[conspire] could Linux desktop go reasonably any faster?

[Ivan Sergio Borgonovo]

On 01/31/2017 08:55 AM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ivan Sergio Borgonovo (mail at webthatworks.it):

>> If you're not on mobile (and probably even if you are, unless the
>> software is really really badly written) I doubt you'll perceive the
>> difference even on not so modern hardware.
>
> You mean Xfce4 and GNOME3?   FWIW, what I saw a few times was hardware
> bogging down badly on typical GNOME3 builds (with and without Unity),
> that then did not also bog down similarly with Xfce4.  That was my
> experience, which I merely offer for whatever it's worth.
>
> Not that I _personally_ care a lot (for upthread reasons), but I keep a

I got enrolled in the KDE church, I think I saw GNOME on my hardware a 
couple of time. So I can't say for GNOME, but when KDE is slow it's 
generally because it is buggy and most of the times it has to do with 
bad graphic drivers support.
After all PC were able to move Windows around back in the '80. I can't 
think of any common desktop activity other than the previously mentioned 
that really require powerful hardware.
A software whose main task is move around windows can't be substantially 
slower than a similar one on modern hardware unless it is buggy.

> It was an XT clone.

My first x86 PC was a 286. It was so expensive for a boy I thought I've 
to make money out of it. I knew XT were going to be history soon so I 
convinced my parents to increase the budget remarkably.
In fact that was the most expensive gift my parents gave me. After that 
I started to buy my toys.

> 'Integration' had the same drawbacks of entangled code interfaces and

Again, it is a matter of compromise, well written software and experience.
Many time a pipe is not enough to make 2 parts of a software 
communicate. There are many directions you can take. One of which is 
making the 2 parts one.
If you did a good job you could still swap one of the parts out, put 
another one in and recompile.
But doing a good job is a matter of experience.

It is surprising how many DE there are around compared to eg. the smtp 
servers or the compilers, drawing/photo editing programs etc...

I think this could be a clue to understand why it is such a mess.

> Recently, there's been some hilarious security attacks against one of
> the colossal DEs via the metadata datastore and the search software.
> Oh, yeah, that's right, GNOME again:
> https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.dk/2016/11/0day-poc-risky-design-decisions-in.html
> https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.dk/2016/12/redux-compromising-linux-using-snes.html
> https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com/2016/11/0day-exploit-compromising-linux-desktop.html

Fun. I still have to decide if indexing so diverse thing in the same 
place is a good idea, probably not since I haven't been moved to switch 
DE or simply try to make a similar tool work... but again I don't think 
this is a good argument against integration.

What should have been done? I don't know. Of course the path is spangled 
by many design errors. But that doesn't mean I'm against automation or 
reliable path to do something.
And yeah... if they are reliable, people will reliably try to exploit 
them... but then...

>> Once upon a time the PMI suite in KDE was a nice set of applications
>> and if Linux had to aspire to world domination it looked something
>> that could really take the place of Outlook/Exchange and it was made
>> in a way you didn't have to pick the whole package even if picking
>> up the whole package gave advantages.

> Yeah, never entirely bought that notion.

Fortunately I don't send emails from my agenda. But many people do and I 
think it is a reasonable use case.
I take appointment from my email and I wish there was a reliable 
standard way to move appointment received from email to my agenda.

This is something I heard Outlook/Exchange do well.

Still this seems to be confined inside organization. Whatever the 
Exchange/Outlook format is I don't receive many request of appointment 
this way. I may infer it is not used outside companies but I don't 
receive in general many appointment requests.

Add to this a shared address book, sieve filters...

I see space for integration. And KDE PIM looked nice.

Yeah most of these things can be based on standards and nothing forbid 
you to use different pieces of software to deal with different tasks, 
provided they know each other. Still having a nice GUI that put order in 
all these data doesn't look bad.
GUI are nice not because you can point and click, but because you can 
organize space better and doing so increase and organize bandwidth to 
the brain.

>> I don't think that's a fault of "integration" rather of too much grandeur.

> I think we're just describing different parts of the same elephant.
> Maybe the delusions of grandeur are an emergent effect of the same
> design that aims at integration.  Not sure.  I just note the
> characteristic outcomes.

I just think it is the problem space and the community around it.

ERP, accounting programs have high level of integration between their 
modules and yeah proprietary software tend to exploit this integration 
to lock you in... but that's another story.

>> But you can't relate KDE failures to the failure of following the
>> *nix philosophy.

> People often mean different things when they use the latter catch
> phrase, leading to long wastes of time while they talk past each other.
> That is one reason why I avoid that term in this context.

Yeah sure. Still good design is not made of dogmas. You've to juggle 
between efficiency, flexibility and simplicity.
The problem with DE seems to be people are still making design decisions 
based on what they like rather then on what works.

> [VM usage is a killer feature, though.]

>> Not in my use case.
>
> You would know.

ah yeah. It is a very good use case indeed. I was talking about memory 
usage for average desktop users that in my imagination is not someone 
concerned with security and not a sysadmin.

In my use case anyway I'm happy with containers.

> Start thinking creatively about VMs, and you might be startled to find
> that there are indeed uses in your use case.

> Or maybe not.  You would know.

Yeah I agree. But not my line of business, at least not anymore.

>> I rarely see people using their phone on a desk.

> But many people seldom use their desks, as they are often away from it
> and using their smartphones or tablets instead.

Yeah to post no more than a 30 words text to comment on a facebook post.
Sorry I need a desk for my keyboard.

> Workstations and laptops aren't dying; but they're no longer the centre
> of the world, either.

Then, why would you like to take manufacturing back to US if all people 
want to do is "typing" on a mobile phone?

>> Waiting Ryzen. I hope at least for some more competition.

> You know, you're the second extremely well informed person to say
> something like that.  (/me also waves to Dana.)

Not really. I just know they exist. It has been claimed they have 
interesting performances but on a very limited tests and people are 
expecting they would cost less then equivalent Intel.
Naples (server version with 32C/64T) could be more interesting.

With the exception of the bus and power management I haven't read 
anything about Ryzen that is somehow really innovative compared to the 
things AMD did in the past.
So my guess is that whatever AMD has done, Intel won't take long to 
catch up and the battle will move again on the manufacturing process 
where AMD can't compete.

In the manufacturing process it seems there is not too much space left 
to improve unless we will see a revolution... but I don't know if AMD 
has enough resource to survive enough time to be able to come up with 
something revolutionary in the logic to make enough money to spur some 
competition in a more s

Still hoping. I'll have to buy a new desktop shortly.

-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it http://www.borgonovo.net