Robinson, Eric R. wrote: > Hey Tim, I think you missed my point, but I was probably not > very clear. I was just trying to find out why *everything* I do > on my Red Hat machine reminds me of those nightmares where you > are being chased by something and your legs won't move.
That's because I tied your shoelaces together while you were
loading Mozilla. :)
But I admit, there's something seriously lacking in your times.
Here are the times you cite in your original mail:
> Launch Mozilla: 26 seconds.
> Launch Evolution: 15 seconds.
> Start New E-mail Message: 2.25 seconds.
> Launch Open Office Write: 21 seconds.
> Launch Gnome Terminal: 6 seconds.
> Launch Gnome Edit: 2 seconds.
> Launch Ethereal Gnome: 3.25 seconds.
Here are my times on a 450MHz Pentium III w/ 640MB of PC100 RAM
and 7200RPM 15GB HD; / and /usr are reiser filesystems.
Launch Mozilla: 7 seconds.
(Launch Galeon: 4 seconds.)
(Launch Galeon from client/server mode: 2 seconds.)
Launch Evolution: 4 seconds.
Launch Open Office Write: 12 seconds.
Launch Gnome Terminal: 1 second.
Launch xterm: <1 second.
Launch Gnome Edit: <1 second.
Launch Ethereal: 1 second.
> You might note that I included ethereal in the list of
> applications on both sides, and it took slightly longer to
> launch on my Linux box, despite running on a 140% faster
> processor.
Don't place too much importance on the CPU. The hardware I/O
involved in loading and swapping takes up the bulk of the time.
And the processor can only process as fast as it can receive
data; so if you're not doing some hard computation, your system
may not be running any faster than your bus speed.
You might get improved performance by upgrading your kernel, or
simply finding a kernel compiled especially for your processor.
IIRC, Redhat uses a kernel compiled for the i386 by default, and
if that's the case, you're effectively running a 2.4GHZ 386.
Besides, your top stats indicate that your CPU was sitting with
it's digits stuck where the sun don't shine during all this.
And the fact that you're using 25% of your swap implies that
adding memory might improve performance when running large files.
> For the record, I have pro-Linux sentiments, but I have no axe
> to grind with regard to which OS is faster/better.
Nor I. I neglected to mention that, having performed the revised
benchmarks, your results may still favor Windows.
wrt your Windows benchmarks: If you opened MS Word while Outlook
was still open, this can drastically reduce Word load time; as
components of MS Office, they share many DLLs.
> ...and thay all settled down to the only important question:
> does the computer make my programs feel snappy? Everybody on
> both sides answered, "the next chip improvement will do the
> job," and went home satisfied.
Faster hardware is a dangerous and poor substitute for efficient,
well-designed software. I have never witnessed a comp.lang.*
usenet thread to this end, though I have heard individuals state
this opinion.
Just remember that 640KB memory is all you'll ever need!
Argumentatively yours, :)
Tim Hammerquist
--
So he survived an unspeakable hell dimension. Who hasn't?!
You can't just leave him alone in the streets of Los Angeles!!
-- Fred, "Angel"
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