Microsoft's Longhorn

[MorganX]

3.4Ghz is more than most people need; even with Windows XP its just about enough to do word processing in (</sarcastic>) -- the only people it would appeal to are hardcore gamers (and I do a lot of gaming, at 1600x1200, quite adequately on a Athlon 2100+), and people doing video editing and that kind of thing.

That's true now, but I don't think it will necessarily be true 1-2yrs from now. It will be nough, but not "more" than most people need.

You'll have:

Instant messaging, regular updates in background, Firewall, AntiVirus, Email, Many will be streaming and serving Media Center to Xbox and Media Center Extenders. You'll have DRM for various subscription content, PVR, and then any apps or games you run.

edit: two other Longhorn bits are interesting:

• Microsoft is approaching HD vendors to begin manufacturing with embedded flash for Lonhorn to hook into to improve disk access and reduce notebook power use.
• Longhorn will be in 32 and 64-bit flavors which means if Power5 is the base for XBox CPUs it will probably use a 64-bit OS, maybe.

What MS is doing may not meet most Apple folks' innovation standards but it's definitely Geek Neet.

 

[thatwendigo]

You'll have:

Instant messaging, regular updates in background, Firewall, AntiVirus, Email, Many will be streaming and serving Media Center to Xbox and Media Center Extenders. You'll have DRM for various subscription content, PVR, and then any apps or games you run.

Funny, I do all of that now (including streaming media) on a 700mhz G4 and a 600mhz G3. Of course, I guess those anti-virus programs I don't need to use are going to hog the system terribly. That must be what the extra horsepower is for!

Microsoft is approaching HD vendors to begin manufacturing with embedded flash for Lonhorn to hook into to improve disk access and reduce notebook power use.

I'm curious... What's the point of this? With enough RAM, it'd be more than a little pointless to have flash memory, especially since flash is just RAM's read-headed stepchild. I can get a desktop now where the entire OS could reside in RAM, so what's the big deal?

Longhorn will be in 32 and 64-bit flavors which means if Power5 is the base for XBox CPUs it will probably use a 64-bit OS, maybe.

Don't forget IA-64 is coming, too, and that AMD already offers 64-bit processors. It's just good policy, at this point, to support the pointers for 64-bit addressing and computing.

 

[MorganX]

Funny, I do all of that now (including streaming media) on a 700mhz G4 and a 600mhz G3. Of course, I guess those anti-virus programs I don't need to use are going to hog the system terribly. That must be what the extra horsepower is for!

I'm curious... What's the point of this? With enough RAM, it'd be more than a little pointless to have flash memory, especially since flash is just RAM's read-headed stepchild. I can get a desktop now where the entire OS could reside in RAM, so what's the big deal?

Don't forget IA-64 is coming, too, and that AMD already offers 64-bit processors. It's just good policy, at this point, to support the pointers for 64-bit addressing and computing.

Having owned a 17" iMac with 1GB RAM and barely being able to acceptably edit modest videos, I'll take your comments about how much multitasking you are doing consistently and with acceptable performance with a grain of salt.

As for the flash, it's for improving disk access. Prefetch that now occurs in the OS can occur in hardware if it becomes a defacto standard.

What I find interesting about Lonhorn64 on Xbox is that may be the the platform to first unleash what appears to be awesome potential of that architecture. I don't think OS X and Linux are getting it done, I'm eager to see what kind of performance Windoze can get out of it.

 

[Toe]

Keep in mind that 600 GB of the HD system requirement is for cheesy clip art.

 

[nmk]

Having owned a 17" iMac with 1GB RAM and barely being able to acceptably edit modest videos, I'll take your comments about how much multitasking you are doing consistently and with acceptable performance with a grain of salt.

First of all, I have never had any problems editing "modest videos" or compiling and burning DVD's on a rev a 15" iMac. But then again, I guess what you consider acceptable is subjective. Also, keep in mind that that video rendering is not a multitasking related activity. It is a processor intensive activity that will usually leave very few resources for anything else. OS X, however, at least lets you use your system while running these processor intensive tasks. For example, I used to use my iMac for regular office work while encoding a DVD in the background.

The other examples of multitasking that you have mentioned are, for the most part, being handeled currently on very modest hardware running OS X. I use Instant messaging (with audio) while various applications (software update, Dragthing, Spamsieve) regularly check for updates. My Firewall is active and I also have Little Snitch monitoring network traffic. At the same time I also have Poisoned running with file downloads going on (gasp), my email client is always on while spamsieve is filtering the 100+ spam messages I get everyday. I don't use ITMS so dont have any DRM active but I emagine many people do. I did have Norton Antivirus installed for a while but no longer use it. I believe that OS X handles multitasking exceptionally well.

Being a Mac user, I would hardly consider these sort of multitasking abilities to be something to look forward to in Longhorn or future hardware. I can do it now, with two year old hardware. I can't see anything you've mentioned here requiring any serious hardware specs. Of course, that additional hardware will let you render movies, encode DVD's, rip Music much faster. But that will always be the case. It is not providing any additonal fuctionalit, and certainly not in the cases that you have mentioned.

 

[thatwendigo]

Having owned a 17" iMac with 1GB RAM and barely being able to acceptably edit modest videos, I'll take your comments about how much multitasking you are doing consistently and with acceptable performance with a grain of salt.

Let's see... I have open telnet sessions at the moment, an active copy of WeatherPop, file downloads running, iTunes running in the background with Synergy as my interface for it, TextEdit for something I was taking notes on, I'm typing this in FireFox, and my iTunes openly shares to anyone on my LAN, so I'm technically streaming-enabled without any connections at the moment. My system watcher displays 80.6k down, 1.8k up, 337MB of RAM used, and 25-45% processor usage on my eMac.

As for the flash, it's for improving disk access. Prefetch that now occurs in the OS can occur in hardware if it becomes a defacto standard.

Why not just embed a processor and RAM as a prefetcher, then? You can get processors and 64-128MB of RAM pretty damn cheaply now, and it sounds like a faster, more elegant solution.

What I find interesting about Lonhorn64 on Xbox is that may be the the platform to first unleash what appears to be awesome potential of that architecture. I don't think OS X and Linux are getting it done, I'm eager to see what kind of performance Windoze can get out of it.

You're kidding, right?

Apple has had lots and lots of practice optimizing for the PowerPC architecture. About the only thing that Microsoft will be able to do, if they go that far, is to specifically tune the version they put on the XBox for the chipset in question. That's it. It's always easier to program a hardware-specific set than it is to keep more than one type happy.

 

[jamesuncw]

flash memory is for instant on performance ....

 

[BakedBeans]

Keep in mind that 600 GB of the HD system requirement is for cheesy clip art.

Are you crazy???? your way off!!!! its at the very least 750gb

 

[e-coli]

They must have just updated then because that was a screenshot from the build released at WinHEC...here's the link

http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=55&perpage=1&pagenum=2

The builds I'm seeing lately are internal testing builds, which are far more advanced than what is being released to the public at this point.

What's being done internally is absolutly stunning.

 

[Photorun]

[raises hand]

 

[Jonathan Amend]

Palladium is not being dropped.

Yes, it is. Instead, Windows XP SP2 and Longhorn will use the new memory protection technology in AMD's new procs. It provides an extra flag for all memory addresses to differentiate their content between resources and binary code (and therefore effectively eliminating overflow exploits).

 

[frankly]

Everyone can judge longhorn all they want. But it's important to remember that what you see is nothing like what longhorn will be when it is finally finished. This is early alpha stuff. The theme, the functionality etc, all this will change a hell of a lot by the time it is actually on shop shelves.

Then why is Microsoft demonstrating it?

 

[evilsprung]

More screenshots and a movie

Here's a link to some dude's ftp that has more screen caps and a movie with some of the aero features enabled

link: http://www.utaks.net/winmonkey/

 

[windowsblowsass]

in 2007 ms will release long horn then what do you know jos one more thing is os11.x /c well already be at 11 and then it will once again blow away windows

 

[windowsblowsass]

Are you crazy???? your way off!!!! its at the very least 750gb

not to mention anoter 100 gigs for paper clip 2007(obvioussly it cannot be uninstalled) which will actually be so anoying that ms will include a hand gun w/ the os as a saftey feature so that you can kill yourself also there will be ms paint the wall with your brains andyour computer can be arrested for doing illegal operations
and in longhorn clippy will beully integrated with everyu application disaling this will cause a block of thermite attached to the hardrive (that will be marketed as a performance and saftey enhancing device) to be detonated

 

[evilsprung]

not to mention anoter 100 gigs for paper clip 2007(obvioussly it cannot be uninstalled) which will actually be so anoying that ms will include a hand gun w/ the os as a saftey feature so that you can kill yourself also there will be ms paint the wall with your brains andyour computer can be arrested for doing illegal operations
and in longhorn clippy will beully integrated with everyu application disaling this will cause a block of thermite attached to the hardrive (that will be marketed as a performance and saftey enhancing device) to be detonated

damn do you always talk in one huge run on sentence?

 

[MorganX]

>>Let's see... I have open telnet sessions at the moment, an active copy of WeatherPop, file downloads running, iTunes running in the background with Synergy as my interface for it, TextEdit for something I was taking notes on, I'm typing this in FireFox, and my iTunes openly shares to anyone on my LAN, so I'm technically streaming-enabled without any connections at the moment. My system watcher displays 80.6k down, 1.8k up, 337MB of RAM used, and 25-45% processor usage on my eMac.<<

Hate to tell you but a few download, telnet (can it get any lighter), notepad, having open itunes streaming with possibly one day someone streaming a tune, is not what I had in mind in my original post. Streaming live TV or movies, multiple logons, persistent music streaming, and everything else. Yes, most PCs today can handle TCP/IP standard use and notepad.

>>Why not just embed a processor and RAM as a prefetcher, then? You can get processors and 64-128MB of RAM pretty damn cheaply now, and it sounds like a faster, more elegant solution.<<

Doesn't sound elegant to me, sounds bloated. A processor and ram, now what do you think that will do to the cost of hard drives which is a commodity?

>>You're kidding, right?<<

No. OS X isn't even 64-bit yet so how are they getting the most out of the G5 architecture?

 

[thatwendigo]

Hate to tell you but a few download, telnet (can it get any lighter), notepad, having open itunes streaming with possibly one day someone streaming a tune, is not what I had in mind in my original post. Streaming live TV or movies, multiple logons, persistent music streaming, and everything else. Yes, most PCs today can handle TCP/IP standard use and notepad.

How's this for you, then?

I have three movies being streamed to each of three other machines (as in nine movies overall), an itunes stream to each, three movies running in the background on my machine, the same telnet connections, itunes running with the volume off, files downloading, TextEdit, FireFox, and everything else identical to before, but with the load of streaming media. All of the other machines are logged in under my account at this end, too.

Network traffic? 28k up, 123k down.
RAM? 333MB RAM used
Processor? 60-80%

Doesn't sound elegant to me, sounds bloated. A processor and ram, now what do you think that will do to the cost of hard drives which is a commodity?

Riiiiight... So are multi-core SOC solutions bloated? Is having a vector unit bloated? What I'm talking about is a little embedded processor and a smidgeon of RAM to handle data prefetching, searching, and caching so that the processor doesn't ever even have to touch the drive. It does the handling of data. As for costs? Cellphones have processors that are more complicated than what you'd need for this.

No. OS X isn't even 64-bit yet so how are they getting the most out of the G5 architecture?

I said that they were more likely to manage it, not that there were already.

Yes, it is. Instead, Windows XP SP2 and Longhorn will use the new memory protection technology in AMD's new procs. It provides an extra flag for all memory addresses to differentiate their content between resources and binary code (and therefore effectively eliminating overflow exploits).

Palladium was never really about memory protection. It's DRM control of the entire system and not just media, combined with Microsoft's extra-special attitude about end users. If you ever had a problem with your system and XP, just wait until you try to change something under Longhorn, if they do roll in the "features" of the sanitized Palladium movement.

 

[dopefiend]

Well I just installed 4074 build on my old 1ghz tbird with 256 megs and tnt2 card.

The clock is bad ass....

The sidebar can be minimized and done away with with one click

Is pretty

It didn't write over my old xp install(which is cool )

explorer.exe alone takes up 50 or so megs of ram.

This OS is going to be great and so far, it looks semi-nice and this is only the alpha build(4074, latest build)

 

[mac15]

ONCE AGAIN: The verions of Longhorn that have been released for testing so far do not include the new Avalon UI

The new Avalon UI will appear fully in longhorn beta 2 which is due in 2005. by then most people's GPUs will be a minimum 64mb. so they'll take advatange of the new features.

 

[frankly]

Well I just installed 4074 build on my old 1ghz tbird with 256 megs and tnt2 card.

The clock is bad ass....

The sidebar can be minimized and done away with with one click

Is pretty

It didn't write over my old xp install(which is cool )

explorer.exe alone takes up 50 or so megs of ram.

This OS is going to be great and so far, it looks semi-nice and this is only the alpha build(4074, latest build)

The problem is that what looks great today will be mediocre three years from now. The question is, will it look five years better than XP??? Will it look three years ahead of the current OS X???

Frank

 

[dopefiend]

The problem is that what looks great today will be mediocre three years from now. The question is, will it look five years better than XP??? Will it look three years ahead of the current OS X???

Frank

To some people yes, to other people, no.

Better is an opinion that differs from one person to the other, hehe.

 

[dontmatter]

As Linux grows to become more friendly to average users, it will easily supplant Microsoft in the $300-600 range, because nobody wants to have to shell out OEM licensing fees on a computer that cheap. It almost completely kills your profits, which is why so many of the cheap manufacturers are either complete crap or going out of business.

Sorry, doesn't matter how little it costs for a linux box, what with free OS, minimal requirments, not needing all the constant maintinance of a MS machine or the initial cost of an apple.... linux will not take over the low end computer market. Reason is simple: people who buy cheap computers are not sophisticated users. The vast majority of the world is way too afraid of linux, even just the concept of this thing that is made by a bunch of nerds only loosly associated. Then take your low end users. It's just too foreign.

 

[frankly]

To some people yes, to other people, no.

Better is an opinion that differs from one person to the other, hehe.

Actually I was asking your opinion. You said it was going to be great. I'm asking if you think it is going to be great based on what you expect a computer to be able to do today or what you expect a computer to be able to do in three years when it is actually going to be released.

Frank

 

[Phillip]

Then why is Microsoft demonstrating it?

its a developers conference; they are showing developers what the technologies inside lh can do