The endless increase in hardware spec?

barneysplash

Hi all

This may seem like a stupid question, but is it just me or does it always seem
that your computer is never fast enough, even doing the same things
you did on an older computer years ago:

Windows
Word
Internet
Playing music

10 yearas ago I was doing these things on:

Pentium 100 MHz
16MB RAM
1.2 GB Hard Disk


Now I use:

Pentium Duo Core
1 GB RAM
40 GB Hard Disk

and I still have to wait when I open Adobe Acrobat Reader or
some parts of WIndows or Microsoft Office.

Why do we always need faster processors and more RAM to do the same things?

Is Windows that inefficient and badly written that we always need
to increase the hardware spec to offset poor Operating System software?

I've heard tha Windows will plop stuff all over your hard drive and the drive
has to work extra hard and takes longer to gather all
the bits of the files and programs you need, is this true?

Is that why we use disk defragmenters?

What is a good disk defragmenter to buy?

How can I keep my hard disk tidy and working well?

IS C Cleaner any good?

Or something called decrapafier, I think?

All comments appreciated.

Thanks

ntlbell

There's always the option to not use windows...

PogMoThoin

barneysplash wrote: »

and I still have to wait when I open Adobe Acrobat Reader or some parts of WIndows or Microsoft Office.

I use open office an opensource alternative to Office and on my windows pc i use foxit reader for Pdf's, much more lightweight

barneysplash wrote: »

Why do we always need faster processors and more RAM to do the same things?

I don't, I run linux on my laptop, I upgrade the OS every 6 months and never need to upgrade hardware. I also can't get a virus. Oh the beauty of not virus scanning

barneysplash wrote: »

Is Windows that inefficient and badly written that we always need
to increase the hardware spec to offset poor Operating System software?

Yes, every release needs new hardware

barneysplash wrote: »

I've heard tha Windows will plop stuff all over your hard drive and the drive
has to work extra hard and takes longer to gather all
the bits of the files and programs you need, is this true?

Yes

barneysplash wrote: »

Is that why we use disk defragmenters?

Yes

barneysplash wrote: »

What is a good disk defragmenter to buy?

Perfect disk or Diskeeper

barneysplash wrote: »

How can I keep my hard disk tidy and working well?

Scheduled defragmenting and seperate storage and operating partions

barneysplash wrote: »

IS C Cleaner any good?

Yes

barneysplash wrote: »

Or something called decrapafier, I think?

No experience of this myself

barneysplash

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I use open office an opensource alternative to Office and on my windows pc i use foxit reader for Pdf's, much more lightweight

PDF
I've just yesterday found an app called Sumatra PDF that's much quicker
than Adobe Acrobat, but I'll give this Foxit a go as well.


Linux

I bought a magazine last week "getting started with Ubuntu Linux, one of my
projects for the winter is to install and trick with Linux on a computer.

Defrag
Diskeeper

I've heard about this program, will download the trial.

Scheduled defragmenting and seperate storage and operating partions

Is this where you partition the C drive and create a C and D drive?

Does that help speed things up, or at least not cause them to be as slow?

How do you do that?

Explosive_Cornflake

While I +1 all the FOSS advice, I don't believe Linux is for everyone, yet. (I work as a solaris sysadmin myself, so I'm quiet comfortable with all things *nix.)
There are plenty of ways to speed up windows, far too much to go into in this thread.
I came across an article awhile ago, but YMMV.
As regards linux and virii, they just don't get them becuase they aren't a target, but I do believe that if linux had a 60% markey share you would start to see some for it more than you do now.

PogMoThoin

Explosive_Cornflake wrote: »

As regards linux and virii, they just don't get them becuase they aren't a target, but I do believe that if linux had a 60% markey share you would start to see some for it more than you do now.

When your not logged in as root in linux there is very little a virus can do, unlike windows. This is what M$ are trying to sort out with User Account Control (UAC) in Vista but alot of people disable it.

Snowbat

I read this last week: 86 Mac Plus Vs. 07 AMD DualCore. You Won't Believe Who Wins
Have we progressed much in 22 years, never mind 10?

Feature creep and inefficient code from developers with overpowered machines has always been a problem. Now, Windows users have to contend with AV resident shields, link scanners, and a bunch of cycle-wasting crap in the system tray.

Of course some new features are useful. Also, we're using higher resolution displays at greater colour depths that require more resources to drive, and web pages are more complex.

Explosive_Cornflake wrote: »

While I +1 all the FOSS advice, I don't believe Linux is for everyone, yet.

Several tier-1 vendors appear to disagree. The ASUS Eee PC running Xandros has been a runaway success. HP and Dell have launched Linux desktops and laptops in the last 12 months. Acer plans to start pushing Linux aggressively on its laptops and notebooks. Asus announced they're going to embed Splashtop instant-on Linux on every Asus motherboard. Phoenix Technologies (BIOS company) are working on Hyperspace.

As regards linux and virii, they just don't get them becuase they aren't a target

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus
There have been several dozen Linux viruses. They fall into two general catagories: ELF infectors (not running as root prevents these doing any serious damage, not running suspicious binaries from untrused sources pretty much eliminates the risk entirely), and a handful of worms that depended on specific versions of server daemons to be running - the vulnerabilities in question were already patched *before* these worms appeared (regular system updates prevent these doing any damage).

If Linux is not a target, I would not be seeing brute-force ssh password attacks attempting to log in as 'linux', 'fedora', and 'knoppix' along with root and the usual assortment of common names. The blackhats are not having much success in finding or exploiting Linux vulnerabilities in recent years and are resorting to traditional attacks.

but I do believe that if linux had a 60% markey share you would start to see some for it more than you do now.

I disagree. Linux is more popular now than it has ever been, yet most of the malware is from 2001 with nothing in recent years. Good default security configuration, peer reviewed code, vendor-compiled packages from controlled software repositories, rapid patching of vulnerabilities and rapid rollout of system updates all contribute to make Linux extremely difficult to abuse, regardless of market share.

dulpit

I suppose one thing that you need to remember is that as programs grow more and more is added to them making them overly large, bloated & slow... (Adobe & Norton anyone?)

Generally there will be ways of avoiding these slow programs, thanks to the open source communities...

In this day and age though all programs aim to be as useful as possible, so they look at what sort of HW is out there and aim to use that... Hence more complex programs...

As for Linux, download Ubuntu & use Wubi to install it, it'll install like a normal Windows program, no hassle of partitioning drive or anything, and if you get sick of it you can just uninstall it...

conceited

Just wanted to make a point here about your views on open source.
Open source programs are no way near as complicated to write as norton av and won't be for the foreseeable future.

And to the original question.
The endless increase in hardware spec? Is there to provide more complicated larger feature rich software, which enable you the end user, to do more with there computers.

Explosive_Cornflake

Snowbat wrote: »

Several tier-1 vendors appear to disagree. The ASUS Eee PC running Xandros has been a runaway success. HP and Dell have launched Linux desktops and laptops in the last 12 months. Acer plans to start pushing Linux aggressively on its laptops and notebooks. Asus announced they're going to embed Splashtop instant-on Linux on every Asus motherboard. Phoenix Technologies (BIOS company) are working on Hyperspace.

I did say everyone. Yes, they have become popular, but it's the small things that'll let people use windows and so on, because it's just easier and it's what people know. I only run linux on my personal laptop. I wanted to connect my creative zen to it. I had to download the src of libmtp, compile, resolve dependencies, compile, install, and then do the same for amarok so it recognises the new version. I had to do this because the version in the repository was too out of date to handle the MP3 player. I have no problem doing something like this, infact, I quite enjoy it, but I cannot imagine my mother try to do this. She on the other hand is, much to annoyance, able to get the CD that came with her mp3 player install that software, and it just works. Sure, that machine is full of crap and I have to wipe it every so often, but it's easier for me than having to ssh into and fix some library.

Snowbat wrote: »

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus
There have been several dozen Linux viruses. They fall into two general catagories: ELF infectors (not running as root prevents these doing any serious damage, not running suspicious binaries from untrused sources pretty much eliminates the risk entirely), and a handful of worms that depended on specific versions of server daemons to be running - the vulnerabilities in question were already patched *before* these worms appeared (regular system updates prevent these doing any damage).

If Linux is not a target, I would not be seeing brute-force ssh password attacks attempting to log in as 'linux', 'fedora', and 'knoppix' along with root and the usual assortment of common names. The blackhats are not having much success in finding or exploiting Linux vulnerabilities in recent years and are resorting to traditional attacks.

I disagree. Linux is more popular now than it has ever been, yet most of the malware is from 2001 with nothing in recent years. Good default security configuration, peer reviewed code, vendor-compiled packages from controlled software repositories, rapid patching of vulnerabilities and rapid rollout of system updates all contribute to make Linux extremely difficult to abuse, regardless of market share.

The brute force ssh's are there because it's incredibly simple to do. Combine that with someone who doesn't do updates much, say a machine running as a server that does it's job, but is not looked after, and the whole Debian ssl fiasco of recent times and problems to begin to creep in.
There was also that root elevation bug a fe months ago on the kernel, existed from somthing like 2.6.18 all the way to 2.6.23.
Linux will always be more secure than windows, but it's the whole operating systems monoculture and potato blight argument.
Diversity is a good thing, it'll keep standards in check and improve quality in all areas moving into the future.

Anyway, I've bought this thread off topic.
If you are comfortable with doing a bit of googling from time to time, then yes, I'd whole heartedly recommend Linux. OpenSuSe 11 is just out, and the installer is quite nice.

311

its not fair to compare the two machines ,even the eee notebook is faster at booting than the chosen machine here. There is far more work done on a modern machine ,I remember when I use to have to make dos menus for people ,because it just took them so long to load things.

Also ,I distinctley remember waiting for modems to connect and the whole ATZ ,ATDP scenario. That was all time consuming ,people have far more time to do the things they want now.

unnameduser

i think by decrapifier he is referring to the dell decrapifier that removes all the silly trial SW progs that are preinstalled on new machines

Explosive_Cornflake

I read recently enough Sony wanted to charge $50 or something to send you a "fresh start" system

barneysplash

How do you stop unwanted processes from starting when you
start windows?

There is loads of rubbish - Roxio, iTunes etc. that starts
on my system that I want to get rid of...

guil

use ccleaner or type msconfig in the run box and go to the startup tab and disable them ther

Khannie

Snowbat wrote: »

I read this last week: 86 Mac Plus Vs. 07 AMD DualCore. You Won't Believe Who Wins
Have we progressed much in 22 years, never mind 10?

Interesting article.

Snowbat wrote: »

Good default security configuration, peer reviewed code, vendor-compiled packages from controlled software repositories, rapid patching of vulnerabilities and rapid rollout of system updates all contribute to make Linux extremely difficult to abuse, regardless of market share.

Have to agree with this. Trusted software repositories really do make for a much happier compute experience:

Want a different file manager? Find and install 3 (for comparison) within 30 seconds from a source you know isn't going to shaft you with malware or a virus. Nice.