Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek) [LWN.net]

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 14:37 UTC (Fri) by zooko (subscriber, #2589)
In reply to: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek) by Zhohar
Parent article: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

It's true -- Windows really is stabler and more responsive than Linux. I use Windows XP, Linux, and Mac OS X all the time.

For example, suppose you overload your RAM and get into swap thrash. On Linux, you can do nothing but sit and fume and drum your fingers for minutes or tens of minutes until either (a) your attempt to get a shell and run "kill" or "top" finally succeeds, or (b) random processes get killed by the kernel. On Windows XP, you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and a nice GUI window pops up (the Task Manager) that lets you choose processes (or apps) to kill. This GUI window is frequently updated and responsive. When you use it to kill a process or app, then that process or app quickly goes away and the rest of your apps regain responsiveness.

I think there might be something to Con Kolivas's thesis that the current Linux development process serves the needs of corporations who want to get a percent improvement in some batch processing benchmark at the expense of users who want to interact with their computer:

http://apcmag.com/6735/interview_con_kolivas

Anyway, Linux hackers really ought to investigate how Windows XP does that cool trick of making the Task Manager responsive even when the system is overloaded.

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Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 15:45 UTC (Fri) by pyellman (guest, #4997) [Link]

That "cool trick" occasionally fails to work for me (yesterday, for example), on a well-behaving, clear-of-cruft install, and routinely when troubleshooting friends'/families' gummed up XP installs.

Ever had this happen? You go to shut down your XP machine, selecting "Shutdown". Some process is hanging. You stare at the screen (or is it drum your fingers, for oh, 5 or 10 minutes); you try to run task manager to get a clue to the problem, but to no avail; you're not sure if the machine is going to successfully shut down or not, but you've got to leave, so you're facing a choice of powering the machine off.

This is not uncommon, even on a well performing, clear-of-cruft XP machine. Those Windows hackers really need to investigate how Linux manages to cleanly and quickly terminate misbehaving process and shut down the machine quickly enough to get you to your next appointment on time.

Peter Yellman

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 16:13 UTC (Fri) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link]

Yes, I've had that happen plenty, although I'm not sure if that was on Windows XP or on older versions of Windows.

I think it is a different issue from the responsiveness of the Task Manager under load. I think (I'm not sure) that the reason the Task Manager works so well to recover from an overloaded system is that the Windows XP kernel is careful to preserve responsiveness for basic UI even under extreme load situations and that it has effective prioritization such that the Task Manager gets top priority and is a useful interactive tool even when the whole rest of the system is locked into swap thrash.

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 16:36 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Just yesterday I tried to create bspatch fropm one 300Mb file to another 300Mb file. Both Windows and Linux went to heavy swap. On Linux I switched to text console and easily killed process, on Windows I spent ~10minutes to kill the task: it needed more then minute to just show task manager window!

So as usual with Linux you have simple solution while Windows is trying (and failing) to do everything in "user-friendly way"...

In the end I've just used xdelta :-)

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 16:44 UTC (Fri) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link]

That's interesting since it is the opposite of my experience. The fact that your Linux system was responsive when mine aren't suggests that you were using a different kernel version/patchset/configuration than I use. (In particular, when my system is in that state, it takes a few minutes at least to "switch to a text console", which you apparently were able to do with ease.)

The fact that Windows didn't work as easily for you as it does for me is a bit of mystery. What version of Windows was it? Did you use Ctrl-Alt-Del or a different command?

Thanks!

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 10, 2007 17:32 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

It was Gentoo system vs Windows XP SP2. Both systems were in use for ~2 years. I've used Ctrl-Alt-Del to call the Task Manager, of course (how else I was supposed to do this when I've clicked on taskbar, got nothing in response and five "clock" windows by the time Task Manager finally opened after pressing Alt-Ctrl-Del?).

Switch to text console was not fast at all (minute or two), but at least after that everything went smoth. Of course the big plus was that I had shell prompt on text console readily available.

P.S. The really strange case is that usually I can easily switch to FAR window to kill offending process (kind of switch to text console in Linux LOL) - and I was able to do it this time as well, but then FAR was unable to show the list of processes for ~10 minutes (by this time I've clicked by process name in Task Manager and decided to just go further in Task Manager). Not know why - usually when Windows gods are angry at me and Firefox/OOo/whatever are frozen FAR is ready to help, but not this time.

P.P.S. The biggest difference I know in responsiveness of system comes from device drivers. If you don't have support for your IDE chipset, for example, your Linux system will work (by using generic driver), but even Windows 3.1 will be faster in this case. Binary NVidia/ATI drivers often hurt (but not always - they just don't play nice with some other drivers), NDISwrapper can be problematic, etc. ACPI is especially bad: on some systems it's a must, but some older system will be crippled if ACPI is enabled... Too bad there are no easy way to catch the offending driver...

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 12, 2007 3:36 UTC (Sun) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

Sadly the same thing happens to me when running Evolution under GNOME with Ubuntu:-(

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 11, 2007 0:44 UTC (Sat) by moxfyre (subscriber, #13847) [Link]

Anyway, Linux hackers really ought to investigate how Windows XP does that cool trick of making the Task Manager responsive even when the system is overloaded.

Linux has a similar feature, more robust and powerful than Task Manager... though without the pretty GUI.

It's called the "Magic SysRq" trick: http://www.linuxhowtos.org/Tips%20and%20Tricks/sysrq.htm

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 11, 2007 22:12 UTC (Sat) by tyhik (subscriber, #14747) [Link]

Getting rid of swap may help you. RAM is cheap and apps running amok are rapidly cought by OOM killer. I have run my own desktops both at work and at home swapless for a few years now. As I build my kernels myself, I have an added bonus of simpler and possibly faster VM subsystem in the kernel (though I haven't benchmarked the difference).

I have asked a number of friends and colleagues of why they have configured swap for their linux desktops/laptops and for most of them it really boils down to: they have always done that.

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 11, 2007 22:23 UTC (Sat) by tyhik (subscriber, #14747) [Link]

"For example, suppose you overload your RAM and get into swap thrash. On Linux, you can do nothing but sit and fume and drum your fingers f ..."

If you have another box at hand then try ssh into the hogged box; that has given me a responsive shell I think.

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 16, 2007 11:48 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link]

> For example, suppose you overload your RAM and get into swap thrash. On Linux, you can do nothing but sit and fume and drum your fingers for minutes or tens of minutes until either (a) your attempt to get a shell and run "kill" or "top" finally succeeds, or (b) random processes get killed by the kernel.

The only time I have any experience comparable to this is when I've forgotten to enable swap space, and some stray process has malloc()d and touched so much memory all at once that the kernel can't even page in executables to run them (because without swap, it can't page *out* unused data pages).

When I enable swap, all such symptoms go away.

> On Windows XP, you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and a nice GUI window pops up (the Task Manager) that lets you choose processes (or apps) to kill.

In contrast, I've been left with a thoroughly unresponsive XP box before now. The Task Manager may come up quickly enough and let you choose processes to kill, but when the selected processes refuse to die...

Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says (eWeek)

Posted Aug 23, 2007 22:30 UTC (Thu) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]

This is just not my experience at all - I use Windows at work and home, and Linux at home. My Ubuntu Linux PC at home has never crashed, and only once locked up (due to Picasa) - it was recoverable without rebooting. I recently installed a new monitor and then a new video card, and in both cases it was really quite trivial to get them working - virtually plug and play.

My work laptop using Windows has frequently locked up when docking or undocking, or decided to not wake up fully from sleep, and occasionally crashes.

The home Windows PC takes far more time to administer and keep secure than the much older Linux box, even though it only uses Firefox as the browser, and has frequently caused nightmarish problems such as very high CPU usage (due to Windows Update). This required significant registry hacking and update de-installation to fix.

Generally, Linux takes quite a lot of setup (I'm on an older Ubuntu at present, newer versions should be better) but works incredibly reliably. Windows just never stops consuming time.

For friends who are non-technical and can afford Macs, that's what I recommend (they can run Windows apps via Crossover or Parallels virtual machines if needed) to reduce the security/admin nightmares.

For technical friends, I recommend Ubuntu, but it's not quite as plug and play as a Mac (yet).

I've been using Windows and Linux a long time, and am considered somewhat of a Windows power user at work, but I really want to get away from it as far as possible...

One tip for Windows users - install Microsoft's Process Explorer instead of Task Manager, it lets you suspend processes that are killing your system responsiveness (often installed by IT departments to try to make your system secure) so you can get some work done. I've never needed a similar tool on Linux, using top or the KDE equivalent is enough.