Windows users are likely familiar with this concept. After a fresh install of Windows, the computer will be lightning fast during the first months. System boots and logs in very quickly, applications open up instantly, and everything works fast and efficient. As you keep using the machine, installing OS updates, adding or updating software and so on, the registry fills up and system settings get tangled. Even with the help of registry cleaners and system optimizers, it can get as slow as 10 minutes boot time after about 2 years. Even after booting finishes, applications are slow to open and work much more poorly. Eventually you’re forced to format and re-install Windows.
I’ve been using openSUSE for almost an year. So far Linux has proven it has more protection against this phenomenon. I don’t get the feeling my system is any slower than last year, except maybe by an unnoticeable amount. I think the lack of a registry based architecture like Windows has helps a lot with this, as well as all system components being individual rather than a lump like Win. I know hardware is detected and configured at boot time too, which probably keeps invalid port entries or devices from slowing things down.
But I assume it’s still not 100% safe from things clogging up or becoming less optimal over the years. The settings of system processes (or any process running at startup) might fill up or become less optimal over time. And I assume there might be kernel parameters and instructions that might not stay young forever.
Are there any steps to ensure that the system stays as fast and optimal as in the first day? Such as commands to rebuild or recache anything that could make a system application slower, as well as files that are safe to remove and let the program re-create. Hopefully none of the culprits can be in root, and user settings are the only place where things can significantly clog up. What do you recommend?
I assume this means openSUSE knows to maintain everything optimal, clear bad settings and re-cache what’s needed? Another awesome thing of Linux in that case!
I realy do not know what you man with that. No settings are cleared by openSUSE spontanious, bad or good. How should oenSUSE know if a setting is bad or good. You, as system manager, did the setting. You should know what you are doing.
And what do you mean with re-cache?
I have no comment about your comparisson with Windows. I do not use it. But when Windows is able to detoriate itself, then that is an awsomel fact of design. You realy must be a genious to make such an operating system. The only thing is that I do not understand why you should make such a system. Except maybe when you want to sell more hardware when the system comes to a grinding halt.
>
> I assume this means openSUSE knows to maintain everything optimal,
> clear bad settings and re-cache what’s needed? Another awesome thing of
> Linux in that case!
No, it doesn’t do anything of the sort. It simply does not need it.
It is possible that some applications deteriorate with much use, though
Thunderbird comes to my mind. If you have huge folders with lots of
insertions and deletions, it becomes sluggish. But it has a compaction
tool included. It is not the application fault completely, it is a
problem of the format used.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
My mom and grandma both have openSUSE 12.1 on their laptops since it was released. Neither have any problems with slowness. Linux filesystems are efficient as long as they are not very full, so you rarely need to consider something like defrag. I would just make sure you don’t fill your root partition to over 90%.
MirceaKitsune wrote:
>
> Windows users are likely familiar with this concept. After a fresh
> install of Windows, the computer will be lightning fast during the first
> months. System boots and logs in very quickly, applications open up
> instantly, and everything works fast and efficient. As you keep using
> the machine, installing OS updates, adding or updating software and so
> on, the registry fills up and system settings get tangled. Even with the
> help of registry cleaners and system optimizers, it can get as slow as
> 10 minutes boot time after about 2 years. Even after booting finishes,
> applications are slow to open and work much more poorly. Eventually
> you’re forced to format and re-install Windows.
>
> I’ve been using openSUSE for almost an year. So far Linux has proven it
> has more protection against this phenomenon. I don’t get the feeling my
> system is any slower than last year, except maybe by an unnoticeable
> amount. I think the lack of a registry based architecture like Windows
> has helps a lot with this, as well as all system components being
> individual rather than a lump like Win. I know hardware is detected and
> configured at boot time too, which probably keeps invalid port entries
> or devices from slowing things down.
>
> But I assume it’s still not 100% safe from things clogging up or
> becoming less optimal over the years. The settings of system processes
> (or any process running at startup) might fill up or become less optimal
> over time. And I assume there might be kernel parameters and
> instructions that might not stay young forever.
>
> Are there any steps to ensure that the system stays as fast and optimal
> as in the first day? Such as commands to rebuild or recache anything
> that could make a system application slower, as well as files that are
> safe to remove and let the program re-create. Hopefully none of the
> culprits can be in root, and user settings are the only place where
> things can significantly clog up. What do you recommend?
>
>
Once a week I use bleachbit to clear clog
although I see where your confusion comes from it’s still funny to read your comment
let me clear something up regarding OP post.
the Windows it self does not *deteriorate or corrupts it self (well for the most part as there are some instances where an unintended corruption of key system files do happens during updates or improper shutdowns, but this also happens to Linux system as well.)
most problems in windows are do to lazy software/applications developers that do not pay much needed attention to application un-install/update processes and focus only on initial setup/install.
also the inherent problems are with the use of common system registry for everything starting with system configuration and ending with the least important applet for whatever user think he/she/ wants.
as user install / remove applications the registry entries **are not properly **removed and thus interfere with normal operations slowing down the system. again not really MS issue but developers issue, albeit if MS were more strict with how the apps installed and removed it could be mitigated.
also, many users put stuff on the desktop that simply does not belong there.
such as real files instead of just links to folder/file locations.
as desktop is loaded into memory it makes the whole system slow (that IS truly MS over-site as it should not allow anything but links on desktop).
** I have for years thought that MS should just drop the all shared stuff and return back to the DOS style system as in , each app should go into it’s own folder and keep all of the resources and configuration with in it’s own folder as it was in DOS.
no app should be able to have write access to any system files or folders regardless what user credentials are.**
the need for shared resources, that have existed at the time when RAM and HDD cost a lot , are not that relevant nowadays. RAM is mostly cheap and many new system have an abundance of it, so is hard drive space.
Yes, that is an awesome assumption I have had an openSUSE 12.2 server running straight for a couple of weeks now (27 days uptime) and it has not expanded in memory or used more cpu the entire time, nothing to do or clean.
This tells us that the main linux openSUSE is good but you still may run into software or applications that can not controll themselves. These items will eat up your memory and cpu time but only you can figure this out and decide what to do.
In conclusion, crappy software that slows down your system ( way less likely in linux) is your responsibility.
On 2013-09-09 18:29, vl1969 wrote:
> also, many users put stuff on the desktop that simply does not belong there.
> such as real files instead of just links to folder/file locations.
> as desktop is loaded into memory it makes the whole system slow (that
> IS truly MS over-site as it should not allow anything but links on
> desktop).
M$ can not be that daft to load files into memory just because they are
on the desktop. What happens is that it has to open the file and and
find out if it has an icon in the resource table, and that takes a bit
of time. Once the icon is found, it does not need the file anymore.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
The OP post is amusingly pretty much FUD because the perceived problems are all symptoms without understanding reasons behind any issues. In other words, no matter what the OS is, if you install all the available improvements and upgrades that are available and practice lean computing, it doesn’t matter what OS you’re running… It will be fast.
In fact, because Windows does so many things automatically, for the technologically challenged there’s a better chance of having a well performing system than using Linux although because of Linux’ many ways to dig deeper and control/modify what happens, it’s possible for the technologically savvy to possibly eek out a tad better performance.
So,
Without running down the long and often discussed list of “lean computing” and “proper computing practices” it should be noted that both Linux (openSUSE) and Windows will run very nicely if you keep your machine updated with all patches, upgrades and in the case of Windows Service Packs. openSUSE like many other (not all) Linux releases patches and updates as soon as they’re available on a daily and weekly basis, you can get your improvements very quickly. If MS has any kind of criticism in this regard important, serious and critical patches are released only monthly, Service Packs which can greatly affect performance are only released every few years and full Windows versions now are 5 or more years apart. But then, you’d have to compare that kind of release cycle not with openSUSE but with others like Ubuntu LTE and CentOS.
BTW - This is also one reason why I prefer “zypper up” over “zypper patch” despite the tiny additional risk something might break (which has happened only twice to me in the past 3 years and those were both related to use of Factory, one was accidentally leaving Factory enabled when it should be enabled only for specific installs and then disabled, and the other was a bug in the Factory version of the application).
In my experience, there are two things that make Windows run slower over time.
The first is that their file allocation scheme leads to lots of fragmented files
and small holes in the file system, which is why you need to defrag their disks.
Linux uses a much better algorithm and fragmentation is quilt low.
The second reason for Windows getting slower over time is that lots of things
get added to their startup lists and never get removed. These soak up both CPU
time and RAM. Some of these come from incomplete cleanups of the registry and
others come from malware inserting various programs into the startup. Linux is
subject to incomplete removal of parts of programs, particularly if this is
something from outside the openSUSE repos; however, it is much more difficult
for malware to install anything on Linux.
I have had an openSUSE 12.2 server running straight for a couple of weeks now (27 days uptime) and it has not expanded in memory or used more cpu the entire time, nothing to do or clean.