[rescue] Ultra 1 newbie q'ns

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 @ 22:41 -0600, Lionel Peterson said:

> >From: Peter Corlett <abuse at cabal.org.uk>
> >Date: 2007/01/01 Mon PM 12:04:55 CST
> >To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> >Subject: Re: [rescue] Ultra 1 newbie q'ns
> 
> >On 1 Jan 2007, at 16:51, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> >[...]
> >> RAM was going down for awhile, but certainly hasn't lately.
> >
> >I've heard the prices are going up because people are shoring up  
> >their systems in anticipation of Vista.
> 
> All the power user script kiddie wanna-bes are upping their boxes to 4
> Gigs so they can multi-task their MS Bloatware ;^)

Yeah, on top of that wonderful cooperative tasking glob that sits on top
of NT.

I can't believe that in 2007, Microsoft is releasing an OS that is still
basically a cooperative tasker on top.

It's so damned maddening that a fullscreen app can ruin your day, just
because it got busy, and happens to be responsible for drawing and
mapping its own windows.

You would think that Vista could finally have fixed that.

(grumble)

The other day I had to do some graphics work in Windows. The software is
much nicer, however, using it was still painful.

I'd forgotten how hard it was to use Windows for multiple programs at
once. Switching among them was not only cumbersome in terms of the UI,
but was very sluggish as well, even with 2GB of RAM. 

Switching is easier if you put the scheduler in server mode, but then
the foreground task gets starved out too much.

I find it remarkable that almost any UNIX handles this issue just fine,
without being specifically setup up for either server or interactive
use, and doesn't need any special hints about what is the primary
application.

But more importantly, one busy app in UNIX doesn't hang the UI for
everything else.  If a fullscreen app goes away for awhile, no problem,
just minimize it out of the way.

With Windows, window operations are handled by the app itself, so it
can't be moved out of the way when it goes away for awhile.

Vista: the best 1980s cooperative tasking system ever created...

> >With luck, this will cause ramp-up of production and thus a reduction  
> >in unit cost for more modest users once the dust settles.
> 
> Hopefully...
> 
> Lionel
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> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["The trade of governing has always been
monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of
mankind.  -- Thomas Paine"]