other ISO standard format, ODF.
— Vista also broke lots of hardware with missing drivers. And please don't tell me that "XP did the same thing when it came out." After five years of development, I somehow thought things were supposed to be more compatible, faster, and better. For example, I lost both an old and a new HP laser printer for over a year. Talk about being bummed. Yet those open sourcers were able to hack up a Linux driver in about three weeks.
— Microsoft itself was never clear on whether we should get new hardware for Vista. They slapped 'Vista-capable' stickers on systems that were not. That did wonders for goodwill, and brought the inevitable lawsuit from consumers. They could have easily sold a demo/test CD for €1 to see if Vista worked on your old system like Linux does with its Live CDs.
— So far, I don't see the "outshining" MrCrispy, as Windows is actually losing desktop market share (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,45540,00.html) to OS X and Linux. Microsoft never loses desktop market share. But with Vista Microsoft is finally losing customers. And according to that same Forrester Research Report, Windows enterprise adoption declined 3.7% and Vista only accounted for just over 6% of business/enterprise clients to date.
________________________________________________
(2) It may not be sexy, and it has a bit of design-by-committee, but the features are put in after extensive user testing, not because some dev coded an overnight effect that looks good on youtube.
— Okay, you're talking about Compiz here, but something most of those YouTube 'Compiz' videos don't show is how it works among desktops you establish as you work. For example, you can create a set of programs that work within one 'desktop' — say, graphics, or database/spreadsheet/data analysis, or coding, whatever — keeping that workspace clean and segregated from things like surfing, burning, gaming, etc. The flash and zazz on the videos are just effects, and hide its utility.
— I'll grant you that Microsoft did at least deliver Aero (along with several fantastic fonts) after dropping WinFS, which was originally announced as one of the three "pillars" of Windows Vista — the other two being the new Windows Presentation Foundation (Avalon) user interface layer and the Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo) web services layer. File systems on Linux are its core attraction for stability, no need for defragging, and since everything is a text file, they last forever, and I don't have WGA, Windows Update, or OGA checking my computer at every boot.
— Despite years of development, unprecedented and broad alpha and beta testing by many, many Windows power users, Vista wasn't ready for release at the end of Jan. 2007. SP1 is acceptable. Even Microsoft didn't make a big deal of Vista's rollout, and you'd hardly know they just released Windows Server 2008.
— Windows Explorer could not have been designed by committee. Nor could Vista's Control Panel labyrinth. Nor could UAC. Nor could the way that Vista drains laptop batteries. The list is long.
— And then there's that nasty Windows Home Server data corruption problem (http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/03/10/an-update-on-kb-946676.aspx) (marketed on Microsoft.com for Small Business Server Networks). Corrupting data is an absolute compromise (KnowledgeBase listing (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946676/en-us)). When run on servers with more than one hard drive running Windows Home Server can destroy your data if you use any of nine programs: Windows Vista Photo Gallery; Windows Live Photo Gallery; Microsoft Office OneNote 2007; Microsoft Office OneNote 2003; Microsoft Office Outlook 2007; Microsoft Money 2007; SyncToy 2.0 Beta; Intuit QuickBooks; and uTorrent. To be fair, Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V virtualization is freaky good. But the whole point of a server OS is to serve files, not corrupt them. Who tested that at Redmond? Seriously. Not even ed bott can spin that. Just install Linux and Samba on the PC of your choice that you want to be your server and save yourself the cash and heartache.
________________________________________________
(3) Windows (Server or Home?) 2008 lets you mix and match what you want to run, so e.g. you can run it without a GUI. So I have hopes for reduced resource usage as well.
— Would you be willing to run Windows without a GUI? (I think you would because at your level, you'd be an expert on any OS, not just Windows.) But for my level, I couldn't.
— Reducing resource demand would be a new, welcome direction.
— Win7 is rumored to be subscription and possibly modular. But once software goes subscription, I'm outta there. I saw they floated a price of $33/month for Office 2007! Much like gasoline, I can't afford to drive with Microsoft anymore. Therefore, GNU/Linux best serves my economic and data interests.
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File systems on Linux are its core attraction for stability, no need for defragging, and since everything is a text file, they last forever,-zridling
That linux filesystems should not need defragging is a goddamn lie. It's true that they generally don't fragment as badly as, say, FAT filesystems, but they sure as hell do fragment. (Oh, if you follow the "never use more than 80% of a drive" the fragmentation issues aren't as bad, but that's damn lame advice).
But they do fragment. How badly depends on filesystem type and usage. And what's your option then, to defragment? General advice is to "make a new filesystem, copy all files there, erase old filesyste, copy back". I don't know of any decent defrag applications for linux - there's some experimental thing for ext2, and for XFS you can hack up a command pipeline but it essentially uses single-file defragmenting, and isn't as comprehensive as tools available for windows.
Yet linux users keep propagating the misconception (or even outright lie) that linux is fragmentation-resilient. I dunno if it's simply because there aren't defragmentation apps available that this ignorance hasn't been debunked, or if it's because linux users have simply gotten used to sub-par performance...
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Correct me if I'm wrong (and somebody usually does...), but it's not whether Linux does or doesn't need fragmentation, but how any particular filesystem deals with the inevitable fragmentation. Any multi-user, multitasking operating system should not benefit greatly from defragmentation (ntfs included...) and there are valid arguments against defragging such a system.
Linux adherents have been sold the mantra "no need for fragmentation" because the guys who designed the filesystem designed it from a multiuser multitask standpoint from the first.
It's not a lie, it's a misconception of the nature of the problem.
If the msdos and fat filesystems had been designed this way from the first, we wouldn't even be asking this question.
I know this is old, and concerns mainly the ext2 filestystem, but it's a very good technical explanation of the situation from the wtfl-lug mailing list:
http://www.salmar.com/pipermail/wftl-lug/2002-March/000603.html
Here's a perl script for checking fragmentation:
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/96989/index.html
...and an non-techie ascii-art explanation of linux filesystem fragmentation here:
http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting
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Edvard: try maintaining an Arch linux setup for a while - eventually, the speed of "pacman" (lovely name for a package manager ;)) slows to a crawl... because of fragmentation. Fragmentation is inevitable, you can do a lot of heuristic to try and avoid it, but it eventually ends up happening.
And it does impact performance, no matter what people say. Claiming it doesn't is pure and simple ignorance. NTFS fragments as well, by the way, so I'm not claiming it's a linux issue - it's an issue with all filesystems.
Obviously, how bad fragmentation affects performance depends on a lot of different figures - but it all boils down to fragment size and the nature of the storage system (transfer speed, seek speed, ...) - Microsoft's Vista defragmenter guesstimates that with current storage systems, you're generally OK and don't lose too much performance as long as each individual fragment is at least 64 megabytes in size.
But blanket-statement claiming that fragmentation is a non-issue and that it doesn't happen on linux - well, sorry, that's either ignorance or outright lies.
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Edvard: try maintaining an Arch linux setup for a while - eventually, the speed of "pacman" (lovely name for a package manager ;)) slows to a crawl... because of fragmentation.-f0dder
pacman -Sc; pacman-optimize; sync
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Edvard: try maintaining an Arch linux setup for a while - eventually, the speed of "pacman" (lovely name for a package manager ;)) slows to a crawl... because of fragmentation.-f0dder
pacman -Sc; pacman-optimize; sync
-Dirhael
...which wouldn't be necessary if the claims about "fragmentation isn't an issue" were true.
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Edvard: try maintaining an Arch linux setup for a while - eventually, the speed of "pacman" (lovely name for a package manager ;)) slows to a crawl... because of fragmentation.-f0dder
pacman -Sc; pacman-optimize; sync
-Dirhael
...which wouldn't be necessary if the claims about "fragmentation isn't an issue" were true.
-f0dder
I'm not going to argue that, I was merely pointing out how to resolve the issue you referred to in your previous post.
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OK, I'm going to sidestep the flow here and say fragmentation is the least of my worries running Linux. :D
Wikipedia says it pretty well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3#Defragmentation
Besides, Ext4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4#Online_defragmentation) will have built-in defragmentation, so there. :P
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Thanks for the correction, and the links, Edvard!
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Edvard: just because it's on wikipedia doesn't make it correct...
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Zaine, you make some valid points and I'm not going to try and defend Vista. My comments were more about the general philosophy behind Windows as a whole and different expectations when your customer base is very different from other OS vendors (OSX - consumers, Linux - power users).
I've posted many times on my personal thoughts about Vista - it was a clusterf**ck, to put it mildly, in the way the whole project was managed and how the feature set alienated both consumers and developers.
— This doesn't account for MS-OOXML in Office 2007, and its lack of support for the other ISO standard format, ODF.
-zridling
This is a purely political decision, not technical. If Microsoft supported ODF, it would be tantamount to them saying there was no need to invent OOXML. But thats a separate discussion :)
— Vista also broke lots of hardware with missing drivers. And please don't tell me that "XP did the same thing when it came out." After five years of development, I somehow thought things were supposed to be more compatible, faster, and better. For example, I lost both an old and a new HP laser printer for over a year. Talk about being bummed. Yet those open sourcers were able to hack up a Linux driver in about three weeks.
-zridling
Sorry, I'll have to say its the hw manufacturers fault. Precisely because it took so long, they had plenty to time to write good drivers (hell any driver). Microsoft is not responsible for making sure your hardware works, although as a customer it'd be nice! They try very hard to test and certify all kinds of hardware, beyond that what can they do?
— Microsoft itself was never clear on whether we should get new hardware for Vista. They slapped 'Vista-capable' stickers on systems that were not. That did wonders for goodwill, and brought the inevitable lawsuit from consumers. They could have easily sold a demo/test CD for €1 to see if Vista worked on your old system like Linux does with its Live CDs.
-zridling
Linux is free and the $1 livecd is not demo or test, it IS Linux. Obviously MS cannot do that (or for that matter any commercial OS vendor). 'Vista-capable' is very different from 'Vista-certified'. Ever since the DOJ slapped them, Microsoft has been even more hesitant to tell OEM's what they can and can't do to their systems - hence the bloatware you see on Windows pc's.
— So far, I don't see the "outshining" MrCrispy, as Windows is actually losing desktop market share (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,45540,00.html) to OS X and Linux. Microsoft never loses desktop market share. But with Vista Microsoft is finally losing customers. And according to that same Forrester Research Report, Windows enterprise adoption declined 3.7% and Vista only accounted for just over 6% of business/enterprise clients to date.
-zridling
The lack of adoption in the enterprise is I'm sure a big concern to the executives. Rather it would be if they were not trying to waste $50B (!!!!!) trying to buy a company with no benefits to them :wallbash: The 3rd quarter results for MSFT were not good.
— Okay, you're talking about Compiz here, but something most of those YouTube 'Compiz' videos don't show is how it works among desktops you establish as you work. For example, you can create a set of programs that work within one 'desktop' — say, graphics, or database/spreadsheet/data analysis, or coding, whatever — keeping that workspace clean and segregated from things like surfing, burning, gaming, etc. The flash and zazz on the videos are just effects, and hide its utility.
-zridling
Isn't that just virtual desktops though? Spaces in Leopard. And its still not included in Windows (except for the useless little power toy)!
— Despite years of development, unprecedented and broad alpha and beta testing by many, many Windows power users, Vista wasn't ready for release at the end of Jan. 2007. SP1 is acceptable. Even Microsoft didn't make a big deal of Vista's rollout, and you'd hardly know they just released Windows Server 2008.
-zridling
Microsoft didn't make a big deal of Vista's rollout ??!! That's news to me! Server 2008 is not a consumer product so probably not much in the mainstream media, but there wa splenty of coverage in mags like 'IT Week', 'Network World' etc.
— Windows Explorer could not have been designed by committee. Nor could Vista's Control Panel labyrinth. Nor could UAC. Nor could the way that Vista drains laptop batteries. The list is long.
-zridling
I'm not sure if I made myself clear. Design-by-committee is a BAD thing. Very bad. All the things you list are perfect examples. I'm sure you've read the horror story of the Vista start menu power options.
— And then there's that nasty Windows Home Server data corruption problem (http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/03/10/an-update-on-kb-946676.aspx) (marketed on Microsoft.com for Small Business Server Networks). Corrupting data is an absolute compromise (KnowledgeBase listing (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946676/en-us)). When run on servers with more than one hard drive running Windows Home Server can destroy your data if you use any of nine programs: Windows Vista Photo Gallery; Windows Live Photo Gallery; Microsoft Office OneNote 2007; Microsoft Office OneNote 2003; Microsoft Office Outlook 2007; Microsoft Money 2007; SyncToy 2.0 Beta; Intuit QuickBooks; and uTorrent. To be fair, Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V virtualization is freaky good. But the whole point of a server OS is to serve files, not corrupt them. Who tested that at Redmond? Seriously. Not even ed bott can spin that. Just install Linux and Samba on the PC of your choice that you want to be your server and save yourself the cash and heartache.
-zridling
Simple answer - it was not tested. Inexcusable. Microsoft is too big and there is a lack of communication between teams. This was why we had the horrendous Vista file copy bug which would throttle file transfers when you play audio.
But, WHS is not a server product by any means so don't hold it to the same standards. And it does far more than Linux+Samba.
— Would you be willing to run Windows without a GUI? (I think you would because at your level, you'd be an expert on any OS, not just Windows.) But for my level, I couldn't.
-zridling
I wouldn't :) But the non-GUI install (Server Core) is meant for servers, not desktops, and server admins who live and breathe cmd line magic. It would be right at home with the Linux crowd!
— Reducing resource demand would be a new, welcome direction.
— Win7 is rumored to be subscription and possibly modular. But once software goes subscription, I'm outta there. I saw they floated a price of $33/month for Office 2007! Much like gasoline, I can't afford to drive with Microsoft anymore. Therefore, GNU/Linux best serves my economic and data interests.
-zridling
I hear you. I don't like the trend that all software is moving towards a license+activation model rather than me owning it. Its one of the things Apple gets right - one version, you install it, you use it. Done. I don't lease my cars :)
But again, its meant mostly for enterprises. And in THAT market, hosted services are HUGE. For businesses, the attraction of never having to purchase/install/upgrade/maintain something is the deciding factor. Why do you think Microsoft is doing this? Because they are threatened by Google Apps/Zimbra etc! And its a way to ensure a steady revenue stream.
As a consumer, there are many things about Vista I don't like. Apple has a much better user experience but I refuse to pay the AppleTax. I seriously doubt that Linux is ready for the desktop and would not want to inflict it on my parents, for example. Modern computing is complex, but at least with Windows its the devil I know :)
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f0dder, so how do you solve the fragmentation issue without swear words? I know
I am a goddam liar have a different opinion, but this interests me.
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Edvard: just because it's on wikipedia doesn't make it correct...
What? The wikipedia article says you're right.
A true defragmentation tool does not exist for ext3.[10]
That being said, as the Linux System Administrator Guide states, "Modern Linux filesystem(s) keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Some filesystems, like ext3, effectively allocate the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. Therefore it is not necessary to worry about fragmentation in a Linux system."[11]
Irrespective of the above (subjective) statement, file fragmentation can be an important issue in server environments such as in multi-media server applications. While it is true that ext3 is more resistant to file fragmentation than FAT filesystems, nonetheless ext3 filesystems can and do get fragmented over time. Consequently the successor to the ext3 filesystem, ext4, includes a filesystem defragmentation utility and support for extents (contiguous file regions).
Further examples in which lack of defragmentation in some Linux filesystems (such as ext3) is a serious issue, includes server applications where rapid, concurrent and random file creation, update or access occurs. Such systems include large-scale carrier grade voice mail systems, Media-Messaging Service Centers (MMSCs) and SMS/SMSCs (Short Message Service Centers) servers. Media servers such as large scale voice mail and UMS servers are required to stream hundreds of voice or video streams concurrently to hundreds of users in near real-time conditions. These types of applications are particularly susceptible to file fragmentation; access delays during playback of a voice (e.g. voice mail) or video file, due to multiple fragmentation in the media file, can lead to playback interruption or distortion. As fragmentation increases over time, service capacity of these systems degrades because of increased CPU and I/O overhead resulting from fragmentation induced disk thrashing.
Personally, on my humble desktop system, I haven't noticed 'subpar performance'.
If I was maintaining a server farm, I would definitely be concerned.
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The fragmentation situation with ext3 is more or less the same as with NTFS, it does not hurt to defrag the drive once in a while, but don't expect any marvels, as long as you have enough free space, you'll get good performance. I defragged my drives for the first time after almost a year since I bought the computer, and didn't notice much improvement, with FAT32 it was a far different situation.
Of course, like the article mentions, servers do benefit from it, though some people claim this is snake oil as well. Then again those are the same that say that defragging is actually bad for your drives, because it wears them, with the head relocating blocks all over the platters, which is more stressful than the drive head reading scattered blocks here and there. A huge flame war usually ensues afterwards.
I think we're going increasingly offtopic :P
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MrCrispy: Microsoft is not responsible for making sure your hardware works, although as a customer it'd be nice! They try very hard to test and certify all kinds of hardware, beyond that what can they do?
Excellent point. What say we give GNU/Linux the same benefit of the doubt, since this has always been a hit against its adoption.
MrCrispy: The lack of adoption in the enterprise is I'm sure a big concern to the executives.
Vista just arrived about a year late. By late 2006, companies knew that 2007 would likely not bring better profits, and as we know, IT is never a priority. For the majority, they had upgraded and spent their money on XP and Office 2003, and for their needs, they were satisfied. Nothing wrong with a happy customer. I think Win7 will be a big hit in the enterprise sector by 2011 because that's the far side of their software half-life.
MrCrispy: Microsoft didn't make a big deal of Vista's rollout ??!!
I meant "compared to Windows 95." I should have stated that. I may be wrong, but I think SP1 takes Vista to an XP-SP2 level of solid performance and security tweaks, and when we look back at Vista-SP1 in 3-5 years, it will be seen as pretty solid.
MrCrispy: WHS is not a server product by any means so don't hold it to the same standards. And it does far more than Linux+Samba.
Fair enough. Distinction noted.
MrCrispy: I don't like the trend that all software is moving towards a license+activation model rather than me owning it.... Modern computing is complex, but at least with Windows, it's the devil I know.
You're right: Microsoft has long had a subscription-type licensing model for business clients, and I hope they don't apply it to home users. If I want to use XP until 2010 or Vista until 2015, I should be allowed to do so (without support, of course).
And yes, modern computing is complex. Can you imagine if you introduced a computer to a 30-year old today? Wait, it's not 1990. Kids grow up as familiar with the computer as I was with the telephone in my youth (1960s-70s). So maybe not. This is why I want programmers to think about design and UI first, and then go write their program around it, rather than the other way around, which results in a lot of fugliness.
Thanks.
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MrCrispy: I don't like the trend that all software is moving towards a license+activation model rather than me owning it.... Modern computing is complex, but at least with Windows, it's the devil I know.
You're right: Microsoft has long had a subscription-type licensing model for business clients, and I hope they don't apply it to home users. If I want to use XP until 2010 or Vista until 2015, I should be allowed to do so (without support, of course).
-zridling
And there's the rub. If MS do go down a subscription route they will HAVE to provide support to subscribers otherwise they will find subscriptions cancelled. Under current models OEM users don't get support full stop and even full price purchasers get precious little support even when the problems are clearly bugs that MS haven't fixed.
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I was able to get Compiz up and running on Xubuntu 8.04 today (have to start it twice, but its worth it). In a word, it is astonishing. I am clicking options on and off and dragging my slow-mo wobbling windows through a cover-flow style alt-tab interface with reflections and shadows following along. I haven't had this much fun with an OS in a while ;D
I think I'll be using Xubuntu a little more than Vista now :)
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So, does anyone have any new input on this product? Does it run well on many distros?
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It runs great on mine, with closed-source official ATI drivers. Only problem is I have to run it manually at every boot via a command, but I could just add it to my Autostart list and let the computer do the work.
Works fine on Xubuntu with the proper setup - 5/5
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Well, the system requirements for Vista Aero mention the presence of Shader Model 2.0, so they must be used for something :)
-Lashiec
Look at any aero glass window. You'll see it's translucent, not transparent. That's a pixel shader in action right there.
I really believe the directx9 class card was more a requirement for the other parts of vista. If you have a directx9 class card, then you have full WPF acceleration. If you have a directx9 class card, you can accelerate movie playback. i think those had more to do with the requirements then a pixel shader used on each window