I use Mac OS X every single day and I would freely admit it is a giant bloated memory sucking pig. My finder was using 100 megs of memory yesterday. Why? Who knows but for me I'd like to have a lean OS with good features rather than one that I need to reinstall every year because it suddenly becomes a sluggish, memory sucking pig like my Mac OS X machines have over the last 5 years.
Haiku isn't a memory pig- I'd like to see that ideal come back in OS design.
And yes, I am transfixed with 'memory sucking pig' as a phrase right now.
While I wouldn't disagree that an OSX install can get slower over several years, I can't help but think what you want is a bit of a case of 'the grass is always greener'. There are plenty of lean linux distributions out there, but the reality is that they cut things out.
Modern operating systems do a lot to improve your experience as a user and provide various services. A lot of tech people seem to want their system to have as much CPU and RAM free as possible, but then what are you going to do with it? Are your apps actually running out of memory and swapping?
Yes I am having a problem w/ 4 gigs of memory, running minimal numbers of applications with swapping and slowness. Every year I reinstall Mac OS X and it gets better for a bit, then it starts to come back and I do some maintenance and it gets somewhat better and repeat til around the 12-15 month mark when I have to reinstall again.
I totally agree. The main reason I play with Haiku is that the UI is really responsive. OSX seems to be optimized for screenshots, looking pretty in a manner that often gets in the way. I get beach-balled a lot on the Macbook I have at work, and most things are sluggish. When it's not loaded down, you still have to wait for animations to change desktops and minimize windows. This is even true of my iPhone (again, issued by work) which, even if it's not overburdened, it does make you wait for animations.
Not to single out Apple; most UIs are like that nowadays, including my personal phone (N900, flashy/slow animations and everything, but tolerable). Responsiveness and speed in GUIs seem to be relegated to semi-obscure X11 window managers. It would be nice if "usable" got a higher priority than "flashy", without neglecting flashy, but it seems to be one or the other for now.
Some people clearly want that, though, so it's hard to blame anyone for selling it to them.
Haiku isn't a memory pig- I'd like to see that ideal come back in OS design.
And yes, I am transfixed with 'memory sucking pig' as a phrase right now.