[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson writes:

Most Linux distributions provide a "live DVD" which can
be used to demonstrate the OS, also as a installation
disk, and then also as a rescue disk.

Demonstrating and productively using are two different things. An operating
system being used for productive work is always writing to disk.

There are many embedded devices with OSses that don't even *have*
a disk.
They are used productively.

Sp your 'always' is patently wrong.

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

nospam wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson

There is no reason that it needs to be written to. In
fact it is very easy to have a system that boots from a
DVD!

Doesn't that make it a bit difficult to add kernel extensions (drivers)?

Drivers and other kernel extensions are linked dynamically in
RAM, not on disk (which indeed is the way it was accomplished
up through the 1980's).

but to add them, you must have a writeable volume.

No, you must have a *readable* volume.

no, you must have a *writeable* volume. how do you add something to a
volume that is only readable?

You don't need to add to the volume. You need to add to the RAM.

Is that too hard to understand?

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

nospam wrote:

[kernel extensions]

obviously they're loaded at boot.

Or on insertion of the respective hardware or the time the
respective functionality is needed. Or any time in between.

Obviously.

floyd was talking about booting off read-only media and then adding
drivers, kexts, etc., which would have to be done every single time
because the read-only boot volume can't be modified. that's not the
usual case.

And adding the drivers so on must also be done every single time
even if they are on the read-only boot volume.

Obviously this can be automated in both cases.

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:

When an OS is loaded off a vanilla read-only medium, it must discover and
configure itself for its environment on every boot. This is very
time-consuming and very precarious.

It must do practically the same on every boot from a read-write
device. How else does it discover changed hardware?
This is not very time consuming, by the way.

And if it works once for a given hardware, it works every time
for that hardware. Not precarious at all. See Knoppix.

Recompiling the OS with specific devices include or excluded can improve
performance and reliability considerably. Linux did not invent this, as the
concept dates from the earliest days of electronic computers.

Except that almost nobody recompiles the OS with specific
devices included or excluded. It's simply not needed and
too inflexible.

-Wolfgang

[Gene E. Bloch[_3_]]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:32:30 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:57 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

who cares where files are? computers can do a *much* more effective job
at managing where the user's data lives.

apps such as lightroom or aperture pretty much eliminate managing files
and folders, and it's *so* much more productive.

you don't know which sectors a file is on disk, and it doesn't matter.
the hard drive controller manages it for you and does a better job.

I find I'm often struggling to find where something or other is on, on
which directory tree.

exactly why the computer should be doing that for you.

It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..

Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Scott Dorsey writes:

There was a day, not so long ago, where when you booted your computer, the
bootstrap program went to the disk, took an absolute image of the kernel
and loaded it into memory at a starting address, then made a jump to some
starting address in the kernel and it ran. If you wanted to add a device,
you would link the driver to the new device in and SYSGEN a new kernel image.
Those days are over. They are gone, like the snows of yesteryear.

Not true. Some operating systems still require this; others allow it
optionally

because it's a legacy option.

(because it improves run-time performance and stability).

Performance increases of 0.0001% in the kernel are really
critical. As to stability --- if the same code is executed,
and it is(!), then stability is the same.

-Wolfgang

[John Williamson]

On 26/07/2012 23:26, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:32:30 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:57 -0400,
wrote:

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:
I find I'm often struggling to find where something or other is on, on
which directory tree.

exactly why the computer should be doing that for you.

It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..

Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

It's the default output when you use Microsoft's search facility in
Windows 7.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson writes:

But the majority of kernel modules are loaded
automatically *on demand*, not just because some
hardware exists.

How are input devices handled, then?

Detected on insert.

And even if they are loaded on demand,
they must generally still poll the hardware, especially if they are requested
by software.

Have you ever heard of interrupts?

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

With Linux at least it is virtually every desktop system
and almost every server that does it. I'd say that
makes it pretty common.

The usual method is that an almost bare kernel is
booted. It has virtually no drivers or feature
extensions built in that are not absolutely required for
booting.

Actually, it doesn't even have these. It only has just enough
features to use the ramdisk that's loaded into the memory by the
boot loader.

The ramdisk contains then the modules for stuff like file
systems(!). These are loaded as needed (on demand) and thus the
mounting of partitions and the boot process proper may commence,
starting all the daemons and graphical interface and login programs
and so on ...

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Scott Dorsey writes:

Frankly, modloading gives me the willies, in part because it makes reading
crash dumps that much harder. But it started becoming popular in the mid
1990s and it's now just about everywhere.

It does destabilize the system, but many users don't care.

And it attracts dangerous aliens from outer space, bend on
exterminating humanity, but many users don't care.

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

nospam wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

The question was not about adding to the boot volume, it was about
adding to the kernel. The kernel, after it is booted, can and typically
is modified.

it can, but then you'd need to do that *each* time you boot. nobody is
going to put up with that ****.

That is in fact the common way it is actually done! You don't have a clue.

nonsense. the most common way is installing a system to a hard drive
and then installing the necessary drivers for any peripherals,

That's only the way of a stupid insecure unstable OS that
creates nightmares for it's users.

nobody does a clean install every time they boot, followed by
additional driver installations. get real.

Probably you don't know about automating tasks. Computers
are good at it. And you are mixing up words like "install"
when you mean "choose and load".

-Wolfgang

[j]

On 7/25/2012 11:02 AM, Mxsmanic wrote:
nospam writes:

you're an outlier.

Not really. I use computers to get things done; I don't play with them for
their own sake. Most computer users are in that category. There are lots of
users out there with very old computers.

very, very few people are using ten year old systems.

There are even large corporations using such systems. As long as they do what
they need to do, there's no reason to replace them. Some companies still run
Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

You can still buy 3.11, even though it has been unsupported since 2001.

If you have a computer running 3.11 it certainly won't run 7 very well!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x

Legacy

Windows 3.x was superseded by the release of Windows 95 in August 1995.
Microsoft officially dropped support for all 16-bit versions of Windows
on January 1, 2001.
Windows 3.1 found a niche market as an embedded operating system after
becoming obsolete in the PC world. As of November 2008, both Virgin
Atlantic and Qantas employed it for some of the onboard entertainment
systems on long-distance jets. It also sees continued use as an embedded
OS in retail cash tills[13].
On July 9, 2008, it was announced that Windows for Workgroups 3.11 for
the embedded devices channel would no longer be made available for OEM
distribution as of November 1, 2008[14].



Some companies hang onto their hardware forever, but 20 years is long in
the tooth. Win 7 is pushing many shops to upgrade from XP. Vista was
largely a pass.

Jeff

[Gene E. Bloch[_3_]]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 23:33:58 +0100, John Williamson wrote:

On 26/07/2012 23:26, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:32:30 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:57 -0400,
wrote:

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:
I find I'm often struggling to find where something or other is on, on
which directory tree.

exactly why the computer should be doing that for you.

It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..

Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

It's the default output when you use Microsoft's search facility in
Windows 7.

Oh. Then MS probably hates me, not loves me. I almost never use the
official search facility :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[Paul]

John Williamson wrote:
On 26/07/2012 23:26, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:32:30 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:57 -0400,
wrote:

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:
I find I'm often struggling to find where something or other is on, on
which directory tree.

exactly why the computer should be doing that for you.

It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..

Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

It's the default output when you use Microsoft's search facility in
Windows 7.


The quickest way to solve the problem, is a third party search tool.
It might give you more control, or at least care about you as a user.

On my Windows 7 laptop, my choices a

1) By default, indexing is turned off. Searches are slow, and the
disk is scanned in real time while I wait and wait. Results would
likely include file name matches.

2) Turn on indexing. Now, searches are fast. But, you get lots of
irrelevant hits, because the indexing includes the content of the
files, as well as the file names. Even if you think you've turned
off content indexing, the indexer *still* does content indexing
(because it takes three hours at full throttle, for the indexer
to process my 26GB of files on C: ).

A third party tool, could never be quite as brain dead as those choices.

And using "Microsoft search syntax" as a solution, is not an option
either. Unless perhaps, you print off a copy, and keep it pinned
to the side of your LCD monitor.

And at this point, I'm not even caring what columns are in the
results window, because I'm annoyed with the quality of the
results. Either "slow and relevant" or "fast and irrelevant".

I suppose it works the way it does, because of some of the other
kinds of things it can search.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/canux/archiv...onnectors.aspx

http://cloud.addictivetips.com/wp-co...in-Youtube.jpg

( http://www.addictivetips.com/windows...rer-windows-7/ )

Paul

[Trevor]

"John Williamson" wrote in message
...
It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..

Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

It's the default output when you use Microsoft's search facility in
Windows 7.


There's your problem, there are *far* better tools for almost everything
that Windows provides, and many of them free. Use Windows for the basic OS
and use the tools and programs of your choice from the millions available.
Works for me anyway.

Trevor.

[Trevor]

"Eric Stevens" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:32:04 -0400, nospam
it hides what you don't need to see, such as system files. it does not
hide user files, and it can search them a helluva lot quicker than you
can.

Who says I don't need to see system files?
I don't very often, but I most definitely do on occasion.

It only hides them if you let it, or don't tell it to show them by default.

Trevor.

[Mxsmanic]

j writes:

If you have a computer running 3.11 it certainly won't run 7 very well!

Quite so. And if installing Windows 7 means buying 50,000 licenses and
replacing 50,000 PCs, it's probably not a wise business decision.

[Mxsmanic]

Eric Stevens writes:

Who says I don't need to see system files?

I want to see every file on the system.

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson writes:

How about 20 seconds.

No, I meant 20 minutes. I've watched it happen.

Did that happen with a recent Windows on a 80386 with 10 MHz and
1 MEGAbyte of RAM?

-Wolfgang

[Luxey]

I had a problem or two, but never due wear.

Once Nokia N82 rendered card unusable, when it crashed during large file download.
Asus eee PC, 7" first generation, constantly writes to SD(and HC) with errors. However, no problems with USB flash.

Uppon installing any version of Win, first thing to do is to enable viewing of hidden and system files, aswell as extensions.

[Eric Stevens]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:30:12 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Eric Stevens writes:

Who says I don't need to see system files?

I want to see every file on the system.

That's basically my attitude and, what's more, I want to easily see
where they are.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

[Eric Stevens]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 01:24:47 -0400, Paul wrote:

John Williamson wrote:
On 26/07/2012 23:26, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:32:30 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:57 -0400,
wrote:

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:
I find I'm often struggling to find where something or other is on, on
which directory tree.

exactly why the computer should be doing that for you.

It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..

Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

It's the default output when you use Microsoft's search facility in
Windows 7.


The quickest way to solve the problem, is a third party search tool.
It might give you more control, or at least care about you as a user.

On my Windows 7 laptop, my choices a

1) By default, indexing is turned off. Searches are slow, and the
disk is scanned in real time while I wait and wait. Results would
likely include file name matches.

2) Turn on indexing. Now, searches are fast. But, you get lots of
irrelevant hits, because the indexing includes the content of the
files, as well as the file names. Even if you think you've turned
off content indexing, the indexer *still* does content indexing
(because it takes three hours at full throttle, for the indexer
to process my 26GB of files on C: ).

A third party tool, could never be quite as brain dead as those choices.

And using "Microsoft search syntax" as a solution, is not an option
either. Unless perhaps, you print off a copy, and keep it pinned
to the side of your LCD monitor.

And at this point, I'm not even caring what columns are in the
results window, because I'm annoyed with the quality of the
results. Either "slow and relevant" or "fast and irrelevant".

I suppose it works the way it does, because of some of the other
kinds of things it can search.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/canux/archiv...onnectors.aspx

http://cloud.addictivetips.com/wp-co...in-Youtube.jpg

( http://www.addictivetips.com/windows...rer-windows-7/ )


That's great! Penalise your ability to carry out a useful search
within your computer to enable you to carry out a search outside your
computer.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

[Paul]

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 01:24:47 -0400, Paul wrote:

John Williamson wrote:
On 26/07/2012 23:26, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:32:30 +1200, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:57 -0400,
wrote:

In , Eric Stevens
wrote:
I find I'm often struggling to find where something or other is on, on
which directory tree.
exactly why the computer should be doing that for you.
It never used to be difficult. But then microsoft decided to throw
everything into a sack and then present me with an alphabetical
listing with no hint of the tree structure./..
Microsoft must have something specifically against you, then.

What you're describing has never happened to me, but maybe Microsoft
loves me :-)

It's the default output when you use Microsoft's search facility in
Windows 7.

The quickest way to solve the problem, is a third party search tool.
It might give you more control, or at least care about you as a user.

On my Windows 7 laptop, my choices a

1) By default, indexing is turned off. Searches are slow, and the
disk is scanned in real time while I wait and wait. Results would
likely include file name matches.

2) Turn on indexing. Now, searches are fast. But, you get lots of
irrelevant hits, because the indexing includes the content of the
files, as well as the file names. Even if you think you've turned
off content indexing, the indexer *still* does content indexing
(because it takes three hours at full throttle, for the indexer
to process my 26GB of files on C: ).

A third party tool, could never be quite as brain dead as those choices.

And using "Microsoft search syntax" as a solution, is not an option
either. Unless perhaps, you print off a copy, and keep it pinned
to the side of your LCD monitor.

And at this point, I'm not even caring what columns are in the
results window, because I'm annoyed with the quality of the
results. Either "slow and relevant" or "fast and irrelevant".

I suppose it works the way it does, because of some of the other
kinds of things it can search.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/canux/archiv...onnectors.aspx

http://cloud.addictivetips.com/wp-co...in-Youtube.jpg

( http://www.addictivetips.com/windows...rer-windows-7/ )


That's great! Penalise your ability to carry out a useful search
within your computer to enable you to carry out a search outside your
computer.

I think you know most of us wouldn't write tools like that.

And that's the thing about some of the Microsoft features, is
there's no proof that the user base particularly wanted the
implementation in question. When people told Microsoft they
didn't like the search, Microsoft assumed they wanted more
of the same thing (more depth, rather than stop doing it that
way).

When the comments about Windows 8 preview, mentioned the topic
of a Metro disable switch, did anyone listen ? Instead, we'll
be relying on things like this.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/features.html

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8#Metro_UI )

The only thing I can figure, is Microsoft polls the IT departments
of their biggest customers, and gets their input from them. It's
easier to manage, and more sanitary.

Paul

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson writes:

Bull**** kid. It doesn't take "an extremely long time".

Without a pre-determined configuration, a system must poll for discovery of
any devices that require drivers. Since this often involves waiting for
timeouts, it is extremely time-consuming and can prolong the boot process by
many minutes, and sometimes much more. If anything hangs the discovery
procedure, the machine may not finish booting at all.

Try Knoppix.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/

Come back when you have realigned yourself with reality
instead of FUD.

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson writes:
Mxsmanic wrote:

If you want to add them across boots, you need a writable, non-volatile
device.

That's bull****.

You either load your modules and then write the modified OS to a writable
device, which can then be loaded directly on subsequent boots, or you load
your modules anew for each and every boot. There are no other options.

Rolling a 20 sided dice, the result will be a 1 or a 20.
"There are no other options."

Please inform yourself about loadable kernel modules.
= No need to write a modified OS.

Please inform yourself about automating tasks and modern
computers.
= You can easily place practically all modules on the
ro-boot device just in case, where they are read and
loaded on demand,
OR you can place any missing ones on a second, equally
read-only device that's searched for and used by the kernel
to load such extra modules,
OR you can download the source code, compile it for the
kernel and then load such extra modules every time on
boot (Knoppix does that with e.g. the nvidia kernel
module, which it may not ship for legal reasons).
Of course all of the above is easily automated. OK,
maybe not in Windows.

And if you don't have a writable device, your only option is to load the
modules for every boot, which means that you cannot retain them across boots.

My initial kernel doesn't have a writable device --- at least none,
where the changes are kept till the next boot. It's a ramdisk ---
one where the changes are not written out. It's a bog standard
kernel used on millions of different machines worldwide.

Yet it works ... and boots in 15 seconds flat to the GUI.

-Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Mxsmanic wrote:

Although loading drivers from a network is rather odd.

Really?
Did you know ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot...on_Environment
many machines load their KERNEL from the network, not just some
drivers.


Others yet even include the user space (applications and all)
from the network:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System
(in which case the computer may have ZERO local space: no
hard drive, no USB stick, no nothing)
or using coda,
http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/ljpaper/lj.html
in which case even disconnected operation is possible (using
local storage as a cache), as e.g. offered by
http://www.aetey.se/
as a commercial service.

Maybe it's time for you to wake up and update yourself to what
happened in computing in the last 25 odd years.

-Wolfgang

[William Sommerwerck]

I happen to have a 3 year old laptop with an SSD.
The SSD has long passed its calculated write
allowance.

If that's the case, I'd be thinking about replacing it.

(Ask S.M.A.R.T.)

SMART is not considered an accurate predicter of SSD failure.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , William Sommerwerck
wrote:

(Ask S.M.A.R.T.)

SMART is not considered an accurate predicter of SSD failure.

that depends. if smart says there's a problem, then failure is
imminent.

however, if smart *doesn't* say there's a problem, that doesn't mean
that it isn't going to fail. it might fail tomorrow, or it might last
much longer. no way to know.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

It's
gotten worse as Microsoft increasingly attempts to hide the hard disk's
contents from the user. (I want to put things where I think they should
go, and be able to find them.)

Hear hear!

who cares where files are?

People trying to retrive them.

they don't need to know *where* they are, only which ones they want to
use.

i have hundreds of thousands of files and trying to remember which one
is where is crazy. the computer does a much, much better job at that.

for instance, if i want pictures of waterfalls i search on waterfalls.
similarly, if i want music by the beatles, i search for beatles. if i
want classical music, i search for classical. which particular folder
the files are actually in makes no difference.

computers can do a *much* more effective job
at managing where the user's data lives.

By creating an abstraction called a "file system". Basically
it is a hierarchical database.

managing files directly with the file system is very primitive. there
are much more efficient ways to manage files now.

apps such as lightroom or aperture pretty much eliminate managing files
and folders, and it's *so* much more productive.

Yep, so you need to make a full backup of everything (tens or
hundreds of TB, recordings of all the recent TV programmes of
interest which you don't want to back up) just to capture your
GBs of photos. That's just so much more productive, having to
buy tons of storage space and waiting for days for a backup ...

backups are a very good idea and you are intentionally distorting the
difficulty in making a backup.

i buy hard drives in pairs, one for the data and one for the backup.
most recently, that was a pair of 1 tb drives. there is no 'hundreds of
terabytes' unless i buy a 100 tb drive, which does not exist yet. the
backups happen automatically, and only the first one takes a while.
after that, the incrementals are a minute or two.

And imagine every program that handles files having to know
all about *all* apps like lighroom or aperture (and a couple
10,000 others) just to be able to do their job. That's much
better than files, isn't it?

that makes no sense.

you don't know which sectors a file is on disk,

I can find out easily.

maybe so but there's no point in knowing.

and it doesn't matter.

Up to the second you get an unreadable sector and need to find
out which file to restore from backup (or to ignore it, since
the sector belongs to an already deleted file).

i know which file because the backup program tells me file xyz can't be
read. then i grab a backup and get the most recent backup copy, and
decide whether i need to replace the hard drive.

the hard drive controller manages it for you and does a better job.

The hard drive controller presents the same old image of sectors
that they have done since there were hard drive contollers (back
when they were separate items from hard drives!).

Guess there is a good reason for that, instead of a hard drive
controller presenting an "app".

all of that is invisible to the user.

One can see that you don't have much experience with computers
outside using a few applications. That's much like the average
4 year old kid with his crayons as experience telling the
photographer how to use his camera: "Just get paper and crayons.
That's so much more productive ... for portraits, realistic
landscapes, etc."

one can see that you're stuck in the past.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

the point is, users don't care where on the hard drive the file
actually is, nor should they care what folder it's in. as long as they
can access their data, they're happy.

... as long as they can find whatever it is they are looking for.
There is the rub.

they can very easily using appropriate software.

So you do all your backups with lightroom?

no, i use backup software designed to do backups. once again, i use
appropriate software for a given task.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

The difference that a SSD makes over my personal baseline - a 1 GB 7200
rpm hard drive, is pretty impressive.

That is to be expected: access time on the SSD is much lower. If SSDs didn't
have the weakness of limited writes (and high price, although prices will
come down), they'd be a great replacement for hard disks.

they are a great replacement for hard disks. the only issue is price
which really only affects the larger sizes. 128-256g ssd is very
affordable.

So are 1-3 TB HDDs. They cost the same as your SSDs, when you
take the cheapest SSDs.

3 tb drives don't fit in laptops and they're significantly slower than
ssd. plus, i don't need anywhere near that much in a laptop.

a network drive on the other hand, is where i'd put a 3tb drive.

But some uses of
disk/SSD, such as paging and swapping and certain server-style
applications,
can potentially burn through a SSDs life expectancy very rapidly (months,
weeks, or days).

nonsense.

So your SSDs have unlimited write and erase cycles? Most
interesting, would you be willing to run a program that constantly
wrote (and later deleted) files on your SSD for weeks?

that happens every day. laptops are being sold with ssd and they last
much longer than 'weeks'. didn't you say you had a laptop with ssd for
3 years?

Do you have swap/paging files on the SSD?

that's where it should be.

So your swap/paging files aren't there. They just "should
be" there.

if a laptop only has ssd, then the swap *is* there.

why would you want swap on a slower hard
drive?

Either because swapping is rare enough that it doesn't matter,
or it's so often that it matters --- then it eats erase cycles
like mad.

and if you don't mind it being much slower.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

So you can't do anything with 4 MB RAM? Sheesh, only shows how
wasteful you are.

nonsense. *one* photo from my camera is much bigger than 4 mb, and
that's before i start modifying it. even a jpeg from the camera is
bigger than 4 mb, nevermind raw, and that's just for the photo. you
still need memory for the operating system and apps.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

So there is not "always physical I/O".

If there is no physical I/O, there has been no swap.

You can swap to a ram disk created from your computer's RAM.

you could, but that's really stupid.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

Look at all those distribution "live DVD" disks. They're pretty
common.

what about them? how many people boot off a live dvd as part of their
normal day to day usage?

What do you mean, daily booting?

i mean normal everyday usage. typical users boot from a hard drive, not
a dvd. they may reboot it in the morning, or they may sleep it when
it's not in use, but what they *don't* do is boot from a dvd.

some computers, namely ultrabooks, don't even have dvd drives. sure you
could hook one up, but that defeats the point of having an ultrabook.

So boot from a read-only USB stick. Instant safe virus-free
system.

unless malware is downloaded. nothing is completely virus-free.

just because something is possible doesn't mean it's commonly done.

Super computers are also not commonly done, and yet ...

super computers are not common. there are billions of pcs out there,
and nowhere near that many supercomputers.

what's common are pcs running os x or windows.

Look at all those millions of WIFI routers.

why? embedded devices are single purpose devices

And? That's not a computer?

it's now what people think of by the term computer. they think laptop
or desktop, with a keyboard, hd/ssd, display, etc.

and do not have swap
space, so they do not count.

Only computers with swap space count? Well, only SSDs that don't
get swap/paging done to them count.

since the discussion is on ssd lifetime, computers with swap are the
ones that count, since that's probably the biggest hit to ssd/hd
lifetime.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

but to add them, you must have a writeable volume.

No, you must have a *readable* volume.

no, you must have a *writeable* volume. how do you add something to a
volume that is only readable?

You don't need to add to the volume. You need to add to the RAM.

which you'd need to do every time you boot.

much better to add to the volume *once* and just reboot, than add to
ram *every* single time you boot.

Is that too hard to understand?

apparently it is for you.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Wolfgang
Weisselberg wrote:

The question was not about adding to the boot volume, it was about
adding to the kernel. The kernel, after it is booted, can and typically
is modified.

it can, but then you'd need to do that *each* time you boot. nobody is
going to put up with that ****.

That is in fact the common way it is actually done! You don't have a clue.

nonsense. the most common way is installing a system to a hard drive
and then installing the necessary drivers for any peripherals,

That's only the way of a stupid insecure unstable OS that
creates nightmares for it's users.

nonsense. even linux is installed to a hard drive and the necessary
drivers are added to it. it's definitely the case for os x and windows.

[nospam[_3_]]

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

Who says I don't need to see system files?

I want to see every file on the system.

That's basically my attitude and, what's more, I want to easily see
where they are.

why? what are you going to do with them?

[mark lewis[_2_]]

You should be doing backups a *lot* more frequently
and better yet, have it automated so you don't need
to do anything for it to happen.

"S The MOBO I've selected directly supports several RAID flavors. How
"S I'll configure it I haven't decided.

NOTE: RAID is *NOT* a backup plan... RAID is for providing redundant storage to prevent data loss and also faster access to the data when multiple devices are bonded together as one...

)\/(ark

--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet-Internet Gateway Site
| Waldo's Place USA 919-774-5930 telnet://bbs.wpusa.dynip.com
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Gene E. Bloch[_3_]]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 22:52:41 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:

Is 17 exabytes enough for you? That's more than 1/20th of the
whole world's storage as of 2011. (Note: not "digital storage".
Storage. All of it.)

If you had seen my garage, you would have realized that the above
fraction is closer to 1/40th ;-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[Mxsmanic]

nospam writes:

why? what are you going to do with them?

Nothing. I just want to know exactly what is on my system. Knowing what's
there has saved me enormous grief on many occasions.