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The Incredible Shrinking Operating System
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:47 AM
from the good-since-you-can-only-run-3-apps-now dept.
from the good-since-you-can-only-run-3-apps-now dept.
snydeq writes "The center of gravity is shifting away from the traditional, massive operating systems of the past, as even the major OSes are slimming their footprint to make code bases easier to manage and secure, and to increase the variety of devices on which they can run, InfoWorld reports. Microsoft, for one, is cutting down the number of services that run at boot to ensure Windows 7 will run across a spectrum of hardware. Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half. And Apple appears headed for a slimmed-down OS X that will enable future iPhones or tablet devices to run the same OS as the Mac. Though these developments don't necessarily mean that the browser will supplant the OS, they do show that OS vendors realize they must adapt as virtualization, cloud computing, netbooks, and power concerns drive business users toward smaller, less costly, more efficient operating environments."
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Hardware: The Hairy State of Linux Filesystems 187 comments
RazvanM writes "Do the OSes really shrink? Perhaps the user space (MySQL, CUPS) is getting slimmer, but how about the internals? Using as a metric the number of external calls between the filesystem modules and the rest of the Linux kernel I argue that this is not the case. The evidence is a graph that shows the evolution of 15 filesystems from 2.6.11 to 2.6.28 along with the current state (2.6.28) for 24 filesystems. Some filesystems that stand out are: nfs for leading in both number of calls and speed of growth; ext4 and fuse for their above-average speed of growth and 9p for its roller coaster path."
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MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Informative)
If Ubuntu is looking to unseat Windows, why do they need a SQL server and a directory service? Granted I use Apache and MySQL on my Mac so I can develop on the road, but not everyone does.
I use Black Viper's [blackviper.com] Windows services tutorial to decide what I can do without on XP. It makes a pretty decent difference in both RAM and CPU usage.
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Informative)
a lot of linux distros ship with everything and you choose what to install. Ubuntu is trying to cater to the non-techie so they strip out anything a desktop PC for the average user won't need without confusing them during the install process.
Parent
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but this isn't even remotely the same thing -- to add this functionality to Ubuntu takes a few clicks and downloads, all free, all easy, and with no limits on how many apps you can run, etc. You want CUPS or some other component that you consider a basic OS requirement? Click, wait while download and install completes, and you have 'em. This is simply an initially "lite" OS install, offered as a matter of convenience to the end user.
MS isn't offering a lite OS install with free option to get the parts that are useful to you. They're paring away basic functionality (like the ability to run 4 or 5 apps at a time) and the only way to get it back is to buy it. If you choose the wrong set of features, you'll probably have to buy again, unless you habitually buy the package with the complete feature set.
Parent
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hoped someone would say this. There will be a lot of people that buy the full deal because it will be sold to them with the computer and they don't know better, and it's an easy sell.
Also, the 'initially lite OS' idea is fantastic. It's one of the reasons that I like Ubuntu. The upgrade to workforce nuclear powered pro Ubuntu is the same as any upgrade; free and easy. You lose nothing by starting lite, and potentially remove a number of vulnerabilities that the end user may not be aware of in software that they may never use or need.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me, taking out Evolution? Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP mail because they don't know better. What about games -- many users want at least basic entertainment while waiting for download of extra content to finish. (We can argue that xbill would be sufficient instead of whole load of Gnome games, but meh.)
You could also install XFCE (as part of Xubuntu) instead and get lite/r Ubuntu automagically. How about going for Debian + well-configured IceWM? It could work, it could
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Although most users use webmail, many still use POP and IMAP
Shouldn't the 'most' part be given more weightage? People who are wise enough to configure POP and IMAP accounts would certainly know that they can install Evolution through package manager or command line. It not only installs evolution, but by default all the evolution notifiers are loaded at startup. Devoting boot time to an application that only few people use is mighty waste.
What about games -- many users want at least basic entertainment
We are talking about making the distro as lite as possible. Putting the entire games suite takes up another big chunk. I never un
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Interesting)
It struck me as kind of strange that they'd strip out something like CUPS...I mean, don't even most normal users like to print documents?!?!
Parent
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:4, Informative)
REally?
I guess maybe I'm old fashioned. I mean, I read and study a LOT online, but, for things I want to really remember, to use as reference, I really like to have dead tree copies.
I often mark them up, highlight passages, doodle in the margins...etc.
I find that by doing this...I can remember and even find information faster than I could doing a web or local directory search. When I was in school, I'd often do the doodles and markings in my books and notes, and during tests...I could 'see' those pages in my head...even turn the pages in my head to find where the information was. I find I can't do that as readily on a computer screen....
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It struck me as kind of strange that they'd strip out something like CUPS...I mean, don't even most normal users like to print documents?!?!
It is not being "stripped out" in the sense that it is no longer available, or must be installed via the package manager. It is installed on demand (when you setup a printer). It is much like how Ubuntu handles samba. Samba is not installed untill you right click a folder and select "share", at which point the user is told that Samba is being installed. I believe the user prompt is actually nicer than that. Something to the effect of "Ubuntu is installing the software necessary to complete this operat
is there something that isn't overkill? (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying it's "overkill" implies it's a heavyweight solution for something that has a light-weight alternative solution? Or are you just implying that there ought to be one?
Parent
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Informative)
I have you friended, so you must have said something I thought was clever before...
The trolltastic headline this morning about "only 3 apps" is highly misleading, and it's caused by speculation and rumors. The starter version of Windows is not something that is either available to the general public (in developed countries) or will be widely deployed on netbooks. It specifically exists to target the very low end computers in third world countries, not to be what's shipped on a netbook.
Yes, features are stripped from the version of windows being sold to OEMs for third-world deployment. If they were the same, there would be a huge rise in black market sales of the "starter" OS - it would give people a "legal" CD-key for the full OS at 1/20th the price. This does not mean we are paring away basic functionality and forcing you to buy it back. In fact, care was taken to make sure Win7 didn't fall into the Vista trap with overlapping feature sets. Each version has a superset of features from the lower one.
First world markets only need worry about Home Premium or Professional, and Ultimate(/Enterprise) if Bitlocker and Direct Access are desired.
For more information, and not something that's based on /. "logic" see here [windowsteamblog.com]. It's an official source, and not speculation.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The paragraph about Ubuntu is bogus. It doesn't have MySQL or LDAP installed by default. MySQL is installed in Kubuntu though, because it is required by Amarok and Kontact/Kmail. It has SQLite, because it is needed by Firefox, but it works without a server. I don't see Ubuntu removing CUPS because that would leave us without printing support.
I think they are referring to the Netbook Remix edition, which I can imagine doing without CUPS and a lot of other things.
Re:MySQL & LDAP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
No, they're not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half.
First, I can completely understand the justification for not including such services in the default install. There aren't many reasons on a single-user desktop for MySQL to be necessary over SQLite, and that's just one more subsystem to have to secure. Getting rid of them, though? That's not even remotely accurate. By that logic I'm not using Ubuntu right now because I'm typing this in Konqueror.
Re:No, they're not. (Score:4, Funny)
Anybody advanced enough to know what MySQL is (much less how to administrate/operate it) would know how to apt-get install it if they needed it, anyway.
And anybody advanced enough to know how to actually write an application against it would know how to emerge it.
Thanks, folks. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And anybody advanced enough to know how to actually write an application against it would know how to emerge it.
And wait 2 hours for it to compile :-).
I don't get the connection (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half. ... OS vendors realize they must adapt as virtualization, cloud computing, netbooks, and power concerns drive business users toward smaller, less costly, more efficient operating environments.
I don't see what removing MySQL and LDAP have to do with "slimming an OS." These are things that very few people are ever going to use on their desktop and made no sense to install by default, anyway. Of the home users, there is surely an inflated number of users on slashdot using them, but they could just as easily go install them after the OS install is complete. And for business users, I would guess almost no one is using them on their desktop.
Re:I don't get the connection (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see what removing MySQL and LDAP have to do with "slimming an OS." These are things that very few people are ever going to use on their desktop and made no sense to install by default, anyway.
That sounds like "slimming down" to me. At least, I can understand what the poster is trying to get at. It seems like we went through a period of early operating system development over the past few decades where the stress was on throwing everything in, including the kitchen sink. It's at least interesting that Linux distros are putting in some amount of effort into pulling excess functionality out of the default installation while computers continue to become bigger, faster, stronger.
And I think it is pointing at something similar to what is going on with OSX, and it is a trend. We've hit some kind of a milestone, I think, where most of our computer functionality is "good enough" for most of what we actually use them for. Something about the development of computer systems right now reminds me of... whenever it was... 10 years ago?... when people were using their computers mostly for word-processing, and their computers were good enough for that, so there wasn't a huge drive to accomplish a particular thing. Then people discovered that they could rip CDs into MP3s and share them, and there grew this whole new focus on multimedia and the Internet.
Now we have those things handled, and it seems like the answer to "what's next?" is making both hardware and software smaller and less bloated. We're getting smart phones that are becoming something more like a real portable computer, and we're getting things like netbooks. I predict you're also going to start seeing better use of embedded systems, like maybe DVRs are just going to be built into TVs soon. Not sure on that one, but I think you're going to see things shrinking, devices being consolidated, and a renewed focus on making things more efficient and refined.
Parent
We'll see about that (Score:4, Interesting)
We can hope. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
My main problem with a lot of O/S'es and Linux distros these days as that too much functionality is 'default on'. If a user needs MySQL, or network printing, they can turn it on, but it seems to me that having the OS install with as few background services as feasible running, is a great way to get OS'es both more secure, and more scalable. In addition, a little bit of engineering might be able to go a long way - for example, I've noticed over the last few releases of Ubuntu that the Gnome environment seems
Not so much (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how this is "the center of gravity shifting". Rather, the examples given appear to indicate a diversification of Operating systems rather than a general downward trend. e.g. While there may be a smaller OS X revision, the desktop revision gets larger with every release.
Windows 7 is not so much a shrinking OS as it is a recognition that Vista was a mistake. A huge, crufty, useless mistake. Windows 7 cuts back some of the cruft and makes the system usable again. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to push their embedded Windows for Devices product on the low end. Nothing new there.
Cutting out MySQL and LDAP make sense. Why install services you don't need on a desktop machine? But why cut out CUPS? CUPS is pretty much the standard for printing these days. Doesn't cutting it seem counterproductive?
Re:Not so much (Score:4, Interesting)
With E-Mail both and Instant Messaging supporting file transfer, and every man and his dog armed with a PDA or Mobile that can read typical document formats, I'd argue that NOT printing anything has become the standard these days.
Parent
Re:Not so much (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Sounds Familiar. (Score:4, Funny)
Thin Clients [wikipedia.org]
Mozilla Firefox [wikipedia.org]
There's an apocryphal story that someone suggested a branch of Firefox that was leaned down by concentrating on the core browser functionality... what goes around...
Economy (Score:3, Funny)
promising..but... (Score:5, Insightful)
A better way - make the install disk's advanced installation give a list of components that can be removed from the install, while the basic user can get the full install. oh, wait.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's this way now with these two examples on Windows. Neither are installed by default.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
user@box> vim
-bash: vim: command not found
user@box> sudo apt-get install vim
Done.
user@box> vim
Seems to work ok to me!
This is a duh moment (Score:5, Interesting)
I never understood why so many services were running by default in the first place.
I always thought it would make more sense to provide three big buttons on setup as well as an advanced tab. Those buttons are the presets: everything off, the most popular stuff on, and everything on. The advanced tabs would let you tweak the specifics.
There's so much extraneous crap running on a typical Windows install it just blows me away. I'm less familiar with Linux and OS X but from what I've seen they are as guilty at times.
Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.
I understand that modern software is really complicated and I'd feel a little less free to complain about bloat if I knew everything that went on in the background. Well, I still wonder what things would be like if I were God Emperor of the World and said that nobody could buy faster machines for a decade, they had to stick with what they had. We see that happen with video game consoles, having a fixed platform to develop for over a period of years, the optimizations that are developed. PC's move so damn fast that by the time anyone figures out the hardware there's something new to write for. And management pays for new features, not optimization. But if they couldn't just demand people buy a faster computer, if they had to work within the resources at hand, I bet our stuff would be running two or three times faster by the end of the decade, just from doing it right the second time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I never understood why so many services were running by default in the first place.
Hear, hear. With poor explanations of *why* you want that running. I never print from my home laptop. I don't want CUPS running. My wife's laptop gets spoolv.exe taking up 100% CPU all the time and she's just web browsing.
I always thought it would make more sense to provide three big buttons on setup as well as an advanced tab. Those buttons are the presets: everything off, the most popular stuff on, and everything on. The advanced tabs would let you tweak the specifics.
There's so much extraneous crap running on a typical Windows install it just blows me away. I'm less familiar with Linux and OS X but from what I've seen they are as guilty at times.
It's typically easier to find info on what those services do on a Unix box. And they're not always focused on Joe sixpack that just wants things to work.
Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.
Or one updater that *every* program can use. On Windows you have Windows Update, Java, Anti-virus, Google, Adobe, Software Manager
Re:This is a duh moment (Score:4, Insightful)
Incidentally, this also brings up my beef about software updaters. I have no problem with them running once a week at startup, checking the net for an update and terminating. But these fuckers remain running in the background constantly like Google updater. Look, do I really care to know the second a new program is released, a new patch? Look, why can't you just tell me the next time I reboot? Or hell, just run the updater when I execute the specific program and piss off when finished.
I think Microsoft and Apple need to take a serious look at Linux package managers. It's funny, because a few years ago everyone was complaining about how installing Linux applications was too annoying, but with most things, you can open up the package manager, click on a few things, it will figure out all the packages you need, and then you hit "install" (or whatever). Even if it's some piece of software that isn't officially supported by the distro, a developer can run his own repository, and I can add the repository to my package manager, and so I can use a single package manager for everything. The result is much simpler to deal with IMO.
My point is developers shouldn't really be given room to make annoying updaters, because it's something the OS should do. Rather than having each app install its own updater, Apple and MS should open Software Update and Microsoft Update to be more like Linux package managers. Then the only issues are the security concerns of insuring the validity of repositories, making it clear to users what each repository is giving them, and making it easy for administrators to add/remove repositories.
Parent
CUPS (Score:4, Informative)
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
$ ps -ef | grep cupsd
root 6860 1 0 Feb08 ? 00:00:00
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Using your trick, I found that the most time consumming application was:
root 7275 6982 0 Jan23 tty7 01:46:49 /usr/bin/Xorg :0 -br -audit 0 -auth /var/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7
I do not an X movie organizer, I should get rid of it.
Standard in embedded systems world (Score:5, Interesting)
If you really want to see "slimming down the operating system", check out QNX [qnx.com], which is a true microkernel used mostly for embedded systems. The kernel just does memory, CPU, timer, and process management, plus interprocess communication. Everything else is optional. Networking, disk/file system support, display support, window management, etc. are all user-level processes that you can include, or not, when making a boot image.
The unusual feature here is that the components really are independent. You can have networking without a file system, or a file system without networking. If the machine has no display, you don't have to include any of the "console" stuff. Even error logging is an option, and can be connected to a display, a window, the network, or a file.
But this isn't what the original article meant by "just enough operating system". They're thinking more of bloated distros.
I hope "just enough operating system" means the ad-funded preloaded crap goes away. Remember Dell charging $50 extra to get rid of all that junk?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
X is not a part of the Linux kernel. As well many parts of the Linux kernel are modules, and as well it is possible to create drivers that run as seperate processes. Linux has many of the characteristics already of a multiserver system. the goal of an OS should not be to provide a scarce number of features, but provide a large number of features, and then let the user decide which to load.
2(MySQL+CUPS+LDAP) = Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half."
Can somebody define "footprint" in this context, and then explain how MySQL, CUPS and LDAP could possibly account for half of it?
my first UNIX was on 128KB PDP (Score:3, Interesting)
What I read (Score:3, Funny)
Windows 7 will run [on] a spectrum
Great! They must have really stripped down the OS.
Apple "appears headed" ? (Score:4, Insightful)
In all fairness to the description of the story.
"And Apple appears headed for a slimmed-down OS X that will enable future iPhones or tablet devices to run the same OS as the Mac."
Am I missing something?
After 17 million iPhones and I don't know how many millions of iPod Touches sold this is more than being headed in a direction.
When Apple launched the iPhone it was announced as an OS X device.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/09/apple-announces-iphone-stock-soars/ [techcrunch.com]
So apparently Apple is clearly in the space of running a mini version of a monolithic OS.
Anyway, interesting as heck topic.
Stripping out CUPS? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, this is probably a dumb question, but how do you print anything without CUPS?
What is the alternative printing system they're going to use, and does CUPS really present that much of a footprint? Is the claim that personal printers are too much of a hassle and we should all send our stuff out to a printing service?
--
Toro
"Grow smaller" . . . (Score:4, Funny)
I was actually on a conference call concerning an Open Source thingie, when someone stated that, "We're planning in the future to 'grow smaller'"
I don't think he even believed it himself. But the sheer audacity to let those words over his lips truly amazed me.
Nuthin' ever gets 'no smaller, except your pay check, after taxes, and you take inflation into account.
Well, maybe your retirement fund . . . and the value of your house . . .
The gas tank of my car seems to be getting bigger . . . it used to hold only 50 euros of diesel, now it can hold about 75 euros! Wow, that's innovation, a growing gas tank!
Apple on 10.6 (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree that Windows and Linux are moving downmarket but Apple:
1) Is switching the the LVVM compiler which means code will run better with multiple cores. Apple is clearing starting to move towards 4,8, or more core machines as the standard.
2) Is changing virtually component of the OS so their 32 bits will drop in performance a tad while 64 bit will get much better.
3) Is putting in all but the last piece of the puzzle to move beyond 8gb limit on ram
4) Is continuing to have OS components that use expensive graphics chips
5) Continues to run complex services automating all sorts of connections
I don't think it is the case that they are moving in the direction of cheaper hardware.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I see your Midori, and raise you HURD.
Re:Do OS's really need a diet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Do OS's really need a diet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Every CPU cycle that the "OS" uses is stealing cycles from processes that could be doing productive work for me. So yes, OSes can be slimmer. Regardless of how much memory or CPU exists. The attitude of "eh, we've got 4 GB of RAM" is why we have such bloated OSes and applications to begin with.
Every CPU cycle that the "OS" uses on my machine is stealing cycles from my system idle process -- which eats up 80% of my overall cycles anyway (and this is with speedstep that clocks my 2.4G processor down to 1.8G whenever the ACPI gods think that's a good idea). The idea that my scheduler is somehow chock full of productive work that's being held up by lack of CPU cycles (or RAM) is just not the case. YMMV, of course, depending on workload, but I'm going to venture that my situation is most certainly the norm.
On the other hand, when I hit up my OS search feature for a recently created document and it's not there, I have to spend at least 10 seconds, possibly a minute, navigating to it in a file explorer. Whatever amount of time the search indexer has spent crawling my system, it's paid back in just one successful query that avoids breaking my workflow. Of course, the indexer is also set to run with low CPU priority and throttled IO, that's just common sense, but it's become an indispensable tool.
The bottleneck in productive use of computers is not hardware resources, it's human intelligence and attention. Hardware is cheap and unlimited, human beings are expensive and finite.
Parent
No, not presumptuous at all.... (Score:5, Informative)
All of the following are valid implementations of a "Data Base":
Only some of those mentioned above are "RELATIONAL DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS" that support SQL-style DDL (Data Definition Language) and DML (Data Modification Language) and DQL (Data Query Language). That doesn't make any of the other myriad of possibilities (Object Databases, Registries, Gnome Config, Berkley DB, custom whaznath binary flim-flam database) any less of "Data Bases".
You simply possess a very limited understanding of what a Database is.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)