Rick Funderburg wrote:
DJA wrote:
He claims to know what each option does while at the same time
wondering why it exists in the first place. Hello? At least if he
going to belittle a design, feature, or functional implementation, he
should properly explain what it does and why and then give some
non-specious examples of when that feature or option might be useful.
He is not wondering why each feature exists. He is wondering if the UI
really needs to provide the user with an explicit way to activate each
feature.
Which, in my opinion, it does. I've never heard any complain Linux had
these options. Only that they didn't always work well.
For example, he doesn't seem to understand the different sleep modes.
Otherwise why would he make technically illiterate statements like
"So, if Windows used RAM that was effectively nonvolatile, by swapping
memory out to flash drives during idle time, effectively you would be
able to remove power whenever you're in "away" mode without losing
anything"?
This gives the impression that he thinks Microsoft actually makes the
hardware Windows runs on! Besides, what does he think Suspend to drive
does?
Microsoft does not create the hardware, but it can use what is there.
Did you follow Joel's link to hybrid disk drives? In the future, disks
are going to have non-volatile memory as cache. Vista will use this and
call it ReadyDrive. Also, I believe Vista will have an option to use
any user-installed flash memory as a non-volatile cache (called
ReadyBoost).
-- Rick
So what. Suspend to Disk is available now and has been for some time.
That someday flash-based disk drives may be common place is irrelevant.
The same mechanism available today (ACPI power states) will be used to
suspend to those new-tech drives as well. The author is wondering why we
need anything but shutdown. In fact, he seems to wonder why we even need
shutdown.
How about if we list each option separately:
*Switch User* That sounds pretty straight forward. I do it all the time
in Windows. Since Windows is not a multi-user OS, how other does one
accomplish this without a time-consuming reboot? Linux of course has
virtual consoles so this is moot there. If he were a Linux user, he'd
probably question the usefulness of virtual consoles as well.
*Log Off* That one might be a bit redundant. But still useful: one
doesn't want to power down, but doesn't either want someone else
accessing their account. Commonly done in Linux. Especially on desktops.
How about if I have a need to reset some parameters in my account? Do I
really need to reboot, let alone cycle power for that?
*Lock* I want to preserve the current state of my computing tasks, but
as I'm going to be away momentarily, and I don't want anyone accessing
my account.
*Restart* We know this is a necessity in Windows. It used to be that by
holding the Shift key when hitting Shutdown, Windows would just restart
itself without going all the way through the equivalent of hitting
<Ctrl><Alt><Del> (of which Restart is the equivalent). In Linux Restart
== "shutdown -r now").
*Sleep* This is a power management option. It saves your data to RAM,
blanks the screen, and puts the CPU to sleep. No user action is needed.
Keyboard/mouse/lan triggers restore your previous running state. Aimed
at laptops or other battery-powered devices.
*Hibernate* As above, but saves the image to disk and powers down.
*Shutdown* Turn it all off. Nuf said.
I have found all of these options useful at one time or another. I
wouldn't be too happy to lose any of them just because someone else has
a severe attention deficit problem.
That I can activate some or all of these options through various paths
does not bother me. The author tries to make a case that having buttons
on the laptop (a decision by the laptop maker, not M$) /and/ having
buttons in the OS is overkill/annoying/confusing/. which do we choose?
Not all laptops have all buttons. Some have none. M$ can't control where
their OS runs. They'd like to.
Lid closing is just an easy way to do a hibernate.
This statement in the article
"The fact that you have to choose between nine different ways of
turning off your computer every time just on the start menu, not
to mention the choice of hitting the physical on/off button or
closing the laptop lid, produces just a little bit of unhappiness
every time."
is just plain nonsense. You don't _have_ to choose between every one of
those options every time. An intelligent person should be able to learn
what each does and then target and select the appropriate option without
even the slightest stress. This all just sounds like so much whining.
Besides. Just hitting the physical power button is a known Bad Thing(tm)
to do to a running OS like Windows. If anything, M$ should make such a
choice much more forgiving (as is a journaling file system, maybe?).
Closing the lid is not universally considered an act of shutting the
system down. Maybe the author wants it to be. I, for one, don't. Maybe
I've got an overactive manic gene or something, but I don't experience
any loss of happiness when exercising any of my options in this area.
I'll hold to my opinion on this one: the whole article is filled with
illogical whiny bullshit.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
--
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