The GUI which is the fastest of them all is the one which is an absolute no-frills environment.

"No-frills" defined:

• No wallpaper
• No animations
• Solid-colored application window borders
• No color gradients in title bars
• No anti-aliased fonts (i.e. font smoothing)
• No application window shadows
• No transparency/translucence
• Squared-off corners of application windows only (no curved corners)

Why would anybody want a no-frills GUI environment?

Here are a few reasons:

• Screen draws/redraws are near-instantaneous (fastest possible environment)
• You gain screen space because the borders are thin without shadows (you can fit more windows on your screen, gain more application space)
• It’s easier to read text in many instances
• Switching between tasks is faster
• Dragging windows is faster (border-only instead of full-window-copy as you move it)

There are more, but you get the idea.

  Microsoft’s Windows Vista and 7…

…can be configured to be no-frills but it takes some effort. Windows XP is in fact the last Windows OS that can go completely "bare", GUI-wise. Windows Vista and 7 cannot because there are some animations that absolutely cannot be turned off. If you go to the Optimize visual display (available by a search from the Windows logo), there is a checkbox that states verbatim:

Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)

It’s the "when possible" that irks me. That means it disables most but not all animations.

XP and previous editions of Windows on the other hand can be completely "de-animated". Even the startup animation can be disabled.

  Apple’s Mac OS X…

…has animations everywhere, some of which require the Terminal to disable. By default, things in OS X fade in/out, jump around ("bouncing" icons), slide, zoom in/out, tilt slightly("Stacks" feature), etc. You name it, it has it. I’m not saying this is a bad thing because it’s part of the whole Apple experience, but when it comes to disabling every animation in that OS, it can prove to be a chore.

   The UNIX/Linux desktop environment…

…is the only one where you can choose to be as glitzy or as Spartan as you wish.

In the glitz department, using Compiz can make a UNIX/Linux desktop disgustingly animated. You can have "wobbly" windows, "burning" minimize/maximize, a desktop that "rotates" using the prism-like Cube and so on.

However it’s the Spartan options that really make a UNIX/Linux desktop a lean mean machine.

Getting UNIX/Linux desktop to be Spartan but powerful in the GUI can be as easy as picking the right desktop environment. Once such example is Xfce. Another is fluxbox. Both of these are very lightweight by design and can be easily configured to be completely no-frills.

  Which is the fastest?

This is largely dependent on what hardware you have in your computer, but overall a lightweight UNIX/Linux environment still rules the roost as the fastest GUI you can use.

While it’s true that nothing can ever outrun the command line in terms of speed, the most diehard command line user still prefers a GUI multitasking environment – even if the GUI is nothing but terminal windows.

  Can you multitask with no GUI?

You could, if so desired, multitask from the command line in UNIX, being there is bg to send a running process to the background and fg to bring it back to the foreground. Jobs in UNIX are assigned numerical IDs so it’s not difficult to perform job control once you get used to it, should you dare to go with no GUI at all.

But in all honesty, using nothing but a CLI environment for multitasking is a bit time consuming because you don’t see your tasks in front of you as windows (as in application windows, not MS-Windows). If UNIX had a DESQview-like offering, that would be a lot more friendly and usable with multitasking in no-GUI land.

DESQview was arguably the best text-mode multitask environment usability-wise because you could whizz thru it like nobody’s business. Someone even said it was one of the 5 Best Operating Systems You Never Used. Yes, it really was that good.

IRC is one of those things that either you get or you don’t. You probably know IRC as chat rooms. But if you said that to a diehard IRC user, he or she would give you a dirty look or two because "chat room" is a term originally popularized by AOL. And to be technically correct, IRC has no chat rooms. They’re called channels. Maybe that’s a nerdy nit-picky thing, but it wouldn’t be the internet without nerds getting ticked off over minutia like that.

The best app for IRC depends on what OS you’re using. IRC is best used with a true client rather than the web-based way (like Mibbit, which seems to get increasingly banned on many IRC servers these days, hence the reason I don’t use nor recommend it).

On Windows, the best IRC client is mIRC. It’s been around seemingly forever (even as far back as the Windows 3.1 days) and has proven time and time again to be a solid, stable chat app.

On Mac OS X, the IRC app used most is Colloquy. Were I using OS X I would use that and nothing else for IRC purposes. It is the best for the Mac, no question. And you can even go mobile with it.

On Linux, XChat is the best. I have tried several different IRC apps over the years with Linux, but time and time again I keep going back to XChat whenever I’m using a Linux distro.

Platform independent IRC applications (works in any OS):

• Chatzilla – A Firefox add-on.
• Pidgin – Primarily an instant messaging client but also does IRC. Note for Mac users: Adium uses the same backend Pidgin does and also does IRC the same way.

Do you use IRC?

If you do, what’s your OS and preferred IRC app of choice? Let us know in the comments.

No matter what your operating system is, a question many ask is "What should I have to do modern computing?" In this article we’ll address RAM specifically. Should you run 2GB or can you get away with 1GB or 512MB?

First, a quick look at cost.

Cost-wise, RAM is the cheapest it’s ever been. 2GB Desktop PC memory is under the 25-dollar mark, so assuming your computer can support it physically, there’s no reason not to go 2GB.

Second, a look at operating systems.

32-bit Windows NT, 2000 and XP will easily support 2GB RAM on-board. And although you could put in 4 it is unlikely you’ll see any difference performance-wise (assuming the OS can even access it).

The same can be said for Mac OS X and Linux on a 32-bit platform as a desktop OS. In general use you will not see any huge leaps in performance from 2GB to 4GB RAM. Maybe if you were running a server you would, but on the desktop side, most likely not.

Third, a look at performance (the performance that matters, that is).

The Big Question: Will you see a performance improvement going from 512MB or 1GB to 2GB? Yes – but not necessarily in the way you would expect.

For example, if you upgrade from 1GB to 2GB, here’s what you can expect:

• Faster application launch and shutdown times.
• The ability to run more apps at once without having your computer "think" about it as much.
• Smoother switching between apps.
• Smoother web browsing (especially on Flash-intensive web pages).

And here’s what not to expect:

• Better gameplay on high-end video games. (This is highly dependent on not only RAM but video card RAM, clock speed and hard drive access times – just the RAM upgrade isn’t enough.)
• Better video performance. (That’s the video card’s job – not the physical RAM’s job.)
• Faster large-file read/write. (Even with more memory, if your hard drive access times are slow, that has everything to do with the hard drive and nothing to do with physical RAM.)

Is 2GB RAM now the standard?

I say yes. The RAM is dirt cheap, the installation takes only minutes and there’s nothing in your operating system you have to change or adjust once installed. Just install, boot and enjoy.

If you have absolutely no idea how to fit RAM for your computer, head over to www.crucial.com, select your make/line/model and it does all the work for you. Or just use the System Scanner.

An anonymous reader on Slashdot wrote that based on exhaustive benchmark testing, the upcoming v8.10 of Ubuntu Linux is noticeably slower in some areas compared to previous releases (namely v7.04).

"Linux" and "Slower" never fall within the same sentence, but they do now.

To calm the masses out there, no, Ubuntu 8.10 will not be a crawling nightmare of computer slowness. Not by a long shot. It’s still going to be quite speedy in its operation overall, not to worry.

But it has been proven to be slower to its predecessors and therein lies the concern.

~ ~ ~

Reading the article about the benchmark testing just goes to prove that the other shoe has finally dropped, so to speak.

Windows Vista is slower compared to XP. Mac OS X Leopard wasn’t exactly stellar in its performance over Tiger. And now the arguably most popular Linux distribution Ubuntu is showing early on that slowness with new releases can’t even escape the mighty Linux.

Linux zealots would scream loudly that "UBUNTU ISN’T THE ONLY DISTRO, YA KNOW.." Yes, I know this. There are 300+ distros in existence presently – but Ubuntu is the one people pay attention to the most. So go back to your Slackware – I already know that’s fast.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel to all this.

Newer releases of operating systems – no matter whom it comes from – will be lighter in the future. All OSes at this stage in the game are at their fattest and that’s simply not where computing is going.

It’s probably safe to say that Linux and Microsoft will be cutting the fat first, followed shortly afterwards by Apple.

On the Microsoft side it’s already been reported with Windows 7 that it will not be bundled with specific apps to trim it down to get to what matters (and be able to release it quicker).

Linux already has super-light distros. As a matter of fact you can go super-light with Fluxbuntu. (I’ve used fluxbox before and yeah, it’s tough to find a GUI faster than that.)

However, it would be nice if a very well known distro like Ubuntu had an official (as in from Canonical) Desktop Edition release like "Desktop Ubuntu Light" or something similar. I’m referring to an ISO people could download that has basically only the bare essentials without having to download an alternative distro or "build" it yourself, so to speak. And I’m referring to a true light Desktop Edition, not a Server Edition pretending to be Desktop.

People in the Linux know understand this wouldn’t be difficult to create or distribute at all because you’re just cutting the fat out of the distro.

Apple is also getting into the game of going lighter. Their own OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard page states "Taking a break from adding new features" and "Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X" which strongly indicates the OS doesn’t need anything new, rather it needs to cut the fat out and optimize rather than stuff it up with stuff nobody will use.

~ ~ ~

We’re going lighter, people. All the desktop OS offerings are heading that direction. It won’t happen this year but it may in late 2009 or early 2010.

We will go back to operating systems (no matter which you choose to use) that prioritize speed and efficiency first for a better computing experience.

Thankfully, the three major OS offerings will all be doing this. Even though they’re all too fattened up at the moment, sit tight because better stuff will be coming along.

Until then we’ll have to plod thru the slowness..

..even if you use Ubuntu.

I’ve mentioned on the PCMech Live show many times my disdain for the fact that if you’re one of the few running a 64-bit processor, your options for native 64-bit applications are few and far between on the consumer end.

Chances are very high that the computer you’re using right now has a 32-bit CPU in it.

Here’s the short-short definition of the difference between 32 and 64 concerning your CPU: Continued

For development and testing reasons, I wanted to set up a local server on my Mac Pro so that I could operate a local copy of PCMech.com. I thought I would document how I went about it for the benefit of others down the road.

The easiest method to set up a quick LAMP server under OS X is to use MAMP. MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL and PHP. Now, both Apache and PHP do come bundled with OS X, but you’re going to get into command line hell if you want to set it up. MAMP is much easier because you just download, drag to the Applications folder, and you’re done.

Once you’ve done this, let’s do the following:

1. Navigate to the new MAMP folder and start the MAMP app.
2. Change any preferences you might want to change, but otherwise go ahead and click “Start Servers”.
3. Click on “Open Start Page” and your default web browser will load up the default homepage at localhost. You will see a menu of options, too, because MAMP has PHPMyAdmin and other utilities built right in.

Being that MAMP is completely independent, it does not run in the background. So, you’ll need to start up MAMP like any other application in order for your server to be operational. To remove MAMP, just drag the MAMP folder to Trash. No config files for OS X are altered, so a simply drag to Trash means everything is gone.

To work with any files, you will need to place your website files into the “htdocs” sub-folder off of the MAMP folder. Yes, this means your website files reside in the Applications folder which is  odd. But, this is how MAMP maintains its independent nature.

Lastly, you might want to get command line access to MySQL so that you can run MySQL commands via Terminal. For instance, I needed to import the PCMech database into my local database and it was way too large to be imported via PHPMyAdmin. The tedious way would be to manually split up your SQL file. The much easier way is to set up the MAMP version of MySQL to be able to take commands via Terminal. To do so, execute the following commands in Terminal:

sudo mkdir /var/mysql
sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock
sudo chown _mysql /var/mysql/mysql.sock
sudo chmod 777 /var/mysql/mysql.sock

Once that is done, you can import an SQL file via the following command via Terminal:

/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql -hlocalhost -uroot -proot [DBNAME] < ‘/Users/[USER]/Documents/Database Backups/[NAME OF SQL FILE].sql’

Replace [DBNAME] with the name of your local database, [USER] with your username under OS X, and [NME OF SQL FILE] with whatever the file name is for your SQL backup from which you want to restore. You’ll want to make sure the file path for your SQL file is correct, too. I use a folder called “Database Backups”, but that’s me.

With this, you should be good to go. I now have a copy of PCMech.com running locally on my Mac.

The last time I looked at gOS I was not impressed. It looked like it had a long way to go. The operation seemed oversimplified and too watered down.

Even though I haven’t tried out the latest version of gOS, I might. Do you see the screen shot here? Does it remind you of an OS made by Apple? If not, it should, leaning app list and all.

Am I saying gOS is any good as OS X? Not at all. gOS won’t hold a candle to OS X, however, if it’s the look you’re after and gOS has it out-of-the-box, well… maybe it’s worth a look-see.

To our resident *nix-heads in the audience, has anyone used the latest version of gOS? It is worth trying out? We’d like to know.

To note, there appear to be three types of gOS. “Space”, “Rocket G” (has Gnome) and “Rocket E” (has Enlightenment). Which one is the best gOS? I have no idea, but it’s probably safe to say “Space” would be a good start assumedly.

I will be downloading this to test out in Live mode to see how it fares out.