Very Computer

John Wiltshire posted the following to comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

[Linux/PowerPC vs. MacOS...]

Quote:>I doubt the speed issue.  Sure, in core speed on SPEC benchmarks
>maybe, but the UI and Multimedia capabilities will not be anywhere
>near as good as MacOS and Quicktime can provide.  Apple has UI down
>pretty well and Unix people are still having problems with it even
>existing.

Now you're talking out of your ass, John.  I've run 'em both, on
the same hardware, and there is no doubt that Linux/PowerPC is
faster all around than MacOS.  And that's without an accelerated
X server, and with accelerated drivers in MacOS (with a pretty
decent card too).  The slightly perceptible screen redraws in
Linux (sans accelerated server) pale in comparison to the overall
slowness of MacOS, particularly under load.

--
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform.
             -- Mark Twain

Incorrect, John.  I can log up to 12 users in at the same console.
Alt+F2-11 will give me a fresh console window with a login prompt.  This is
incredibly useful when you need to change config files and you happen to be
at Joe Enduser's client machine, or when you're working at the console, not
working as root (for obvious reasons), and need to get back in as root
without using the su command at your user prompt.  The advantage with using
Alt+F* at the root console is that the sysadmin doesn't -have- to work as
root.  He/she/it can work as a normal user, with regular user rights and
privileges, and then only login as root when needed-  most importantly, not
having to either leave the console they're at, and NOT having to reboot or
restart the OS.

Quote:

>Get the picture?  NT isn't multiuser because you need software to let
>remote users log with an interactive session but of course Unix is
>when you still need software to let remote users log in with an
>interactive session?

No, John, you don't.  See above.  If Joe Enduser has an X session running, I
can even use Ctl+Alt+F* to give myself a console screen-  WITHOUT killing
his X session to do it.

Quote:

>Let's look for a definition of multiuser then?  Sounds to me like the
>ability for the machine to support multiple users.  Fine.  My NT box
>currently has at least five different user accounts active at the
>moment (System, Administrator and three different jw accounts).  Each
>have their own access permissions and have their own set of mutually
>exclusive processes.  Sound multiuser yet?

>*If* I want to allow multiple interactive users on my machine (which
>frankly isn't particularly useful to me) then I could go and get
>Winframe, NTRigue, WinDD, or in about a month, Hydra and Picasso.  The
>fact is that the software *is* available and NT supports it.

And if you go the NT route, you have to lighten your wallet (yet again) just
to add functionality Unix (in its various flavors) already has.

Quote:>Anyone
>who says differently is either a liar or terminally misguided.

>On the Mac maybe.  Not in the rest of the world.  I seem to recall
>that NT is multi-user, VMS is multi-user, OS/2 is multi-user, S/390 is
>multi-user...  Should I go on?

I think it depends on your definition of "multi-user".  I haven't played
with VMS in about 8 years, so I can't really speak for VMS.  S390 and OS/2
I've never played with at all.  I do know NT, however, and I think the only
way to define NT (out of the box) as multi-user is to say it's "multi-user,
but only one login per client machine at one time".

Quote:

>My point is that Unix offers almost nothing to the MacOS user and
>switching your Mac to Unix is probably not a good idea.  A much better
>option if you can't do without Unix is get a PC (an old 486 is good)
>to sit in the corner and run Linux.  You'll thank yourself for it in
>the end.

I'll agree with you there (Knew eventually I would! <g>).  I wouldn't advise
anyone to strip OS 8.1 off of their shiny new G3 to run LinuxPPC on it-  the
G3's are too expensive to use just to learn Unix when one can build a
cheapie Intel-based system to do the same thing.  The other option for G3
folks is to use VPC or RealPC and load Linux on top of it- especially if
we're talking about a system just to learn the ins and outs of Unix, where
performance isn't really an issue.

Many reports say the G3's perfomance is severly crippled by the MacOS
kernel, and I agree.  It's the reason why I won't purchase a new G3 (or it
may be G4, by that time) until OSX goes final.  It's not a completely fair
analogy, but it's why Linux runs rings around Win95 on the same machine, and
is also dramatically more stable.  Give me a machine made by Apple that can
use the 750 to its full potential, and I'll be the first in line to buy it-
but presently, the cheapie 586 PC is my "stable multi-user" box-  running
Linux.

Ken Schuller
Network Systems Specialist
NovaNET Learning, Inc.
========================
"In computing because it beats working for a living."

I speak for me.

Remove the obvious spam foil to reply via e-mail.
==========================================

Quote:>You honestly mean to tell me that UI is going to be faster on a system
>which runs through a plethora of layers (ie X Server -> X Client ->
>driver -> display) than something like MacOS where QT can just write
>straight to the display with blatant disregard for permissions and
>protection?

Well, it's definitely the case with BeOS, it's MUCH faster than the MacOS
at screen redraws, so it wouldn't suprise me that Linux was also.

Hi John
  Glad your back, havn't seen any posts from you in a while --
it's good to have an intelligent NT advocate to argue with

Quote:> Sure, and I can run su, topdesk or any of a few other tools and not
> have to kill anyone's login to do that either.  Can *you* get multiple
> GUI sessions loaded on the local display under different user
> contexts?  Thought not.

Actually I'm not sure what you mean by this -- I can have multiple users
running on the same local display at the same time. In fact this is generally
how I work -- I run netscape as a user who has limited priveleges so I
don't have to worry about browser security issues. I'm still logged in using
my main account though. Alternatively I can use Xnest and have as many
different sessions running on the same screen and the same virtual console
as I want. Or I can use different virtual consoles and hot key between
them.

Regards
Emil

Yes, but that is an issue of 2 things. One is the form of multitasking. Mac
OS cooperative and Linux preemptive. Another is the fact that most ToolBox
calls invoke the 68k emulator. Individual API function may be in PPC code,
but the calling method for most of the ToolBox inherently makes use of the
emulator (basically only for a trap-table lookup I think). Further,
significant and often used parts are still 68k code. In particular, the
Interrupt Manager and most of the File Manager (as well as various other
managers like the Dialog Manger, Window Manager and such). The fact that
the Interrupt Manager is not native forces other things, most notably the
File Manager, to be non-native.

All this significantly affects the user experience. A lot of these are
supposed to go native with Mac OS 8.5. Certainly not everything will, but
at least a few having to do with the UI will.

QuickDraw (particularly accelerated) and QuickTime are just going to be a
hell of a lot faster than anything for Linux on Mac hardware right now.
It's the other portions of the Mac OS that get in the way. It's these other
things that are nearly always present as far as the user experience that
mask the speed of QuickDraw/QuickTime.

Even had you an accelerated X server for your machine (or even have them
both unaccelerated), QuickDraw would still be faster for graphics. The rest
of the UI won't be until more of these other things go native. Then the UI
will be much more snappy and responsive on the Mac OS.

Ryan Tokarek

<http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~tokarek>

in comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

Quote:>John Wiltshire posted the following to comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

>[Linux/PowerPC vs. MacOS...]

>>I doubt the speed issue.  Sure, in core speed on SPEC benchmarks
>>maybe, but the UI and Multimedia capabilities will not be anywhere
>>near as good as MacOS and Quicktime can provide.  Apple has UI down
>>pretty well and Unix people are still having problems with it even
>>existing.

>Now you're talking out of your ass, John.  I've run 'em both, on
>the same hardware, and there is no doubt that Linux/PowerPC is
>faster all around than MacOS.  And that's without an accelerated
>X server, and with accelerated drivers in MacOS (with a pretty
>decent card too).  The slightly perceptible screen redraws in
>Linux (sans accelerated server) pale in comparison to the overall
>slowness of MacOS, particularly under load.

You honestly mean to tell me that UI is going to be faster on a system
which runs through a plethora of layers (ie X Server -> X Client ->
driver -> display) than something like MacOS where QT can just write
straight to the display with blatant disregard for permissions and
protection?

In fact, you just said that the UI was slower - though the disk and
network I/O performance make up for that.  How does Linux/PPC go with
QT3 stuff anyhow?  Is there any QT3 support in Linux yet at all?

John Wiltshire

------------------------------------------------------
John Wiltshire              |  (w) +61 7 38342783

------------------------------------------------------
Fear: when you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and you know what it means.

On Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:47:19 -0500, "Ken Schuller"

What exactly is wrong with 'su'?  I use it all the time in NT to do
admin type of stuff.  Either that or I'll have different desktops
logged in as different users which works just fine as well.

How did you figure that you couldn't do this in NT?

Quote:>>Get the picture?  NT isn't multiuser because you need software to let
>>remote users log with an interactive session but of course Unix is
>>when you still need software to let remote users log in with an
>>interactive session?

>No, John, you don't.  See above.  If Joe Enduser has an X session running, I
>can even use Ctl+Alt+F* to give myself a console screen-  WITHOUT killing
>his X session to do it.

Sure, and I can run su, topdesk or any of a few other tools and not
have to kill anyone's login to do that either.  Can *you* get multiple
GUI sessions loaded on the local display under different user
contexts?  Thought not.

Quote:>>Let's look for a definition of multiuser then?  Sounds to me like the
>>ability for the machine to support multiple users.  Fine.  My NT box
>>currently has at least five different user accounts active at the
>>moment (System, Administrator and three different jw accounts).  Each
>>have their own access permissions and have their own set of mutually
>>exclusive processes.  Sound multiuser yet?

>>*If* I want to allow multiple interactive users on my machine (which
>>frankly isn't particularly useful to me) then I could go and get
>>Winframe, NTRigue, WinDD, or in about a month, Hydra and Picasso.  The
>>fact is that the software *is* available and NT supports it.

>And if you go the NT route, you have to lighten your wallet (yet again) just
>to add functionality Unix (in its various flavors) already has.

Or, you can take the opposing view that if you go the Unix route you
don't have the option to not buy things that you don't need.  Why pay
for X11r6.4 if you don't need it?

Tell me again why Solaris x86 is more expensive than NT?  Could it be
just all those extras which you don't get a choice of not buying?

Quote:>>On the Mac maybe.  Not in the rest of the world.  I seem to recall
>>that NT is multi-user, VMS is multi-user, OS/2 is multi-user, S/390 is
>>multi-user...  Should I go on?

>I think it depends on your definition of "multi-user".  I haven't played
>with VMS in about 8 years, so I can't really speak for VMS.  S390 and OS/2
>I've never played with at all.  I do know NT, however, and I think the only
>way to define NT (out of the box) as multi-user is to say it's "multi-user,
>but only one login per client machine at one time".

Sounds like you don't know NT well enough.

Quote:>>My point is that Unix offers almost nothing to the MacOS user and
>>switching your Mac to Unix is probably not a good idea.  A much better
>>option if you can't do without Unix is get a PC (an old 486 is good)
>>to sit in the corner and run Linux.  You'll thank yourself for it in
>>the end.

>I'll agree with you there (Knew eventually I would! <g>).  I wouldn't advise
>anyone to strip OS 8.1 off of their shiny new G3 to run LinuxPPC on it-  the
>G3's are too expensive to use just to learn Unix when one can build a
>cheapie Intel-based system to do the same thing.  The other option for G3
>folks is to use VPC or RealPC and load Linux on top of it- especially if
>we're talking about a system just to learn the ins and outs of Unix, where
>performance isn't really an issue.

>Many reports say the G3's perfomance is severly crippled by the MacOS
>kernel, and I agree.  It's the reason why I won't purchase a new G3 (or it
>may be G4, by that time) until OSX goes final.  It's not a completely fair
>analogy, but it's why Linux runs rings around Win95 on the same machine, and
>is also dramatically more stable.  Give me a machine made by Apple that can
>use the 750 to its full potential, and I'll be the first in line to buy it-
>but presently, the cheapie 586 PC is my "stable multi-user" box-  running
>Linux.

Sounds a good option to me.  I'd disagree that Linux runs rings around
95 as a gross generalisation but probably not the place to be doing
that.

John Wiltshire

------------------------------------------------------
John Wiltshire              |  (w) +61 7 38342783

------------------------------------------------------
Fear: when you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and you know what it means.

On Sat, 13 Jun 1998 22:33:46 -0400, Emil Briggs

Hmm...

Seems I was wrong.

NT and Linux can both have multiple GUI sessions as different users on
a local disply.

Shows I learn something new every day.

John Wiltshire

------------------------------------------------------
John Wiltshire              |  (w) +61 7 38342783

------------------------------------------------------
Fear: when you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and you know what it means.

Pulsar posted the following to comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

Quote:>QuickDraw (particularly accelerated) and QuickTime are just going to be a
>hell of a lot faster than anything for Linux on Mac hardware right now.
>It's the other portions of the Mac OS that get in the way. It's these other
>things that are nearly always present as far as the user experience that
>mask the speed of QuickDraw/QuickTime.
>Even had you an accelerated X server for your machine (or even have them
>both unaccelerated), QuickDraw would still be faster for graphics. The rest
>of the UI won't be until more of these other things go native. Then the UI
>will be much more snappy and responsive on the Mac OS.

Why do you say that?  X feels a lot faster than MacOS with extensions off.
Way faster, despite the fact that our X server needs to have video
mapped through BAT registers and also needs to blit doubles instead
of ints just to take advantage of the FB bandwidth that it has on
PCI machines.  As to Quicktime, what are you comparing it to?  XAnim?
That's cross-platform code, not well optimized for PPC.  MpegTV?  Ditto.
A well-optimized movie player using a mmap'd framebuffer should do just
as well as Quicktime.  There's nothing magical about the MacOS approach
to graphics.

--
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform.
             -- Mark Twain

John Wiltshire posted the following to comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

Quote:>>Now you're talking out of your ass, John.  I've run 'em both, on
>>the same hardware, and there is no doubt that Linux/PowerPC is
>>faster all around than MacOS.  And that's without an accelerated
>>X server, and with accelerated drivers in MacOS (with a pretty
>>decent card too).  The slightly perceptible screen redraws in
>>Linux (sans accelerated server) pale in comparison to the overall
>>slowness of MacOS, particularly under load.
>You honestly mean to tell me that UI is going to be faster on a system
>which runs through a plethora of layers (ie X Server -> X Client ->
>driver -> display) than something like MacOS where QT can just write
>straight to the display with blatant disregard for permissions and
>protection?
>In fact, you just said that the UI was slower - though the disk and
>network I/O performance make up for that.  How does Linux/PPC go with
>QT3 stuff anyhow?  Is there any QT3 support in Linux yet at all?

X mmaps the framebuffer, so it would get about the same bandwidth
as Quickdraw, with the X shared memory stuff.  The UI is a bit slower
only because we don't have support for on-card accelerated stuff yet -
this is visually perceptible at times, but only slightly so (unless you
run 32-bit RGB).  (Did you think that everything that's blitted to the
display is passed through a bunch of layers? C'mon, John. Incidentally,
our X server doesn't use BAT registers yet, but rather seg registers,
so it may be a bit slower than MacOS, which uses a BAT register to map
the framebuffer.  I would be pleasantly surprised if there's much of a
difference, though, since we'll have BAT register-mapped FB soon). The
overhead of dumping something into shared memory is trivial compared
to the overhead of blitting across the PCI bus, as you probably know.

Supposedly there's QT3 support - Mark Podlipec sent me an email a while
back (due to a post of mine in this very newsgroup) mentioning this.
I haven't tried it, though (this would be XAnim I'm talking about).

Also, you _can_ write directly to the display in Linux.  If you don't
believe me, I can send you some source that will work just fine in
Linux/PowerPC.

John, you seem to think that perceived speed is all about blit
bandwidth.  This isn't really the case.  For example, I can start
a whole bunch of programs one after another in Linux; in MacOS, I
have to wait for each one to start in order to initiate the next.
This is a major issue wrt perceived speed.  Also, compare tar/gzip
to Stuffit some time - huge difference.  Additionally, I don't
mind waiting if I can do something else in the interim - MacOS
makes this painful.

--
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform.
             -- Mark Twain

Wayne Fellows posted the following to comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

Quote:>>You honestly mean to tell me that UI is going to be faster on a system
>>which runs through a plethora of layers (ie X Server -> X Client ->
>>driver -> display) than something like MacOS where QT can just write
>>straight to the display with blatant disregard for permissions and
>>protection?
>Well, it's definitely the case with BeOS, it's MUCH faster than the MacOS
>at screen redraws, so it wouldn't suprise me that Linux was also.

BeOS has a fast feel to it, but it drags overall compared to Linux on the
same hardware.  I haven't tried BeOS with my Twin Turbo - and won't, since
it wants a ton of disk space that I'm not willing to give it - but it was
pretty snappy with the ATI internal video on my PowerBase - for screen
redraws.  The overall performance was poor (this is subjective, of course)
compared to Linux, as is MacOS (which has the fastest redraws, but is
the slowest system for me to use. Note that since I didn't try Be on the
TT, I don't know whether it would beat MacOS in redraws with that card.
I'd doubt it - I'm not sure that Be even supports the IXMicro line).

Linux probably has the slowest GUI redraws, but is the fastest system
for getting stuff done. A fraction of a second lag in redrawing is trivial
compared to the poor performance of Be under load or the awful excuse for
multitasking that MacOS offers.

--
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform.
             -- Mark Twain

Good point.  I should know this (I'm writing shared memory stuff at the
moment).

Quote:>The UI is a bit slower
>only because we don't have support for on-card accelerated stuff yet -
>this is visually perceptible at times, but only slightly so (unless you
>run 32-bit RGB).

Doesn't everyone?  ;-)

Quote:>(Did you think that everything that's blitted to the
>display is passed through a bunch of layers? C'mon, John.

Point taken.

Quote:>Incidentally,
>our X server doesn't use BAT registers yet, but rather seg registers,
>so it may be a bit slower than MacOS, which uses a BAT register to map
>the framebuffer.  I would be pleasantly surprised if there's much of a
>difference, though, since we'll have BAT register-mapped FB soon). The
>overhead of dumping something into shared memory is trivial compared
>to the overhead of blitting across the PCI bus, as you probably know.

Yeah - I do.  Didn't have brain screwed on at the time.

I *do* know that window management on X tends to be a little sluggish
compared to OSes which implement kernel level stuff (in cahoots with the
video card driver), but the actual blitting speed is fairly comparable.

While the X Server itself can be blindingly fast, don't you end up with a
bottleneck at the actual protocol level between the X Server and X Client?
Systems like MacOS don't really distinguish and use simple function calls
and toolbox traps to implement this and don't have to mess around with pipes
and so on.

Quote:>Supposedly there's QT3 support - Mark Podlipec sent me an email a while
>back (due to a post of mine in this very newsgroup) mentioning this.
>I haven't tried it, though (this would be XAnim I'm talking about).

I don't mean just the file format - I mean the full QT3 environment.

Quote:>Also, you _can_ write directly to the display in Linux.  If you don't
>believe me, I can send you some source that will work just fine in
>Linux/PowerPC.

Using mmap, I assume.  Yeah - I know.  Not thinking.  I assume this code
won't work too well for remote displays though?

Quote:>John, you seem to think that perceived speed is all about blit
>bandwidth.  This isn't really the case.  For example, I can start
>a whole bunch of programs one after another in Linux; in MacOS, I
>have to wait for each one to start in order to initiate the next.
>This is a major issue wrt perceived speed.  Also, compare tar/gzip
>to Stuffit some time - huge difference.  Additionally, I don't
>mind waiting if I can do something else in the interim - MacOS
>makes this painful.

I know that MacOS is snail-like in its file and network I/O, not to mention
that Stuffit is a dog compared to even pkzip!  One of the reasons I
currently dislike MacOS is that you have to wait for one busy program to do
other stuff (I frequently do things on my NT box while a program is loading,
compiling or just busy in general).  MacOS does have a definite snappiness
to it though - not sure why but it does.

John Wiltshire

John Wiltshire posted the following to comp.sys.mac.advocacy:

Quote:>While the X Server itself can be blindingly fast, don't you end up with a
>bottleneck at the actual protocol level between the X Server and X Client?
>Systems like MacOS don't really distinguish and use simple function calls
>and toolbox traps to implement this and don't have to mess around with pipes
>and so on.

For things like realtime video, Linux/PowerPC and X can be a bit sluggish;
an mmap'd display is far faster (but the player has to be suid root, of
course, to map it).  One thing that is under active development is a
framebuffer device - this is similar to GGI.  (Also, our X server is far
from optimal; a bit of tweaking could improve blit performance by as
much as 60-70%, I think, without any hardware acceleration).

Quote:>Using mmap, I assume.  Yeah - I know.  Not thinking.  I assume this code
>won't work too well for remote displays though?

No, I mmap /dev/mem; the framebuffer device will probably be pretty similar
in that regard.

Quote:>I know that MacOS is snail-like in its file and network I/O, not to mention
>that Stuffit is a dog compared to even pkzip!  One of the reasons I
>currently dislike MacOS is that you have to wait for one busy program to do
>other stuff (I frequently do things on my NT box while a program is loading,
>compiling or just busy in general).  MacOS does have a definite snappiness
>to it though - not sure why but it does.

Depends on the machine.  My dad's 75 MHz 603-based Performa feels horribly
sluggish with 8.0; in some ways 7.1 on a 25 MHz 68030 feels just as fast!
MacOS 7.6 feels quite snappy on my PowerBase 180 with a Twin Turbo card,
though, as far as redraws, but I find the waiting to be unbearable these
days, now that I've been using Linux as my fulltime platform for over a
year.

--
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform.
             -- Mark Twain

Maybe you should actually do a little research
before you make incorrect statements in the form
of sarcastic questions followed immediately by a
false answer.

Under linux, not only can I run multiple X displays
on the same local box as different users, I can also
run multiple X displays on the same *screen* as
different users.