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186 Comments
- linkmeupscotty, on 02/25/2008, -3/+78You bring up a really good point that I didn't adequately address in the article. Preload /will not/ become a memory drain on your system. I've added some more information to the article, such has how to configure memory usage, and the example memory footprint on my machine, to show just how little (ironically) memory preload uses.
Very good point you brought up, but I'm happy to say you don't have to worry about Preload becoming a memory hog :) - hendzen, on 02/25/2008, -8/+70So this is basically like Vista Prefetch?
- coheedcollapse, on 02/25/2008, -20/+81Memory usage is the main "problem" that people bitch about concerning Vista and this sort of cache is the exact reason that Vista uses so much ram. So...people will intentionally install an item that they endlessly bitch about when it's on another OS? So they are either uneducated about the memory use or just ignorant.
In all seriousness though, cool program. I'm not going to install it any time soon, but it's still pretty cool. - QuantumAvatar, on 02/25/2008, -6/+45Hopefully they incorporate this in ubuntu as a default in hardy. That would definitely float my boat.
- nemilar, on 02/25/2008, -5/+40Actually, a non-microsoft.com link would probably be preferable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfetch#SuperFetch - 4DFX, on 02/25/2008, -8/+43I've tested it and it uses about 10 megs by default... You can't compare that to Vista.
- benitojuarez, on 02/25/2008, -5/+38heres the thing, if the ram isnt being used its being wasted.
- sloppychris, on 02/25/2008, -3/+29I consider the stable, open, and resource efficient operating system the "real" one.
- nicku, on 02/25/2008, -3/+28Float your bloat you mean?
- notque, on 02/25/2008, -1/+26This isn't the type of software you'd want in default. I certainly wouldn't. This is a choice you would make understanding the consequences.
- trinatr0n, on 02/25/2008, -0/+22If you took the time to read the article, you'd have seen the link that said the test system was:
" Intel Pentium M 1.7 GHz
processor with 2 MB of CPU cache, 512 MB of main memory, and a 4500RPM 60GB
hard-disk drive. The operating system used is a stock Fedora Core 5 distribution, with
Linux kernel version 2.6.17-1.2139 FC5, and the default I/O scheduler (AS)."
I highly, highly doubt that OO.o cold-starts in 5 seconds on your machine, especially with those specs. Maybe you're referring to what the article calls a warm-start, which is when you've closed it, and then you re-open it. - Roryking, on 02/25/2008, -4/+24Buried for attempting to prove how big your e-penis is
- inactive, on 02/25/2008, -1/+21newsflash:
Digg.com Uses a Fake OS - MioTheGreat, on 02/25/2008, -0/+19"You may not be using it right now, but when you open up Photoshop (or gimp in the case of the linux/bsd users) and load up that 300 meg (uncompressed) ultra-high res graphic your company want's to use on it's billboards you better have ram to spare of you're gonna suffer as data has to be move back and forth to the hard drive which, with a huge image like that, takes a hell of a lot of time."
You should never notice a performance hit from a good prefetcher deallocating memory. It's not going to bother to page anything it's pushing out of RAM. It's just going to drop it. It doesn't care about reloading that data as it was, because it was just prefetching documents and apps, which it can still get to.
It should be capable of freeing up memory the moment you need it very, VERY quickly. It doesn't have to read it back into the hdd, it just has to surrender it back to the rest of the system. - colinnwn, on 02/25/2008, -3/+22Knowledgeable people aren't complaining about Vista memory usage. That is a gross oversimplification of their beef. People are complaining that Vista performs more poorly than XP when Vista runs on better hardware with twice, triple, or even quadruple the memory of XP.
Vista on my newish Dell laptop with 2 gigs performs similarly to XP on my 7 year old desktop with 256 megs. That is the real issue. - canthraxp, on 02/25/2008, -1/+20I just installed this daemon to try it out. First, I ran various applications 3 times to measure the average time:
Open Office Writer: 5s first time, 4s average, 1.5s preload
Amarok: 6s first time, 5.5s average, 2s preload.
Firefox 3.0b3: 5s first time, 3s average, 1s preload.
Preload is currenlty using 444.0kb of memory.
The subjective experience is: It's noticeable, I feel things run faster now. So I think I'm gonna stick to this thing. - dallashigh, on 02/25/2008, -1/+20Linux and Windows operate very differently when it comes to RAM.
Windows wants to keep as much free RAM as possible. For instance, when you're browsing the web with Outlook open in the background, Windows says "z0mg he hasn't used Outlook in a few minutes, let's page out the memory to disk!". And then when you click on Outlook, it takes 30 seconds to come up because Windows has to move the data back to RAM.
Linux absolutely hates wasting RAM and it hates using the page file (swap space). As I type this, out of the 2GB RAM on my system, Linux is "using" 1286 MB with just Minefield open. But, 152MB is buffers, and another 805MB is cache. Take those away, and the system is only actively using 328MB. If load up GIMP and open a large image, Linux will reduce the size of the RAM buffers and cache to make room.
The reason that superfetch is a double-edged sword is because of the differences I just mentioned. Windows will keep it's superfetch cache in memory and start paging out memory from inactive applications. The grind from paging can reduce or even eliminate any speed advantage gained from using the cache.
With Preload, Linux will just reduce its buffers and cache when it needs more memory. That is why Preload is more beneficial than superfetch. - sirhomer, on 02/25/2008, -0/+17This software has been around before Vista came out.
- smrekar, on 02/25/2008, -3/+20douchebaggery
- CalgaryTechGuy, on 02/25/2008, -14/+29"Memory usage is the main "problem" that people bitch about concerning Vista and this sort of cache is the exact reason that Vista uses so much ram"
And even still it doesn't help the speed in Vista - canthraxp, on 02/25/2008, -4/+17http://sourceforge.net/projects/preload
Registered : 2005-07-08 15:03
2005, Vista isn't like, 2007? - inactive, on 02/25/2008, -0/+13http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_prefetch_files_on_boo ...
brought to you by Links for the Lazy™ (gentoo edition) - Megatog615, on 02/25/2008, -0/+12Why are you people laughing at how this is somewhat similar to the Vista Prefetch mechanism? Preload has been around much longer than Vista. If anyone has copied off anyone else, it's Microsoft.
- t3soro, on 02/25/2008, -2/+14http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Linux
- vibrokatana, on 02/25/2008, -0/+12Gentoo has some of the best documentation around. I actually use their wiki alot even though I don't use gentoo.
- selrahc, on 02/25/2008, -10/+21"So they are either uneducated about the memory use or just ignorant."
Yes. - canthraxp, on 02/25/2008, -3/+14Enjoy your DRM.
- nemilar, on 02/25/2008, -0/+11Don't compare the time in seconds; compare the % improvement.
- subgeniusd, on 02/25/2008, -0/+9I think "slightlystupid" is a more appropriate nickname for you dude.
- 0Chaos0, on 02/25/2008, -6/+15Um. Great job for Linux however this is the same thing Vista implemented and MS has done in the past that everyone is QQing about...
This is the equivalent of MS SuperFetch. Now the question is it more viable an option treating RAM as cache just because its on Linux or is it really being done better?
Just wanted to put it out their I support both Linux and MS. But I can only wait till someone else makes the connection and starts flaming MS for it. - inactive, on 02/25/2008, -0/+9Funny how most websites you've ever used aren't run by a "real" operating system.
- ZachSka87, on 02/25/2008, -1/+9Ah! A voice of reason!
No offense Quantum, but one of the reasons Microsoft has built up such a hate base is because of their programmers thinking "Wow, feature X is really awesome. It'd be great if we installed it by default."
I really, REALLY hope a distro as great as Ubuntu never caves into that way of thinking. - joshzam, on 02/25/2008, -0/+8Don't count on it. Feature Freeze has already passed. Maybe for the Ibex...
- insertAliasHere, on 02/25/2008, -10/+18I'm sorry, but that's *****. I actually use Vista (dual boot w/Ubuntu). On my laptop, when I had XP on it, Visual Studio would start up slowly. When I replaced XP with Vista, Visual Studio still started slowly. However, after a few weeks, I noticed that it was starting _much_ faster. Superfetch does increase the load speeds of your commonly used programs. And what good is RAM if you aren't going to use it?
- mcmlxxii, on 02/25/2008, -0/+7Actually sketec makes a good point about Linux implementing x or y. Linux can be just a kernel - for instance the Motorola Razr runs Linux and Google Android sits on Linux and the TIVO runs Linux. If you want to install preload then you yourself are implementing it, or if one of the distros packages it up as standard then they are implementing it. You wouldn't say Linux implements Firefox or Linux implements Skype.
- albybum, on 02/25/2008, -1/+8"The first PC motherboards with support for RDRAM debuted in 1999. They supported PC-800 RDRAM, which operated at 400 MHz and delivered 1600 MB/s of bandwidth over a 16-bit bus using a 184-pin RIMM form factor."
...
"With the introduction of the i840 (Pentium III), Intel 850 (Pentium 4), Intel 860 (Pentium 4 Xeon) chipsets, Intel added support for dual-channel PC-800 RDRAM, doubling bandwidth to 3200 MB/s by increasing the bus width to 32-bit." - subxero37, on 02/25/2008, -1/+8Mmm, avocados...
- Megatog615, on 02/25/2008, -1/+8Preload is optional. You don't have to install it.
- ChrisRX, on 02/25/2008, -1/+7Actually OOo does load this quickly when you disable java in the OOo options.
- jongos, on 02/25/2008, -3/+9I'm running Gutsy Gibbon on an old HP Pavilion with 768MB of ram and a 1G processor. I'll take all the speed apps I can get, thank-you very much!
- smotpoker, on 02/25/2008, -0/+6Takes about 8 on my amd64 2800+ with 1gb ram (42% of which is free) to start oo writer. Perhaps your distribution's OO packages come pre-configured with some sort of 'quickstart' functionality so that part of OO is loaded into memory during WM startup and remains resident all of the time to help facilitate quicker loading (many programs in windows ask on install if you want them to load into the system tray on startup for the same reason)
- andycr512, on 02/25/2008, -8/+14"So...people will intentionally install an item that they endlessly bitch about when it's on another OS? So they are either uneducated about the memory use or just ignorant."
Or perhaps they'll actually do it correctly. - mwiriadi, on 02/25/2008, -1/+7You realise this was created back in 2005, just because someone has only just seen it now doesn't mean it's something new.
- Megatog615, on 02/25/2008, -0/+6Thanks for reading the above comments.
- cdmarcus, on 02/25/2008, -0/+6Ubuntu, by default, WILL use up ALMOST ALL of your RAM. And that's a good thing... when you start an application, any RAM that's being used for cache that's needed for that program is given up, so the cache doesn't affect the speed at which things run. All that Preload does is manage the use of your RAM as a hard disk cache better, based on the applicaitons you actually use.
- Almightymole, on 02/25/2008, -0/+6Don't install it then...
- cjflashman, on 02/25/2008, -1/+6This is a brilliant idea.
With the speed I already get, I had alwase thought this type of thing was built in with the kernel.
Guess not :/ - SweetyCheeks, on 02/25/2008, -1/+6What about Prelinking? http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/speed-up-dynamic-linkin ...
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