It's not because the OS file-sectors get swapped out and get replaced by the torrent-files (that are obviously more often accessed and hence better served from the cache) that they are now SLOWER than as if there was no flash-cache at all. If some bytes are not cached they are simply read from disk like it would be with a 'normal' drive.

It probably would be possible to add something to the I/O protocol alike TRIM that would tell the SSHD to not-cache certain reads, but I don't know if they have enough momentum [haha] for that yet ...

Oh come on, the Stig would know better, the first thing everyone bought was the FAST-ram expansion.
(although, looking it up on wikipedia it now turns out the trapdoor expansion actually contained "slow ram"... wtf ?! Even though it's been 25 years, I feel cheated now =)

Come to think about it, my A4000 had 18Mb's of ram [**] a gigantic luxury at the time. Although I had no VMM (68030) and thus no virtual-memory I hardly ever ran out of ram. Amazing how the need for memory has gone through the roof... My laptop currently has 3.23 Gb in use, who would have believed that at the time)

(**: fun fact about that was that I had bought the ram many months before I actually got to order the A4000 (from a failing Compaq-store); plugging it in was a tense moment, but luckily it worked without a hitch =)

Wouldn't creating a game-backup from within Steam; sharing it over the network (or sneakernet) and restore it for each pc be faster ?
That way you only need to download it once, and frankly, chances are already at least one person will have it installed... with a bit of luck even already backed up to a share or external medium like an usb-stick or drive.

Going by the fact that pretty much all (non-lowest-budget) phones come with fairly similar hardware it I'd say we can safely assume that the 520's experience is BECAUSE of the OS. Put Android on it and you're likely to be disappointed. IMHO Android is going the same direction as pretty much all other software: it gets bigger, more bloated and more demanding on the hardware with each new incarnation.

PS: Same might happen to WP off course, maybe they're just not far enough into the version-list to notice (yet).

Me personally, I'm looking forward to what will happen in the next years... imho competition is a good thing,

Well, you try to install XnView on Ubuntu then (or FastStone).
There are a lot of things available in the package-mgr, but definitely not all of it is.

And what Apple does is something that gets on peoples nerves too here on /.. Too lazy to look them up, but there have been plenty of stories here about the vetting process being 'far from optimal'.

I have no first-hand experience with it, but if Apple is able to retract an app because some company issued a complaint against it ["We have copyrighted the yellow circle, please remove all pacman clones" (**)] is reason enough for me to take a detour around their shops.

(**: yes, it's an exaggerated example but who knows how long it takes for it to become reality... for crying out loud they've (Tm)-ed magenta !?]

The 'reason' I 'd call it religious is because people tend to be black&white about it, as in "there can only be one".

I started out with my Amiga as the first 'real' OS, 'had' to switch to windows; have been dabbling with Linux on and off and only know about Apple indirectly.
=> I actually was anti-MS-DOS/Windows up to Windows 2000, as from there the OS became stable & usable IMHO.

At the time, my job involved MS products (and it still does) so the choice between Wintel and Apple as alternatives to my Amiga was quite simple. On top of that, Apple is/was way too expensive anyway. Linux was too much niche at the time and slackware looked impressive but couldn't convince me at the time. BeOS seemed fun but I never got around getting one.

=> By now I know Windows 'pretty well', in each case a lot better than Linux. I'm sure I can complain about a lot of things that are 'wrong' in linux that someone with finer understandings about the OS would be able to fix in minutes. Experience shows the opposite is true too.

in fact, over the years, I've suggested and installed Ubuntu on several machines of friends that only use them for basic web & office stuff. They always start out with wanting Windows because that's what everybody has -- so yes, it probably IS a cultural thing -- then again they always assume Windows is free and 'know a guy'. I've stopped supporting those installations as they're a death-trap because Windows Update refuses to serve them updates and frankly, I can't blame MS. People spend 1000$ on the latest hardware but refuse to shell out a single cent for the OS, sigh. Anyway, when return them their machine with Ubuntu on it they hardly realise they're using something different because in the end it all looks and feels alike. (even with the default settings.. disclaimer, that was before Unity so far everybody seems to be happily churning along with their 'old' versions... it's not only XP that still works).

Anyway, please don't dismiss me as a Windows-nut, I am not... but I do hate it when people come by and start bashing on Windows because of things that are quite in the past. You don't hear me complaining how Linux has lousy driver support although yes, I've spent plenty a night getting things right only to have the next update mess it up again.

PS: another reason why I'd risk calling these discussions religious is because people tend to bring in words like 'Evil'. MS isn't evil, it's just a big company that tries to make (more) money. Same goes for Apple & Google & ... well, all of them I guess. And that includes RedHat and Agile and ... it's capitalism at work. It may start out with a couple of guys having a good idea, but it always ends with highly overpaid 'executives' that simply try to squeeze the most out of the client-base.

All in all, maybe (probably) Windows *IS* more susceptible to viruses than the other OS's. Personally, I think not although it does require some common sense from the user, true. These OS's (and software in general) are way too complex with way too many variables interfering which each other. Maybe we'll get there someday and have some kind of background AI that warns us against potential threats [Clippy: it looks like you;re trying to install a screensaver] but I very much doubt I'll live to see it. That said, it obviously gets more difficult over time so there IS hope; but as people expect new features with each never new version released there's bound to be some new vulnerability being introduced. I'm pretty sure Pown2Own is only the tip of the iceberg and there are plenty of smart people around that know how to circumvent the safety mechanisms.. In way that's a waste of talent but I guess everyone has bills to pay so who am I to judge.

According to http://cbmfiles.com/geos/geos-3.php the first disk came with

[....]the basic boot loader program, the kernal file which contains the actual GEOS operating system, the deskTop program which is the graphical user interface, and the Configure program which is used to set up your disk drives and ram disks. [...]

All that in 57k ... (well, it might be compressed off course, not sure how Wraptor works)

Amazing how much was actually included in the suite : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system)
I remember blowing everybody's socks of @ school with the things you could produce using GeoPublish.... (with a /bit/ of patience =)

And yes, it was rather intense on the floppy drive as it used it for swapping. At the time I actually had 2 floppy drives, a C1541 and a DEC-ALPHA, the latter was slightly faster but 100 times as noisy =)

Good ol' times...

GEOS would boot from a 170k floppy on my C64.
It didn't have a web browser though.

Call it pre-emptive discussing, sooner or later it was going to end into the discussion anyway =)

As for 'making it easy for the user to be tricked': I wonder how hard it would be to convince people to install GreatestScreenSaverEver.rpm given a nice screenshot and some flattering text .. heck simply stating that it comes with a free would probably be sufficient.
If people just click OK or YES on every request they see then what can the OS do about it ? (assuming the user fully owns & manages the machine. Friend of mine set up his dads pc so he can only use what's there and not install anything new. Refuses to give the admin-account password. If his dad wants something installed, he has to call and ask to install program x. The good thing here is that the machine has been trouble-free ever since. the downside is that it takes some time every once in a while when he needs to log in remotely and scrutinize and install the software.; then again, probably less than when he has to re-image the machine every 6 months).

I don't want to come of as a windows-worshipper, far from it. But I agree that I like quite a bit of things about the OS and it gets on my nerves that people somehow always need to bash on it because their OS of choice is soooo much better. When asked what's better they then always come with the 'bible-list' of 'virusses, not open, how you'll have blue-screens every hour or so, how you need to reboot after changing tcp-ip settings, how you can only tweak things by changing things in the registry, etc, etc... none of which applies when using the OS with a bit of thought. (IMHO)

Back in the days I had an Amiga and it was fun to discuss with people who had wintels about the merits of the different systems. Usually the discussion would start with "but it's not compatible (Tm) !!' and end with, "multitasking on 3.11 sucks, wished I had those colors & my GUS sounds much better so if only I could load this driver high than we could try play game X with the mouse too, I hear DOS 6 will come with a better memmaker!'. Over time things changed and I had to agree that Win95 was actually rather nice looking but it took until Win2000 before I made the switch (Commodore was long dead by then). In each case, what I wanted to say was that in order to have a proper discussion with the PC-crowd I had to learn quite a bit of what that system looked like, operated like etc... and had the 'decency' to stay with the times as to not insult those I was talking to claiming they were still on DOS 5.0 with crappy CGA graphics and creative beeping.
Funnily, 'knowing the enemy' actually landed me a job in a Wintel-centric software company [although I spent the first years there without having a PC at home, 'just' my old trusty Amiga =)].

Most of what you say is true but
* servers may be available in vast numbers, they're hardly ever run/maintained by mom I'm betting most MS-servers live a virus-free life too.
* malware writers are used to writing malware for windows. Why throw away all that knowledge and experience and start over from scratch on another platform ?
* there IS plenty of malware out there for Andriod... you'll probably prefer to call them trojans and dismiss them as 'not real virusses' because they simply use the user as the attack vector (swipe here for free ponies!) and don't really do that much harm except for stealing user info etc... but hey, let's rather bring up SASSER again, after all it's only 9 years ago windows got hit by that one!

I somehow don't get why people always need come up with the 'you need to run as administrator on windows' argument. You don't need to, maybe a lot of people do, but you don't need to. Ever since the introduction of the UAC I see little difference between me running Win7 or me running Ubuntu; except that the UAC is quite a bit more user-friendly. In fact, after having to type my password for the umptieth time so I can change an ini file hoping to finally get my display at full resolution (old laptop) I started running Linux in 'administrator' mode.

Get with the times and stop bashing Windows with old arguments. I don't like Microsoft because of the way they run their business, but that doesn't make (all) their products bad. Let people simply use what they like and quit these 'religious arguments' about what OS is superior. If the OS lets you run all the software you /need/, then what is the problem ? You like Ubuntu & Gimp, fine. She likes OSX & PaintShop, fine. I like Windows and Paint, so leave me alone.

(And don't come whining about how for every program on Windows there is a viable alternative on Linux. There isn't, and besides, for every program on Linux there is a viable alternative on Windows too and yes, often it's free too... although it might not be 'open', but that's true on Android too and I not heard people asking for the source of Angry Birds yet.)

Good question, was the Kernel of Ubuntu released in August 2001 built with or without those options ?
(oh wait...)

I really don't get you guys. Throwing around expensive terms and stuff but failing to do some basic reading upfront.
I'll help you : I'm assuming that by 'heap randomization' you're referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization
You might want to read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization#Linux and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization#Microsoft_Windows

I'm not sure why you'd want to bring SMP into this discussion... (unless you mean there is somehting like SMP randomization which in that case I've no knowledge of)

Then do both, like I do... doubly-so.

* I use the search function to start quite a lot of things
but
* I also use the 10-ish icons on the start-menu that represent the things I've worked with lately/often (not sure what the logic is, it works). Added bonus is that (a lot of them) are able to show a sub-menu with the most recent documents I worked with for that given program; I even can pin those if I want. Genius!
* Old-school as I am I also revived the Quick-Launch toolbar and have like 20 icons of things that I work with most often.

Yep, there is some overlap between 2 & 3, but as far as usability goes I am quite happy with this setup.

PS: I don't like pinning stuff to my system-bar for some reason. Tried it, annoyed me and haven't done it ever since. Everyone's different I guess.

Off course said theory isn't busted. It's not like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware doesn't exist, it's simply hardly worth the effort to focus on Linux.

On top of that, the typical/average Linux-user is much better informed about security issues than is the typical/average Windows-user (**). So making a website to trick people into clicking/downloading/running something malicious is more likely to work in the latter case.
Switch mom&pop to Linux and before you know it they'll be clicking the same links and the botnets will live happy ever after.

Linux might never see the sheer volume of malware that exists for Windows because it's "late in the game" and because simply put both the developers and the users have learnt quite a bit over the years making it harder for viruses etc to propagate.

(**: Apple used to be 'virus-free' too. As its user base is growing (and dare I say dumbing down?) there is an uptake on the amount of malware too...)

I know, hence my 'for whole numbers of bedbugs' remark ... the egg-laying makes it even more challenging indeed ... wikipedia here I come =)

Who's to say they don't ?

Don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of the things Google did and does; not all of it, but quite a lot. Same goes for MS & Apple btw. But assuming either of these 3 would do something that hurts their own chart of accounts is simply fooling himself. I'm sure all three companies have plenty of talent around that would love to break/build/tweak and bring out stuff that might be world-changing; but in the end it's the bean-counters that decide what needs to be focused on.