"Timothy W. Stone" wrote:
>
> Hi to all:
>
> When I compare the speed of Linux
> (e.g. loading netscape, using star Office)
> to my M$ win98, Linux is slower.
>
<snip>
I still hold on to my theory that windows loads big memory hogs much
faster than linux, because win slurps in the whole executable at program
startup, while linux employs demand-paging-in of the executable.
Let me explain: Modern memory hogs are almost always programmed using
OOP technology. Thus they begin by initializing all and every class the
have, jumping wildly within the executable file, causing Linux to load a
(64k) block, then resume execution, which will only employ a fraction of
the loaded code, eventually jumping to another block not yet loaded.
Therefore, Linux can only use the speed of the disk with which it can
deliver small blocks.
Windows OTOH reads the whole 6M executable file in one go, therefore
using the better performance of hd's when it comes to large linear
accesses, and only after that starts executing the program.
Linux programs are most often dynamically linked against libraries very
common. So there is a very high probability that most of the code needed
actually is in memory. netscape and staroffice are statically linked,
thus paying a very high startup penalty.
Marc
--
Marc Mutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://marc.mutz.com/Encryption-HOWTO/
University of Bielefeld, Dep. of Mathematics / Dep. of Physics
PGP-keyID's: 0xd46ce9ab (RSA), 0x7ae55b9e (DSS/DH)
