7 ms·

windows xp running on modern hardware is lightning fast.

by txdv 7y ago

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I'd love to have Windows XP with security patches and modern drivers.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
bcaa7f3a8bbc 7y ago
The inevitable cost is zero security. Most desktop OS are not designed with security in mind and are vulnerable in different ways, but it's safe to say that Windows XP's security is effectively zero at this point. Personally, I only use Linux and BSDs on my machines, haven't use Windows for years. But I keep a Windows XP VM, I only need to use it for not more than once or twice a month, sometimes it's ancient hardware supporting program, sometimes it's ancient government program. There's no confidential information in the VM.
- mr__y 7y ago
  > The inevitable cost is zero security When using VMs you could have a separate VM for each application. This will not improve security per se, but at least will isolate the effects of a vulnerability. This of course assumes that sufficient RAM/disk space is available
  - throwaway8941 7y ago
    With overlayed storage images and KSM, one can run a lot of VMs using a modest amount of memory. Basically you pay the memory cost of the guest OS once, and there's some (much lower) additional overhead per each VM. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Overlay_storage_images https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Overlay_storage_im... https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Enabling_KSM https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Enabling_KSM
    - mr__y 7y ago
      Thanks, this sounds very interesting. On the other hand, are there any security implications? (especially if one assumes that hypervisor is _not_ bug-free) edit: I did some initial research and yes, it may have some security implications. However I believe it is not a major concern since the original idea was to use VMs to isolate instances of Windows XP which right now should be considered unsafe anyways
      - pstch 7y ago
        KSM is also not totally free, a good amount of CPU time has to be spent to search for merging opportunities (this amount scales logarithmically with the amount of pages to scan). There is also a simple security implication, since you now have the possibility to over-allocate your physical memory, and suffer great consequences if many pages are unshared at the same time. Merged pages can be swapped out, but since they need to be scanned again when they are swapped in, BEFORE being merged, there is a great potential for memory pressure spikes in some configurations.
vwuon 7y ago
Windows XP running on the hardware of the time was much more responsive[] than 10 running on modern hardware. [] if we don't count accesses to the disk, of course
- bcaa7f3a8bbc 7y ago
  I didn't realize how broken Windows 10 is, until I tried it on someone else's computer... At this point, it's unsuitable for any computer without a SSD: M$ has made a huge amount of background system update & housekeeping activities as integral parts of the system and they will continuously SEEK your disk to death, it doesn't need to be 20 MB/s, just 2 MB/s random seeking will render it useless for doing any actual work at any time. It's laughable that high-end commercial laptops are still being sold with those 5,400 RPM, 1 TB HDDs, totally unusable. You'll never see this kind of bullshit disk access on *nix (as long as you turned off your desktop search index service), or, for this matter, Windows XP...
  - vwuon 7y ago
    When I didn't have an SSD, I spent a lot of time configuring the system so it wouldn't do as much IO in the background. Lots of services, as you say, do that by default, and it's unbearable. You'd be using the computer normally and all of a sudden it would start crawling for no apparent reason.
    - mcny 7y ago
      I try to do the same on a work desktop but it doesn't matter because xagt.exe Who knows what it is reading and writing that can't wait while I do npm install
  - hamilyon2 7y ago
    Well, it doesn't match my experience. I have 8 gb of ram and spinning rust disks and performance is bearable. For gaming even.
    - matharmin 7y ago
mehrdadn 7y ago
If it even runs instead of BSODing?
zozbot234 7y ago
Linux with a lightweight WM (LXDE or Xfce) is even snappier, in my experience. It does need quite a bit more RAM (0.5 GB for a bare XP-like experience) but that's about it.
- mr__y 7y ago
  FLWM has even lower mem usage (the usability suffers though)

windows xp running on modern hardware is lightning fast.

by txdv 7y ago

windows xp running on modern hardware is lightning fast.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I'd love to have Windows XP with security patches and modern drivers.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

bcaa7f3a8bbc 7y ago

The inevitable cost is zero security. Most desktop OS are not designed with security in mind and are vulnerable in different ways, but it's safe to say that Windows XP's security is effectively zero at this point. Personally, I only use Linux and BSDs on my machines, haven't use Windows for years. But I keep a Windows XP VM, I only need to use it for not more than once or twice a month, sometimes it's ancient hardware supporting program, sometimes it's ancient government program. There's no confidential information in the VM.

mr__y 7y ago
> The inevitable cost is zero security When using VMs you could have a separate VM for each application. This will not improve security per se, but at least will isolate the effects of a vulnerability. This of course assumes that sufficient RAM/disk space is available
- throwaway8941 7y ago
  With overlayed storage images and KSM, one can run a lot of VMs using a modest amount of memory. Basically you pay the memory cost of the guest OS once, and there's some (much lower) additional overhead per each VM. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Overlay_storage_images https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Overlay_storage_im... https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Enabling_KSM https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/QEMU#Enabling_KSM
  - mr__y 7y ago
    Thanks, this sounds very interesting. On the other hand, are there any security implications? (especially if one assumes that hypervisor is _not_ bug-free) edit: I did some initial research and yes, it may have some security implications. However I believe it is not a major concern since the original idea was to use VMs to isolate instances of Windows XP which right now should be considered unsafe anyways
    - pstch 7y ago
      KSM is also not totally free, a good amount of CPU time has to be spent to search for merging opportunities (this amount scales logarithmically with the amount of pages to scan). There is also a simple security implication, since you now have the possibility to over-allocate your physical memory, and suffer great consequences if many pages are unshared at the same time. Merged pages can be swapped out, but since they need to be scanned again when they are swapped in, BEFORE being merged, there is a great potential for memory pressure spikes in some configurations.

vwuon 7y ago

Windows XP running on the hardware of the time was much more responsive[] than 10 running on modern hardware. [] if we don't count accesses to the disk, of course

bcaa7f3a8bbc 7y ago
I didn't realize how broken Windows 10 is, until I tried it on someone else's computer... At this point, it's unsuitable for any computer without a SSD: M$ has made a huge amount of background system update & housekeeping activities as integral parts of the system and they will continuously SEEK your disk to death, it doesn't need to be 20 MB/s, just 2 MB/s random seeking will render it useless for doing any actual work at any time. It's laughable that high-end commercial laptops are still being sold with those 5,400 RPM, 1 TB HDDs, totally unusable. You'll never see this kind of bullshit disk access on *nix (as long as you turned off your desktop search index service), or, for this matter, Windows XP...
- vwuon 7y ago
  When I didn't have an SSD, I spent a lot of time configuring the system so it wouldn't do as much IO in the background. Lots of services, as you say, do that by default, and it's unbearable. You'd be using the computer normally and all of a sudden it would start crawling for no apparent reason.
  - mcny 7y ago
    I try to do the same on a work desktop but it doesn't matter because xagt.exe Who knows what it is reading and writing that can't wait while I do npm install
- hamilyon2 7y ago
  Well, it doesn't match my experience. I have 8 gb of ram and spinning rust disks and performance is bearable. For gaming even.
  - matharmin 7y ago

mehrdadn 7y ago

If it even runs instead of BSODing?

zozbot234 7y ago

Linux with a lightweight WM (LXDE or Xfce) is even snappier, in my experience. It does need quite a bit more RAM (0.5 GB for a bare XP-like experience) but that's about it.

mr__y 7y ago
FLWM has even lower mem usage (the usability suffers though)