Question about Microsoft windows

Things have changed I see, since last I checked most Linux file systems just employed some basic on-the-fly defragmenting. Instead of a simple FIFO system they'd look for the first block of space big enough to fit the entire file. Then trying to break the file up into as few pieces as possible. Not that it really matters since 99.9999% of what the average computer user does at any given point in time is not constrained by disk throughput.

What you're describing sounds more like TRIM which is handled more on the hardware end.

once in awhile, but it's rarely used for anything other than thumbdrives now. It might be of some limited advantage if a linux partition has had files deleted and added across a long time period, expanded or lessened in size, but only when the drive was getting too full. The one time a file faces fragmentation almost certainly is if it's a big file on a drive that's had a lot of use and close to full.

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

Linux ext2, ext3, and ext4: Much like UFS, these filesystems employ allocation techniques designed to keep fragmentation under control at all times.[14] As a result, defragmentation is not needed in the vast majority of cases.[15] ext2 uses an offline defragmenter called e2defrag, which does not work with its successor ext3. However, other programs, or filesystem-independent ones, may be used to defragment an ext3 filesystem. ext4 is somewhat backward compatible with ext3, and thus has generally the same amount of support from defragmentation programs. In practice there are no stable and well-integrated defragmentation solutions for Linux, and thus no defragmentation is performed.[citation needed] Nowadays e4defrag can be used to defragment an ext4 filesystem.


The long story about it
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Defragmenting-Linux

Which seems to be more or less exactly what I described. Something I'd like to see Microsoft implement into NTFS for those few times when it might make a difference, but it's still kind of a moot point since disk throughput is rarely a limiting factor in computing performance and that's the only real advertised benefit to defragmenting: Improved performance. Along with SSDs looming on the horizon to replace platter based disks, not only does fragmentation become a total non-issue, but methods to try and keep it under control will do more harm than good, so I guess that ship has already kind of sailed.

I'm hoping for some kind of non-volatile RAM product to make it out of the R&D labs sometime soon. Something that can save its state even after power has been removed, but is also able to handle being written to thousands of times a day like RAM. When we aren't saddled by the comparatively slow mass storage bus, we could really see what computers are capable of. Maybe have a platter based drive as a fallback that keeps a shadow copy and gets written to when the system is idle.

would be too big a security risk. While it might be good for data recovery stored in RAM following a crash, I think the security risk would be too great to compensate for that advantage. I know I wouldn't want that type of RAM. I want to be able if necessary to quickly pull the thumbdrive with encrypted Linux and kill the power. It would be interesting to see which people would choose for RAM, volatile or non-volatile, if such choice existed.

In fact that would be a good poll question for Lee Koo to put up.

If you were given a choice between volatile RAM or non-volatile RAM which could preserve your last data in event of a crash, which would you choose, and why?

I think it'd be a bit too technical for the average CNet reader. They'd have to explain what the difference is, etc.

I don't really care what the ultimate technology ends up being, just something that's at least 50% of the FSB would be a huge improvement.

assessment of us average users . I have no training in this area but I believe I have a grasp of the situation, tell me if I'm wrong...

I believe that the RAM Jimmy is referring to would really be treated as another HDD or SSD or what have you in the sense that it would retain memory so ...say you wanted to remove everything from the computer like wiping the hard drive you would also have to wipe the RAM.

James is saying that it wouldn't be safe to have RAM with memory because it may store sensative material and be susceptible to hacks and unsavory individuals..

Is that about it ?

Digger

than average visitor to the site. Yes, I'd consider non volatile RAM a security risk. The worst would be recycling such RAM with data still on it. It might be OK if there was a system encryption used which depended on manual insertion of a PIN each time the computer was booted, but that might slow the DMA (direct memory access) down a bit more. I could see scenarios like in government intelligence where such might have an application where all is used in a secure compound area.

As an average user though, I think I like Jimmy's idea of using the RAM in that fashion. If it's as fast as he believes it would be, why would I care if my information is on a Hard Drive or RAM ? The information is on the computer either way. Heck , throw a TB of RAM on my computer and lose the hard drive ,let's play!

Digger

They've already discovered that current RAM isn't quite as "secure" as we once thought, retaining some data even after the power has been cut. But regardless, non-volitile RAM wouldn't be any more or less of a security risk than current HDD/SSDs. Arguably it could be made more secure given there would be less of a penalty for higher level encryption. Granted that would be more of tertiary byproduct and having nothing to do with the inherent properties of the non-volitile RAM directly.

That's been around for ever it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack

Unsure what this has to do with the OP's rant or Windows for that matter.
Bob

In Linux you can have entire system encryption, or just home folder encryption where you store your personal data. Of course the latter still leaves unencrypted data subject to a RAM dump.

I've used Linux since about 0.13 and only recently has it gone to such extremes. I'd rather folk concentrate on greatness than spiral down the black hole of this issue.

Remember we must break one of the prime rules about security to use the Cold Boot Attack.

With that out of the way, our old friend about reading what's on the screen and sending it over the web is back in the news.
Bob

Yes thats true. However the big difference is that you dont have to go out and spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new Linux version the next year to keep everything working properly.

The fact that Microsoft somehow has paid off someone to have their product installed on nearly every computer sold in retail stores is the reason they have spent so much time in court for trying to illegally corner the market with their shabby software gimmick.
I bet you even have a Microsoft emblem on your keyboard. Its all marketing, not quality that makes them populor.
They make a lot of their money from peripheral software to keep their operating system running and certified microsft tech's to try and make it work. And then of course when you spend hundreds of dollars a year to upgrade their junk. Their goal is easy to see.
Browsers are free. Does that make them not good? Why cant an operating system like Linux be free and good?

As far as games go, Linux runs STEAM now which covers a majority of the PC gaming industry.

You have to admire Microsoft though. They are better at making money than Sam Walton with his walmart.
They sell you garbage and then the same people who buy it turn around and defend it with their lifes. Usually when there on a microsoft support forum trying to get it to work.


" And not to forget: a PC with Windows, bought in the shop, is not more expensive than an equivalent PC with Linux, bought in the same shop - if they have one/ and because the good games only run on Windows."

People who bought XP in 2007 now (have to) buy a new OS or a new computer, indeed. That's once in 7 years, not "next year". People using Linux still can use their computer from 2006. That's true. How old is your PC? Generally, OS-es live longer than the hardware they run on.

OEM's buy Windows from Microsoft. They get a discount (compared to the retail price) because they buy a lot, and because they have to do the support. Windows 8 is free for use on devices with screens smaller than 9"" (just like Android is free).

I have no emblem at all on my keyboard. On the bottom it says Liteon. My mouse has a Logitech emblem.

What peripheral software does Microsoft sell to keep Windows running?

What Microsoft techs do you mean?

Do you realise the economies behind open-source software? The software is free, support is paid.

Why do you think I said that Linux isn't good? It's good, but apart from a few hobby-ists no consume uses it, that's the only problem. Linus just didn't do his marketing right or he was 10 years late.

Why do you call Windows "garbage"? It's a powerful, reliable and widely supported OS.

Kees

If you have a Mac in a Mac enterprise, you pretty much have to count on replacing your system every five years. After that Apple stops offering the current OS on your computer. But since new Macs will ONLY run on the current OS you don't have the option of staying with an older version because the enterprise wants the same version on everybody's computer.

And if you bought a computer with XP in 2007 you already knew you weren't going to get the full OS life cycle. It had already been replaced by Vista by then, though not in the hearts of most users.

Microsoft's biggest headaches with support of older hardware have happened when there are major transitions in the operating system. Most recently, lots of peripherals became useless when Vista was released because the makers never released updated drivers. (7 and 8 use basically the same drivers as Vista so there have been fewer problems recently; those releases needed only a minor update rather than a rewrite of the driver.) The transition from Windows 98 to either 2000 or XP (depending on when the user made the shift) was similarly troubled. Fewer people were affected because Windows adoption was less widespread at the time but there were also challenges in going from Windows 3 to 95.

Really old computers eventually fall off the support edge on Linux as well, though it usually takes longer. Occasionally a major transition happens that obsoletes a lot of hardware at once, such as when distros transitioned from XFree86 to X.Org. Support for a lot of older video cards went away at that time, so older systems were out of luck unless you wanted to give up GUI support and only use the system from the command line. We will probably see a similar mass drop of support when distributions transition to Wayland.

You can play a few games on Steam but not many. I have a few games on my Windows 8.1 computer that can't be played on steam nor play on linux.

Another thing I can't do on Linux is watch Amazon Prime movies , I can on Windows..
Linux is cool for just about everything else though but it is not the All Around OS that Windows is, it's just not ready for prime time.
I do use my Debian computer 99% of the time but if I only had a choice between free Linux and purchased Windows, I would have to choose Windows.

Digger

Yes and no... It depends on if you want native clients for games or you're willing to deal with Steam's game streaming system. If you have a Windows box, you can run the game on that system and then stream the video over your LAN to a Linux (or Mac or even another Windows) machine.

I do agree with your general assessment of Linux however. It's great for some people, great for low end servers and the embedded space... Absolutely terrible for business (client side) and probably the majority of people using computers today.

I say that as a fan of Linux. I'd love to see it take a decent chunk of the market from Apple and MS to provide some much-needed competition into the market. I'd love to see it become a testbed for every whacko design idea people can think of to see what works and what doesn't. The problem is that it's too fractious by nature with strong tribal mentalities running throughout. vi vs. Emacs, GNOME vs. KDE, Free Software vs Open Source, SysV/RC vs. SystemD, just to name a few. There's also a general lack of documentation, people can be less than courteous when looking for help, the learning curve is steep for people who have invested a lot of time and effort into learning MS Windows instead of common GUI design elements common across all windowing systems, the fact that you can't just go out and buy some random printer or other hardware device and expect it to work more or less out of the box...

I'd love to see the Linux community as a whole one day band together and work towards a common goal. If that ever happened, the year of Linux on the desktop might actually finally arrive. But it's been 25 years now of essentially the same old same old, and if anything people's positions are now even more recalcitrant than they were 15-20 years ago when I gave up on waiting for Linux on the desktop. If I live long enough to see signs that the community is getting its act together, maybe I'll be inclined to give Linux another try.

as far as the games are concerned but, in your model I still have to have a Windows machine to stream the games to my Linux machine, correct?

Even though I use my Debian computer most of the time, it isn't a replacement for Windows. There's too many little things that Windows can do that Linux can't . Add them all up and it's really no contest.

I know some folks are gonna say" well look at this or that, that I can do with Linux"but that's only good if you use those things. Most people like me are just simple users that aren't trying to get fancy.

I feel comfortable with Debian for my daily use because not enough folks use it for the malware makers to target. If it were to become that popular I think I would have to stay with Windows.
For now it's cool though.

Sorry I don't have all the tech terms but you get my gist..

Digger

Because this is a disscussion and I am trying to discuss?

"As to your post, well that's a long list but why not make your choice and let others make theirs?
Bob"

Even if this OS was without all the issues you listed, imagine (we don't have to!) Microsoft's Cess Pool issue in the Windows App Store. There's a reason I never buy there are even consider using it.

More at http://www.howtogeek.com/194993/the-windows-store-is-a-cesspool-of-scams-why-doesnt-microsoft-care/
Bob

With Linux being the second largest operating system in the world and growing rapidly I doubt there going to vanish over night.

If people are basing their decision on using Microsoft based on how much money it cost, then isnt microsoft using peoples ignorance to make billions of dollars?
With Microsofts endless supply of support forums and hundreds of support mailing groups. doesnt that tell you something is wrong?
Maybe people just defend their microsoft product because they have dumped so much money into it already they are embarrased to admit they have been Microshafted for so many years. I know I was.

http://microshafting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/steve-ballmer-dr-evil.jpg

Not counting tablets, phones and servers, just deskops and laptops: Linux 1,68% as shown in http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

Neither would I call the line in http://www.netmarketshare.com/linux-market-share 'growing rapidly'. I'd prefer "stable".

That's an impressive market share after 20 years!

Kees


Kees

Android is based on Linux, so in a sense Linux is doing very well on phones and tablets, especailly compared with Windows. But I had the impression the OP was ranting about Windows on desktops and laptops.

Kees

Ranting is well, left to those that rant. Next thing you'll read is their thoughts about Oracle.
Bob