XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: usenet@slated.org   
      
   Verily I say unto thee, that Kelsey Bjarnason spake thusly:   
   > On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:43:52 -0800, Rex Ballard wrote:   
   >   
   >> Turn off indexing of the whole drive, and index ONLY the documents   
   >> that you really need to search - preferably a subdirectory of "My   
   >> Documents".  One of the problems with Indexing the entire drive on   
   >> Windows, is that EVERY document, including cached web pages, e-mails   
   >> and other "transitional" documents - end up in the index.   
   >   
   > So what?  I index everything from my home folder on down - which means   
   > all my emails, all my documents, source code, game files, yadda yadda   
   > yadda yadda.  If this slows down the system, there's a serious flaw in   
   > the indexer; the correct solution is to fix the defective software.   
      
   WRT Linux indexing software:   
      
   It's an I/O scheduler problem. I haven't tried any indexers recently,   
   but the last time I did (tested a few) they really did bring the system   
   to a crawl (Fedora 9 or 10, IIRC). They are supposed to run at a low CPU   
   priority, which is also supposed to lower the I/O priority, but that   
   didn't seem to be the case. Using ionice explicitly on the indexing   
   process does the trick though.   
      
   But that was a while ago. There's been a lot of updates to both the   
   kernel and the various indexers since then, including some very   
   interesting improvements to desktop responsiveness recently.   
      
   As for the Windows Indexing Service: same problem, but AFAICT there's no   
   way to explicitly alter the I/O priority of Windows tasks (only the CPU   
   priority). Perhaps there's an API for programmers, but I don't ever   
   remember finding a mechanism for users.   
      
   Generally I just don't need indexers. On the rare occasions I need to   
   search for something, I just use find and grep. It may be slower than   
   searching a pre-compiled database, but it's good enough for my needs. I   
   store all my data in a highly structured hierarchy that makes finding   
   stuff trivial anyway.   
      
   > Any way you slice it, Windows appears to be getting worse with time,   
   > rather than better.  Pretty sad state of affairs.   
      
   I remember Microsoft once stating its intention to reduce the bloat in   
   Windows, and make a real effort to speed things up. One of the results   
   of that was their Singularity Project. Whatever they're doing though, if   
   anything, it's yet to make it into Windows. It really is a pig, and it   
   just keeps getting fatter. This is why the idea of (full) Windows on ARM   
   seems very unlikely (as was rumoured recently).   
      
   Stability does seem to have improved a bit, in the sense that crashes   
   don't bring down the whole system quite as often as 98 and XP, although   
   my exposure to Vista/7 has been limited to friend's systems (I haven't   
   had a Windows system for a long time now), so I don't know how stable it   
   is over an extended uptime.   
      
   The virus situation hasn't improved one bit, which is puzzling   
   considering all the supposed security enhancements in Vista/7. UAC is a   
   joke, and most people just turn it off anyway. To be fair, a lot of   
   people turn off SELinux too, for the same reason, but then frankly it's   
   not really needed on Linux, given that it was designed from the ground   
   up as a multi-user system, and thus has a proper separation between   
   privileged and unprivileged users and tasks. Tools like PolicyKit seem   
   hell bent on undoing much of that separation, which is something I'm not   
   too happy about, and actually the main reason I dumped Fedora, but even   
   at its worst GNU/Linux is an order of magnitude safer than Windows, and   
   that probably includes the humorous (yet useful) Damned Vulnerable   
   Linux.   
      
   The thing that really pisses me off about Windows though is it's   
   literally a mess. It's a vast complex of bits strewn everywhere, highly   
   obfuscated and chaotic, with seemingly no sane organisation. It makes   
   administering the system an absolute nightmare, and of course an ideal   
   hiding place for malware, and that's before you look at things like the   
   NTFS Alternate Data Streams. The fact that it's proprietary certainly   
   puts me off, but even if it were Free Software I'd be disinclined to   
   want it, given its unnecessarily convoluted nature. It sort of reminds   
   me of someone trying to build a house by starting with the roof, then   
   working backwards, haphazardly adding bits on here and there, with   
   little or no regard to the most important bit - the foundations.   
      
   --   
   K.                           | Ancient Chinese Proverb:   
   http://slated.org            | "The road to Hell is paved with   
   Fedora 8 (Werewolf) on sky   | ignorant twits who know nothing   
   kernel 2.6.31.5, up 10 days  | about GNU/Linux."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)