BLACK HOLES (yuvalbe) Mac OS

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Covering weaknesses mac os. The battle between the Operating Systems is very common these days. Why? because there are different operating systems that offer a different set of advantages and disadvantages.

MAC.OSX.Blackhole is a Trojan infection. A trojan (sometimes referred to as a Trojan virus or Trojan horse virus) is malware that stealthily infiltrates users' computers and performs various malicious tasks. https://promotionsfree.mystrikingly.com/blog/holey-moley-wcb-mac-os.

  • Black Hole is a powerful application that allows you to clear sensitive information from your Mac with a single click. Black Hole automates many operations such as quitting applications, removing recent items from application menus, emptying the Trash, and more. More time for you!
  • To control the black hole you can use Xbox controllers connected by USB, a normal mouse (in the Mac OS version) or the keyboard: Xbox controller: the left hand stick controls the position of the black hole; the upper left button increases the range of the gravitational potential.

But the worst part is choosing between them is becoming harder now. macOS, Windows or Linux?

So to make it easy for you, in this article, we are providing you with everything you need to know which one is better for you. So stay tuned for that.

But before moving further we must be familiar with the very basic question and that is,

What is Operating System?

BLACK HOLES (yuvalbe) Mac OS

The operating system acts as an interface between the user and the computer hardware.

In simple words, a user with the help of operating system manipulates the C.P.U (Central Processing Unit) to get the desired task done.

For example – You want to browse the internet while listening to songs. How will you do it? and What you will need for that?.

First of all, you need a Web browser and a media player installed on your computer and by this, we mean a platform where both of the software applications are installed, so to make them work simultaneously.

Here the word platform refers to Operating System.

Types of Operating System

Though there are many operating systems. But here we will only be talking about the most popular ones.

  • Mac Os
  • Windows
  • Linux

These are the top 3 most popular Operating Systems in the world.

  1. Mac Os – Mac Os is the operating system by Apple for their exclusive iMac and MacBook lineup. It's a very sophisticated operating system with superior performance and stability.
  2. Windows – Windows is the most popular and widely used operating system on the planet. It was introduced by Microsoft with the purpose of dominating personal computing at that time.
  3. Linux – Linux is the free and open-source operating system built across the Linux kernel. It's a very powerful OS which offers great control and command over the device (CPU).

Their Pros (Advantages) and Cons (Disadvantages)

1. Mac OS

Pros

  • Simple and Powerful user interface – Mac OS has the simplest and most powerful user interface among all. No, we are not being biased here, it's true. If you compare both of them side by side you will notice that the icons on a mac are much more organized. In fact, installing and launching apps on Mac OS is as similar as iOS. So if you already own an iPhone then it will be easier for you to learn and operate Mac OS.
  • Fewer Virus attacks – One of the biggest advantages of Mac OS over windows is that it suffers from very fewer virus attacks. Now, it doesn't mean that Mac OS is more secure than windows. But the reality is due to the widely used banner of windows, hackers target it more frequently. This somehow benefits the Mac user as nobody is making virus prone software for Mac.
  • World class Integration between hardware and software – This might be the biggest reason why people prefer Macbook or iMac than any other computing device. Apple is known for its full control over the devices, as the design of the hardware is prepared by Apple itself. So, this allows them to create fully optimized apps as the developers have the access to the hardware of the device. Thus, as a result, the software performs smoother and Apple keeps it working smoothly for a long time.
  • Integration of Apple Products – Have you ever heard about 'Ecosystem'?. Many people believe that Apple has one of the most beautiful ecosystems when it comes to the integration of devices. Yes, we are talking about the integration of Apple watch with iPhone and MacBook. Apple really worked hard in making things work like new for quite a couple of years.

Cons

  • Expensive – When it comes to breaking the bank then Apple has a very major role in it. It's on record that Apple sells one of the most expensive gadgets in the world. This is more noticeable when comparing the price point of Mac computers with their Windows counterpart. So keep this in mind.
  • Harder to upgrade – Macbooks and iMac's are very hard to upgrade. Now, some of you must be thinking how?. Well, most of its hardware components are integrated both at a design and engineering levels. So, this makes it even harder to upgrade.
  • No Games – Yes, this might make you sad but it's a reality. Macbook's and iMac's are not meant for gaming. So if you want to buy a laptop or pc just to play games then we recommend you to go for windows.

Black Holes (yuvalbe) Mac Os X

2. Windows

Pros

  • Cheap – Yes, the biggest advantage of Windows is that it's pretty cheap. You need not to break the bank for Windows PC or Laptop. This is because Microsoft sells the Windows copyright license to every PC or laptop manufacturer in the world. For example HP, Dell, and Asus etc.
  • Variety Options – By the above-mentioned point, you can very much figure out now that the options for windows laptop and PC are very huge as compared with Mac OS. One more thing to keep in mind is that you have a variety of options depending on your budget also.
  • Softwareavailability – Since there are more windows users across the globe, there are more software programs, games, and utilities for windows operating system.
  • Customizable – You can customize your Windows operating system to another level. This is something which is missing in Mac OS.
  • Games – Many people who can even afford to buy iMac or MacBook refuses it because they prefer playing games on PC and laptop. This is probably the biggest advantage of Windows OS and a disadvantage for Mac OS.
  • Upgradable – Unlike Mac operating System windows allow you to upgrade the hardware with an ease. For instance, if you want to upgrade your Processor, ram or SSD then you can do it. This is because Windows is not limited to Microsoft's Laptops or Pcs.

Cons

  • Malware and Virus Attacks – In this case, the biggest strength of Windows become the biggest weakness also. The popularity of windows allows hackers to create virus and malware powered software which damage the operating system to great extent. Every year more than millions of Windows devices get affected.
  • Less Reliable – Similar like the above-mentioned point this makes windows operating system less reliable.
  • Becomes Laggy overtime – Yes, it's true. It has been observed that with every Microsoft update windows tend to become laggier. People on Social Media also makes jokes on it. So this is something where Microsoft needs to work soon.

3. Linux

Pros

  • Low cost – You need not to spend any money to obtain its license, because its software comes from GNU General Public License. You can also download the high-quality software for Linux and that too from wherever you want from, free of cost and you need not to worry that your program may stop due to the trial version. You can also install it on many computers without even paying.
  • Stability: Linux is stable enough to get your daily tasks done. You don't have to reboot it periodically. It can also handle a large number of users and does not hang up or slow down due to memory issues.
  • Flexibility: It is used for high-performance applications, desktop applications, and also embedded applications. You can even save disk space by installing components required for a particular use.
  • Performance: Linux provides high performance on workstations and on networks. It also helps in making old computers sufficient and usable again and also can handle many users at a time.
  • Choice: Choice is one of the greatest advantages of Linux. It gives the power to control every aspect of the operating system. Main features that you can control look and feel of the desktop by Windows Manager and kernel.

Cons

  • Understanding: To become familiar with Linux you need to have a lot of patience and desire to read and explore about it. So keep this in mind.
  • Software: Linux has a limited selection of available software.
  • Ease: Even though Linux has improved a lot in ease of use but windows are much easier.
  • Hardware: Linux doesn't support many hardware devices.

Conclusion

So this was all regarding the comparison of Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. In our conclusion, we found that every operating system has its own advantages which in some cases might be a disadvantage for another one.

Stay tuned for more.

Memory usage

If you're reading this article for tips on how to improve your Mac OS X experience, now's the time to pay attention. Aside from purchasing a new Mac, the most important thing you can do to make Mac OS X more bearable is to buy more RAM. Go ahead, don't be shy. 512MB sticks are going for as little as $50 if you look hard enough.

Frequent readers may recall that both the G3/400 and the dual G4/450 had only 256MB RAM at the time of the 10.0 review. After using 10.0.x for a few weeks on the G4, I got sick of hearing my disk grinding constantly and upgraded to 512MB. The silence that followed was truly golden. It was a bigger improvement than any of the 10.0.x upgrades, by far.

(Although the G3/400 primarily runs Mac OS 9, I upgraded it to 384MB because, well, RAM was too damn cheap not to, I guess.)

After a few weeks at 512MB, the G4 started to get a little grind-happy again. I shuffled some RAM between machines to boost the G4 again to its current total of 768MB, and noticed a nearly linear boost in 'smoothness' in daily use.

What's going on here? Where is all this memory going? Is Mac OS X a black hole for RAM? In a word, yes. But that's actually a good thing.sort of. I talked about Mac OS X's virtual memory system as it relates to the user experience and the infamous 'minimum required system' in the 10.0 article. I'd like to take a short break from the 'review' portion of this article and go into more detail about Mac OS X's memory system (as requested by numerous readers). Feel free to skip ahead to the summary if you're only interested in the RAM usage performance of 10.1 relative to 10.0.x.

(Note: A lot of the information presented below is heavily simplified in an effort to reach as broad an audience as possible. If you're interested in the gory details, picking up a good book on the topic is your best bet.)

Virtual Memory Basics

Mac OS X manages memory very differently than classic Mac OS. The first key to understanding memory usage in Mac OS X is to be understand how a modern virtual memory system works.

In a virtual memory management system, there is a distinction between real, physical memory and 'virtual' memory. An application's virtual memory size is the amount of memory the application thinks it has allocated, but only a (possibly very small) portion of that memory may actually be stored in the real, physical RAM chips sticking out of your computer's motherboard at any given time. The rest exists on disk in some form, usually in one or more 'swap files.'

The operating system decides what portion of which processes exist in physical memory at any given time. This decision process is complex, and varies from OS to OS, but it usually uses recent usage statistics in its decision making process. A process that has not accessed a particular piece of (real, physical) memory for a long time may find that memory written out to disk so that another more active process can use that piece of physical memory. When a process has a large portion of its memory removed from physical RAM and placed on the disk, it is said to be 'swapped out.'

If a process needs a previously swapped-out piece of memory again, it will be transferred from disk back into physical memory—possibly in a different location than its earlier home in physical memory. When a previously swapped-out application becomes active again and causes a large portion of its memory to move from disk back to physical memory, it is said to be 'swapped in.'

To simplify memory management, the operating system deals with memory in uniform units of a minimum size (usually 4K) called 'pages.' Swapping out a page is also called a 'pageout', and swapping in a page is called a 'pagein.' The policy used by the operating system to control memory management is often called the 'paging algorithm.'

Memory pages may store almost anything: code, data, even pieces of files. In fact, one of the useful features of virtual memory is that entire files may be 'memory mapped': a file on disk may be accessed as if it's a series of memory pages that have been swapped out to disk.

Further optimization is possible by allowing processes that need access to the same information (code, data, files) to share memory pages. Only when one of the processes sharing a particular memory page chooses to modify that page is a private copy created. This behavior is aptly named 'copy-on-write', and it allows many processes to efficiently share memory, with only the 'differences' allocated separately.

Not all memory may be swapped out. Some pages are 'wired down', meaning they may never leave physical memory during their lifetime. The memory pages that contain the operating system code that control the paging algorithm can never be swapped out, for instance (think about it). In fact, much of the operating system kernel is usually wired down.

Each active process needs some minimum portion of its memory pages to exist in physical memory in order to function efficiently. This portion is called the 'working set.' When the working set of all the active processes cannot fit in physical memory, the operating system must constantly shuttle pages to and from physical memory and the disk in a sort of game of musical chairs gone terribly wrong. A computer in this state is said to be 'thrashing.' The only cure is to either decrease the number active processes or buy more RAM.

The Buffer Cache

The second most important factor in Mac OS X's memory usage behavior is the buffer cache. The buffer cache is meant to speed up access to files on disk. Every time a piece of data is read from the disk, it may (optionally) be stored in memory. If that same piece of data is needed again in the near future, it may still be available in (physical) memory, saving a trip to the disk. Mac OS X implements a 'unified buffer cache', meaning that the buffer cache and the virtual memory system are combined. A page is a page is a page in Mac OS X.

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The buffer cache affects RAM usage in ways that a Mac user may not expect. Heavy file i/o can use a lot of physical memory very quickly, potentially thinning out the physical memory presence of running applications. Poorly written applications may exacerbate this problem by using cached file i/o when it is not necessary, or even useful. An application that reads and parses a large file a single time during start-up should probably not use caching i/o, since it is not likely that the application will need those memory pages again some time in the near future before they're evicted from physical memory by another active process.

The Window Server

The final major player in the Mac OS X memory ballet is, perhaps surprisingly, the window server. The window server orchestrates access to the screen, including both low-level drawing and higher-level concepts like the movement and layering of windows. Nch ​​cardworks plus 3 00 download free.

As discussed in earlier articles, the Quartz display layer (of which the window server is an important part) models the screen as a layered compositing engine much like the layers in a graphics application like Photoshop. Each pixel has a red, green, and blue components, plus a so-called 'alpha channel' which determines its transparency, from totally opaque to totally invisible. The appearance of each pixel on the screen is determined by the composite of all the applications that have a pixel in that position. The window server calculates the composite of those pixels based on the layering and visibility of the participating pixels.

This provides the infrastructure for many of the 'pretty' effects in Mac OS X: the transparent drop-shadows on the windows, the translucent menus and title bars, etc. Each individual application only needs to worry about its own pixels, without regard for anything in front of or behind it. The window server then composites those pixels and draws the result to the screen. This makes application development simpler, leaving the 'hard work' of creating those nice on-screen effects to the operating system rather than each application.

Things get tricky again something on the screen has to move or change color (or transparency). The window server must re-composite every pixel changed by an application before the change can become visible to the user. And the compositing calculation needs not only the value of the changed pixel, but also the values of all other pixels that contribute to that position.

Think about the calculations necessary to do something as simply as move a window in Mac OS X. Every pixel of that window must be re-composited with every pixel of every application in each location for each new position of the window. Imagine a 500x300 pixel window (about 24 rows of 80 column text) moved 100 pixels to the right, with 5 other application windows behind it. That's about 15 million compositing calculations, each with 30 operands (red, green, blue, and alpha values for each contributing pixel from each application), all for moving a small window a few inches.

But wait, there's more. When something changes on the screen (a window moves, appears, or disappears), pixels belonging to other applications are revealed. Those pixels must, of course, be composited before they can be displayed, and those compositing calculations need all the pixel values for each application that has a pixel in the newly revealed area. Adding the compositing calculations associated with the newly revealed screen area in the moving window example above (and accounting for the transparent drop-shadow on the window) brings the grand total to almost 17 million 20-30 operand calculations!

Super sumo skater mac os. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario that would only happen in a very naive implementation. Many optimization are possible. Solid pixels can abbreviate the number and difficulty of the compositing calculations tremendously, especially if the front-most pixel is solid.

But there's no getting around the fact that the window server still needs access to all the pixels of all the windows on the screen at all times, since it never knows when one of them will be required in a compositing calculation. Furthermore, this access needs to be very fast, since no one wants to wait while the OS reads pixels from a slow medium like disk.

Mac OS X provides the window server with fast access to pixels by making all windows 'buffered.' All the pixels of a buffered window are stored in in memory. When one of those pixels is needed in a compositing calculation, the window server simply reads the memory location corresponding to that pixel. It does not have to 'ask' the application for the pixel. In fact, an application may be entirely frozen and unresponsive, but its window can still be moved around, hidden, and revealed without any participation from the application. When an application wants to change its window, the changes are all sent through the window server, which updates the window's buffer to reflect the changes.

This is a big change from classic Mac OS, where each application drew directly to the screen, and any newly revealed portion of a window had to be re-drawn by the application that owned that window. Window buffering and compositing had to be implemented explicitly by each application that wanted it, and it was totally independent of any other running applications.

From a development perspective, buffered windows make applications easier to code. Drawing only has to be done once, after which portions of the window may be hidden and revealed without triggering any custom redraw code in the application. From a user's perspective, window buffering allows newly revealed windows to 'just be there,' with no visible redraw. Buffering also provides smooth, flicker-free window movement. Mac OS X even goes so far as to synchronize screen drawing with the sweep of the electron beam on CRTs to avoid flicker and 'tearing.'

Quartz's buffering is generally a good thing. It improves the visual quality of on-screen elements and it makes application development easier. But what does all of this have to do with memory usage?

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We've already seen the potentially tremendous number of calculations required to composite items on the screen. These calculations are all done by the CPU in Mac OS X, and are not off-loaded to a video card's GPU. But surprisingly, this is not as large a CPU hit as you might expect, thanks to both the common case of totally opaque pixels and the speed of today's CPUs (yes, even on Macs). A few million calculations every once in a while may cause a some instantaneous load on the CPU, but it is not really a factor in the long term. That said, it would be great to have the video card do these calculations rather than the CPU—something I'm sure Apple is working on. In pathological cases (e.g. the famous shaking transparent terminal window) the CPU load can briefly become significant.

But it's the memory usage that's the real killer. Classic Mac OS applications only need to retain the essential information about each window: its size, features, and contents. Mac OS X applications have to retain the same information, of course, but remember that the window server also has to retain a complete memory image of every pixel in the window! Repeat this for every single window on the screen, and it adds up very quickly.

Classic Mac OS requires only a few kilobytes to store the basic structures that define a simple, empty window. In Mac OS X, the total memory required for even a completely empty window is proportional to its size, regardless of the nature of its contents (if any).

In my daily work as a web programmer, this difference is very apparent. The nature of the work requires many windows to be open at once: text editors, web browsers, terminals, etc. In classic Mac OS, each text editor window, for example, would require only a small amount of memory for the window itself, plus whatever backing store the editor keeps for the (ASCII) text in each window. In Mac OS X, each simple text editor window becomes a giant 32-bit image (in addition to the other information, of course). Multiply this phenomenon across all the other applications, each with many windows of their own, and you quickly run into trouble.

Take a look at this window list from a typical work day on my G4. The total memory used by window buffers alone is an astounding 120MB! And remember, this is before even accounting for things like, say, the memory required by the actual applications and the core OS itself!

https://homevacation-free-betpokergameszcvtk.peatix.com. (The possibility of decreasing the window server's memory usage—and, more importantly, decreasing memory bandwidth usage—by compressing inactive window buffers is intriguing, but this feature is not officially supported in 10.1.)

The window server uses the same virtual memory system as every other part of OS X, of course. That means that the memory that makes up each window buffer is eligible to be paged out just like any other piece of memory. This is where the real performance hit comes in. Attempting to manipulate a window that has had some or all of its window buffer pages swapped out is a painful, stuttering, disk grinding experience as the virtual memory system rapidly tries to bring those pages back into physical memory from disk (evicting other resident pages while doing so, of course).

Black Holes (yuvalbe) Mac Os Download

I encounter this phenomenon on a grand scale every time I return to work on Monday, after a weekend spent connected to the G4 via the command line running non-GUI applications from the terminal. On those Monday mornings, almost every window buffer is likely to have been swapped out during the weekend. The disk grinding session that ensues when all the windows are paged back in as I start to use them again is quite spectacular.

And remember, this is a system with 768MB of RAM. But the OS doesn't care. My command line work over the weekend required significant memory (compiling, running web servers, etc.), and the OS provided it. None of the GUI applications were active over the weekend, so their pages were swapped out to disk to make way for the memory needs of the command line activity. This is to be construed as a feature.

So, buffered windows: friend or foe? In the end, they are a friend. The OS X window server provides a higher level of abstraction to applications. With more abstraction comes more resource usage. But 'increased abstraction' is essentially the definition of progress in the computer industry (otherwise we'd all still be programming in machine language). But like much of the rest of OS X, pervasive window buffering is slightly ahead of current state of hardware. Long-term, this is also a good thing, in my opinion. It's easier to wait for hardware to catch up to your ambitious (but clean) software architecture than it is to try to revamp your operating system in response to advances in hardware (just ask Apple ;-)

Swap File Optimizations

Black holes (yuvalbe) mac os download

The operating system acts as an interface between the user and the computer hardware.

In simple words, a user with the help of operating system manipulates the C.P.U (Central Processing Unit) to get the desired task done.

For example – You want to browse the internet while listening to songs. How will you do it? and What you will need for that?.

First of all, you need a Web browser and a media player installed on your computer and by this, we mean a platform where both of the software applications are installed, so to make them work simultaneously.

Here the word platform refers to Operating System.

Types of Operating System

Though there are many operating systems. But here we will only be talking about the most popular ones.

  • Mac Os
  • Windows
  • Linux

These are the top 3 most popular Operating Systems in the world.

  1. Mac Os – Mac Os is the operating system by Apple for their exclusive iMac and MacBook lineup. It's a very sophisticated operating system with superior performance and stability.
  2. Windows – Windows is the most popular and widely used operating system on the planet. It was introduced by Microsoft with the purpose of dominating personal computing at that time.
  3. Linux – Linux is the free and open-source operating system built across the Linux kernel. It's a very powerful OS which offers great control and command over the device (CPU).

Their Pros (Advantages) and Cons (Disadvantages)

1. Mac OS

Pros

  • Simple and Powerful user interface – Mac OS has the simplest and most powerful user interface among all. No, we are not being biased here, it's true. If you compare both of them side by side you will notice that the icons on a mac are much more organized. In fact, installing and launching apps on Mac OS is as similar as iOS. So if you already own an iPhone then it will be easier for you to learn and operate Mac OS.
  • Fewer Virus attacks – One of the biggest advantages of Mac OS over windows is that it suffers from very fewer virus attacks. Now, it doesn't mean that Mac OS is more secure than windows. But the reality is due to the widely used banner of windows, hackers target it more frequently. This somehow benefits the Mac user as nobody is making virus prone software for Mac.
  • World class Integration between hardware and software – This might be the biggest reason why people prefer Macbook or iMac than any other computing device. Apple is known for its full control over the devices, as the design of the hardware is prepared by Apple itself. So, this allows them to create fully optimized apps as the developers have the access to the hardware of the device. Thus, as a result, the software performs smoother and Apple keeps it working smoothly for a long time.
  • Integration of Apple Products – Have you ever heard about 'Ecosystem'?. Many people believe that Apple has one of the most beautiful ecosystems when it comes to the integration of devices. Yes, we are talking about the integration of Apple watch with iPhone and MacBook. Apple really worked hard in making things work like new for quite a couple of years.

Cons

  • Expensive – When it comes to breaking the bank then Apple has a very major role in it. It's on record that Apple sells one of the most expensive gadgets in the world. This is more noticeable when comparing the price point of Mac computers with their Windows counterpart. So keep this in mind.
  • Harder to upgrade – Macbooks and iMac's are very hard to upgrade. Now, some of you must be thinking how?. Well, most of its hardware components are integrated both at a design and engineering levels. So, this makes it even harder to upgrade.
  • No Games – Yes, this might make you sad but it's a reality. Macbook's and iMac's are not meant for gaming. So if you want to buy a laptop or pc just to play games then we recommend you to go for windows.

Black Holes (yuvalbe) Mac Os X

2. Windows

Pros

  • Cheap – Yes, the biggest advantage of Windows is that it's pretty cheap. You need not to break the bank for Windows PC or Laptop. This is because Microsoft sells the Windows copyright license to every PC or laptop manufacturer in the world. For example HP, Dell, and Asus etc.
  • Variety Options – By the above-mentioned point, you can very much figure out now that the options for windows laptop and PC are very huge as compared with Mac OS. One more thing to keep in mind is that you have a variety of options depending on your budget also.
  • Softwareavailability – Since there are more windows users across the globe, there are more software programs, games, and utilities for windows operating system.
  • Customizable – You can customize your Windows operating system to another level. This is something which is missing in Mac OS.
  • Games – Many people who can even afford to buy iMac or MacBook refuses it because they prefer playing games on PC and laptop. This is probably the biggest advantage of Windows OS and a disadvantage for Mac OS.
  • Upgradable – Unlike Mac operating System windows allow you to upgrade the hardware with an ease. For instance, if you want to upgrade your Processor, ram or SSD then you can do it. This is because Windows is not limited to Microsoft's Laptops or Pcs.

Cons

  • Malware and Virus Attacks – In this case, the biggest strength of Windows become the biggest weakness also. The popularity of windows allows hackers to create virus and malware powered software which damage the operating system to great extent. Every year more than millions of Windows devices get affected.
  • Less Reliable – Similar like the above-mentioned point this makes windows operating system less reliable.
  • Becomes Laggy overtime – Yes, it's true. It has been observed that with every Microsoft update windows tend to become laggier. People on Social Media also makes jokes on it. So this is something where Microsoft needs to work soon.

3. Linux

Pros

  • Low cost – You need not to spend any money to obtain its license, because its software comes from GNU General Public License. You can also download the high-quality software for Linux and that too from wherever you want from, free of cost and you need not to worry that your program may stop due to the trial version. You can also install it on many computers without even paying.
  • Stability: Linux is stable enough to get your daily tasks done. You don't have to reboot it periodically. It can also handle a large number of users and does not hang up or slow down due to memory issues.
  • Flexibility: It is used for high-performance applications, desktop applications, and also embedded applications. You can even save disk space by installing components required for a particular use.
  • Performance: Linux provides high performance on workstations and on networks. It also helps in making old computers sufficient and usable again and also can handle many users at a time.
  • Choice: Choice is one of the greatest advantages of Linux. It gives the power to control every aspect of the operating system. Main features that you can control look and feel of the desktop by Windows Manager and kernel.

Cons

  • Understanding: To become familiar with Linux you need to have a lot of patience and desire to read and explore about it. So keep this in mind.
  • Software: Linux has a limited selection of available software.
  • Ease: Even though Linux has improved a lot in ease of use but windows are much easier.
  • Hardware: Linux doesn't support many hardware devices.

Conclusion

So this was all regarding the comparison of Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. In our conclusion, we found that every operating system has its own advantages which in some cases might be a disadvantage for another one.

Stay tuned for more.

Memory usage

If you're reading this article for tips on how to improve your Mac OS X experience, now's the time to pay attention. Aside from purchasing a new Mac, the most important thing you can do to make Mac OS X more bearable is to buy more RAM. Go ahead, don't be shy. 512MB sticks are going for as little as $50 if you look hard enough.

Frequent readers may recall that both the G3/400 and the dual G4/450 had only 256MB RAM at the time of the 10.0 review. After using 10.0.x for a few weeks on the G4, I got sick of hearing my disk grinding constantly and upgraded to 512MB. The silence that followed was truly golden. It was a bigger improvement than any of the 10.0.x upgrades, by far.

(Although the G3/400 primarily runs Mac OS 9, I upgraded it to 384MB because, well, RAM was too damn cheap not to, I guess.)

After a few weeks at 512MB, the G4 started to get a little grind-happy again. I shuffled some RAM between machines to boost the G4 again to its current total of 768MB, and noticed a nearly linear boost in 'smoothness' in daily use.

What's going on here? Where is all this memory going? Is Mac OS X a black hole for RAM? In a word, yes. But that's actually a good thing.sort of. I talked about Mac OS X's virtual memory system as it relates to the user experience and the infamous 'minimum required system' in the 10.0 article. I'd like to take a short break from the 'review' portion of this article and go into more detail about Mac OS X's memory system (as requested by numerous readers). Feel free to skip ahead to the summary if you're only interested in the RAM usage performance of 10.1 relative to 10.0.x.

(Note: A lot of the information presented below is heavily simplified in an effort to reach as broad an audience as possible. If you're interested in the gory details, picking up a good book on the topic is your best bet.)

Virtual Memory Basics

Mac OS X manages memory very differently than classic Mac OS. The first key to understanding memory usage in Mac OS X is to be understand how a modern virtual memory system works.

In a virtual memory management system, there is a distinction between real, physical memory and 'virtual' memory. An application's virtual memory size is the amount of memory the application thinks it has allocated, but only a (possibly very small) portion of that memory may actually be stored in the real, physical RAM chips sticking out of your computer's motherboard at any given time. The rest exists on disk in some form, usually in one or more 'swap files.'

The operating system decides what portion of which processes exist in physical memory at any given time. This decision process is complex, and varies from OS to OS, but it usually uses recent usage statistics in its decision making process. A process that has not accessed a particular piece of (real, physical) memory for a long time may find that memory written out to disk so that another more active process can use that piece of physical memory. When a process has a large portion of its memory removed from physical RAM and placed on the disk, it is said to be 'swapped out.'

If a process needs a previously swapped-out piece of memory again, it will be transferred from disk back into physical memory—possibly in a different location than its earlier home in physical memory. When a previously swapped-out application becomes active again and causes a large portion of its memory to move from disk back to physical memory, it is said to be 'swapped in.'

To simplify memory management, the operating system deals with memory in uniform units of a minimum size (usually 4K) called 'pages.' Swapping out a page is also called a 'pageout', and swapping in a page is called a 'pagein.' The policy used by the operating system to control memory management is often called the 'paging algorithm.'

Memory pages may store almost anything: code, data, even pieces of files. In fact, one of the useful features of virtual memory is that entire files may be 'memory mapped': a file on disk may be accessed as if it's a series of memory pages that have been swapped out to disk.

Further optimization is possible by allowing processes that need access to the same information (code, data, files) to share memory pages. Only when one of the processes sharing a particular memory page chooses to modify that page is a private copy created. This behavior is aptly named 'copy-on-write', and it allows many processes to efficiently share memory, with only the 'differences' allocated separately.

Not all memory may be swapped out. Some pages are 'wired down', meaning they may never leave physical memory during their lifetime. The memory pages that contain the operating system code that control the paging algorithm can never be swapped out, for instance (think about it). In fact, much of the operating system kernel is usually wired down.

Each active process needs some minimum portion of its memory pages to exist in physical memory in order to function efficiently. This portion is called the 'working set.' When the working set of all the active processes cannot fit in physical memory, the operating system must constantly shuttle pages to and from physical memory and the disk in a sort of game of musical chairs gone terribly wrong. A computer in this state is said to be 'thrashing.' The only cure is to either decrease the number active processes or buy more RAM.

The Buffer Cache

The second most important factor in Mac OS X's memory usage behavior is the buffer cache. The buffer cache is meant to speed up access to files on disk. Every time a piece of data is read from the disk, it may (optionally) be stored in memory. If that same piece of data is needed again in the near future, it may still be available in (physical) memory, saving a trip to the disk. Mac OS X implements a 'unified buffer cache', meaning that the buffer cache and the virtual memory system are combined. A page is a page is a page in Mac OS X.

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The buffer cache affects RAM usage in ways that a Mac user may not expect. Heavy file i/o can use a lot of physical memory very quickly, potentially thinning out the physical memory presence of running applications. Poorly written applications may exacerbate this problem by using cached file i/o when it is not necessary, or even useful. An application that reads and parses a large file a single time during start-up should probably not use caching i/o, since it is not likely that the application will need those memory pages again some time in the near future before they're evicted from physical memory by another active process.

The Window Server

The final major player in the Mac OS X memory ballet is, perhaps surprisingly, the window server. The window server orchestrates access to the screen, including both low-level drawing and higher-level concepts like the movement and layering of windows. Nch ​​cardworks plus 3 00 download free.

As discussed in earlier articles, the Quartz display layer (of which the window server is an important part) models the screen as a layered compositing engine much like the layers in a graphics application like Photoshop. Each pixel has a red, green, and blue components, plus a so-called 'alpha channel' which determines its transparency, from totally opaque to totally invisible. The appearance of each pixel on the screen is determined by the composite of all the applications that have a pixel in that position. The window server calculates the composite of those pixels based on the layering and visibility of the participating pixels.

This provides the infrastructure for many of the 'pretty' effects in Mac OS X: the transparent drop-shadows on the windows, the translucent menus and title bars, etc. Each individual application only needs to worry about its own pixels, without regard for anything in front of or behind it. The window server then composites those pixels and draws the result to the screen. This makes application development simpler, leaving the 'hard work' of creating those nice on-screen effects to the operating system rather than each application.

Things get tricky again something on the screen has to move or change color (or transparency). The window server must re-composite every pixel changed by an application before the change can become visible to the user. And the compositing calculation needs not only the value of the changed pixel, but also the values of all other pixels that contribute to that position.

Think about the calculations necessary to do something as simply as move a window in Mac OS X. Every pixel of that window must be re-composited with every pixel of every application in each location for each new position of the window. Imagine a 500x300 pixel window (about 24 rows of 80 column text) moved 100 pixels to the right, with 5 other application windows behind it. That's about 15 million compositing calculations, each with 30 operands (red, green, blue, and alpha values for each contributing pixel from each application), all for moving a small window a few inches.

But wait, there's more. When something changes on the screen (a window moves, appears, or disappears), pixels belonging to other applications are revealed. Those pixels must, of course, be composited before they can be displayed, and those compositing calculations need all the pixel values for each application that has a pixel in the newly revealed area. Adding the compositing calculations associated with the newly revealed screen area in the moving window example above (and accounting for the transparent drop-shadow on the window) brings the grand total to almost 17 million 20-30 operand calculations!

Super sumo skater mac os. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario that would only happen in a very naive implementation. Many optimization are possible. Solid pixels can abbreviate the number and difficulty of the compositing calculations tremendously, especially if the front-most pixel is solid.

But there's no getting around the fact that the window server still needs access to all the pixels of all the windows on the screen at all times, since it never knows when one of them will be required in a compositing calculation. Furthermore, this access needs to be very fast, since no one wants to wait while the OS reads pixels from a slow medium like disk.

Mac OS X provides the window server with fast access to pixels by making all windows 'buffered.' All the pixels of a buffered window are stored in in memory. When one of those pixels is needed in a compositing calculation, the window server simply reads the memory location corresponding to that pixel. It does not have to 'ask' the application for the pixel. In fact, an application may be entirely frozen and unresponsive, but its window can still be moved around, hidden, and revealed without any participation from the application. When an application wants to change its window, the changes are all sent through the window server, which updates the window's buffer to reflect the changes.

This is a big change from classic Mac OS, where each application drew directly to the screen, and any newly revealed portion of a window had to be re-drawn by the application that owned that window. Window buffering and compositing had to be implemented explicitly by each application that wanted it, and it was totally independent of any other running applications.

From a development perspective, buffered windows make applications easier to code. Drawing only has to be done once, after which portions of the window may be hidden and revealed without triggering any custom redraw code in the application. From a user's perspective, window buffering allows newly revealed windows to 'just be there,' with no visible redraw. Buffering also provides smooth, flicker-free window movement. Mac OS X even goes so far as to synchronize screen drawing with the sweep of the electron beam on CRTs to avoid flicker and 'tearing.'

Quartz's buffering is generally a good thing. It improves the visual quality of on-screen elements and it makes application development easier. But what does all of this have to do with memory usage?

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We've already seen the potentially tremendous number of calculations required to composite items on the screen. These calculations are all done by the CPU in Mac OS X, and are not off-loaded to a video card's GPU. But surprisingly, this is not as large a CPU hit as you might expect, thanks to both the common case of totally opaque pixels and the speed of today's CPUs (yes, even on Macs). A few million calculations every once in a while may cause a some instantaneous load on the CPU, but it is not really a factor in the long term. That said, it would be great to have the video card do these calculations rather than the CPU—something I'm sure Apple is working on. In pathological cases (e.g. the famous shaking transparent terminal window) the CPU load can briefly become significant.

But it's the memory usage that's the real killer. Classic Mac OS applications only need to retain the essential information about each window: its size, features, and contents. Mac OS X applications have to retain the same information, of course, but remember that the window server also has to retain a complete memory image of every pixel in the window! Repeat this for every single window on the screen, and it adds up very quickly.

Classic Mac OS requires only a few kilobytes to store the basic structures that define a simple, empty window. In Mac OS X, the total memory required for even a completely empty window is proportional to its size, regardless of the nature of its contents (if any).

In my daily work as a web programmer, this difference is very apparent. The nature of the work requires many windows to be open at once: text editors, web browsers, terminals, etc. In classic Mac OS, each text editor window, for example, would require only a small amount of memory for the window itself, plus whatever backing store the editor keeps for the (ASCII) text in each window. In Mac OS X, each simple text editor window becomes a giant 32-bit image (in addition to the other information, of course). Multiply this phenomenon across all the other applications, each with many windows of their own, and you quickly run into trouble.

Take a look at this window list from a typical work day on my G4. The total memory used by window buffers alone is an astounding 120MB! And remember, this is before even accounting for things like, say, the memory required by the actual applications and the core OS itself!

https://homevacation-free-betpokergameszcvtk.peatix.com. (The possibility of decreasing the window server's memory usage—and, more importantly, decreasing memory bandwidth usage—by compressing inactive window buffers is intriguing, but this feature is not officially supported in 10.1.)

The window server uses the same virtual memory system as every other part of OS X, of course. That means that the memory that makes up each window buffer is eligible to be paged out just like any other piece of memory. This is where the real performance hit comes in. Attempting to manipulate a window that has had some or all of its window buffer pages swapped out is a painful, stuttering, disk grinding experience as the virtual memory system rapidly tries to bring those pages back into physical memory from disk (evicting other resident pages while doing so, of course).

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I encounter this phenomenon on a grand scale every time I return to work on Monday, after a weekend spent connected to the G4 via the command line running non-GUI applications from the terminal. On those Monday mornings, almost every window buffer is likely to have been swapped out during the weekend. The disk grinding session that ensues when all the windows are paged back in as I start to use them again is quite spectacular.

And remember, this is a system with 768MB of RAM. But the OS doesn't care. My command line work over the weekend required significant memory (compiling, running web servers, etc.), and the OS provided it. None of the GUI applications were active over the weekend, so their pages were swapped out to disk to make way for the memory needs of the command line activity. This is to be construed as a feature.

So, buffered windows: friend or foe? In the end, they are a friend. The OS X window server provides a higher level of abstraction to applications. With more abstraction comes more resource usage. But 'increased abstraction' is essentially the definition of progress in the computer industry (otherwise we'd all still be programming in machine language). But like much of the rest of OS X, pervasive window buffering is slightly ahead of current state of hardware. Long-term, this is also a good thing, in my opinion. It's easier to wait for hardware to catch up to your ambitious (but clean) software architecture than it is to try to revamp your operating system in response to advances in hardware (just ask Apple ;-)

Swap File Optimizations

Since it is possible to use up almost any amount of physical RAM in OS X (I fill 768MB very quickly), further performance gains are still possible by moving the swap file(s) to a separate disk. No matter how much RAM you have, you will almost certainly hit the swap file eventually. The disk heads on the drive containing the OS and applications will already be scurrying around as they read and write application and OS code and data files. Making the swap file another stop on their frantic journey just adds yet another voice to the cacophony of disk grinding. Swap file access is especially painful since is usually interleaved with other disk operations: read a piece of application code from disk into memory, write an old memory page out to the swap file, read a piece of a data file into the buffer cache, write an old memory page out to the swap file, read a piece of application code from disk into memory.etc. etc. (Can you hear the grinding? :-)

Putting the swap file on a disk mechanism of its own allows the heads on that disk drive to benefit from better locality of reference (i.e. they don't have to move around as much), and frees the application and OS drive to concentrate on its tasks. There is no Apple-sanctioned way to move the swap file to another drive, and certainly no GUI for it. But brave users can follow the directions available on the web. Just be sure to make a total backup first, because you can potentially hose your entire system if you're not careful.

I only have one disk at work, but at home I've moved my swap file from the 12GB 5,400 RPM drive that houses OS X and all its applications to my 45GB 7,200 RPM Mac OS 9 drive. The reduction in disk grinding has been substantial.

Simply moving the swap file to dedicated partition on the same disk is of much smaller benefit (if any). The disk heads still need to make many trips to and from the swap partition and the rest of the disk. And since Mac OS X uses individual swap files (rather than a dedicated swap file system), a separate swap partition is only likely to make a significant difference if the previous swap files were heavily fragmented on disk. (Note: I'm talking about 'external' fragmentation, where pieces of each swap file are spread all over the disk. The swap files themselves are always heavily 'internally' fragmented, meaning difference pieces of memory are spread sparsely within each swap file.)





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