When working on Windows XP systems (latest XP patches/updates
I think your first sentence that mentions
4 seperate MS keywords is a hint.
Try it on Linux.
Hi to both of you and all the other cljp'ers,
altough a bit rude, the suggestion to use Linux is definitely sound.
If properly patched/configured, a Windows XP system is not suppose
to lockup for no reason so there may be a more simple solution to
your problem than simply "switch to Linux".
However, I want to add here that I have the exact same configuration
as one of another programmer in a company I do some contracting for.
The machines are both : Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, 512 Mb Ram.
I use Linux (Red Hat 9 with latest Fedora kernel... which, amongst
other, solves some lockups problems that vanilla Red Hat 9 users
experience on some configurations).
The other developper uses Windows XP.
We both develop using IntelliJ IDEA 3.0 / JDK 1.4.1_02.
My machine "flies" compared to the one running Windows XP.
I have constantly Mozilla opened with several tabs, Sylpheed (email)
with 5000+ emails in my "inboxes" (!), Tomcat (running a development
e-commerce website, not the "production" one), pan (to read the
newsgroups).
Sometimes I "xhost" a second IntelliJ IDEA session that I redisplay
to another developer's X Window System (an old slow Pentium 2).
Even with this setup, the Linux machine, believe it or not, is way
faster than the Windows XP one running only IntelliJ IDEA.
By having the two machines nearly side by side, I can also tell
that Linux does "swap" to the harddisk much much less... I can
hardly hear the harddisk working while the Windows XP machine's
harddisk is swapping like mad.
The only application so far that really slows my P4 to a crawl is,
don't laugh, VMWare : as soon as I launch Windows 2000 in VMWare,
my Linux system starts to slow (some things never change
By the way the developer is considering switching to Linux now (he
made me switch from Eclipse to IntelliJ IDEA, now I'll make him
switch to Linux!).
So if you need to do Java development and need access to the Internet,
I think there's no match : a well configured Linux system (with, for
example, good rules for the stateful firewall) is simply more stable,
more secure and way more efficient than any OS flavor that comes
from Microsoft.
Now I don't say Linux is the panacea. There can be a *lot* of tweaking
involved : I *had* lockups under Linux (fixed with latest kernel
from Fedora), I had problems configurating my X server to run
at 1600x1200, I had problems configurating fonts, I prevented Nautilus
(the "file navigator" but it's much more than that) from loading
at startup (I rarely use it, and it's one of the most bloated Linux
application : powerful, but bloated).
But still, for me, there simply is no match.
I hardly ever reboot, let alone turn this computer off.
(But I do unplug the ethernet cable when I leave the
computer - who knows
Development under both Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA feels
much snapier under Linux.
I think though that Swing is slower under Linux than under Windows,
but the overall OS is so much faster that it more than compensate
for Swing being kind of slow under Linux.
I am not a "Linux zealot", nor an Open Source / Gnu purist : I do
closed source development, I do use commercial software (IntelliJ
IDEA, VMWare), I do like MacOS X a lot too.
But when it comes to comparing OS's features, for me Windows XP is
an underperforming piece of junk
If I really have to work with Windows, I use Windows 2000 which
is IMHO much less bloated than XP.
I do realize that Linux can take a lot of time to learn for
people used to Windows but I think it is worth it.
No more spyware, no more adware, no more unwanted popups, no more
printer printing an ad when connecting to some site (last Windows 2000
installation I did, after less than five minutes of surfing, my
printer printed a f***ing ad, how is this possible !? I am pretty
sure that the machine was patched with SP4 as the first thing I
do when installing Windows is patching the damn thing), no more
virus, no more trojan (granted you don't do everything as root
and you don't let every unnecessary service/port wide open), no
more unexplainable application crash, no more "exploit widely
known and exploited but won't be fixed before six months", no more
"critical security patch" to install all the time (my machine act
as a client only, not a single service is accessible from the Internet,
Tomcat is only available from our LAN, ...).
Still, most Java programmer use Windows and know only Windows.
Lots of Linux users are 100 % Open Source / Gnu / GPL / whatever
and hence hate Java as much as Windows.
I belong to this minority of people who
think "Linux + Java = killer combo".
This equation can also be seen as "Secure OS + secure language = killer combo".
I also don't understand what's the point in developing a "secure app/webapp"
and then deploying it on a notably insecure platform...
Bah, just my .02 Euro rant,
Jean