Ryan - You make good points and gave information I was not aware of. Let me just make it clear that I WANT TO BE WRONG about desktop Linux. If I am then that's great. I didn't rant to try to show someone that I was "smart." (well maybe a smartass). 8^)
I'm just trying to address (what I see) as the major problem of for the wide adoption of desktop Linux. Regards, MRW ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan McDougall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 1:25 PM Subject: Re: Why is RH9 slower than Windows98SE. Any advice? > On Tue, 2003-06-24 at 10:19, Mike Wafkowski wrote: > > You're kind of missing the point. It seems like most Linux boosters do and I > > believe on purpose so as not to "undermine" Linux. No X no KDE, no Gnome. > > > > If someone wants a full function/look GUI like Win or MAC then telling them > > to use Blackbox instead or (your lightweight gui of choice here) is not a > > helpful response to people who complain what a pig Linux running KDE or > > Gnome is. Compared to Windows it SIMPLY IS! > > Youre right, comparisons between Win and Linux should be done with > feature comparable desktops. But pragmatically speaking, if someone > wants a more responsive system without the features, they SHOULD use a > lightweight desktop. I dont have that choice in Windows / MacOS. > > > > > I wish people would tell them the simple truth that on the same hardware as > > they used to run Windows whatever, Linux running whatever full blown gui of > > your choice will NEVER run as fast as Windows. No amount of tweaking, > > praying or good luck is going to change that. > > Actually this is plain wrong. Microsoft had the exact same problems with > gui sluggishness with windows NT ( compared to Windows 95 ) that Linux > appears to have. Their solution was/is a kind of cheat: to move the > gui/video code into the kernel in order to improve latency. Microsoft > controls all the code in windows, therefore they can ( but probably > shouldnt ) break good software engineering principles. The end result is > that when a game crashes on win2000, the whole computer is gone -- when > X crashes, I can just restart X. The Linux solutions are far better > technically. > > You say no tweaking will fix it-- WRONG: try to renice your X to a > higher priority, which will allow the kernel to service X requests > sooner. > > Also the new NVidia and ATI video cards have more complete drivers which > support their 2D acceleration features. This is not because X "sucks", > but because until recently the hardware manufacturers refused to support > Linux, where as microsoft could afford to buy all sorts of support and > tweaking. > > You say to prayer/luck will help-- WRONG: currently there are a few low > latecy patches available for 2.4 kernels, and there is Robert Love's > patch in the 2.5 kernel. Also XFree 5 is supposed to be reworking the > kernel mode DRI layer to improve performance. > > Keep in mind that the style and pace of F/OSS developement largely > dictates what is available in any given moment, the desktop hackers are > still implementing key features to make linux a viable desktop for the > whole world, and dont have enough time/money to hack religiosly over > speed issues. > > > > > So I'll rephrase my complaint. X plus (the full blown wm of your choice > > here) sucks, is slow as hell on moderate hardware, and that and the fact > > that the current Linux GUI desktop looks like shit (fonts, ui, etc.) to most > > non Political Linux and regular 'ol windows/mac users is the reason why > > desktop linux is not overtaking (or even competing with) any other desktop > > OS soon or in the forseeable future. > > "current desktop looks like shit" is just plain WRONG. I dont know what > desktop *you* are using, but *my* desktop is down right beautiful. I > think XP theme looks hideous, and MacOS looks a little too > Fischer-Price-ish for me. I can choose any theme I want for Linux, and > Im not forced to use either one of the above. I like every visual part > of my desktop, which is more than I can say for Windows / MacOS. ( Thats > not to say that the desktops dont need much more user interface lovin, > we're still behind MacOS, but catching up soon! ) > > Font rendering *used* to be a problem, before Xft2 and the Bitsream > fonts, but Im running XD2 which includes professional quality fonts from > Agfa, and Adobe, the free fonts from Bitstream ( which are my favorite > after Arial ), and the Microsoft web fonts. I prefer *my* text rendering > to XP's after a head to head comparison with a friend's XP laptop. ( > Although I think Mac font rendering might be still better than linux. ) > > > > > In short, X and KDE, Gnome, etc. sucks and for Linux to be a great desktop > > OS the entire video/gui layer of Linux will have to be redone from scratch. > > Why does it have to be redone from scratch? Are you a software > developer? No competent software devloper would claim even *semi-decent* > piece of code should be thrown out completely. > > You have yet to make any case why "X sucks", you just state it without > proof as if its self evident! Some people complain its has all this > "network code" which must make it slow-- as of 4.0 this is simply not > the case due to DRI. Some people complain "its bloated"-- X can be > brought down to about 500KB for embeded systems. > > But most importantly, wheres the replacement? If you want to design and > implement an entire windowing system, please do so and let us know when > youre finished so we can judge whether it "sucks" or not. > > > > > Because, as the foundation for a desktop GUI on an individual machine, X > > sucks 8^) > > You have yet to make your case. Until then, you are wrong. > > > > > Regards, > > Mike Wafkowski > > > > This is such a common falacy, I had to put my two cents in. > > Cheers, > Ryan > > > -- > redhat-list mailing list > unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.487 / Virus Database: 286 - Release Date: 6/1/03 -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
