On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 04:57:31PM -0800, john wrote: > I just got to wondering (in an idle sort of way) why applications like > openoffice which is so much bigger than firefox seem to run just fine > with 24 copies open and firefox doesn't?
Well, I think firefox will too. Here's a test: get your 24 students to JUST browse around on a site that doesn't involve any Java, or flash. Something like wikipedia. I *know*, that they'll be able to do it just fine. Because wikipedia pages load, and then they just sit there. Sure, you scroll around, but all the processing's mainly done: now you're just scrolling around in a page. This is exactly the same as openoffice. Once it's loaded, it's loaded. You scroll around in the doc, but you're not doing anything computationally intense. > Way back when -- I remember > folks touting the efficient way that OO used memory, and in fact some > folks left a version running all the time so that kids would have > there instance open even faster. This is still the case, for both FF an OpenOffice. > A sort of crude pre-linking. The idea > back then was that another oowriter instance was just another thread > off the parent, as I remember it. Was that a fundamental > misunderstanding of the way stuff worked under 4.2 or is Firefox or > flash written in a much less scalable way than OO? Or something else Problem is *entirely* flash. Because it just sits there and keeps chewing up cycles. Web animations. Ads. Videos. If there's 4 or five flash apps on a page (say, 3 flash ads, 1 menu application, and a video), each consuming a significant % of the cpu's cycles, *one page from one browser* can peg a machine. Now multiply this by the other 23 terminals. > entirely. I guess I am still trying to grok Firefox/flash as the thing > which makes Linux show its rough edges. Linux is fine. Firefox is fine. Openoffice is fine. We've surrendered our web viewing experience to a propriatary app that's inefficient. And now we're paying for it. Scott -- Scott L. Balneaves | This is the first age that's paid much attention to the Systems Department | future, which is a little ironic since we may not have Legal Aid Manitoba | one. -- Arthur C. Clarke -- edubuntu-users mailing list edubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-users
