Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 17661
Berkeley CSUA MOTD
 
WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ
http://csua.com/feed/
2025/07/10 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/10    

2000/3/1-2 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:17661 Activity:very high
2/29    http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26502 is a really cool
        mozilla bug which reveals some key differences between windows and
        linux.
           \_ Linux is like a fragile lotus blossom, moments before the
              opening of a new Starbucks.
                \_ Whoa... deep.  We need Shatner on this one.
        \_ USE WINDOWS MAN.  LINUX SUX.  WINDOWS REWLZ.  ANYONE WHO'S
           ANYONE USES WINDOWS.  LINUX USERS ARE FREAKS MAN.
        \_ And those differences are what?  Linux developers get to make their
           own mistakes while Windows developers have to trust MS?
                \_ The obvious: Windows is faster even after 14 builds and the
                   open source guys flat out say so and don't have a fix for
                   it.  At the end of the day, winmozilla outperforms linux-
                   mozilla with fewer bugs no matter what your religion says.
        \_ uh... I dont think this says anything about Linux v. Windows...
           whats it says is "X windows sucks and is hopelessly slow" which
           we all knew already anyway.
                \_ Linix = X.  Windows = MS.  MS video >>>> Linux video.
                \_ Linux = X.  Windows = MS.  MS video >>>> Linux video.
                   \_ WRONG. Linux = a particular implementation of X.
                      Which may or may not be equivalent to
                      "X always has sucky performance".
                        \_ Uh, yer on crack.  There are very few Linux
                           specific modifications to X.
                           \_ You mean, TO THE XOPEN REFERENCE VERSION OF X.
                              There are other, commercial versions.
                              \_ See below for this point.
                        \_ X always has sucky performance.  To do better you
                           need to buy a custom version and then it's all nice
                           and shrink wrapped.  Nice philosophy but it doesn't
                           stand up in the real world.  As I said,
                           Linux Video = Shit.  Windows Video = Awesome.
                           \_ XF86 4.0 will, to a very large extent, change
                              this, and should provide a more efficient
                              rendering pipeline than even windows (while
                              on a local workstation) while not sacrificing
                              remote display abilities that make X cool.
                              --dbushong
                                \_ That's nice.  When the vapor takes form,
                                   let us know.  Until then, it remains as I
                                   said.  Linux Video = Sucks.  Windows Video
                                   = Awesome.  You can't compare what vapor
                                   *might* be to what Windows is already doing
                                   today and has been doing for many *years*.
                                   \_ People are running this vapor, bub.
                                   \_ Why not?  Only MS is allowed to compare
                                      its favor favorably to what other people
                                      have already been doing for years before
                                      *they* thought of (ahem, "invented") it?
                                        \_ You want Linux to be like MS?  All
                                           hype and promises and vapor?  You
                                           can't have your cake and eat it,
                                           too.  And in this case, Xfree 4.0
                                           isn't even here yet, so no, you're
                                           worse than MS.
                \_ if you actually READ THE BUG,and have clue, you may come
                  to the conclusion that this is yet another case of
                  linux hax0rs doing sloppy programming, rather than an
                  intrinsic speed problem in X.
                  \_ I read the bug.  Typical of the open source fanatic, you
                     place blame on sloppy hax0rs, then say there's nothing
                     wrong and (I'm guessing) have been critical of Ms in the
                     past for the same sloppy coding.  Yet when MS does it, you
                     say it's bad.  When "linux hax0rs" are sloppy, everything
                     is good and "just you wait until Xfree86 4.0 is out!!!".
                     The end user doesn't give a damn why it's slow.  Linux
                     Video <<< Windows Video.
                     \_ You're an idiot. I was decrying open source fanatics,
                        not emulating them.
                        \_ I read the bug.  The bug writers were claiming
                           there's nothing they can do but futher kludge it.
        \_ You are all fools! What this *really* shows is that graphical
           browsers all suck. LYNX! LYNX! LYNX is the STANDARD! Web browser.
           \_ w3m is the standard.  lynx sucks.
2025/07/10 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/10    

You may also be interested in these entries...
2012/2/5-3/26 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:54300 Activity:nil
2/5     How is Firefox on version 10, while I still have 3.6 installed.
        I wait for the X.1 versions and they never come out.
        \_ I'm also on 3.6.26.  It claims that versions 4 - 10 are all faster
           than 3.6.x, but do they use more memory?  Thx.
           \_ Newer Firefox versions use less memory too:
              http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/mozillas_memshrink_program_brings_big_memory_savings_firefox_7
	...
2010/9/13-30 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:53956 Activity:nil
9/13    Blah blah android blah, ok other than the bootjack stomp of the
        phone marketing crap of this, does anyone know where to find the old
        Android TCL scripting framework that was used for automating
        and controlling desktop apps (like mozilla for example). Thx.
	...
2010/1/11-25 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:53625 Activity:nil
12/9    Does anyone know when Firefox will support Win7?  I can't find a
        roadmap page on http://mozilla.org.  Thx.
	...
2009/10/1-21 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:53417 Activity:moderate
10/1    I am thinking of installing firefox on soda under my home directory.
        Will this make me a hozer?
        \_ Possibly. I wonder if we should have another VM for that...btw,
           I remember someone saying they're glad we're not on FreeBSD
           anymore, but last I checked, a bunch of our stuff is on FreeBSD,
           but our login server is not.
	...
2009/7/16-24 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:53146 Activity:nil
7/15    Any comment on Firefox 3.5?  Better or worse than 3.0?  Thx.
        \_ currently has an unpatched remote code execution vulnerability,
           don't upgrade yet.  -tom
           \_ Ooh, glad that I asked.  Thanks!
              \_ 3.5.1 just released fixes it, supposedly.  Might be worth
                 waiting a few days to see how it shakes out.  -tom
	...
2009/7/4-16 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:53111 Activity:low
7/4     Is there a web browser available on soda?  My employer has a firewall
        blocking some web sites.
        \_ How about setting up a web proxy on Soda?
          \_ Use links :)
                \_ lynx?
        \_ Best text only web browser is elinks, it even supports some
	...
2009/6/1-3 [Computer/HW/CPU] UID:53068 Activity:high
5/31    History of winners and losers by *popularity*:
        VHS > Beta Max
        USB2 > Firewire
        x86 > PowerPC > Everything Else > DEC Alpha > Itanium
        BlueRay > HDDvd
        \_ It's too early to tell RE: "Blue"Ray. They may both turn out to be
	...
2008/12/18-2009/1/7 [Computer/SW/Mail] UID:52279 Activity:nil
12/18   Campus USENET service will be terminated on 12/31.
        http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/micronet/2008/1608.html
        \_ I emailed RobR to tell him. -ausman
        \_ The CSUA is considering asking campus to allow us to run NNTP for
           ucb.class.*, as bSpace sucks major major ass. Thoughts? --t
           \_ That's noble, but maybe the effort would be better spent
	...
2008/11/14-26 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:51987 Activity:nil
11/14   When does support for Firefox 2.0.0.x end?  http://www.mozilla.com used to
        mention this, and I forgot what it said.
	...
2008/9/1-3 [Computer/Companies/Google] UID:51015 Activity:moderate
9/1     THE GOOG had Scott McCloud do a comic explaining why THE GOOG Chrome
        (their open-source webbrowser) is cool.  I don't really think it worked
        http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome
        \_ Oh boy, it comes with porn mode!
        \_ Oh boy, it comes with a porn hider feature!
           http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/22
	...
2008/8/18-21 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:50893 Activity:nil
8/18    so i have a bunch of tabs open in one firefox window.  i have a bunch
        of tabs open in another firefox window.  how do i combine them all
        into one window ?
        \_ Why would anyone use tabs? I don't use tabs, and I don't
           understand why anyone else would either.     -dim #1 fan
        \_ Install the Duplicate Tab plugin, and hit Ctrl-Shift-M.
	...
2006/4/5-6 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:42688 Activity:nil
4/5     There's no discussion on Apple being able to run MS Windows??
        \_ I'm honestly not sure if it's a good idea or not.  Now when wonky
           incompatibilities come up, (Such as MS powerpoint conflicts between
           Mac and XP) Mac users may be expected to fix it themselves.  Which
           leads to greater hassle, which leads to more windows use, etc.
           \_ Mac's being capable of running windows is one thing, M$
	...
2006/1/5-7 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41241 Activity:nil
1/5     Microsoft to release WMF patch today at 2pm Pacific Time
        http://myitforum.com/blog/rtrent/archive/2006/01/05/18131.aspx
        fyi, Ilfak recently said you can uninstall his patch before or
        after you install the MS patch.
        \_ Looks like it's out now.
        \_ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/default.aspx
	...
2004/6/16-17 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:30852 Activity:high
6/16    Well, I tried to install Fedora Linux 2 on my second hard drive so
        I could dual boot.  Linux works (I'm using it now) but XP no
        longer boots.  Hmmm... The file system and such is all still
        there, so it must just be that Linux messed up the boot sector
        trying to allow for dual boot.  I have a winXP CD and I can run
        rescue console and get access.  Does anyone know how to get it
	...
2003/11/20-21 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:11161 Activity:kinda low
11/20   What kind of Windows and Office were sold on the market between
        2/18/1995 and 12/15/2001? I'm asking because I'm filling out the
        M$ claim form and I don't want to put anything that is wrong, like
        adding WinXP or OfficeXP when it wasn't out in 12/15/01. Thanks.
        \_ I bought Windows 3.1 (retail ~$100), Word/Excel 6 (retail ~$120) both
           in early 1995.
	...
2003/11/7 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:10977 Activity:moderate
11/7    I have an XP installation that reboots itself before it finishes
        booting up, and I'd like to do a fresh install but it was cd-key'd
        by my old school and I don't know the key.  Is there a way to get
        the CD-key from the repair console or from a rescue disk?
        \_ that is why I hate XP.  This may sounds unproductive, but I would
           just reinstall Windows 2000 instead.  Same kernel, same File System
	...
2003/9/7 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/Unix/WindowManager] UID:10108 Activity:nil
9/6     I just installed XP (went fine) but the desktop doesn't have a
        My Computer icon. How can I get one on there? I can drag a
        shortcut of it, from the Start Menu, but how can I get an
        "original" one? Thanks.
        \_ there are a few quick things you can do to 2000-ify XP. One is
           to make the start button 2000ish. Right click, properties,
	...
2003/6/3-4 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:28621 Activity:moderate
6/3     If I get a Windows XP and Office XP installation CD from
        someone else, will I be able to install it on my computer?  Will
        it absolutely not work due to licensing issues, or will it
        work in some cases (maybe depending on the type of license)?
        Or is the only way to get Windows XP to buy it?
        \_ All that matters is the serial number. There's a number of them
	...
2003/4/27-28 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:28239 Activity:very high
4/27    What's the difference between Windows ME and XP?  Is XP really
        more stable?
        \_ ME is Win 95/98. XP is NT.
        \_ Much. Yes.
        \_ Just pirate a Windows 2000 and use it.  Win2k has the same kernel
           as WinXP, same file system as XP, none of that product
	...
2003/2/6-7 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:27326 Activity:kinda low
2/6     Can somebody tell me about installing/upgrading to WinXP?
        I deal with MS as little as possible but it's for a friend who
        refuses any alternative.  There are 2 computers, both w/ Win98.
        I want to do a clean install on both-- will XP let me use
        any old Win98 product key to install, and will it let me reformat
        beforehand?  I'm not sure he has his old keys.  Thanks
	...
2001/10/25 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:22824 Activity:high
10/25   NT was supposed to be much more stable than Win3.x.  Then Win2k was
        supposed to be much more stable than NT.  And now XP is supposed to
        be much more stable than 2k.  Sigh.
        \_ Thing is, Win2k really is more stable than NT. Sure, it locks up
           occassionally, but not the seemingly hourly BSODs in NT
        \_ Also, XP supposedly "does away with the decades-old DOS fundamentals
	...
2001/10/16-17 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:22758 Activity:high
10/16   Is there a way to make movie's/animations available on the web, yet
        make them un-copiable?  I think real networks has a technology that
        does it, but they charge, iirc. Any free one's?
        \_ There's a ripper program available so, no, Real hasn't done it
           either.  So what you really want is the Holy Grail of copyright
           protection: viewable content but no copying.  Let us know when
	...
2001/10/10 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:22675 Activity:moderate
10/9    what's the big deal about athlonXP?  why are they calling it XP?
        \_ marketing bs with M$
           \_ they deny this of course.
              i think it should have been called
              "Super Athlon XP Professional Turbo Champion Edition"
        \_ And what about "Athlon 4". Did I miss Athlon 2 and Athlon 3? ;p
	...
Cache (7093 bytes)
bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26502
After doing a bit of quantifying and digging the problem is the way that we are setting the clip regions/rects on the rendering context as well as the creation overhead of nsIRenderingContext's that we create everytime we do anything. The clip region/rect setting causes the X server to do some bad things with its GC cache causing it to do an XFlush() every time we change and draw. So I am working to resolve these problems and make all of this better. I have been able to reduce the X server traffic a great deal and have ideas on reducing it even further in gfx, but some of this will require some XP changes (which should also help other platforms as the quantifying on Windows I have done points to the renderingcontext as containing the highest percentages of rendering costs) ------- Additional Comment 53 #1 From 54 chris hofmann 2000-02-03 19:15 PDT ------- add perf keyword to get on waterson's radar ------- Additional Comment 55 #2 From 56 Roland Mainz 2000-02-04 05:10 PDT ------- Q: Which side (X client, X server) does the XFlush ? What about the idea like: static int xflush_inncrement = 0; Good: - Folds many XFlush()'es together, mainly into a single XFlush() at the end Bad: - Needs more investigations like: - Is this idea the best way to kill the "XFlush() called too often" problem ? What about using try {} finally {} to solve this problem ? But the SPEED of which that "copy" of the page was made with was amazing. Instantanous, judging from how the scrollbar-slider shrunk each time, and i'm on a P120. Thought I'd mention it in case it could actually bea clue to a fix. Not only does it take ten or twenty seconds to relocate on the page, if you scroll past a few pages all of the lines run together and you get a black smear. Dolan 2000-06-12 01:55 PDT ------- 33 votes, and severity major. Does this bug cover the XPFE perf problems, or just HTML rendering? HTML seems acceptable to me, but XPFE/dialogs just plain make mozilla miserable to use on linux. On my P2/266, switching sections in preferences, for example, takes 2-3 seconds to render the new dialog. Clicking in a text input box spawns a WEBSHELL, causes flickering, and then finally activates. Just using the thing, it appears to be somewhere around half as fast as Netscape 4 now, and at some general operations, it seems to be much worse. For instance, flipping between full-screen windows when some thread is active seems to take about ten times as long. And the general redraw strategy is just all wrong, making the whole thing SEEM slower. Fully agreed about the unusable XPFE performance, though. The interface needs to be about ten times as fast before it can cease to be an embarassment. Perhaps it would be more useful to start littering bugzilla with a hundreds of separate bug reports, for each UI element and user interaction operation that's embarrassingly slow? Without knowing the details, I guess, their spped is closely related. Additionally, we can use this bug to track the remaining work (which is not worth to file a bug about). Dolan's statement about taking a few seconds to render new windows and such. Opening up a link in a new window took around 10 seconds just to create the frame using M15, and is down to about 4 with M16. I also notice that things get really sluggish in other windows when one is refreshing. For example, I have an Excite page that I have on one side of my screen with stock quotes, etc. When that refresh happens, whatever I'm doing in other windows just halts until it's complete, and it takes about 10 seconds to do so. Multithreading Mozilla isa big effort, I imagine, and in my humble opinion, not one to be taken up on just yet when stability is paramount. IMO, all our XP stuff was useless, if we don't make it run better on non-Win platforms (I'm /guessing/, Mac isn't much better). I made xul window with 100 transparent gifs and run it trought xmon. There is still wery bad things in nsViewmanage2's "doublebuffering", that creates too many GC:s. Dunno, but maybe x-server tryes to do some optimization if there is stuff in queue. This XSync is just after all is done on offscreen buffer so its good to show it anyway. There really should be flag NS_COPYBITS_USE_SOURCE_CLIP_REGION_AND_XSYNC for this, but seems that its not called with that flag elsewhere (now). Dolan 2000-08-12 01:16 PDT ------- So with all these patches coming in, my only question is, how long before we can change the subject to 'Linux rendering performance is only N% faster then windows'? Let's let this bug serve its originally intended purpose, which (I assume) is to deal with the fact that Linux performance is currently sub-optimal for a final public release, and in ways beyond just fine-tuning. Once we get to fine tuning (at the XP level), let's mark this bug FIXED! The XP toolkit is unusably slow in general, layout is slow, rendering is slow, redraws are slow, etc. Shall we open a hundred bugs on every piece that's painful to use, or just the larger areas of sluggishness? Broad, generic statements like "the product crashes," or "the performance really sucks" are NOT terribly useful. Therefore, I say let's file hundreds of new bugs on specific problems, if that's what it takes. Moreover, let's use this broad bug as a meta-bug, for tracking purposes. Please try to focus on very specific common, user-oriented operations, especially those you do a lot. For instance, typing in textareas (which leaps to mind for some reason right now), or opening new browser/mail/editor windows (one bug for each), or scrolling mail thread panes line by line or a page at a time (separate problems), or opening the bookmarks menu, or loading pages, or app startup. I think you get the idea, and most of these have already been filed, so please check first. We'll only be able to fix the worst few we can get to in the next 3 weeks, but it is important that we have these areas reported separately so we can prioritize, track the work, verify the fixes, and check for regressions. BTW, program-level reports like such-and-such a routine is slow, are nice, but will typically be triaged as very low priority unless you show how this contributes to perceived slowness for common user operations. We can't afford to spend time optimizing things that are already fast enough. Oh, and please don't morph this bug into an open tracking bug, we need it to ensure QA on the checkins that it covered. And what's more, the results are VERY much visible to the average end-user. However, I still believe this bug started off much too broad and general. Also, not only does it open the door to things like the leap-frog sillyness we encountered here, but I would imagine it also makes QA's job tougher, since they now have to verify and regression-test all the specific patches this broad bug now covers. And just what the heck do they do if they find that ONE of these patches is bad? That means they now have to re-open the whole bug, even if the others are good. I *LOVE* seeing jokes in bugs (example: DEL: 205 bug 9940 :DEL ), and I really really hope to continue seeing them.