Not entirely stupid.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Bob_Robertson Oct 15, 2008 8:38 AM EDT |
Bullets from the article, comments by Bob: 1. Don't Make Me Wait Forever at Boot Time Agreed! Going through an entirely new hardware detection on every boot seems wasteful to me. That's why I've started "hibernating" the Wife's windows thing each time instead. Too bad that's not the default. I think the same thing could be implemented in F/OSS. Right now, my system builds an initrd.img each time the kernel is mucked with. Why not do the same with an "everything is running fine" system image, so the kernel, drivers and all their settings can just load and run instead of going through hardware detection? Add a GRUB/LILO boot line option for "boot from zero", just like "single user", for those times when something does change or the "boot from running image" chokes. 2. Gives us a Little Credit about Security As if Microsoft has any interest in that! MS has had UNIX-style security staring them in the face since before day 1, and they ignored it. They did not listen, they're not listening still, I think they never will. Oh, and anti-virus is a profit center. 3. It's My Stuff, so Let Me Use It See number 2. 4. Don't Require 4 GB of RAM to Work Right It's in MS interests to driver hardware upgrades, so that buying a new machine and running your old, already paid for Windows becomes impossible. "There are no drivers for Win2K, just use VISTA." 5. Don't Require me to Get All New Hardware See number 4. 6. Make it Cheaper Which demonstrates to me that this author really, really just wants Linux. |
| gus3 Oct 15, 2008 11:45 AM EDT |
Points 2 through 6 all fall under one overriding characteristic: M$'s profit first, second, third, and fourth. What's the old saying about advertising? "Convincing someone to spend money they don't have on something they don't need." As for the first point, in this day of easy plug-in and removal, I'll take the dynamic detection Slackware has incorporated over the kudzu-style installed hardware database. With the former, if it works the first boot after you plug it in, then it will work the next time as well. With the latter, I've had lots of trouble getting kudzu to remember the printer's presence and settings from one boot to the next, especially if the printer is turned off but not disconnected. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 16, 2008 7:57 AM EDT |
Let me make one change to bullet 1 since sleeping on it: Boot? Isn't that only for when you change kernels or power-off the machine to make a hardware change? Too bad I couldn't comment on the article's site itself. |
| gus3 Oct 16, 2008 11:32 AM EDT |
In an enterprise requiring uptime, I'll grant your point. However, not all of us have battery arrays and diesel generators. I have to shut down during the summer storm season, because without a proper 3-prong outlet, my surge protector won't be much help against a lightning strike. |
| DiBosco Oct 17, 2008 6:11 AM EDT |
Quoting: Boot? Isn't that only for when you change kernels or power-off the machine to make a hardware change? Not sure whether you're being silly of facetious, so sorry if you are; to me boot time is important, because I always power down all my machines at night or when I will not being using them for a few hours as they are quite power hungry devices. The amount of energy the world spends on unused computers is staggering. The company I work for is guilty of it and I am surprised they are not more worried about saving money on energy bills these days. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 17, 2008 11:19 AM EDT |
> Not sure whether you're being silly of facetious, so... Well, yes. I was. My real opinion of booting a system is what I wrote the first time. Hardware (not peripherals. Things like the video chipset, memory allocation, non-removable disk drives, network interfaces, even many system things such as console fonts) do not need to be re-detected and re-system-configured every time. And this repeated initialization configuration has an opportunity for error. As an example, my Mom has a system that, last I looked, had re-defined her hardware ethernet interface as eth137 instead of leaving it as eth0. Insane. I like the idea of an "initrd.img" that really loads a running image. Maybe this will come as a result of getting "hibernate" in Linux working well, except that hibernate includes the user-space and I wasn't really considering that as required. For power, what I've done is to buy laptops instead of tower systems. My primary system's power supply is rated 65 watts, not 450. :^) |
| gus3 Oct 17, 2008 11:57 AM EDT |
Haha, good one. Here's the latest definition of "energy-saving": http://gus3.typepad.com/photos/sights/2008/08/10/0810081746.... |
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