Trying to replace the Windows desktop.

[Haswellx86]

One of the things I hate the most and the thing that I think if fixed will make Windows more usable (or at least 11, 10's UI kinda fine tbh) is the Windows UI library and the desktop. The Microsoft.UI.Xaml or whatever it is called. It's really bad. It's a framework which can be used with Xaml to create and interact with the Windows UI. Pretty high level stuff, which is really bad for desktop experience. GTK and Qt on Linux aren't that high level and have good performance (maybe, I am not sure. I haven't programmed with them. I ran a GTK program on Windows, and it was slow, but I think on Linux GTK runs fast). Even before I researched about the Windows UI, I was pretty sure by looking at the Windows 11 UI that no way in hell all this shit is being programmed in a little lower level language, let alone optimized.

 

The way Windows is going, we can inspect in 10 years that the whole front end of the OS will be running as a markup language in an integrated web browser. All programs would be web apps. Implementation of garbage collector memory system. 64 GB memory minimum requirements.

 

So I am trying to run away as far as I can from this garbage. Installed an alternative start menu. No matter which one I choose, all of them are much more performant than the default menu, and they also get the job done better. I am not sure if I am able to completely replace the desktop. I couldn't find any solution. At least I want to replace as much as possible. Start menu is done. What about the taskbar and the taskbar pop ups? Alternatives for programs for like file explorer are also there, but many of them just didn't suite me. I found Explorer++ and one more which I forgot. I also tried to replace the Settings app, but there is no replacement.

[Guest]

At one time there was a port of KDE 4 to Windows, but that has long been abandoned. The problem with Windows is the user is never expected to change anything, even your replacements just sit on top of what is already there or lives next to it. Windows only has one Desktop Environment and so it's what is targeted, if you start forcefully removing things then you will break your environment.
Even in Linux you often run into needing pieces from other Desktop Environments you don't actually use, it's just been split up and we have adopted things like portals to make supporting them in alternative environments easier.

[manikyath]

4 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Even before I researched about the Windows UI, I was pretty sure by looking at the Windows 11 UI that no way in hell all this shit is being programmed in a little lower level language, let alone optimized.

as opposed to many of the linux-sided options.. which are generally worse when it comes to any sort of optimization at all. win10/11 desktop is shockingly well optimized for what it is, and generally you can expect most linux distro's to be less snappy than windows on the desktop.

 

4 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

The way Windows is going, we can inspect in 10 years that the whole front end of the OS will be running as a markup language in an integrated web browser. All programs would be web apps. Implementation of garbage collector memory system. 64 GB memory minimum requirements.

you're largely describing the windows 9x desktop. and the idea of minimum requirements going up because of how MS decides to implement the desktop is a brilliantly flawed train of thought. minimum requirements are set by the market they want to sell their OS to, and there is no shortage of laptop manufacturers wanting to sell shitbooks to misinformed people at worst buy. windows 11 runs better on a 2007 netbook with 4GB RAM than most linux distro's do.

 

4 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I also tried to replace the Settings app, but there is no replacement.

what exactly is your problem with the settings app? excluding some advanced features (that still link back to pre-control panel era popup menu's) it's fairly easy to navigate, and runs fast enough to change the settings one might want to change.

 

also - a lot of tweaking can be done without outright replacing core components of the OS you're about to break out of pure spite... restoring square corners is a fairly trivial hack, thanks to folks like the idiot behind tiny11 there's amazing tools for culling windows features one might not want.

realisticly.. i agree about the start menu.. and bing integration is the worst thing microsoft has done since the "cancel" button on the windows 9x login screen. but these are problems that can be worked around in ways that dont impact the stability of the OS.. which is kind of the reason why we're on windows, isnt it?

[Haswellx86]

33 minutes ago, manikyath said:

win10/11 desktop is shockingly well optimized for what it is, and generally you can expect most linux distro's to be less snappy than windows on the desktop.

Clearly haven't used Linux for a second and yapping about it.

 

33 minutes ago, manikyath said:

windows 11 runs better on a 2007 netbook with 4GB RAM than most linux distro's do.

Sorry, I have a dry sense of humor. Is this supposed to be a joke? I mean of course it is haha, who would write such a thing, right?

 

35 minutes ago, manikyath said:

what exactly is your problem with the settings app?

IT'S HEAVY AND SLOW!! It is built with the newest M$ UI library, and it is garbage.

[Avocado Diaboli]

A smart man once said: Linux isn't Windows, so don't treat it as such. A less smart man tries to use Windows like Linux.

[manikyath]

Just now, Gat Pelsinger said:

Clearly haven't used Linux for a second and yapping about it.

i have two linux laptops, a linux desktop i use daily as a media pc, a linux server, and an unraid server.

1 minute ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

who would write such a thing, right?

an owner of a 2007 netbook that's still in somewhat occasional usage, that's tried everything from the original win7 trough win11, half a douzen 'buntu variations, manjaro, and fedora.. and found that windows is the best shot this absolute potato has at being actually usable.

 

4 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

IT'S HEAVY AND SLOW!! It is built with the newest M$ UI library, and it is garbage.

you use it literally once, unless you're on an actual potato it loads faster than you can process what's on the screen anyways, and only someone who is clinically impatient would be worried about configuring windows taking 5 seconds longer because of the load times of an interactive app over what was essentially explorer.exe somewhat hidden behind a shitty webpage. the worries you have for where the desktop is headed.. is the control panel you supposedly miss so dearly.

 

as before mentioned.. i have a 2007 netbook on windows 11.. if that thing runs the settings app just fine *while installing updates*, this is a you problem, not a microsoft problem.

[manikyath]

6 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

A less smart man tries to use Windows like Linux.

are you implying OP's choices are "less smart"? so generous.

[Haswellx86]

9 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

A less smart man tries to use Windows like Linux.

I don't want to but we all are forced. Some stuff just needs Windows. And many people have got decent success in being a Windows power user.

[Avocado Diaboli]

6 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I don't want to but we all are forced. Some stuff just needs Windows. And many people have got decent success in being a Windows power user.

You don't become a power user of a piece of software by intentionally breaking it. If that were the case, I'm a power user of electric guitars and must therefore be the greatest guitarist on the planet, due to the number of strings I've broken. As always, you want to do things your way, which is always the wrong way in the most convoluted and wrongheaded manner imaginable. And I see we're still very much an alumnus of the Dunning-Kruger program, because you're very quick to makes hostile assumptions about people who are taking the time out of their day to educate you. Why anyone still takes any of your threads seriously and offers any help is beyond my understanding, these people must have much more patience for nonsense than me, obviously.

[Haswellx86]

@manikyath

 

Look, everybody has their own preferences. You computers might be fast enough for you to not see any difference, and you not even caring how bad Microsoft is. And yes, I do understand that some people might feel that Windows is faster and snappier, but let me actually open your eyes.

 

You know why Edge loads instantly than browsers on Linux? It AUTO STARTS in background and is loaded in RAM. You know why a lot of your programs launch much faster in Windows? Windows has a really aggressive memory caching system. Almost all the bonus Windows has is just cheating, but you might be like "if it works it works", and that is understandable. And for that "snappier" part, I will agree that Windows and other software you use along with it can be optimized to better utilize the hardware and the software stack, but for me, that all is bs if the software itself is too heavy.

 

20 minutes ago, manikyath said:

an owner of a 2007 netbook that's still in somewhat occasional usage, that's tried everything from the original win7 trough win11, half a douzen 'buntu variations, manjaro, and fedora.. and found that windows is the best shot this absolute potato has at being actually usable.

I really, like really doubt what you are saying. First thing that I amazed to hear is that you got Win11 working on a 2007 netbook. Second, ask any guy at Microsoft itself in if Windows, or Linux would run better on that hardware. If you still personally think if Linux doesn't run good, then there is definitely, like definitely something wrong with it. Also at least give Win7 credit, that thing was at good for what it was.

 

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

you use it literally once, unless you're on an actual potato it loads faster than you can process what's on the screen anyways, and only someone who is clinically impatient would be worried about configuring windows taking 5 seconds longer because of the load times of an interactive app over what was essentially explorer.exe somewhat hidden behind a shitty webpage. the worries you have for where the desktop is headed.. is the control panel you supposedly miss so dearly.

Again, it is just that you have a fast enough PC, and that you don't care anything else. Even though, the settings app realistically might not be that slow that Linux's counterparts, first, it's still a bit slow, and second, it's much heavier. Navigating through the gnome settings takes really low CPU, while it's a mild stress test using the Windows settings app.

[Haswellx86]

21 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You don't become a power user of a piece of software by intentionally breaking it.

By power user, I just mean trying to use Windows like Linux. You know you got powershell prompt in your face, you got your TCP/IP connections on your side monitor, you got system monitoring in the corner and stuff like that. Okay, that might be customization, and not debloating till death, but if you are a techy enough to know all that, you might as well know bad Windows internally is and how better you can run it regardless the hardware.

 

"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. "

 

I by no means say that I am a master in what I do. I am just a student, working with what I got, got some tech knowledge, really frustrated in how bad my OS is. Optimized it one day. Now it just runs like much faster and snappier, and I could do stuff that I couldn't do before like doing android emulation and running VMs. That's literally my story. Why call me that I overestimate my abilities?

 

If you and @manikyath think that I am just weird. I am not the only one in all this. There are so many people just going out their way and hammering Windows. Chris Titus Tech is a good example. He has a big workstation and all. Yet he still has put enough effort in trying to debloat Windows specifically to improve performance, and he got results. He too breaks Windows often (and Linux).

[thevictor390]

While I agree that this is a fool's errand, the Windows 10/11 settings app is an enormous pile of shit. All the time I will click on UI elements and just NOTHING happens, no feedback at all, until several seconds go by and maybe something decides to finally update. But in the meantime, you can't tell if anything is actually happening. The Windows Update settings are extremely bad for this. And this is something I interact with all the time on many different client PCs.

[manikyath]

Just now, Gat Pelsinger said:

I really, like really doubt what you are saying. First thing that I amazed to hear is that you got Win11 working on a 2007 netbook. Second, ask any guy at Microsoft itself in if Windows, or Linux would run better on that hardware. If you still personally think if Linux doesn't run good, then there is definitely, like definitely something wrong with it. Also at least give Win7 credit, that thing was at good for what it was.

i was as surprised as you are.. but as it turns out there's this weird niche slice of low end systems that are too potato to really "snap" with linux, but arent potato enough to not run windows at all..

 

also, i didnt say linux doesnt run good.. it runs pretty well on most of the garbage i toss it onto.. it's just that linux has it's own set of unique problems, a general lack of GPU acceleration in the UI is probably what necks before mentioned netbook. on anything, let's say 2nd gen i5 or better, you have plenty of CPU horses to do UI with minimal reliance on hardware.. but this concept struggles compared to a strong GPU-accelerated base on platforms that dont have those CPU horses but generally still at least have enough GPU capabilities to accelerate a 2D UI.

 

it's two different ideologies each with their own advantages and disadvantages. generally the same reason why this weird subcategory of RAM-intensive netbooks run so well, is why windows is so poopy in a VM / trough remote desktop: this hardware acceleration is nonexistant, meaning all of this strong base now runs trough essentially software emulation.

 

also.. for all win7 was good at.. it is and will always be the peak of windows unoptimization. i have a 1st gen i3 with a radeon HD5770, and it reliably reaches higher benchmark scores on win11 than it does on win7, even with aero disabled.

 

15 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

You computers might be fast enough for you to not see any difference, and you not even caring how bad Microsoft is.

2007 netbook. passmark score smaller than the part number of the CPU..

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+E-450+APU&id=250

 

16 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Again, it is just that you have a fast enough PC, and that you don't care anything else.

let's go trough them to drive the point home.. i've only ever ran win11 on my side-machines, so luckily for you i have a pretty strong case that my opinions are not based on fast computers...

- before mentioned potato netbook.

- intel pentium silver J5005 (and J5040, but they're essentially the same thing.. i cant keep track of which board is in which machine, because they're actually interchangeable.)

- before mentioned i3 540 with a radeon HD5770.

- an intel J1900.. which is essentially before mentioned potato in silicon form. (sidenote, this only ran win10, but i thought i'd include it, because it's the linux machine i use most)

 

all of these have ran both windows 11 and linux at some point..  each with their own issues

- the potato netbook is just a slugfest on linux, the CPU cannot follow the workload of software rendering.. luckily it doesnt need to do that on windows. it's not "fast", but it's very usable.

- the J5005 is a strange creature.. its actually a powerful CPU, just very artificially limited by intel. i've used this as my windows 11 experimentation box becaue it's the only CPU i own that's "officially supported" by windows 11... and linux is very good at showing it's great shortcoming: it has no turbo performance what so ever. it just does not clock up for short peak loads.. like software rendering a UI piece.

- the i3 540.. actually ran great on linux, it's just that at the time audio drivers were my biggest reason to stop using it. the system sat decommissioned with win7 on it until i started to mess with win11.. and found it ran shockingly well.. as it turns out the market for absolute garbage tier laptops at worst buy is good news for people running actual E-waste for media PC's.

- the J1900.. is both absolute garbage tier, and actual E-waste.. it's currently on linux because some hardware issue is making it unable to run windows. i initially went with windows for some super niche garbage reason.. and i can tell the transition to linux has not been great... although it's difficult to gauge how much of that is to do with linux itself, and how much of that is to do with the underlying hardware issue. one day this box is gonna get replaced by the J5005/J5040, or perhaps even an N100... but as long as it only locks up about once per week i cant really be bothered. but until then i'll just deal with my webbrowser taking a good minute to load. windows did well hiding the complete lack of performance.. linux doesnt.

 

as a sidenote here, for a while i ran an AMD athlon 64 as a home server with just 2GB RAM.. so i did some serious effort making linux run as slim as it can.. and there's some really cool stuff that can be done. i saved some 50-ish MB of ram by not rendering the taskbar at all, and just having a taskbar edited onto the wallpaper. (yes.. having a wallpaper was less memory than having a taskbar.)

 

39 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

You know why Edge loads instantly than browsers on Linux?

you assume i use edge. funny man.

 

--

 

having all of this said.. the one big achilles heel of windows 10/11, is slow storage. and i'm not talking needing some top level SSD here.. just "an SSD at all" makes a MUCH bigger difference on the windows side than on the linux side. and nothing hurts windows' snappyness more than a ratty 5400rpm laptop drive. but while linux's snappyness isnt as affected by this, you'll still have as much of a bad time loading stuff that's not cached in memory off spinning rust.

but to bring this back to a conclusion that's on topic.. replacing the UI side of windows doesnt fix this problem, so if you're on spinning rust, all this effort is gonna do for you is make things worse.

[Haswellx86]

10 hours ago, manikyath said:

also, i didnt say linux doesnt run good.. it runs pretty well on most of the garbage i toss it onto.. it's just that linux has it's own set of unique problems, a general lack of GPU acceleration in the UI is probably what necks before mentioned netbook. on anything, let's say 2nd gen i5 or better, you have plenty of CPU horses to do UI with minimal reliance on hardware.. but this concept struggles compared to a strong GPU-accelerated base on platforms that dont have those CPU horses but generally still at least have enough GPU capabilities to accelerate a 2D UI.

Acceleration might be a problem on Linux because of drivers and all. But at least for me, all of it just works fine. I am on Wayland which us supposed to be much more GPU accelerated, but even Xorg runs just fine.

 

Also, Windows might be more GPU accelerated, but it also has a huge CPU overhead. For me, scrolling through a list on the explorer windows or scrolling in the task manager or resizing any program up and down is not smooth 60 fps. If I reduce my CPU clocks, this gets even worse, so it shows all this demands very high clocks.

 

10 hours ago, manikyath said:

2007 netbook. passmark score smaller than the part number of the CPU..

Synthetic benchmarks might not be that affected, especially if running that program in a high priority. I am talking about general use.

 

I think there is no point in discussing this more. I still somehow refuse to believe that you are having a good time on Windows 11 on such hardware rather than Linux. But if you say so then ok.

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Synthetic benchmarks might not be that affected, especially if running that program in a high priority. I am talking about general use.

okay.. here's some real world stats about that cpu then.. it's an 18 watt dualcore from 2011 with radeon integrated graphics (meaning, those 18 watts are not all for those two cores), meant to go in netbooks that are just usable enough for people to pick them up at worst buy. the most modern game this thing manages to play is age of empires 2. it struggles with 720p youtube.what it does not struggle with is windows 10 / windows 11 desktop. yes, it completely disappears up it's own arse trying to launch any application, but that feeling is mutual for linux just the same.

 

while synthetics dont necessarily translate 1:1 to real world usage, a factor 10 difference between that piece of shyte and the slowest cpu that windows 11 officially supports is a good indication that it was not meant to be.

 

6 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Also, Windows might be more GPU accelerated, but it also has a huge CPU overhead. For me, scrolling through a list on the explorer windows or scrolling in the task manager or resizing any program up and down is not smooth 60 fps. If I reduce my CPU clocks, this gets even worse, so it shows all this demands very high clocks.

i've NEVER noticed explorer "not being a smooth 60FPS".. i have noticed some serious hitching on the xorg side of things because none of that shit is ever GPU accelerated.. and when it is it generally is tearing central. you're complaining about the "smooth 60fps" of explorer, and then suggesting that xorg is anywhere near a smooth experience. it's unoptimized, it's hitchy, but hey.. it's worked for two decades. i'd give you an opinion on wayland, but it's waylate.

 

6 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

 

I think there is no point in discussing this more. I still somehow refuse to believe that you are having a good time on Windows 11 on such hardware rather than Linux. But if you say so then ok.

like i said.. there's problems on both sides.. and microsoft's idea of sticking the OS team under the azure team is a very problematic mindset for a desktop OS.. but the idea that the OS itself is bloated and laggy is a myth largely originated from people who saw a problem, and piled even more crap on top of it to make the problem worse.

 

meanwhile on the linux side i seriously hope wayland is finally gonna pull linux desktop rendering out the stone age, because everything people have caked on top of xorg to make it more modern, is just genuinely worse™.

 

and despite what you decide to believe.. i daily drive linux as much as i daily drive windows, i know my way around both sides of decidedly un-green grass.

[Guest]

19 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I really, like really doubt what you are saying. First thing that I amazed to hear is that you got Win11 working on a 2007 netbook. Second, ask any guy at Microsoft itself in if Windows, or Linux would run better on that hardware. If you still personally think if Linux doesn't run good, then there is definitely, like definitely something wrong with it. Also at least give Win7 credit, that thing was at good for what it was.

7 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I still somehow refuse to believe that you are having a good time on Windows 11 on such hardware rather than Linux. But if you say so then ok.

While not recommended the requirements can be removed/bypassed for the time being.
They are not wrong. Windows generally runs better on older hardware and a lot of it comes down to backwards compatibility and drivers, this is just something Microsoft does way better. It's why I have never understood why people recommend Linux for old hardware, Linux breaks support far faster than Windows does.

[Haswellx86]

@manikyath

 

Saying "Windows 11 runs the best on a 2007 netbook" contradicts all of the knowledge I have gained about computers. If I accept that sentence, my brain won't be braining anymore.

 

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

i've NEVER noticed explorer "not being a smooth 60FPS"

You might not have understood correctly. On that netbook (or any other slow system), open a directory in explorer big enough to be scrollable (like system32 or WinSxS). Now just scroll up and down with your mouse using the slide bar. For me it is not as 60 fps smooth as say, scrolling this website I am typing on. Another example would be resizing the Windows 11 (again, 10's much better) task manager. Open it in a small window mode, and drag the bottom of it up and down.

 

Now if you still say that there is no problem, my brain will seriously stop braining.

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

and then suggesting that xorg is anywhere near a smooth experience. it's unoptimized, it's hitchy, but hey.. it's worked for two decades. i'd give you an opinion on wayland, but it's waylate.

 

Idk man, I don't have much of a problem. We are stupidly arguing. Both of our thoughts contradict each other.

[manikyath]

53 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

"Windows 11 runs the best on a 2007 netbook"

find a quote where i said that, you're either lacking basic reading comprehention, or twisting my words.

54 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

On that netbook (or any other slow system), open a directory in explorer big enough to be scrollable (like system32 or WinSxS). Now just scroll up and down with your mouse using the slide bar.

now do the same thing on linux, and compare the result.

 

but to pleasure you.. i actually grabbed one of the potato devices off the shelf to give this a go. the (very worn out 5% life remaining) SSD in before mentioned netbook appears to have a serious IO timeout stint so this is probably worst case scenario... and i have to say with windows update running and task manager taking a good 10% cpu power (yes, the CPU is THAT slow..) it's a bit less smooth than my 5800x sitting idle.

 

one thing i did notice is that system32 is a lot more hitchy than windows folder is.. and that's because system32 is full of executables with icons that arent in cache, and windows folder is not. but to earlier denounce the validity of a canned benchmark to describe the speed of hardware.. and now use "scrolling trough system32" as a valid usecase, is admittedly the most flawed bit of reasoning in this thread so far.

 

for what it's worth, i tried to do the same test on the J1900, but i dont exactly have a folder with icon'ed applications on there, and process monitor decided to be broken today.. so i cant even monitor the cpu usage it sees while doing so.

 

what i did notice was that i was in system32 on the windows system faster -while it was updating- than the linux system managed to open file browser.. and the linux system is on a better SSD, with a better CPU, and twice the memory.

 

perhaps this feeds back to the argument i made about the topic at hand; the problem you're descrbing is not resolved by the solution you're looking for. you could just configure windows to not use executable icons at all, and you'd have as snappy of a system32 folder scrolling experience as you have a /dev scrolling experience. but all of that is included within the OS, and you have no reason to replace core components of the OS for this reason.

 

no, windows 11 on this netbook is not a good experience.. but it's a better experience than linux, and (shockingly) it worked right out the box, while the main reason this potato isnt running linux is that half of the drivers genuinely dont work without tweaking config files.

[Haswellx86]

22 hours ago, manikyath said:

find a quote where i said that, you're either lacking basic reading comprehention, or twisting my words.

I meant that besides all that you tried, Windows 11 ran the best on it. Not that Windows 11 runs the best on that hardware.

 

22 hours ago, manikyath said:

with windows update running and task manager taking a good 10% cpu power (yes, the CPU is THAT slow..)

Wow, some people'e expectations are really high. For me, taking 10% CPU usage while updating Windows on whatever "slow" CPU you have, is like, actually really good. Tell me what CPU that thing has. If that thing is at least dual core, then it definitely has to be only downloading the updates which aren't really CPU intensive. Extracting and updating Windows eats quite a bit of my modern quad core CPUs.

 

22 hours ago, manikyath said:

that arent in cache

First of all, the cache has nothing to do with what I asked to test. Once you are in the directory and scroll once or twice, everything is totally loaded and cached. Second, I will skip the explorer problem because upon a closer, it's kind of complicated.

 

I mean it's quite complicated that I don't even understand. For me, explorer seems to be scrolling in chunks, or maybe, my mouse's smallest movement being that chunk. When I move my mouse that chunk distance and scroll through explorer the same amount, it updates the screen at the new chunk offset, without any smoothness between the transition. In nautilus (Ubuntu's default file explorer), I too kind of feel some not-so-60-fps-smoothness, but it is much less than explorer, and it seems like either the chunks are smaller or there is some smoothness added between the transitions. And for my web browser, if I scroll in the smallest steps, I too see this chunk system, but when I scroll with at least moderate speed, I just can't notice this chunk problem, probably because there is more smoothness added with more speed.

 

What you should try however, is opening the new task manager (the old task manager uses the older UI and so is much faster) in a small windowed mode, and drag the bottom of it up and down. On my 8350U @3GHz, there is a very noticeable lag in doing that. And when I try that with the old task manager, it is much better. And on Linux, everything with animations just happen in nice 60 fps.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Tell me what CPU that thing has. If that thing is at least dual core, then it definitely has to be only downloading the updates which aren't really CPU intensive. Extracting and updating Windows eats quite a bit of my modern quad core CPUs.

do you read my posts at all? AMD fusion E-450, it's the one where you discounted the validity of canned benchmarks.

and it's been downloading and installing 4 updates for the past 4 hours.

in case you misunderstood.. just task manager being open is a good 10% load, the rest of the poor little cpu is trying to make updates happen.

 

3 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

First of all, the cache has nothing to do with what I asked to test. Once you are in the directory and scroll once or twice, everything is totally loaded and cached. Second, I will skip the explorer problem because upon a closer, it's kind of complicated.

yes.. waiting for everything in system32 to load into cache.. have you actually ever done this on a slow device? it sucks even on a powerful system.

 

6 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

For me, explorer seems to be scrolling in chunks, or maybe, my mouse's smallest movement being that chunk. When I move my mouse that chunk distance and scroll through explorer the same amount,

yes.. you got that right, that is exactly how explorer.exe is designed to work.

 

8 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

 

What you should try however, is opening the new task manager (the old task manager uses the older UI and so is much faster) in a small windowed mode, and drag the bottom of it up and down

before mentioned E-450.. literally smooth as butter while still churning trough that last windows update. maybe this really is a you problem.

[Haswellx86]

40 minutes ago, manikyath said:

maybe this really is a you problem.

Fine you win. Either I am stupidly oversensitive to performance, or my modern laptops are somehow slower than a 2007 netbook.

[manikyath]

30 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Fine you win. Either I am stupidly oversensitive to performance, or my modern laptops are somehow slower than a 2007 netbook.

or you're so worried about "fixing" windows, that you're breakign it.

[Haswellx86]

12 hours ago, manikyath said:

or you're so worried about "fixing" windows, that you're breakign it.

To fix Windows, you need to break it. Without breaking it, you can't fix it.

 

To fix Linux, you just install Arch. And maybe disable systemd-journald.

 

I will still give you one example. So I am working with a big project on github (not mine of course, I just need to build and use it). To delete the whole project's root folder, Windows takes like at least a minute or two, maxing a CPU thread also. The Window Defender garbage panicking the system in the background included. It just goes like "Oo file I/O, let me take some CPU!". Without defender, it deletes like much faster but I don't remember actually counting. On Linux, it literally takes just a few seconds with not much CPU usage. To give Linux its worst, I thought at least moving it to the trash rather than directly deleting it takes time, so I cloned the repo again, and moved it to trash in nautilus. Where Windows again takes a bit of time, Linux literally did it in a second. Of course, that doesn't mean Linux literally is this fast (or maybe it is), but it handles the deletion stuff differently than Windows, and that solution seems to be much better.

 

Man, Linux is just so superior. Too bad, FOSS has its own problems, and everybody is a servant for Windows.

 

Now leave me alone.

[danalog]

On 7/1/2024 at 1:11 PM, Gat Pelsinger said:

You know why Edge loads instantly than browsers on Linux? It AUTO STARTS in background and is loaded in RAM. 

, which is a feature that you can disable in less than 5 seconds using the Startup tab of Task Manager or the settings page in Edge

On 7/3/2024 at 12:32 PM, Gat Pelsinger said:

Fine you win. Either I am stupidly oversensitive to performance, or my modern laptops are somehow slower than a 2007 netbook.

if you are saying this without a drop of irony, you have never used a 2007 netbook. Or a 2012 netbook, for that matter.