What is Digg?182 Comments
- subgeniusd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Article point: "Most versions of Linux will run on a Pentium 1 with 128MB of RAM, while Slackware can run on a 486."
That should have said many distros but certainly not most these days. And for those that find Slackware a bit "deep" Slackware based VectorLinux runs with the above specs and is much easier to install and use. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27yeah, because linux users don't really have to worry about playing the latest games
- GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -16/+36@schestowitz
Going by that logic, games, 3D graphic applications and even XGL / Beryl will cause "millions of tons of e-waste". If people don't want Quake 4 at 1600 x 1200 or Aero, they can turn it off. If they do, they can leave it on and get a new $100 video card and a gig stick of RAM. If they're misled enough (mostly by people like you) to believe you must by an entire new computer to experience Aero, they're the kind of people who would buy a new computer for Linux anyway. Saying that Vista is bad for the enviroment because it offers a new GUI is stupid. People don't have to use it, they can turn it off. - betterth, on 10/12/2007, -63/+82That's a stupid way of looking at it. Linux prevents obsolescence not by programming todays desired effects and programs to work with low specs, which it seems to claim, but rather by stagnating.
If Linux looked and operated competitively to Mac and Windows based PCs, they will age just as quickly.
As much as the linux people want to believe Linux was hand coded by God himself, if you want newer, more functioning and faster running programs, you need new hardware. Which means throwing the old hardware away. That doesn't change by running Linux. You can't run WoW on linux with a P1 and 128MB of ram. If you want to game, or run photo editting, or watch movies, or listen to music or play webgames, you'll need a substantially more powerful computer. And as games increase, movies increase (from DVD to HD formats), etc etc, you'll need newer computers.
I'm sorry but the only way to prevent obsolesence is to stagnate and ignore new technologies and ignore what consumers want in the way of better and quicker functionality, /PERIOD./ - R34C7, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21The problem is not windows creating obsolescence, the problem is the fact that computers are built with harmful chemicals and parts that are not economically recyclable. Obsolescence in the marketplace is great for the economy. What we need is higher demand for computers that are built with environmentally neutral materials and easily recycled parts. Unfortunately this would probably drive price up as well.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25@betterth
That's not true. While sure you can't run WoW on a Pentium, that performance metric doesn't necessarily apply to the rest of the desktop. Modern systems should be massively underutilized. What exactly does OS X and Windows do that makes them better, yet suck up CPU cycles and RAM? I can't think of anything. They have limited window management, limited configurability, and poor software management (I am not talking about installing binaries from the web). What they do have is nice GUIs to configure everything that they let you configure and nice wizards to simplify complicated tasks. Those don't require fast computers.
Also, when comparing Aero to Beryl/Compiz I can tell you without any doubt that Vista's heavy video card requirements are unnecessary. Beryl runs smooth on my integrated i915 video chip which only uses 8 MB of system RAM for memory. There is zero chance that Vista can run Aero on this video chipset, but Beryl runs just fine. That tells me that somewhere along the line Aero became bloated and now has system requirements that make computers obsolete before their time.
While I may not agree 100% with this article, it does have some merit. You can run Linux with a user interface such as XFCE and extend its life quite a bit. Linux's flexibility gives it the ability to run on old hardware while it also has the ability to make full use of modern hardware. - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -17/+32Here's a nice picture: http://www.kuteev.ru/ph10/edf4.jpg
FWIW, here are some related good articles:
Linux Could Prevent Use of 4,200,000,000 kg of Fossil Fuels a Year
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/459/
Use GNU/Linux and help save the planet
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/use_gnu_linux_and_help_save_the_planet
Going green
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/going-green/2006/12/19/1166290549494.html
Computers in schools are an environmental time-bomb
http://opensourceblog.itproportal.com/?p=213
How Windows XP Wasted $25 Billion of Energy
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/how_windows_xp.phpRelated
Open Source Terraforming
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20070216/
Vista poses environmental dangers
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2174400/vista-poses-environmental
Greenpeace: Vista could trigger a deluge of electronic waste
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/84816/from/rss09
Vista gets slated - by the Greens
http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/news.php?id=107813 - Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21There is always talk about Linux. It's just the Windows community doesn't often meet the Linux community.
It's an interesting feature of the Digg Community. Fanboys from different walks off come and meet and bash other. It's all good fun really ;-) - Override, on 10/12/2007, -12/+27"is this why every release of kde uses more ram? is this why ubuntu doesn't run on old hardware where other distros like slackware run without problems? Oh please, stop making stuff up, astroturfing sucks."
It could be argued that he was talking about the GNU toolkit and the Linux kernel. KDE != Linux. Just because you can't get a default Ubuntu/Kubuntu install running on older hardware, doesn't mean it wouldn't run fine if you ran it without a graphical environment, or with Xfce, or Fluxbox, or any other more lightweight window manager. - zdislaw, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18@Philluminati
GawtMilk said you can turn off the new Aero GUI, not the entire GUI. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21Just to add. I've yet to run a distro that handles power management properly if at all. Some I'm wondering how Linux is better for the environment when I can't even get a distro to put a laptop into sleep mode.....
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15"But, can beryl run on a P1 with 128 Mbytes of RAM? No it can't, heck, you need a Gpu with hardware acceleration to do it. That means that to a degree Linux is keeping up with MS and Apple, meaning older hardware is also useless for a modern linux, making this article null and void."
Probably not, although there is no reason why you can't put a hardware-accelerated GPU in a P1 system. You'll need an older video card, but it may still work. Either way, that's beside the point. Nobody's claiming you can run any piece of hugely complex Linux software on a P1 system. Blender (3d modeler) probably won't run well on it either. Some tasks simply require lots of CPU/GPU power.
Most importantly, running a lean Linux desktop doesn't render it less useful than a full KDE + Beryl system. Many Linux users run a very lightweight window manager like Blackbox and still run modern programs. Maybe that's the difference... with Windows or Linux you need to run an unsupported version of the OS to put it on very old computers, so you get compatibility problems, while a modern Linux kernel can run on older computers, so you just swap out the memory and CPU-hungry programs like KDE or Gnome for smaller programs without losing compatibility.
What I'm trying to point out is that because of Linux's great flexibility it is able to scale down to slower computers more easily than Windows or OS X. Bloat creep is much slower. In fact, the upcoming KDE 4 is said to have a much smaller memory footprint than KDE 3.x despite the fact that KDE 4 is far more advanced and has far more features. - Fordi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@XvampireX:
Um. Linux is seriously not based on Minix. It may have been partially inspired by Andrew Tenenbaum's book on operating systems, but they share none of the same code, far as I know.
That said, Linux, Unix and Minix are all POSIX-compliant, which is where all this 'based on' ***** comes from.
Reserve your cries of 'idiot' until you're sure you're not as black as the pot you're addressing, please. - argotechnica, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16@betterth: I think you're missing the point. Users who need cutting edge applications will always need cutting edge hardware... but most users are *not* running cutting edge apps.
- Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15
Agreed.
An obsolete computer is one that you need to replace away because it is obsolete - It won't run the program / GUI / Game feature you want. People can still run Windows 98 if they want. That has games and a gui and uses hardly any resources.
It's not the platform thats the problem...Its the USE of that system....And it's up to the people to decide if they want to be green and keep the same machine for years or if they don't. - dwbell, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13@betterth I just saved a P!! 266mhz pc from the dump by installing Elive linux. It provided the whiz bang Vista Ultimate eyecandy with animated desktop and icons. Firefox, email, GIMP wordprocessing, spreadsheets, IM (with webcam) etc. removed Blender and the Video editing software because with a 6GB HD there was no need. By the way there was still 2.7GB free space for storing Pictures etc.
- betterth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10My full photoshop/imageready installation is around four hundred megs.
The only programs on my computer that take up more than a gig are games.
WoW: ~8GB
Vanguard: ~16GB
etc etc - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Substitute Unix for Linux in any of your comments and you have the exact same arguments I've been reading about for over 15 years. Why hasn't Unix made the difference? It's better, more stable, and has a smaller footprint than Windows.....
Drinking too much koolaid can kill you....... - RedLion, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18There are a few hundred ones... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Features_new_to_Windows_Vista&oldid=113532657 but since you're obviously trolling I wonder why I'm answering you in the first place...
- underthelinux, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Robertcamb5,
I believe the hype with linux recently has grown because of 2 things: ms's release of vista, and linux's ability to compete with vista.
1. The release of vista means that people are going to be relearning an operating system. What better time for people to make the switch to open source when microsoft is transferring marketshare?
2. Back when XP was released, linux was in no state to be used by average joe's, and therefore had a hard time stealing any market share. Now that it can compete (by way of applications, ease of install, ...), people are becoming more interested in an alternative. In fact, just last night I introduced one of my friends, who was in the market for a new computer, to ubuntu's live cd. I told her she can play with it, and if she likes it, we can install it.
Edit: Don't be scared!! You're the type of person that can be fully accommodated by linux. Its the people who have the need for esoteric/hard-to-find programs that run into real trouble. - Toast1185, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I think eWaste is created by people wanting to play games and have fun with their computers. I could still be running windows 98 if I felt like it.
- dr-steve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9A serious aspect that hasn't been touched: Corporate refresh cycles and the current different usage populations of the two stated environments.
In the "real world", corporations plan on hardware refresh cycles. Due to politics, needs to keep people on a common platform, etc., corporations plan on a 3-4 year (at most) hardware lifecycle. (Yes, there are many examples of companies that don't, but most large companies DO.)
Whatever platform is being used, it will be refreshed in that span. And the older hardware will be recycled. Right now, the core platform is Windows. Hence, Windows platforms are recycled at a high rate. If/when Linux becomes predominant in major corporations, the same Linux boxes will be refreshed at that higher rate.
Home servers, skunkworks operations, etc., are a different story. They aren't subject to the refresh cycle, relying instead on low-cost platforms. Linux is a more solid choice, these populations will have longer lifecycle equipmenet, hence, the "age" of the average Linux box is boosted.
A solid study would normalize with respect to usage patterns. Common corporate environments vs. common corporate environments (will your business exec put up with a six-year-old system, say, a Celeron 450?). Home vs. home (how many non-tech friends do you have that are still running Win98? Win2K?). Skunkworks servers vs. skunkworks servers.
Then you'll have meaningful results.
Steve - jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1680% of the worlds population only needs a 600mhz CPU and 256mb of ram. Yet with Windows Vista you still need a 2Ghz CPU for Joe average to run his word processor.
- ldkronos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I don't know about you , but my computer consumes (not produces) energy
- teknomunk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11RedLion: Are you aware that the exact same thing is required of Windows, the only difference is that codecs usually come with the DVD drive or preinstalled at the factory. It doesn't, however, change the fact that the codecs are third-party and that you are paying for the, the price is just hidden.
- goofballjm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7My desktop is a P3 500 running Gentoo. I got it for free from a school I was doing IT for back in '04. My machine that was about the same age died on me and they gave this to me. I added some ram, an 80GB drive, and a CDRW. The machine has been fine ever since. It's 8 years old, hosts 3 websites, runs DNS, Samba for file sharing, proxy for internet use, hosts a shoutcast stream, on top of everything else. I moved a year ago and have rebooted the machine only 3 times.
- CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I run up-to-date Debian Unstable on a 350MHz K6 laptop, right now. It may not be a Pentium1, but how many people would even think of using a machine from 1998?
What I don't expect it to do is what it was never able to do: Full motion video.
I don't bother to run a full KDE desktop, either, even though it ran KDE 1 quite well. Software bloat is not a Microsoft invention, but, as the article points out, it infects Linux-based systems at a far slower rate.
The old laptop is showing its age, certainly. USB1, unaccelerated graphics with shared memory, but it _runs_, and it runs the latest applications. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -14/+21"is this why ubuntu doesn't run on old hardware where other distros like slackware run without problems?"
Ubuntu's Fat Kernel was designed (aka configured) to be used with hardware of this era. Slackware's was designed (aka configured) to run on anything that can boot 386 code. But not much is stopping you from building an Ubuntu kernel that can boot a toaster oven, or a Slackware kernel that's built only to support modern hardware (and thusly drop a few hundred megabytes from its distribution). And don't even get me started with Debian and its "we'll boot on anything, literally" stance. - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8"Why doesn't Unix or Linux have a greater market share?"
Because you're not thinking about _which_ market.
UNIX servers and proprietary mainframes have indeed existed for decades longer than Windows. But Windows has no presence in mainframes, and Windows "servers" are a joke compared to what UNIX has been successfully doing the whole time.
If you mean, specifically, single-user graphical "desktop" computers, then you must also mean those machines which were too slow to run UNIX when the choice was only UNIX and DOS.
The "desktop" is a very recent development. The reason people think it's everything is because it is what they _see_. It is the only computer they have experience with, and therefore they assume that it is the only computer. Microsoft Windows does indeed have a huge mind-share, because that is what people have been accustomed to _seeing_.
Microsoft was so completely focused upon the "single user desktop" that they didn't even include a TCP/IP network package in Windows95 for the first 6 months it was shipping. It also was and is impossible to run a Windows based machine without a GUI, so it is worthless as a replacement for UNIX.
Linux, in comparison, is highly effective in a server environment. GUI or no GUI, hard-disk or boot-CD or boot-flash or boot-memorystick, the hardware requirements of Linux are exceedingly small and it runs on almost anything. Cell phones to mainframes, what Linux has been supplanting is the proprietary OS, proprietary protocols, proprietary formats.
The overwhelming majority of the top 500 supercomputers in the world are running Linux.
A large majority of the every-day servers reachable on the 'Net are running Linux. More than that are running F/OSS server software, even if they're running it on Windows. But don't forget UNIX, which is running on many of those servers too.
Windows runs on, what, i386 and IA64? Windows might as well be considered a niche OS selling to game otaku.
Microsoft is an island in a sea of OpenSource. Microsoft contines to leverage their closed protocols, their proprietary formats, their "mind share" and familiarity, to sell less functionality than is available for free to anyone who looks outside the Microsoft sphere.
But come on! Most people don't even think that there are people who believe in a different _religion_ than they do, and there's not a religion in the entire world that has more than a 50% market share. :^)
The vast majority of computer users, if you sat them down one day with FireFox and OpenOffice on Linux, wouldn't know or care that they weren't using "Windows".
The single, overwhelming reason you think Microsoft has the "market share" you think they do is because Windows is pre-installed on retail OEM hardware. You _see_ it. It is advertised.
Look anywhere else than retail OEM, and Linux is flourishing. - thelimopit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I try to keep my hardware for as long as possible, ie until it breaks. Up until quite recently I had a six-year-old secondary 13.5gb HD and secondary DVD/CDRW in my PC, both of which still worked perfectly. I am a gamer, but I'm really not bothered about playing the latest titles because there's a massive back catalogue of utterly adequate games to discover out there, and they're pretty damn cheap too.
Also, if I do upgrade, I give all my old parts to my dad who puts them to good use in his PC - and as he's even less bothered about having the latest hardware than me, it works out quite well.
As the old saying goes: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." - MWeather, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10It's such a burden hiding my Linux machine when the DVD enforcers come by to ensure all my codecs were legally purchased.
- Philluminati, on 10/12/2007, -15/+21"It looks like Vista is almost certainly going to result in a mass dumping of perfectly good computers. For an operating system that, basically, offers two new features,"
- There's a second one? - mechmike0034, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8And, http://www.deoss.org/positive/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=43, as well as http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?search_id=326686869&t=12714
Out of the landfills and into the hands of those who can benefit from the technology.
Puppy Linux http://puppyos.com is the bomb on older boxes! - Eccles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Do you go around breaking windows? Because that would create job opportunities for glaziers and installers.
You improve people's lives by destroying jobs, not creating them. Most people worked in farming in the nineteenth century. Farm technology has made it so that less than 10% of Americans work on farms. Are the rest out of work due to those job-destroying combine harvesters? No, they moved to producing other things -- like computers.
If computers were fast enough and capacious enough that no one needed to upgrade, then the money we didn't spend on new machines would be available for other things, and people would work to create those other things instead. My refrigerator isn't obsolete in three years, nor my dishwasher, but that hasn't killed the economy.
Along those lines, I've wondered if we're starting to reach a plateau in video gaming. The PS3 and Xbox360 support High-Def, making them a big win over the older systems. And even a Wii looks much better than an N64. But how much more room for improvement is there? How many more generations will there be before the improvements no longer matter enough for people to care? - cecplex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I didn't even consider that, newer technologies are utilizing power better, especially in the past 2-3 years. (As noted with the decrease in the "Speed Race" and an increase in the "Power Consumption Race"
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14KDE isn't Linux ***** it just runs on it.
>"If Linux looked and operated competitively to Mac and Windows based PCs"
Beryl beats vista and Mac any day. - Nodaki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Even my mom wants a new computer every 5 years. In computers OLD=UGLY. You can't blame people for ditching their beige CRT and crappy tower. Linux will not solve vanity.
- inactive, on 10/21/2007, -0/+5yeah, so on my ubuntu box i plug an mp3 player or camera into my usb port and it appears on my desktop right away, ready to double-click.
- lisuebie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Don't you think there is a leverage problem here? So far, MS has locked up 98% of offices. Who is going to put vast amounts of time and money into producing ever fancier work applications for a non-existent user group?
As the second and third worlds get into computer usage, as state and country level tax-funded governments come up for upgrade, if even a third of them choose to go with linux, then suddenly the user base will justify the development. That is my prediction at least.
And I don't think that linux users are all unwilling to pay for proprietary programs. There just have to be enough buyers to justify the programming effort. - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Let's see... I'm sure I have the latest version of Nethack around here somewhere...
- XVampireX, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10What about the electricity/energy these computers produce? :P
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Have you seriously run any of the latest popular Linux distro's recently? You really think that a 600mhz PC with 256mb of ram is enough to run them efficiently?
I've run a 700mhz Pentium II with 512mb of ram and some versions of Redhat and Suse in years past and sorry to report but they ran like crap. I have two workstations. One is an AMD Athlon 2600 with 1gig of ram and an ATI 9600 Video card dual booted with XP Pro and openSuSe 10.2. XP runs faster in some things and slower in others, and neither OS is any less stable than the other. I have a workstation that is an AMD 64 X2 4000 with 1gig of ram and a BFG6800 video card dualbooted with Vista Ultimate and Ubuntu 6.10. Same exact thing. Neither loaded OS is faster than the other or less stable.
I couldn't imagine either of my workstations running these OS's with 600mhz processor and 256mb of ram. They'd suck. - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"And there's still no easy, uniform way to install software or hardware."
Go away, Troll. The counter-examples have been posted so often and so widely that you must be deliberately copying from the Microsoft playbook. - dhughes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4 I think you mean "use".
edit: too slow. - gadfly22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4While the linux vs. MS debate is endlessly fascinating (as usual), an important corollary of this story is (I think) being overlooked.
Linux on machines = machines being used longer = fewer computer sales by Dell, HP, Gateway etc. = a compelling reason for those companies NOT to offer machines loaded with Linux.
MS is the computer-maker's friend, so long as it cranks out new versions of Windows that forces -- or at least makes people consider -- upgrading their computer hardware, whether entire systems or new RAM or new and more compatible peripherals. The Linux crowd (of which I'm one) will need to keep relentless pressure on those computer-maker's if Linux -- which really is ready for the desktop -- is to be a common offering as a built-in product. Otherwise, the Dells of the world have every incentive to ignore Linux and hype their good friend Windows. - berwiki, on 10/12/2007, -21/+25performance-wise, on my home machine, window XP is much more responsive than Ubuntu Edgy on the same hardware.
(in terms of loading office, explorer vs nautalis file browsing)
This article is purely Microsoft FUD.
i run linux but i am appalled at this article. - kil0byte, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I do know what systems administration is, since I am a Systems Administrator!!! Wow me with your literal acrobatics.
I just don't to see things the way you do (so u criticize me). People don't want linux IN GENERAL because they do not want the learning curve or the responsibility associated with total control of a computer system. So they hire others to "administrate" their systems, and they get easy to use point-and-click OSes that allow them to use the computer as it was meant-- a TOOL.
And all the great things u mentioned-- making routers, web servers, etc. Is that efficient? Using all these old energy hogs with fans and moving parts, when you can just buy a netgear or run a webserver on a webhost? Come on... - The_Dude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+550% reduction in hardware sales doesn't sound good for the economy to me. In fact, sounds like it would cause job elimination, among other things.
- cecplex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm not sure how you read that post and derived that "Better hardware is the key to good gaming"; however, if the price points were the same, I'd imagine those numbers would level off. (And yes, Super NES had great games, and maybe that's why people still want them.)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@crazyz
yes, if you run xfce or gnome instead of kde. i've got xubuntu running on a 600mhz with 256 MB RAM and it runs openoffice and firefox pretty smoothly (except for the god-*****-damn sliding comments on digg). that's 90% of what average joe wants out of a computer anyway. even youtube and dvd playback work great.
i've also got a 300mhz ultra-mobile PC running debian and fluxbox, which i carry around. it runs firefox 2.0 a little slow but definitely usable. mind you, these are the latest versions of these distros i'm running with all the security fixes. on the other hand, microsoft stops supporting their old OSes, forcing users to upgrade software, which has even more stringent hardware requirements every time. -
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