[aclug-L] Re: Linux as an alternative to a Windows desktop

[Luke Wahlmeier <howdyboby2@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Jonathan Hall <flimzy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> My laptop (486DX2/50, 24mb RAM, 10gb HD) is living
> proof that Win95 is
> better than Linux for GUI operation on limited
> hardware.  I have both 95
> OSR2 and Linux (Debian woody) installed.  I don't
> even bother using X any
> more.  For a while, when my main PC was down, I used
> that laptop as my main
> home computer, and used it in 95 the whole time
> (nearly 6 months), b/c it
> was so much faster than X with the most basic
> configuration was in Linux.
> 
> If/when I have spare time, I may do some benchmarks
> to estimate the
> threshhold where a Linux GUI becomes faster than
> Windows. I suspect it's
> somewhere between 64 and 128mb of RAM for
> Win95/98NT.  Versus W2k/XP, Linux
> will probably always win.  CPU is probably mostly
> irrelevant.
> 
> My K6-3/400 w/ 196mb RAM, 3gb HD is running NT4
> "happily".  It's not
> breaking any performance records, but it's stable
> and I don't have any
> specific complaints about response time.
> 
> -- Jonathan
well, I would have to offer a few sugestions when it
come to that laptop.  one of the things that has
always made linux look bad is that people dual
partition it and usally put it on the slowest part of
there drive, that could cause temidious speed
diffrance.  another thing you could try is, get the
source compile it static this helps tremidously, after
compliing it, run "strip --strip-debug" to all if the
new binaries it made this decreases the size of almost
all complied programs by a 2 to 5 ratio.  as far as
just trying to use a distro on a computer with limited
hardware, don't think thats the best idea, make your
own, or find some one else that has one made for a
simalare setup, compile kernel specific option. 
Stream line it all for that computer.  and remeber win
95 came out when computers were around 25mz with 8mb
ram.  I honestly can not think of any disro that came
out trying to meet those requirments.  but in open
source you can make it

MOTD  "640k of memory should be enough for anyone" 
Bill Gate 1984

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