4 ms·

The other day I opened a big tar file (which doesn't have an index, and therefore requires a full scan of the file in order to show a file list) with Windows Ex

by vasdae 3y ago

The other day I opened a big tar file (which doesn't have an index, and therefore requires a full scan of the file in order to show a file list) with Windows Explorer and the Explorer window simply froze for minutes. (Correction: as a child comment says, it was gzipped tar, not plain tar)

onemoresoop 3y ago
Yeah, windows is a disaster and windows 11 is complete garbage.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  You're right, I've certainly never experienced a Linux system suddenly becoming unresponsive at any point.
  - onemoresoop 3y ago
    I have but that's a different discussion altogether. Windows is an operating system that takes control away from user, privacy lacks, it's bloated with tons of garbage and so on. It may be okay for gaming but I'd use a separate partition for daily computing that isn't Windows
    - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      OK, so the complaint was irrelevant to the conversation.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        [flagged]
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    To be fair, I find Linux issues way easier to fix. It's still a huge piece of software I'll never have the joy of fully understanding (I doubt most of the kernel devs. understand everything in Linux), but for the most part I know what it likes.
  - anon291 3y ago
    My NixOS boxes have actually never frozen on me. Dozens of computers, 5+ years. No problems. Still run as good as when they were bought. Most Linux distros and Windows suffer from the same problem of state. Immutable OSes and systems basically fix this, and it's amazing. I'm happy to use a computer again.
    - tentacleuno 3y ago
      To be honest most of the issues I have with Linux are with the userspace subsystems that build on it; the kernel itself never seems to have many issues (aside from strange audio delays after waking from suspend, but I suspect Pipewire / the Bluetooth stack to be at fault due to it being generally annoying). Immutable computing sounds frickin amazing!!! Being able to check your entire system configuration into Git, and effectively re-build your OS setup at any time, is really something I want to explore this year.
      - anon291 3y ago
        > Immutable computing sounds frickin amazing!!! Being able to check your entire system configuration into Git, and effectively re-build your OS setup at any time, is really something I want to explore this year. Yes, it really is amazing. My computer is amazing. I have been able to build intricate set ups that are immune to upgrades and such. I use a relatively complicated XMonad based set up right now, but because it's all in Nix, upgrades are a breeze. Yes, there is some trouble, but it's flagged before it happens or I can easily revert to the old system. This is the longest time I've gone without re-installing an OS (not that that would even be a big deal with Nix anyway, because a new install will be identical).
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  "Hurr...durr...windoze bad and Bill Gate killed my puppy" - Average karam farming HN user
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- seec 3y ago
  I really don't understand this kind of comment. I used to be a mac user only (still have a mac) and kind of hate on windows. But nowadays I use windows daily and I find it stable and mostly trouble free. Yes, there are some bugs, yes there are some annoyances. But it is super cheap, runs easily on a lot of hardware and can run games for hours on end with zero issue. I have gotten less blue screen / complete lockup than I have had kernels panics from macOS. I think the hate must be a stupid snob thing because while there are issues it is not like there is no issues on the competing OSs... Yes I am running Windows 11 ; on "unsupported" hardware !
chungy 3y ago
> which doesn't have an index, and therefore requires a full scan of the file in order to show a file list Well, not exactly _full_, unless you're talking compressed files. You can be smart and skip ahead to read the next file's metadata by knowing the current file's size. GNU tar and FreeBSD tar already do this; getting a listing of millions of files for a hundreds-of-gigabytes tar is nearly instant this way. Compressing the archive does throw a wrench into it. You'll have to decompress the whole thing in that case.
Dennip 3y ago
Explorer in Win11 (for me) is absolute hot garbage
- londons_explore 3y ago
  The fact that shell extensions are source code compatible back to 1995 and binary compatible back to 2004 is probably the main reason... And back then, there wasn't really a strict API for extensions, so they just injected things into random places, and Microsoft, 28 years later, is still supporting that.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
That's interesting I just opened a large tar archive to try to replicate your issue and it worked fine for me, no freezing.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  I mean, even if you did find a large archive that did this, the same would happen on Linux. The problem isn't the operating system here, it's that compressed tarballs don't include indices in their compressed form. You have to decompress (in-memory) then iterate the metadata.
  - account42 3y ago
    That's no excuse for freezing the UI.
    - deaddodo 3y ago
      I'm going to guess that there is a status bar at the bottom, based on Windows GUI paradigms. But sure, it's not ideal. File-roller and Ark definitely do freeze up if you attempt to browse a large compressed tarball. Maybe greying out and showing the indefinite status bar is a better experience for you...but they're equally non-responsive.

by vasdae 3y ago

onemoresoop 3y ago

Yeah, windows is a disaster and windows 11 is complete garbage.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
You're right, I've certainly never experienced a Linux system suddenly becoming unresponsive at any point.
- onemoresoop 3y ago
  I have but that's a different discussion altogether. Windows is an operating system that takes control away from user, privacy lacks, it's bloated with tons of garbage and so on. It may be okay for gaming but I'd use a separate partition for daily computing that isn't Windows
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    OK, so the complaint was irrelevant to the conversation.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      [flagged]
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  To be fair, I find Linux issues way easier to fix. It's still a huge piece of software I'll never have the joy of fully understanding (I doubt most of the kernel devs. understand everything in Linux), but for the most part I know what it likes.
- anon291 3y ago
  My NixOS boxes have actually never frozen on me. Dozens of computers, 5+ years. No problems. Still run as good as when they were bought. Most Linux distros and Windows suffer from the same problem of state. Immutable OSes and systems basically fix this, and it's amazing. I'm happy to use a computer again.
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    To be honest most of the issues I have with Linux are with the userspace subsystems that build on it; the kernel itself never seems to have many issues (aside from strange audio delays after waking from suspend, but I suspect Pipewire / the Bluetooth stack to be at fault due to it being generally annoying). Immutable computing sounds frickin amazing!!! Being able to check your entire system configuration into Git, and effectively re-build your OS setup at any time, is really something I want to explore this year.
    - anon291 3y ago
      > Immutable computing sounds frickin amazing!!! Being able to check your entire system configuration into Git, and effectively re-build your OS setup at any time, is really something I want to explore this year. Yes, it really is amazing. My computer is amazing. I have been able to build intricate set ups that are immune to upgrades and such. I use a relatively complicated XMonad based set up right now, but because it's all in Nix, upgrades are a breeze. Yes, there is some trouble, but it's flagged before it happens or I can easily revert to the old system. This is the longest time I've gone without re-installing an OS (not that that would even be a big deal with Nix anyway, because a new install will be identical).
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
"Hurr...durr...windoze bad and Bill Gate killed my puppy" - Average karam farming HN user
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
seec 3y ago
I really don't understand this kind of comment. I used to be a mac user only (still have a mac) and kind of hate on windows. But nowadays I use windows daily and I find it stable and mostly trouble free. Yes, there are some bugs, yes there are some annoyances. But it is super cheap, runs easily on a lot of hardware and can run games for hours on end with zero issue. I have gotten less blue screen / complete lockup than I have had kernels panics from macOS. I think the hate must be a stupid snob thing because while there are issues it is not like there is no issues on the competing OSs... Yes I am running Windows 11 ; on "unsupported" hardware !

chungy 3y ago

> which doesn't have an index, and therefore requires a full scan of the file in order to show a file list Well, not exactly _full_, unless you're talking compressed files. You can be smart and skip ahead to read the next file's metadata by knowing the current file's size. GNU tar and FreeBSD tar already do this; getting a listing of millions of files for a hundreds-of-gigabytes tar is nearly instant this way. Compressing the archive does throw a wrench into it. You'll have to decompress the whole thing in that case.

Dennip 3y ago

Explorer in Win11 (for me) is absolute hot garbage

londons_explore 3y ago
The fact that shell extensions are source code compatible back to 1995 and binary compatible back to 2004 is probably the main reason... And back then, there wasn't really a strict API for extensions, so they just injected things into random places, and Microsoft, 28 years later, is still supporting that.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

That's interesting I just opened a large tar archive to try to replicate your issue and it worked fine for me, no freezing.

deaddodo 3y ago
I mean, even if you did find a large archive that did this, the same would happen on Linux. The problem isn't the operating system here, it's that compressed tarballs don't include indices in their compressed form. You have to decompress (in-memory) then iterate the metadata.
- account42 3y ago
  That's no excuse for freezing the UI.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    I'm going to guess that there is a status bar at the bottom, based on Windows GUI paradigms. But sure, it's not ideal. File-roller and Ark definitely do freeze up if you attempt to browse a large compressed tarball. Maybe greying out and showing the indefinite status bar is a better experience for you...but they're equally non-responsive.