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Microsoft, Apple, and the death of the desktop

Started by BigWarpGuy, 2008.03.27, 00:57:16

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BigWarpGuy

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=555&tag=nl.e550

"In his article titled "Dear desktop, welcome back", Ryan Stewart claims that "the desktop is exciting again in a number of interesting ways." Unfortunately (for Microsoft, Apple, and others with a vested interest in the desktop), most of his points actually lead me to the opposite conclusion. For example, Ryan writes:"

Makes for an argument for using non-Win operating systems (like eCS) and smaller computers?

Robert Deed

What I love is the fact that the guy is suggesting that no one uses real applications anymore but one o f the things he says the "desktop will be needed for" are things such as software development.  Hmm.. interesting that while no one is running software there should still be a need for developers.  Ehh..

I've been a consultant now for 15 years, a programmer for nearly 20 (Was writting a BBS when I was 10).  and there have always been those people out there that thought their computer was broken because the network was slow, or the modem was slow, or some other such stupidity.   I mad a killing upgrading many a computer which didn't need any updates.  Clearing cache on browsers back in the mid 90's.  Not everyone is computer savy.  Not everyone however is not.  I still prefer a good old application to some ajax piece of crap in firefox any day of the week. 

He also brings Mac into this alot, I believe on the Mac side of the road there are alot more people who experiment with true applications then in windows today as well.  Mostly because installing and managing software on Mac OSX is generally easier.  Windows has too many different installers and uninstallers.  (It is getting to be that way with eCS as well, however the average eCS user is more technically inclined then the average windows user).

Anyway, it is silly for me to have this much of a reaction, I usually don't take blogs seriously for anything more then band revues and such =)

Quote from: BigWarpGuy on 2008.03.27, 00:57:16
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=555&tag=nl.e550

"In his article titled "Dear desktop, welcome back", Ryan Stewart claims that "the desktop is exciting again in a number of interesting ways." Unfortunately (for Microsoft, Apple, and others with a vested interest in the desktop), most of his points actually lead me to the opposite conclusion. For example, Ryan writes:"

Makes for an argument for using non-Win operating systems (like eCS) and smaller computers?

lwriemen

Quote from: BigWarpGuy on 2008.03.27, 00:57:16
Makes for an argument for using non-Win operating systems (like eCS) and smaller computers?

Well, I think the conclusion was for using an operating system, like OS/2, that has a better threading model than the one his wife was using, although the blogger failed to make it. The argument was that the wife was running too many things at once, therefore the "computer" was slow. This would have been the same argument if she had multiple applications running vs. multiple plug-ins, so I'm not sure what was the point of the blog.

Robert Deed

If your computer is slowing from running too many apps it simply means you don't have enough processors!

Quote from: lwriemen on 2008.04.22, 19:55:38
Quote from: BigWarpGuy on 2008.03.27, 00:57:16
Makes for an argument for using non-Win operating systems (like eCS) and smaller computers?

Well, I think the conclusion was for using an operating system, like OS/2, that has a better threading model than the one his wife was using, although the blogger failed to make it. The argument was that the wife was running too many things at once, therefore the "computer" was slow. This would have been the same argument if she had multiple applications running vs. multiple plug-ins, so I'm not sure what was the point of the blog.


lwriemen

Quote from: Robert Deed on 2008.04.23, 07:40:26
If your computer is slowing from running too many apps it simply means you don't have enough processors!
I didn't see a smiley, so I'm impelled to point out that the CPU is only one resource under contention in a computer. Others are RAM, buses, GPU, storage devices, etc. Any increase in a resource under contention is going to result in better performance. Usually RAM and CPU (speed or number) increases show the best results.

The management of contention by the operating system is the point of discussion, and obviously the OS with the best thread handling is going to require less resources. I wish I still had a copy of the whitepaper IBM released showing OS/2 on a single processor out-performing Windows NT on four processors.

RobertM

#5
Quote from: lwriemen on 2008.04.24, 19:18:19
Quote from: Robert Deed on 2008.04.23, 07:40:26
If your computer is slowing from running too many apps it simply means you don't have enough processors!
I didn't see a smiley, so I'm impelled to point out that the CPU is only one resource under contention in a computer. Others are RAM, buses, GPU, storage devices, etc. Any increase in a resource under contention is going to result in better performance. Usually RAM and CPU (speed or number) increases show the best results.

The management of contention by the operating system is the point of discussion, and obviously the OS with the best thread handling is going to require less resources. I wish I still had a copy of the whitepaper IBM released showing OS/2 on a single processor out-performing Windows NT on four processors.


I think the smiley was implied... but I could be wrong... besides, there is never anything wrong with having more CPUs.

As of a few months ago, the whitepapers were still online on IBM's site (as of more recently, they were still on one of their FTP servers - most of which I have archived someplace). There were a couple whitepapers - most from the mid 1990's. One had to do with Lotus Notes performance. It was run on an IBM Netfinity Server. Lotus Domino GoWebserver had similar speed/performance advantages (10-fold) over the NT equivalent on the same hardware. And even on SMP machines, (another whitepaper they have someplace) OS/2 trounced NT (and still does) when it comes to scaling threads and processes across CPUs. While one can run something like LDGW on a 4 way machine and expect 95% CPU utilization on all CPUs when the system is under heavy load, NT barely managed 80% on the second.

Though, as I have never owned anything SMP that wasnt an IBM, I am not sure how much of the performance benefits were the OS, and how much was the machine. OS/2 definitely had certain things about it that were fine-tuned for the Netfinity (and some x Series) servers - NT didnt.

Funnily, after all was said and done, IBM helped them (MS) complete their (rather specialized) 64 way support - and it still doesnt compare (poor scheduler and poor internals in the rest of the current NT codebase is my guess).

I think I have one or two of the whitepapers buried someplace if you are interested in them. I find them depressing reading though, when to this day, once you add a few CPUs, OS/2 still trounces the current Windows line...  :'(

Robert


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