I have Kde 4.12. I have set up Folder View widgets for various folders, turned on various cool effects, have a spinning cube going on and everything looks better than Vista or OSX.
My Vista installation is using 2GB of RAM without Aero. OSX need 2GB to run right. Kde is currently using 353564KB of RAM! Practically nothing by today’s standards.
How do Linux developers manage to get so much from so little?
I have 1GB on my laptop that came with Vista Business. Yeah, you guessed it. I wiped it clean and now it runs OS11. Super fast. Soooo much better.
Of course windows does require some apps we don’t need in Linux (AVirus/spyware…etc…etc…)
Very often there is a deal of junk that come pre-installed with most pc’s and much can be done to remove it - though it’s a real pain.
You will find though, that much of your memory is in use in Linux, well I mean it’s in cache or it should be.
> How do Linux developers manage to get so much from so little?
I think a lot of it has to do with philosophy. A traditional
kernel developer creates an application to run in the smallest
space so that his application can run on the most modest of
systems. Many Linux programmers and users work on modest
hardware. As a result code ends up tighter.
Windows often assumes the latest and greatest
and even goes as far as to speculate what hardware
MIGHT be available when it releases. Bloat is normal.
Clearly the case of what happened with Vista, default hardware
configurations at the time of release were not quite up to the task and
there was/is massive push back to get to those requirements.
The numbers I used for RAM are actual physical RAM in use. Vista and Linux both try to map all the RAM it can, as it should be; though Linux does a better job.
Anyway, it’s just amazing what Linux can do without requiring a super-computer to run. I have been using Linux for almost 10 years and and there are always these “Wow!” moments with it. Just amazing. 
Or to turn the question around, how does Vista manage to squander so much? Perhaps the Linux way is the way it should be done, eh?
I think I can answer that question, and you should direct your anger at hardware companies like Intel, Nvidia, AMD and many others. Those companies are paying Microsoft to spike the hardware requirements of their OS so that people will be forced to buy newer, faster, and more expensive hardware.
However, you should realize that you benefit from this. Right now, like many of you, I have a laptop with a dual core cpu and 2 gb’s of ram. A few short years ago this would have been impossible, and even on a desktop it would be ridiculous. However, thanks to this policy that many people complain about, there’s an incentive to upgrade to newer hardware, which drives the cost of older hardware down and lets us buy strong hardware cheap!
New hardware wouldn’t be a problem except that manufacturers have withheld programming information to write open source drivers. Though there are advances in that front.
And new hardware doesn’t necessarily mean old hardware becomes cheap. It may simply disappear off the shelves and not be made any more.
But I’d rather have the new hardware AND the drivers.
Well, that goes without saying. And yes, why does Microsoft love bloat so much?
Yeah, I notice that my BIOS does not like sleep an hibernate calls from XP or Linux; only Vista. I have even read articles which showed that manufacturers were tweaking their hardware to only run with a specific version of Windows.
Anyway, I really just posted to express my joy at having such a great interface for my computer. Especially since some developers don’t even get paid to work so hard at it. Not that I haven’t been frustrated and wanted to run over my computer with my car a few times.
I wouldn’t say os x needs 2GB of ram to run decently. On my MacBook Pro running leopard it is only using about 190 MB of ram at start up and rarely do I use the 2 GB that I have even when running XP and OS11 under VMWare
On 10/08/2008 ken yap wrote:
> Perhaps the Linux way is the way it should be done, eh?
Or XP 
Uwe
There’s a long and interesting comparison and discussion of memory use on Vista and Fedora here: Face off: Windows vs Linux real world RAM and disk test
Nice article, thanks.
> why does Microsoft love bloat so much?
M$ bloat sells RAM, biger harddrives, faster (new) CPUs and drives. Viruses
sells anti-viurs software and trojans etc sell firewals. Be easy to brake and
confussing to set up and you sells more admin people–EVERYONE in computer
sales and support make more money more often.
It is the M$ upgrade money machine…all win but consumer.
Think about it.
I just build a computer for my dad. He still refuses to go broadband. He uses AOL dial up to email and go to church sites. His computer is on maybe 3 days a week if that.
The box I built for him:
K9N6PGM2-V MCP61 AM2+ mATX Motherboard
AMD® Boxed Sempron Processor LE-1250 (2.2GHZ single CPU)
2GB of Corsair Memory
160GB 7,200 RPM SATA HDD
DVDRW Samsung SATA Drive
I installed Vista Ultimate and did all the updates and tweaks. The performance rating was at 3.3. It ran fine but the memory usage was like 725-750MB just sitting (no programs running)idle on the desktop. Since he is a AOL person I decided to downgrade (LOL) to XP Professional w/SP3 vice going OpenSUSE 11. The computer boots to the desktop very fast and only uses 330-345MB when idle on the desktop with no programs running.
Vista is a resource hog and if I didn’t want to stay current I’d drop them:|. Matter of fact before past the box to pops I’m going to pop in a OpenSUSE 11 live CD just because. Memory prices have fallen and Linux takes far advantage of this. OpenSUSE is out standing.
Re: Guest #14
I’m not so sure about that. Not wanting to like MS or anything, but I suspect that they take a look at what will become std in a few years and aim for that, and if it benefits their business partners then so much the better.
Lets face it, where I live I can now get a dual core 2.0GHz, 2GB ram, 120GB SATA m/c for under 300€! All because Vista needs it!
MS might produce over bloated problematic s/w, but they do have their uses…
Hi there!
I think Linux is faster because it uses the harddrive diffrent than windows does.
I mean the way how Linux saves the data.
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