I'm a long-time, frustrated Windows user. I have tried various Linux distributions in the past, but I haven't been satisfied with any of them. Today, I went out and bought Red Hat Linux 8.0 from Office Depot for $40. I am a dial-up internet user and I consider myself computer literate, although I don't have much experience using Linux on the desktop. I do however, have some experience using Linux and FreeBSD as a server (no GUI). 
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I have seen this "super slowness" happen to several users including myself. It would take over a minute to open an application such as basic as a konqueror window. The fix turned out to be down-ing a configured network interface which is not connected to a network (/sbin/ifconfig eth0 down). After that the system worked fine.
Celeron 400 isnt gonna be the best chip to run linux on. its not bad but the lack cpu cache is low, but more importantly did you check to make sure it has the proper drivers for the mb's chipset in the kernel, either loaded by modules or support compliled in?
I have the same experience with other Linux (Lycoris).
Ok. I agree that Celeron is not the fastest cpu on the earth but... come on!! It should be fast enough to run a GUI!!. I have a PII300 with 128 mb of ram and other OSes GUIs run a lot faster than the Linux one... I think there is no excuse for that slowness. And ok, do not expect from Joe user to recompile (what's that?) the kernel (what's that??). So, please, RedHat should stop calling its distro a "Desktop distro"...
Tobe
The celeron is a hamstrung chip to begin with 
I suspect you'd have equal difficulties with any of the new offerings (w2k wxp) from Microsoft.
My personal preference these days is Mandrake. They really seem to make the extra effort to putting out something with all the new-user areas covered.
I'm sorry you had bad luck with your try. AFterstep was a good choice for your hardware tho.
Oh my.. no offense to OSnews but this article should be posted in a help forum and not condidered as any type of review of RH8, personal or not.
Summary: looks good but it runs slower than molasses.
Whatever the reason is.. It's not because linux CANT run fast on a 500mhz. If this was intended to show a 'non geek' view of linux, so be it. But it is not informative in any way shape or form. And certainly has no bearing on the new RH release. It could have just as easily been any other OS/distro. The answer could be as simple as what Artem suggested. Or not. But in any case.. so sorry to hear about your problems =(
And yes I know this is your board and not mine.. Its just my opinion and I felt compeled to share it =)
I do not agree with all the griping. The hardware used for the article will not run a MODERN OS at a usable speed. It will run windows 95 or 98 fine or a Linux distro (yes, a GUI) from 3-4 years ago, but you will not be happy with anything newer. Why don't you install Windows XP on these computers and then write a review. It won't be positive either.
This is like writing a review of a new DVD player connected to a 20 year old TV and then complaining about the DVD player.
Stu
>not condidered as any type of review of RH8, personal or not.
This article is clearly marked as an *editorial*, not a review.
I found that KDE was signficantly faster when I switched to Gentoo. Presumably, running a custom compiled kernel, XFree86 and KDE were responsable for the speed up. Shortly after installing Gentoo, I upgraded to KDE 3.0.3, which might be even better. I suspect that the future will be even brigher - with gcc 3+ and glibc 2.3, support for C++ code (such as KDE) should be even better.
I did find KDE to be a sluggish (but nothing as show as you were observing). Occasionaly, I crash Konqueror & find the GUI really slowing down after that (the mouse becomes jerky), But a log out/log in seems to fix it. (Thank goodness the KDED desktop remembers its state. When Windows XP makes me reboot (which seems to be about every week lately, MS has been relasing a lot of patches), I have to restart every app manually.
Gentoo is not a distro that I would recomend to 'the public', but it has beem a fantastic learning tool for me. I can only hope that the Gentoo approach (or perhaps to be fair - the FreeBSD approach) of providing packages that you compile (rather than binaries you install) will become more user friendly. I should note that installing Gentoo has improved quite significantly in the last couple of months - the default kernel options needed very little hand tuning. The compiling takes a while, but the resulting software does seem faster & more stable to me.
Still, Gentoo is not a reasonable alternative for many users. However, it does seem to give a good taste of the future - and the future has better perforamnce :-)
> Why don't you install Windows XP on these computers
I have most of my OSes on a dual Celeron 533, and XP is fastest than all (except maybe BeOS on most cases, but not all).
I installed Mandrake 9.0 yesterday. It is as slow as the other of my Linuxes under KDE on that specific, and it is even now compiled with GCC 3.2. I don't know why. WinXP works just fine on that machine. And I have 4 more Linuxes there, and they are all slower than XP. And BeOS of course.
First of all, I've gotten Win2k running on a P233 w/128MB RAM. No, you're obviously not going to be playing Unreal Tournament 2003 on a box like that, but it's still workable. I can't imagine that being worse than a Celeron 400.
As for the other probs, I'm just ready to say fsck it with these 'pre-canned' distros and build the thing on my own, using a minimal setup from Gentoo, Debian, or FreeBSD. That way, when things break, perhaps I'll have a handle on how to fix them.
I've had the misfortune to work (briefly) with a couple Celeron 400's and 466's -- these things are slow running Win95.... I'd be surprised if KDE3, Gnome2, Win2k, or WinXP were usable on this hardware. A P2-400 or P3-500 should be fine, but not an old Celeron.
--Raging Dragon
>Try BeOS...
In fact I am a BeOS user since BeOS 4... and I still love it. I keep it in my PC as my main PC-OS at home. I'm now a switcher. Anyway, I also have an XP on the same machine and runs faster than linux. In fact, it runs pretty well.
Tobe
even if it's a review, the person in question should have figured that a slowness like that is anything but normal. So he should either have tried to fix whatever is wrong, or note that this is a, to my knowledge rare occurance that Gnome is slowed down like this.
but, the fact is that I am typing this from a VIA Eden 800Mhz with a C3 cpu running Suse Linux 8.0.
KDE is not super fast, but neither is it incredibly slow. I would say it performs as well as a 233Mhz Pentium running Windows 98.
So it is not his Celeron that is causing the slow down, I don't buy that.
There has to be a bug in Red Hat somewhere.
PS.Remember to run Memory test before you install Linux, that way you won't throw your weekend in the garbage can, because of a faulty 128mb sdr module.
Have a nice night
Michael
But at least we have Gentoo to fall back on since the old saying is true, "nothing really works as well as when you do it yourself," it seems.
I have a Hitachi laptop with a Pentium chip running at 150mhz with 128megs of ram. The only OS that I can run on this is WinNT 4.0. Win2K runs okay, but still a little too slow. I have tried numerous Linux distros, but they are all painfully slow. So, please don't give me that crap that no modern OS can run on this guy's hardware. WinNT and Win2K would run fine. I suspect that the engineering departments at Redhat, etc are running high-end workstations and probably have no idea how their distribution would respond on lower-end hardware. Saying that, is there a published set of minimum hardware requirements for 8.0 and if so, does this guy's stuff meet those requirements?
Yeah, the Celeron is an awful chip. And yes, 64 megs of RAM is crap. But, there is no reason for it to run that slow. FIVE MINUTES TO OPEN UP A FILE!? That's unacceptable. There must be something wrong with his computer (bad memory) or the kernel (maybe something can be fixed to make it go faster). I don't think a normal computer with the same specs would perform like this.
The reason Linux is so slow after the first reboot is because Red Hat Linux indexes all files after the first reboot.
Execute "top" to display the most CPU-intensive tasks on your system.
First, Celeron 400 is a very outdated hadware to try a very recent version of RedHat. Try to run on a Athlon > 1.2 GHz or P4 > 1.4 GHz.
Second, win9x is only a very outdated toy O.S. It is singleuser and a toy O.S. He is comparing a 1998 operating system with 2002 o.s. Any fair comparation with a modern linux must be taken with WinXP.
Third, even gcc 3.2 is not a very good compiler in terms of optimization. When I compile my programs with Intel C++ compiler on linux they run 30-50% faster. I think that even M$ Visual C++ (Intel C++ is better than it) can gain 20-30% of speed with the same source code.
i think if you want a good performing unix distro...get FreeBSD and install IceWM on your machine...you'll be impressed...or if you really want performance, put Blackbox or Ion on there instead.
just my 2 cents
redhat's not fast in its default config...that's true...but that's not their focus...they're trying to create a nice friendly business ready desktop for modern hardware
Sorry, but if you compare the same versions of KDE and Gnome running in Linux and FreeBSD you feel that running them on linux is faster. FreeBSD is very stable and fast for servers but is is not as optimized as linux for desktop. I use both on the same machine and can say this.
There is no real reasons to think the contrary because FreeBSD use the same programs and compiled with the same compiler (gcc) used by linux.
I have Gentoo 1.2 running kde 3.0.3 on Celleron 400/256MB ram as workstation at the office , it is quite useable (the whole system seems more responsive than w2k running on the same machine).
Two words:
Try BeOS
Two words for you: It's Dead.
I run linux on my 400 mhz pentium2 laptop. It is just as snappy as windows, maybe even faster. Its not the new version of red hat, but it shouldn't make that large of a difference.
as well as some much newer hardware. I have a laptop (IBM Thinkpad) with a 266 mhz PII and 288 megs of RAM (maxed out - it has 32 soldered on the motherboard) as well as an old 4 gig hardware. I also own a much newer dual Athlon 1.533 ghz machine with SCSI I/O, 512 megs DDR RAM, and a Radion 8500 128 mgs RAM. I run both Win XP and some flavor of Unix on my workstation (recently Red Hat 8.0, but also have run Mandrake, SuSE, FreeBSD, etc) and usually just Linux on the laptop.
There - so thats my hardware. In my opinion Linux tends to be more RAM hungry then Windows *when used as a desktop.* You can use 32 megs of RAM with Linux when used only as a DNS, or a mail server, or a router and what have you. But once you load Gnome or KDE you need *at least 192 megs* in my experiences. 128 is bare-min and 64 will just be an excersize in pain. I've installed recent distro's on old hardware just for fun like Pentium 100s with 48 megs of RAM (at the most) to Pentium 75s with 16 megs of RAM. All perform fine for low-impact servers, but all were sloooow as desktops.
Given enough RAM my laptop didn't feel all that slow. Gnome was mostly fast for me except for Nautilus which is a resource pig. Still, I don't manipulate my files all that often so I can live with that. Launching most applications was fine with the exception of Open Office and Mozilla, everything else was fine. KDE starts slow on just about everything - even my workstation, and Konquerer can be as bad as Nautilus. But given my amount of RAM it ran fine. With Linux's less then wonderful VM machines with 128 or under can see performance drops fairly quick. A fine-tuned FreeBSD install will actually be fine (FreeBSD by default has some very conservative settings, you gotta tune the hell out of it to make it into a decent desktop) but not blazingly fast.
On my much newer SMP workstation everything is fast. Sounds funny and obvious, but its true - even Nautilus is *snappy* and Mozilla loads faster in Linux then in Windows. Even Open Office isn't all that bad, taking roughly the same length of time to load in Linux as in Windows.
So, in my opinion, if you loaded up said PC with two or three times the RAM and made sure DMA is turned on for your harddisks, I can promise you Linux will be faster. But with 64 megs of RAM - Celeron or not - its gonna be dog slow. This may improve rather drasticly with the release of Linux 2.6/3.0 with all of its impressive improvements (new/fast VM, I/O revamping, new scheduler, far faster threading implementation, etc) Although not meant for a desktop O.S. try FreeBSD - once its tuned it can kick some ass. :-) And I love the ports collection. If you decide to give this a shot feel free to email me for some tuning hints. Laterz folks!
When I used to use RedHat 7.3 it was terribly slow on my K6/2 500 with 128 megaram., then I updated my bois, and things speeded up. Not as fast as Windows but it was now usable. Home icon now loading in under 3 seconds... But then I upgraded to RedHat 8 and things have been fine. Home icon comes up just as fast as Windows... Mozilla not as fast as Internet Explorer but it's just as fast as it's going to be on any other OS I have tried it on. All other programs seem to load right when I click them. Even Open Office loads just as fast as Microsoft Office. So I don't know ...
My issues is they are some bugs still I have noticed, things have changed such as my DHCP old settings need to be reconfigured, can't add things to the 'start menu' is a big one, and no RPM package system for non-RedHat RPM's that are installed. You install something like RealPlayer you are stuck, it won't be on your menu, and you won't be able to uninstall it unless from a terminal using the rpm command.
I have 2 computers, one is an Athlon 1.3Ghz and RH8 w/Gnome runs really fast, opening the 'home' folder takes less than a second, and the other computer is a Celeron 500Mhz and it's not as fast as the Athlon by it's not slow either, opening the same 'home' folder takes no more than 2 seconds. You probably had some incompatibility with some type of hardware that you have in your computers.
Linux will always perform less responsive in Desktop Environments compared to Windows9x/ME (or 2000/XP for that matter) on low end systems, simply because the base for all GUI stuff on Linux is XFree86, which doesn't take advantage of your graphic card the same way as other OS's does, despite DRI and such.
BeOS and Windows uses simple framebuffer techniques, XFree86 doesn't. Until xdirectfb or any similar project becomes big enough to support most cards and features out there to become standard, the linux desktop will always be for die-hard fans who can stand a little slow down in return for everything else Linux offers.
Try running your Gnome desktop on a newer Matrox card (which is fully supported) with XDirectFB instead of XFree, and in addition to that use neatly configured reiserfs and well configured kernel, then Linux all of a sudden beat Windows pretty much on all bases.
Think about it...
I use BeOS and it isn't dead.
http://www.openbeos.org/
http://www.yellowtab.com/
http://www.blueeyedos.com/
http://www.bebits.com/
//FreeBSD is very stable and fast for servers but is is not as optimized as linux for desktop.\
The ports are made much diferently from source.
Software applications are much more integrated with the FreeBSD kernel than in Linux, starting with XFree, QT and KDE ports... that is just my opinion.
... have to go through this every time a major release gets out?
It's always the same: some people swear by it, and others just swear 
Some releases work better than others on a certain set of machines. That's got little - if at all - to do with QA or the overall quality of an operating system, it's just life.
monty
Thanks for the comments.
"Saying that, is there a published set of minimum hardware requirements for 8.0 and if so, does this guy's stuff meet those requirements?"
The laptop doesn't meet the memory requirement (128MB) for "graphical" mode. The desktop does.
Believe me, I'd love to try Gentoo. I'm not afraid of mucking around in things like that, but unfortunately, I'm on dialup, so it's not really an option. I may take my laptop over to a friends house with a cable modem and give that a try.
Regarding Linux vs. a "modern" OS (people said I should compare it to XP) - what does XP have that Windows 98 doesn't have? Themes support? I don't want or need that, and I'd turn off the themes service anyway. An HTML interface into everything? What's the point? It's slower and offers no productivity gains. If I want to see the file size, I'll right click/properties, no need to custom generate and then process a custom HTML page for every explorer window.
Yes, I focused on the fact that it was slow. But I also mentioned some bugs (disappearing desktop icons, switchdesk doesn't change the graphical login screen back) and usability factors (cluttered menus, lists of applications that aren't installed in the menu of WM, extremely large icons [maybe I didn't mention this one, but on the 800x600 laptop screen they were a joke!]).
Regarding BeOS, I *did* use BeOS for quite a while. I loved it... it booted in 8 seconds on my Celeron 450a (oc'd 300) and performed perfectly. I could probably get away with installing it and using it on the desktop machine, since it's got fairly standard "old" parts in it (which are probably all supported by BeOS), but I doubt it would work correctly on my laptop. I'll give it a try.
As for slowness being a hardware conflict - what are the chances of having hardware conflicts on both machines that produce the exact same results? Probably slim-to-none.
Believe me, I really, really, REALLY want to get away from MS. I don't want XP - people say it's faster, but if indeed it was faster, why are the system requirements higher than the 98 machine? It's only faster if you throw exponentially faster hardware at it.
Ah well, thanks again for the comments.
As previously mentioned, X problems like that usually have to do with networking issues. Disable/check your interfaces, and most importantly your hostname->ip resolution. so like if you called your system "blahblah", make sure you can ping blahblah and have it work. Otherwise everything will run dog slow.
> I don't want XP - people say it's faster, but if indeed it was faster, why are the system requirements higher than the 98 machine? It's only faster if you throw exponentially faster hardware at it.
*Yes and No*.
Yes, it requires more memory and CPU because XP does way more things internally than Win9x does. XP is not based on Win9x, it has a different design.
On the other hand, XP has support for real multitasking in it, which means that WinAMP won't stop playing the mp3s if you loading something or you are playing a game. Overall, XP is more responsive as well. The difference is that even if you throw a lot of memory and CPU on Win98, it will never be truly responsive as XP would be on the same machine. Win9x is based on DOS, with all the bag of worms that carries. WinXP is based on NT, which was created from scratch in the last decade. A different kettle of fish.
Also, XP is way more stable than Win9x. I would normally crash my Win98SE 2-3 times a week. Since I moved to XP last March, I haven't seen a _single_ crash.
I use BeOS and it isn't dead
Funny, none of your links point to BeOS :-)
So it looks like it is dead...
-fooks
I have never used a celeron but I am running a pentium 233 with 64Mb of RAM on my RedHat 8.0 and 5 minutes to load an app there is obviously something wrong with your system.
I have tons of stuff loaded on virtual desktops
http://home.bak.rr.com/uproot/screenshots.html
and my system is still useable, granted I stay away from key apps like open office, evolution and mozilla (mozilla took me 18 seconds to load)
Instead of evolution I use sylpheed, instead of mozilla I use opera. I know office is bloated so I dont even install it. This machine is a duel boot with office XP installed and its no speed champion either.
This opnionated person reminds me when we all first got 95 and ppl were asking me where to click thier "internet".
"The only menu item that worked in WindowMaker was VIM"
This tends to happen when you dont install something. I am not going to flame here but XP has a 64meg minumum (128 recommended) for RAM and that was released a year ago, RedHat came out Monday..Its time to buy a new system if you plan on posting reviews for the world to read.
As for slowness being a hardware conflict - what are the chances of having hardware conflicts on both machines that produce the exact same results? Probably slim-to-none.
Looks like you're just darn unlucky. I've installed RedHat 8.0 on a Athlon 600 and it is very usable. Those figures you quote (5 minutes to start an app) are just mindblowing. For the record, Open Office starts in about 30 seconds (from a clean startup) here. That would mean your computer is about 10x slower. I don't think so. It definitely smells like something is just misconfigured on your system. Try checking with TOP what's going on when you're loading up the application. Also, check if the system has unmasked the IDE IRQ, this helps a lot, especially on crappy Celeron hardware (check: hdparm /dev/hda, unmasking: hdparm -u1 /dev/hda)
-fooks
I've seen win2k on a p200 mmx with 128 ram, it ran impressively well...
I have also used linux on that same exactly system but with kde2.2 (as far as I can tell, there's almost no speed difference between 2.2 and 3 that I can see at all). It ran pretty well too. I can't really even make a comparison between win2k and kde on this system, neither one was super fast, but both were fast and responsive enough that I could use the system and enjoy it, I was able to use Mozilla in Linux on this system, and even that was fast (enough) for me to use without complaint. It was Debian, so it wasn't one of those build absolutely everything yourself dists (compiling kde2/3 takes sooooo many hours on my dual p3 800 box, with a gig of ram, I wouldn't wanna try it on a p200) so it everything wasn't totally tweaked out and compiled for that exact system.
I think Richard might be on to something, I really think it could be an issue with X unsuccessfully resolving hostnames or at least some sorta networking issue with X.
But maybe redhat just isn't the right way to go for a desktop, didn't Bob Young say linux wasn't for the desktop? That doesn't sound too encouraging to me in regards to using their linux product on a desktop.
XFree86 either needs to die or at least die as we know it.
:)
I have red hat 7 installed on a Pentium 233 with 64mb RAM, it runs pretty fast w/KDE,Gnome, and evolution, considering how old it is. It used to have win95 on it(before my conversion) and it ran about the same speed.
I saw a couple of posts on this topic where people were saying a celeron would not run Windows 2000 or RH Linux.
My brother has a Celeron 333 with 256M PC66 RAM running WindowsXP and SuSE 8.0. It runs fantastic for all applications. Close enough to my Dell with Pentium III 750 that I don't notice a difference. The processor is likely not the issue. I'd guess that 64M of RAM is being used by processes starting up.
I have found the same bug as what Brian found in the editorial and as a basic user of linux I was unable to establish what was causing the the extreme slowness. I did see indications that it was caused by software. The reason I say this is because the windows can be moved around normal enough but the contents/widgets in the windows don't update. This is extremely frustrating because I use SuSe 8.0 on this same laptop and does not have any of these troubles. Needless to say this was quite a bit of a let down. I can see however see myself liking Redhat 8, IF this big problem is fixed.
What I am running...
Dell Insporon 8100
Pentium 3-M 1.13ghz
32mb GForce2go
30gb Hard-drive
i know that on my laptop, if APM or APCI is running incorrectly, sometimes it'll slow down the CPU to 50% power or something and things will run extremely slow. but a celeron 500 should run things pretty well.
I had really awful experiences with XP Home edition on my laptop (XP Home shipped on the laptop, it's not as if I was trying to install it myself!). I resolved them by installing Linux.
So if I wrote up an "editorial" about how horrible XP Home is, would that be worthy of posting on OSNews? Or can we only expect to see "Linux sucks because of the isolated experiences of one user who didn't know what he was doing" editorials here?
The problems I had with the pre-installed version of XP Home on this laptop were almost certainly not the fault of XP itself. Or maybe they were, I honestly don't know. I just know that for the few days I played around with Home, I had an awful time of it -- to the point that I ended up taking the thing in for service. I was told by the techs that there was nothing wrong with the machine, maybe it was just a bad install. They offered to restore the software to factory defaults and see if that cleared up the issues. I deferred and installed Linux instead. Problem solved, and I'd bought the thing with Linux in mind anyway.
So, what about it, Eugenia? If I detail my horrible experiences with XP Home, is that OSNewsworthy content? Or would it only be newsworthy if I was "editorializing" about how awful Linux is?
> If I detail my horrible experiences with XP Home, is that OSNewsworthy content?
YES, it is. (It would also be posted as the above story was posted, as an editorial.)
But you better cut the sarcasm, because my bag is filled up with it, and I have LITTLE patience after one year running OSNews.
I want to start by saying that I am a fan of the idea "an OS for every puprose." I've spent many frustrating years of being a linux desktop user, and I came to this realization: Linux will never be a desktop OS. I spent the first 40 comments reading about how the person who wrote this editorial should "fix" his problems, by various means (recompiling the kernel, disabling unused network ports). The fact of the matter is that he shouldn't have to do any of this. I use linux as my home server, and it kicks butt in that capacity. I was so tired of having to compile linux into submission for it to do what I wanted. I went back to windows. However, it suffers from different yet pervasive problems as well. It's a security nightmare, it's constantly in the way and won't let you get work done.
I finally bought an iBook last winter. I can't say that I'll ever use it to play games or be a server, but it's a work horse. I use it for nearly everything. I turn it on, do what I want, put it to sleep until I need it again. Apple makes a superior product, period. One will pay a premium upfront to purchas an apple (and I don't want to hear the Mhz argument, and the premium isn't that bad). While I paid more than I would have to buy a wintel machine, i have reaped back what I spent in folds by not having to constantly engage in battle with my computer. I don't spend hours "fixing" things that ought to work in the first place. OS X is awesome. I administer my server with my laptop, and I don't worry about pissing X off. I use my windows box for the infrequent occasion I wish to play games.
Anyway, just had to vent. I'm sick of hearing people defend linux as a desktop os and then turn around and say, "in order for it to work you have to do x, then y, then z. Then you have to pray to Guyumba, the god of compiled kernels and windex your floor."
Get a mac. You won't regret it.
TROLL with a capital T R O L L:
for example, crap like:
"Once the system was booted, I was surprised to see that GNOME was so slow, it was useless. It took a full 5 minutes for Open Office Writer to load up. It took a minute for a window to show up when I double-clicked on the 'home' icon. I'm sorry, but there's no way I can use a system like this, I can't get any work done."
Having installed and configured Redhat 8 on Cyrix/IBM 233Mhz's without any issue, one can ony say that this person is a troll with the worst case of "I can't get my facts correct". Sure, if he said that it took ice ages to load up Nautilus on Gnome 1.4, I could agree with him. It was painfully slow, HOWEVER, having run GNOME 2.0.2, compiled with with GCC 2.96 and 3.2, I can tell you, there is a definate speed improvement.
As for his, "5 minutes for Open Office Writer to load up", talk about BULLSHIT!
Also, tactically, I never says what his video card is? could this be the source of problems? another crappy 810chipset with built in video and memory sharing.
Again, like the other critter, he did not even attempt to goto a newsgroup or any other forum, where by, I, or many other Linux users could have help him.
Conclusion, he is Yet Another Troll (YAT). This type of review is something you would see out of one of the local magazines written by Windows XP want-a-bee's who don't have the slightest clue on how to use a computer.
Funny how people who do have problems run shitty Celeron PC's with either integrated video chipsets OR worse still, a GeForce card.
As for peoples comments regarding the Celeron processor, there is nothing wrong with them. Throw 128MB at it, have a Matrox G450 or G550, a 7200rpm hard disk, and you'll have a nice little speed demon.
What video card do you have? is it supported via DRI? is it supported via DirectFB?
I actually got my hands on one of the new ones for the first time today, running Jaguar (OS 10.2). It was, no question, the sexiest coolest computer I have ever sat in front of. The screen blew me away, everything jumped out at me. Every icon was where it "felt" it should be, and did what it suggested.
If I didn't work for a major Intel OEM, I'd buy one and use it for my primary work/home PC.
As previously mentioned, X problems like that usually have to do with networking issues. Disable/check your interfaces, and most importantly your hostname->ip resolution. So like if you called your system "blahblah", make sure you can ping blahblah and have it work. Otherwise everything will run dog slow. If you can't ping by hostname, add an entry to /etc/hosts with your hostname and IP. You'll see the format.
The pings return around 0.080ms consistently, so the networking seems to be okay. I can access this machine from my Windows 98 desktop. They are connected together using a cable/dsl/router from linksys.
I think the problem with the laptop is that it just doesn't have enough memory. Using the System Monitor shows that even before launching OpenOffice Writer, the memory is full and swap space is already being used. So likely that is simply swapping everything in and out of memory. What a nightmare.
The desktop fares better, but I didn't install OpenOffice this time, I installed KOffice. KWord takes 20 seconds to load, not too bad. I have an extra 128MB stick laying around here somewhere, I'll install it shortly.
In KDE, how the hell do I make the 'taskbar' bigger? It can only fit 4 applications, and it takes up only about 25% of the bottom bar, when I want it to take 75%.
"I do not agree with all the griping. The hardware used for the article will not run a MODERN OS at a usable speed."
I run QNX 6.2, OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business and Be on my ThinkPad. It has a Celeron 266 and KICKS ASS!
Linux's visual slowness has nothing to do with the processor. Generally speaking, it has to do with the video card. I went from a Gigabyte TNT2A 128Bit AGP 32SDR to a Matrox G550 32DDR and found there was a major speed improvement, especially with the DVD playback and general smoothness.
Conclusion, Matrox give the best overall eXPerience to UNIX/Linux users. I don't work for them, however, I will promote them as they are a good video card to be used with any UNIX like operating system.
Matthew, check your mail.
I feel your pain, but if you want to use Linux on your machine, you have to be a little more persistent. Linux has a lot less support from manufacturers, and most testing is done by end users. Nobody can afford to sell a PC that doesn't work well with Windows, but hardly any manufacturer properly tests their PCs with Linux (this would be especially necessary for notebooks). In addition, all Linux distributors combined are very small fry compared to MS (that is, until IBM releases their own distro ;-). These are the unfortunate effects of the monopoly Microsoft holds, and since the world's governments have been unwilling to tackle the juggernaut, we are pretty much on our own.
The consequence is that you either have to buy one of those rare PCs that come with a preinstalled and properly configured Linux distro (the Microtel $200 Lindows PCs sold at Wal Mart seem to qualify, although you *have* to disable "running as root" before using them), or you have to tweak your self-installed system until it works properly. Depending on your machine and distribution, this can take the better part of a day, or a couple of weeks, or you may find that Linux simply doesn't work good enough or at all (this can be the case with some exotic notebook chipsets). Moving my main machine from NT to Debian took me about two weeks (I include in this the amount of time it took me to find good applications for everyday work).
I did have previous experiences with other distributions, and I first tried Linux when I got one of my first Pentiums. That must have been around 1996 or so. It did work well, but it required a lot of RAM, and applications generally started slower than under Windows (95 at the time), but ran faster and multitasked better. The lack of apps, ugliness of X-Windows and complexity of configuration turned me away back then, but we've come a long way. I say this to make clear that Linux was designed for PCs that we now consider very low end, so when properly configured, it *will* run with them without problems.
I have always been lucky with Linux in that none of the systems I have ever configured with it was so slow to be unusable, but I did have major problems with Debian until I found out about hdparm. After playing around with those fancy DMA and IRQ settings I don't want or care to understand, I finally solved an issue that bugged me for months: the mouse pointer was always jumping around during heavy harddisk access. Turns out the Debian default config didn't take this problem into account.
Given the numbers you cite, I would expect a major misconfiguration to be lurking somewhere. Besides what has already been said (hdparm, network) many other causes can be responsible -- bad video drivers, bad input drivers (an old version of my Wacom tablet X11 driver made my entire system extremely slow), etc. etc. Also be sure to turn font anti-aliasing off, as it is still too slow to use on low end machines. Under KDE this is a menu option in the control center. Have you tried running X apps under twm by starting them from the console window -- if so, was there a speed difference?
You should be able to run everything but OpenOffice in decent speed on your machine, and OO should not take longer than a minute to start up. OO is and has always been extremely bloated and takes an unacceptable time to startup even on a multi-gigahertz machine, since all parts of the office suite are loaded together, but when it's started it should run reasonably fast even on low end machines with enough RAM. Still, I'm looking forward to the alternatives, the ever improving KOffice, and the soon to be released as OSS (according to OsNews) gobeProductive suite. The sad fact is that Crossover Office under WINE starts faster than OpenOffice natively. Forget about AbiWord, I doubt it will ever be good as anything but a Word file viewer.
It would be dishonest to say that Linux+X11 is faster than Windows, that's simply not true. My own experience is that the DOS-based Windows versions (which I would not dare to use for anything but games) are faster than Linux *and* the NT/2K/XP versions of Windows, whereas Linux and XP, when properly configured, are pretty much the same speed, although certain OS-level tasks (anti-aliasing, window resizing etc.) are noticably slower under Linux. The kernel itself is great and has lots of features that Windows doesn't have.
Many of the Linux desktop problems can be blamed on X11/XFree86, whis is a horrible jungle of different modules that interact badly with each other and have to be configured using different files. Distributors nowadays spend a lot of their time fixing X11's countless deficiencies, through various hacks and self-made front-ends. Ultimately, I am hoping for a replacement (as Windows+VNC etc. shows, direct rendering and network access work well together and a client/server architecture is unnecessary for everyday use). What this takes would probably be a very dedicated team of individuals working on creating a basic, nice desktop system (i.e. porting existing apps) using something like DirectFB or Berlin as its foundation. I would be one of the first to jump ship. As I have said before, any GUI that requires the user to go through a long and highly complex "de-uglification HOWTO" after its default install is fundamentally broken.
Incorrect. I am running a PIII 550 w/ 768MB RAM, 60gig harddisk, Matrox G550 and it runs Redhat 7.3 and 8.0 without any of the problems whindgers on this forum crap on about.
1) Remove the crappy Nvidia/810/S3 based card, and replace with Matrox G550
2) Throw into the machine as much memory as you can afford
3) Upgrade the hard disk to a 7200rpm
4) Enable 32bit mode + read ahead + numerous other tweaks under /etc/sysconfig/harddisks
This applies to any machine out there. Whether is a multi-gigahertz or a Cyrix CPU. You too can get good performance if you follow my advice.
What video card do you have? is it supported via DRI? is it supported via DirectFB?
DRI? DirectFB? Don't know. The laptop has a 2.5MB video card that supposedly has some 3d ability (I ran Jedi Knight part 1 on it at about 15 frames a second at 800x600). The desktop has a 16MB Riva TNT on it.
Regarding the "YAT" post... I don't want to get in a fight, I just wrote my experiences. After having the exact same symptoms on both systems, I figured it was simply the fault of the OS, not my hardware. It doesn't seem like a configuration problem or anything else. I don't get any error messages, things seem to work, just very, very slowly. As I mentioned, I did visit an IRC channel to get help with the desktop switcher, wherein, I found YAB (yet another bug), as I mentioned.
I'm not trying to troll. I *hate* Windows and I want something else. I just don't understand how these "desktop environments" need so much memory and processing power just to run a word processing program. I don't give a damn how people think a "modern" operating system should be, but I don't do any multi-media, I don't do any sound or video editing. I don't ever install Macromedia Flash or RealPlayer, and I never listen to MP3s. I certainly don't play 3d games on these computers. All I want is a simple operating system that can run a syntax-highlighting text editor, an simple GUI FTP client, a small web browser (on Windows, I use Opera & the recently released Phoenix), and an email client. This "multi-tasking" should be no problem for any operating system released since Windows 95.
You can insult me and call me names all you want, but I wrote my experiences and my opinions truthfully. I have no reason to hate RedHat or Linux or anything else. Probably more than you, I want to go 100% Microsoft-free. But I need a way I can do it simply, easily, and with a reasonable amount of speed. What's the point of going to another OS if my productivity goes way down?
Do the math. It takes about a minute for Windows 98 to load on these computers. If it crashes once a day, I lose whatever I was working on (not much, since I press ctrl-s after virtually every sentence) plus a minute of downtime due to the reboot, plus however long it takes to load up EditPlus, FileZilla, Opera, and MailWasher (say another minute).
In comparison to this new RH installation, I lose twice that on just the bootup. I lose 4-5x that loading KDE/GNOME after I boot up. I lose another 1x that loading up the applications (which take at least twice as long to load for the default ones, probably a bit faster if I was able to find, install, and configure a decently fast alternative to the email client or whatever).
> Why don't you install Windows
> XP on these computers
I don't know about Celerons, but believe it or not, my company has XP running on Pentium 166 machines. Well, with 256megs of ram. We have about about four of those. They are damn slow, and I couldn't personally work on them, but we do have people doing productive work on them anyways. XP does very well in terms of speed.
I think the author's hardware (64 megs of Ram?) is an invitation to trouble, but I agree that linux desktops should be faster than they are now. Linux companies should take this serious. Nothing turns a user off as fast as speed problems.
I still run redhat on an AMD 350 box. It isn't a speed daemon, and xp isn't a speed daemon on it either, but both are eminently useable.
Yes, I received the email. As I have said in there. If he said XYZ was buggy, sure, no problems. However, blatantly fibbing saying that it took OpenOffice Write 5 minutes to load is not just an over exaduration, but a load of BS. I certainly don't paint my tale of wowes I have had with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, because quite frankly, its my own fault for not RTFM'ing.
typical user comment: "you dont know what your doing, go back to microsoft windos, we dont want you, slow? its fast for me on my dual p3-800, u need more ram, you should have bought the xyz module, did you irc or did you icq?"
this is comment #60, most people wont read it, but i dont care.
deadrat 8, like 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, are all desktop-editions. i like the login screen, but i dont like anything else about it. having 150x80 trash can on the desktop is not fun to have. the "bluecurve" theme reminds me of the "active direct .net" desktop hype in windows. its only a theme, and a very poor one at that. its hard to use, not designed for anyone outside of deadrat-hq, and doesnt even have kernel 2.4.19, which was released *how long ago*...
deadrat 8.0, imho, is another distribution that is taking money away from truely innovative and focused distros, just like lindows, but with lindows its sucking money away from its director (well, i hope so! without a single release its not taking money from me!). mandrake 9.0 is also on my $hit list: whats the difference between 8.2 and 9.0? well, my laptop without a network cable plugged in doesnt take 15 minutes to figure out that there isnt a dhcp server? Oh wait, it comes with kde3, like 30 other distributionns made 4 months before it (hint: already behind the 8ball).
also, when will distros start to load non-critical services in the background and let the user use the desktop? example: i have, by default, sshd apache cupsd on my "default" startup, why do i have to wait for them to load before X loads and i can do stuff? And when will we see someone put some time and effort into making a hyper-startup like feature that is in windows eXPlodey that will bring startup times down from 2 minutes to 30 secods by saving the startup cache in a big md5's file?
grr, zealots aside, when will we see some real progress, and not a new number and a new theme?
I just want to say a couple of things:
First, I think that a 'non-geek' view of OSes is always a relevant one. By all means, they also buy software, in fact, this frustrated user spent forty dollars just to try a new OS. I think this is important to note. If the systems he owns are sufficient to get his work done, I don't understant why he has to upgrade them, anyway, he's not a geek like some of us...
Secondly, as posted by some of you above, a Celeron 400 is still capable of doing small tasks, al least tasks not very graphic-intensive. But with a good Geforce, the impossible can be possible. My own experience: one of my machines, a P233 with 384Mb Ram and a Matrox G450 runs XP very nicely. Not with all the animations and menu shadows, of course, but I use it to work on Autocad, and I have no complaints. Some time ago, I tried an RH distro on it (can't remember which one) and it worked ok too. Maybe our frustrated user has to do some hardware tweaking on his machine.
But, in the end, this could really be a typical first-time bad luck. Don't give up, tho!
TROLL with a capital T R O L L:
Ok, now lets see what you have to say.
for example, crap like:
"Once the system was booted, I was surprised to see that GNOME was so slow, it was useless. It took a full 5 minutes for Open Office Writer to load up. It took a minute for a window to show up when I double-clicked on the 'home' icon. I'm sorry, but there's no way I can use a system like this, I can't get any work done."
so he has a bad day with openoffice. so what? how many people have had bad days with winxp and you call them a "troll"?
Having installed and configured Redhat 8 on Cyrix/IBM 233Mhz's without any issue
I have troubles installing deadrat on a p2-350. you must be telling the truth or lying your ass off. lets see what else you had to say...
, one can ony say that this person is a troll with the worst case of "I can't get my facts correct". Sure, if he said that it took ice ages to load up Nautilus on Gnome 1.4, I could agree with him.
But deadrat 8 (desktop edition) has gnome v2.0.2, does he have to install deadrat 7.3 (gnome 1.4) to know how to use 8.0? Or to give it a fair review of "it now takes 3 minutes to load, where it used to take 5 minutes!"
It was painfully slow, HOWEVER, having run GNOME 2.0.2, compiled with with GCC 2.96 and 3.2, I can tell you, there is a definate speed improvement.
In other words, he has to download the source code of everything and compile it for his system. Have you ever tried gentoo linux? It is a source-code based distribution. you have to compile everything for your system. no? well, maybe gentoo is what he needs?
As for his, "5 minutes for Open Office Writer to load up", talk about BULLSHIT!
I'm sorry, but have you thought that it would take that long if the following conditions were true:
1) the distro is using 128megs of ram on boot
2) open office likes to have 20megs to itself
3) The user has a 64meg machine.
Please, can you repeat what you just said, i quite didnt hear it...
Also, tactically, I never says what his video card is? could this be the source of problems? another crappy 810chipset with built in video and memory sharing.
The programs too 5 minutes to load. he must be using cockroaches and not a pci bus, coz nothing takes that long to draw.
Again, like the other critter, he did not even attempt to goto a newsgroup or any other forum, where by, I, or many other Linux users could have help him.
Read the post again. He did ask for help, he got it, it didnt work, what is left to do? I know, lets reapply the service pack and reboot...
Conclusion, he is Yet Another Troll (YAT). This type of review is something you would see out of one of the local magazines written by Windows XP want-a-bee's who don't have the slightest clue on how to use a computer.
Lets see, he manages linux servers for a living. does he need to put down his job title for you to understand that me *may* know more than you?
Funny how people who do have problems run shitty Celeron PC's with either integrated video chipsets OR worse still, a GeForce card.
They are computer users like the rest of us. if the user finds performance in a particular distro, and no performance in another,it must then be a user problem!
As for peoples comments regarding the Celeron processor, there is nothing wrong with them. Throw 128MB at it, have a Matrox G450 or G550, a 7200rpm hard disk, and you'll have a nice little speed demon.
Please upgrade all hardware and dont use your old computer again, wait, isnt this m$ talking here?
Hi,
my website http://bezip.de ist running on a P200 and FreeBSD-STABLE. It's fast and rock-solid. Last month I had over 320 GB of traffic and 70.000 visits ...
Ciao,
Sebastian
I have a system running on 1.3GHz athlon w/ 768MB of ram -both win2k / XP snappy. I noticed a drop in performance. I had mandrake9 installed previously using resierfs w/ the notail option to optimize performance. KDE and Gnome apps were snappier. I'm not sure if ext3 is causing the performance drop - but it has been consistant in the past. Also, there aren't many services running in the background. I'll have to do some homework However, The comnfiguration options in the bluecurve desktop (mostly gnome apps) are much improved - network configuration, X resolution settings. It kind of reminds me of BeOS's interface - but way sexier. Nonetheless this speed thing is a cosmetic issue - linux is really a console OS making a transition into a hybrid console/GUI OS - this is quite a feat and the progress is quite remarkable.
I have windows 2000 in a sony notebook with a k6 500 mhz. Win2000 is very fast, but all the linux distros i've tried are very slow slow slow. I have now mandrake 8.2 and it barely works. Funny that most linux zealots promote linux as being able to run perfectly on older hardware :|
If the systems he owns are sufficient to get his work done, I don't understant why he has to upgrade them, anyway, he's not a geek like some of us...
Because I'm sick of Microsoft (they owe me $40 they charged my Asheron's Call account *after* I cancelled my subscription, and they refuse to refund the money -- long story). Because it does crash occasionally, even when doing relatively simple things. Because I was under the impression that "Linux" was "faster." Because I don't want to provide any support whatsoever (even indirectly, by purchasing Windows software) to a company that does business as Microsoft does business.
I don't trust them, I'm in the middle of starting a business, and I wanted to put a more stable, trustworthy OS on my laptop. I threw it on the desktop "just because" - I wanted to see if it was RH Linux that was slow or just a bad install on the laptop.
Brian, I don't know because I haven't tried it, but 64 MB RAM, I would think, would probably slow down something like a 400 MHz Celeron. But, it seems like your other system should have been okay.
Others posted that they have seen this type of slowness, so perhaps there is something amiss with Red Hat on certain systems or components.
I was wondering, did you try the Personal Desktop install option? That's what I did and even it takes 1.5 GB of disk space. On your laptop, was there enough space to have a good swap file? If you didn't use that install option, you might have better luck with it - there is not the duplication of types of applications, etc. It's pretty sleek and might work better if you are primarily interested in using text editors.
I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience - I know how disappointing it is to be excited about something and then have it turn out to be a big let down.
Well I'm currently running RH 8 final on an old HP Pavilian 6575z 466Mhz Celeron w/ 256MB SDRAM 50Gig HD, geForce 2 64MB video, and it runs just fine for me. The programs load at an acceptable speed, Galeon, OOo,it's all good. I run strictly GNOME on this box, no KDE, WindowMaker, BlackBox etc. It's really been a pleasure to use. I haven't run into the problem this gentleman has run into, of course if I do I'll definately be looking for the cure 
Oh and Gentoo, I think I'll wait till 1.4 is finalized...
Installed RH 8.0 on my homemade box and on a Microtel
SYSMAR 710 (bye bye, Lindoze). So far I'm liking it
OK. It's even running pretty decently on the Microtel
box with the itty bitty C3 and 128 megs of RAM. There's
definitely a little speed increase thanks to gcc 3.2
that I am enjoying.
My only gripe: dhclient is now the default DHCP client
but the version in the included binary RPM wouldn't
see any DHCPOFFERs on AT&T Broadband. Not too big of
a deal. Researched it, found the needed patch
(change TTL value from 16 to 127), installed source
RPM, made change, compiled and installed, and voila,
my Microtel brand firewall and home LAN is back online.
Still... kind of a pain. It ate up some serious time
today. So thanks for that, Redhat. But overall,
8.0 is treating me all right. So far... My $0.02.
I was wondering, did you try the Personal Desktop install option? That's what I did and even it takes 1.5 GB of disk space. On your laptop, was there enough space to have a good swap file?
Yup, and it has a 4.3GB HD so I think it got the swap it needed... as I mentioned in my other post, I think the 64 is the reason for the slowness, considering X+GNOME took up all the memory, so every time I loaded anything else... swap, swap, swap. Still doesn't explain the desktop system, though
If the software is too slow for your computers, return it to vendor and get your money back. RedHat, as well as many other distributions, are trying to make linux to be "all things to all people", and the cost most of the time is system performance. If you want to run the latest greatest software, make sure your hardware is relatively new. Else stick with an older Linux, or Microsoft operating system version.
There is really no need for you to waste your time, and ours, for a problem that is that simple to solve.
Linux sucks . It's that simple . Use BeOS .
" First, Celeron 400 is a very outdated hadware to try a very recent version of RedHat. Try to run on a Athlon > 1.2 GHz or P4 > 1.4 GHz. "
The funny thing is, tons of Linux zealots keep saying they hate Microsoft because they keep pushing the hardware envelop, always in need of a better machine again and again (WinBload, etc). Well, as it look like, it's something Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on ... :-)
Hi Brian!
I understand your frustration. To tell the truth your hw is quite oldie, and RH 8.0 simply isn't directed to work on hw like that. But fortunatelly w/ some work you can leave M$ for ever You find gnome/kde slow? Take a look at some ligtweigth wm like icewm or xfce. They know everything win98 gui knows and as fast as that is. You found nautilus slow? Try gentoo (yeah it's a filemanager too not only a distro) or endevaour2. For mail u can use sylpheed. I personally develop php code to, i use glimmer for it as a code editor (it know syntax highliting, has tabs, and line numbering...everything i need to develop php code If you have trouble getting a properly configured kernel/system i guess you can find a more exerienced linux user somewhere near you (or thanks to ssh everywhere on the Earth who can help setyour comp up. Then the only difference between your current and future system will be that linux won't freeze once a day. You don't have to ctrl-s every second. You don't have to use aa system which is no more supported by its creator. And you'll find many open minded helpful people around you, w/ whom it'll be a pleasure te explore your own system.
A word about gentoo: it might be a great distro, but i suggest you should yake a look at Lunar Linux too (lunar-linux.org). It's source based too, has a very elegant and simple pure bash package handling system and a VERY 'responsive' and friendful developer community.
hope i helped,
bye, hirisov
If you purchased a boxed version of redhat 8, why did you not get support. perhaps there is something simple being over looked. Also there are all kind of user groups and forums that you can attend that may provide a solution, particularly if other people are having the same problem. I tested Redhat 8 on a 500 megahetz and ran fine.
The key thing in Linux is RAM. You'll feel a big improvement when you get more RAM. On the other side, when linux hasn't got enough RAM, it uses the swap partition as memory, and that is painfully slow, that's called "swapping" and you're gonna hate that bloody word.
So you have to avoid RAM greedy programs, like KDE, Gnome, Mozilla and Open Office. And if you were using them at the same time, you were shooting yourself in the head.
I've been using Linux this year on a 486 with 8 Mb of RAM, so it can be done. The key thing is to use different programs which are less pretty but do the same tasks.
Choose as a windowmanager something like twm, fluxbox, fvwm95 or something like that. You can search in google lightweight window manager, or you can ask on irc.. Maybe you'll get scared the first time, you won't find the windows taskbar and the start button, but play with it and find how it works. Windowmaker is very cool too. But you're gonna need some time because they behave differently.
Choose a lightweight browser. Dillo is extremely light, you can use opera, or ask on irc.
And for an editor, just the same thing, google or irc for lightweight editor.
Open a console, and type "top". You will see how many RAM is each program using. Type free and you will see how many RAM and swap are you using. If you are not using swap, that's great.
So that's it, the best computer you have, the biggest pieces of software you can use, but if you have a slow computer, you can take small software too to make it look fast. You can choose, unlike in windows.
Have fun.
Simply put, you'll need an upgrade.
Consider this: Since slow and fast are basically two ralative terms they're not going to be meaningful.
RH8 is released this year (ok, beginning of the week), 2001-2002. Pick any OS (with a form of GUI) that was released THIS year, now install these onto the same hardware that you just did. Now, how do they compare?
You see, you basically can't take this year's technology combine that with technology from 2 years ago, then complaine/blame/dislike this years techonology just because the combined result isn't what you expected/'to your satisfaction'.
You have to take into consideration that it was your decision to combine these technologies from different point on the timeline.
And two years or so in computing age is quite a huge gap.
Would anyone agree with me here?
Or to put it bluntly, RH8 is too advanced (technologically) for your somewhat outdated hardware.
Geez, next time if you can't download the isos for free, visit cheapbytes.com and get the CDs for a couble of bucks.
$40? That's like 4 pizzas! Now what will you eat the next time you're compiling a custom kernel?
I'm of the opinion that as linux matures, it is starting to show the problems Windows, and most any operating system does as it matures. Eventually, you reach the point where it is simply unusable on the previous generation of hardware. Increasingly there has been a trend towards trying to make faster code by increasing the code size. This optimal code for each task thing bogs down machines with less ram, or slower processors as to call each version requires some form of jump command to be issued in ASM, which is still the slowest opcode available. To me this trend of increased code size for speed optimizations is a bit non-sensical in an age of multiple instructions per clock cycle, but then to me the entire concept of swap files seems non-sensical and unneccesary. When a 256 meg machine runs all my software, and swaps to a 512-768 meg swap file, why do I need a swap file on a 1024 meg machine?
The answer is simple, you don't, and I have proven it, as I have a DX4/100 with 64 megs of ram that runs WFW 3.11 and IE 4.0 faster than my 512 meg Athlon 1.33 runs XP. How you may ask? Simple, I used a third party RAM Disk that allows me to have 'low level' access to it in Win 3.1, and put the swap file (48 megs) on it. No disk chugging, ultra speedy. Wish I could get that working in Windows 98 or XP. Maybe a hardware card with 2-4 gigs of ram on it to use as swap space since these programmers are to lazy to implement memory handling efficiently?
But what do I expect when everything is written in C. Talk about a convoluted cryptic unneccesity. I would rather hand code 64k of Z80 assembly than spend five minutes looking at C.
Maybe I'm just too old school, but I increasingly feel a need to return to Basics. All the things we used to tout as linux' big features, fast booting, efficient memory use, low system requirements are gone. BeOS in one fell swoop showed what a load of crap Linux and Windows startups were, with its ability to recognize and configure all of your hardware on the fly in under ten seconds. What does Red Hat or Mandrake take to start up these days? A minute? More? What the hell do these OS actually do on startup, sitting there chugging at the drive like crazy? At least M$ kind of fixed that with XP and to a lesser extent 2K, although to do it they switched hardware detection to it's own process, meaning you can get halfway through loading a web page before hardware detection finished. It does NOT take more than ten seconds to start your kernel, enumerate the P&P bus, grab the device ID's and load the appropriate drivers.
All that said, the bottom line is that Linux, in any form, has a LONG way to go before I'd consider giving it to the average user on a Workstation. The only distro that even came close in my estimation was Stormix's version, and look at what happened to them for their effort (which for the time got an A+++ from me). They not only hid 90% of the linux internals from the user, but it came up fast and responded well even on junk hardware; but because they targeted the average user and removed all the control that is unneccessary for someone just sitting down to type a letter or browse the web, the Linux community as a whole ignored them resulting in their doom. You can feel this attitude in the response to Lindows. Lindows removes from the user the need to learn all the Unix legacy @#$% that makes linux a hackers dream and a users nightmare.
I am using RHL 8.0 and have used RHL-7.3 on PIII -866 / 256 MB RAM. Remote X-server in RHL - 8.0 takes ages to load.Even terminal too.Some times, like M$, it says its not responding.Where as i never had this problem on system it self or remote access in RHL 7.3. These guys definitely are bloating the OS like M$ than fine tuning it. I dont know whethere these software companies are in tie up with hardware companies. They just make us to buy to newest hardware to run the latest software.SAD :-(
Ok...let's talk about old hardware and new OS.
Here I have my Toshiba 300CDS and RH8 installed.
300CDS has a Pentium 166 (oh yes, first generation pentium), 2GB harddrive (just enough to install the basic OS with X and Gnome), 80 MB RAM (16 MB built-in, then 64MB upgrade).
I'm using it as a gateway (IPTables masquerade) and DNS Server (BIND), and Sendmail server.
At the console typed startx, time to load X and Gnome until no harddisk activity is 1 minute 22 seconds...and that's on a P166 with services running in the backgound...
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All the things we used to tout as linux' big features, fast booting, efficient memory use, low system requirements are gone.
----------------------
Linux is the kernel, damn it! Fast booting, efficient memory use, low system requirements are still true.
Those old P-166's can be surprisingly quick compared to a number of machines in the 300-500mhz range when it comes down to doing routine tasks, like starting the OS or loading a program. For some reason the BIOS responds quicker, drive access seems less frequent, etc. Win 95 on a P166 with a mere 32 megs of ram will quite often load IE, Office or other common office needs quicker than say a K6/2-450 with 128 megs of ram on Win98se. It may not calculate a spreadsheet as quickly or run databases as fast, but for routine use it does indeed outrun the 'more advanced' machine. Does it make sense? No. Does it happen, Yes.
It often makes me wonder if there isn't some sort of major flaw in the bus of the 300-500 mhz class machines, as the K6/2's, PII's and Celeries in these speeds all seem to lag in this one area.
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Terry on 10-06 03:05:37 said
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Linux is the kernel, damn it! Fast booting, efficient memory use, low system requirements are still true.
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Yes, but a Kernel by itself is useless. Today people cannot think of linux by itself, but the X-Server and desktop system that actually make it useful to the average joe. Not everyone using a computer can be an IT professional.
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Yes, but a Kernel by itself is useless. Today people cannot think of linux by itself, but the X-Server and desktop system that actually make it useful to the average joe. Not everyone using a computer can be an IT professional.
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I was just stating the fact that what they taught (that statement) in school still holds true.
I also have a Vaio laptop: PIII 500MHz with 256MB (above recommended) RAM, 30GB harddrive.
Runs perfectly well.
I tried Red Hat 6.2 a few years ago. Like you, I am pretty computer literate, but after spending days trying to get video cards and network settings right, I gave up on Linux. I used BeOS for about a year, but dumped it when Be went belly up and BeOS was no longer under development. I originally experimented with these systems because I was tired of the limitations of OS 9. When OS X was released, I bought a new Macintosh and haven't looked back since. OS X has everything you're searching for - it just works!
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OS X has everything you're searching for - it just works!
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I want one as well....but I don't have a mac.
Hey Brian,
If you don't feel Linux is for you, then give FreeBSD a try. If FreeBSD doesn't solve your opinions/problems, then try something else or whatever.
http://www.bebits.com/app/2680
http://www.beosonline.com/index.php?seite=Download
http://www.lebuzz.com ... Lebuzz CD
These are only a few of the places to get BeOS.
bbjimmy
bjimmy.complexero.com/tptb
I thought I could add my own observation here. I have an old Celeron 450 (oc'ed 300) with 192 MB of RAM. It ran Win2k quite good. One day, I decided to try XP Pro on it. I thought: lets see how XP would bring this machine to its knees... I installed XP and, to my surprise, there was no real difference in responsiveness: the computer was still quite fast, even with most of the eye candy turned on. So, XP is still sitting on this machine and I use it to do some real work done with no problem.
To me, this was a strange experience because I saw a more powerful computer (like P-III 733 with 256MB) wich seemed not a lot faster with XP than the Celeron. Maybe it has to do with a combinason of hardware (hard disk, chipset, video card) that would produce a bottleneck somewhere...
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OS X has everything you're searching for - it just works!
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I totally beleive you, but the Os have a HUGE drawback : it need a mac ...
If Apple could release MacOS X on x86 platform, I'll be the first in line to pay for it ...
Hi, a few months ago I tried to install redmond linux on my sisters Celeron 500 with 64Mb of RAM (I think 4 megs of that ram was being used for the video card). And it was sooooo sloooooow, i couldn't believe how bad it was, it honestly took more than a minute to load the GIMP...
So I blew it away and installed Mandrake 8.1 (KDE 2.2.1 etc). And running KDE, Evolution, Opera, knode, ltris was fine. It was perfectly useable and ran just as fast as Windows ME on the same box. I Really have no idea what was different with Redmond Linux, but Mandrake was way faster.
My sister initially complained about the speed of Redmond linux, saying she would start and app then go and make a coffee and hopefully it'd be loaded when she got back. But she said Mandrake was fine, just as fast as windows, no probs. I Still don't know why.
By the way, check out icewm as a window manager, it looks a lot like windows, has nice themes, and works pretty well. It's not being developed anymore, I really wish someone would take it, add drag'n'drop and desktop icons + some better configuration utilities - then it would be awesome for older hardware. Add directfb support for it and it would fly.
Anyway, that's just a personal experience I have had, so don't give up, there is hope
> I have most of my OSes on a dual Celeron 533, and XP is fastest than all
you will need 2 licenses of winxp to run it on that machine. winxp is only licensed for running on one (1) processor.
and frankly, i normally ignore this type of "editorials". it sounds like something from my boss. my boss says he's a semi-expert with computers. yet breaks it 2 days after i clean format it and tweak it to run smoothly. he installs so much warez and pirated crap and small hacker apps all at once, then expect everything to work just fine after. he can't even find the "New" option in office xp's disappearing menus! oh my god! plus he doesn't even know how to sync his pocket pc, he doesn't even know what format is, he doesn't understand that when accessing webpages its a client-server model (yet says that pages are running on a "server"). he even tries to install a key logger on a colleagues pc without us knowing. of course being the sysadmin that i am, any unknown app is immediately uninstalled, or better yet, the log file is damaged with Edit and made read-only.
this is the problem with PCs. people expect to use them without completely understanding them. it's like driving cars without really knowing the effects of driving fast or braking hard or swerving too much. it's like doing business without realizing that you might lose money if you don't analyze the market. it's like washing clothes withour reading the instructions of how much soap to put in! fsck! that's all. i'm having a bad sysadmin day.
anyway... this is the sort of thing redhat has to address. if it's really slow on celeron machines, then maybe they should put in the requirements a minimum of pentium 2 or something. don't copy microsofts way of saying that winxp will run on pentium 200mhz with 64 mb ram. be realistic folks.
I've got the Windows XP license right infront of me. It states that it is licensed 1-2 CPU's, the SAME licensing restrictions as the Windows 2000 Professional. Most people who have more than 2 CPU's aren't going to be using a Intel based workstation. They'll normally go for a high end SGI, SUN, HP-UX or AIX machine.
speed, stability was the 2 things that driven me thru the linux world, but all i had is slow, buggy software i had. i've tried redhat,suse,corel.. none of them seems to be sufficient as a desktop OS. Wish they were.. but they are not. noone in Linux world seems to care for east installation/uninstallation of software... u got tars, gunzips etc. none of them r fast or easy.. it takes longer to boot than windows, software is less eyecandy than windows, it works slower than windows, its more buggy than windows, its less unique than windows, its less widespread than windows, it has less software than windows, it has less hardware than windows, it has more nerds and geeks than windows, it copyies more than windows(like once ms copied from ms), it is as tricky and froa as microsoft windows(redhat, lindows, xandros...
excuse me but where is linux now after all those year.. u can't even install a software with a single click, uninstallation is a mystery for a new beginner.. all we get after like 6-7 years is a easy install.. thanks to open source community.. what a progress.. and thnx to Microsoft.. with out MS we could still be in darkness if we only had open source..
There is no denying, GNU/Linux with GNOME (or KDE) just doesn't perform well and that is the next big thing that has to be improved. Although it will get less and less important the faster the hardware becomes, it shouldn't be ignored as better performance means that we can stuff even more features in without considerably slowing down the system (though on my not-so-old computer Red Hat 8 performs more than acceptable, file manager starts up instantly just as preloaded browser and many other applications).
Recently I installed Windows 98 again to run a game decently and boy, it was crap. The installation, the first impression, the stability and all was crap. Especially compared to the Red Hat 8 installation I did right after that. This is no surprise of course seeing that Windows 98 is a lot older. But the thing I noticed (and noticed with Windows 2000 too) is simply that it performs MUCH better (with a GUI).
It is not true though that it will only become bigger and more bloated. There isn't much that is about to be added to the bloat in the real future and most if not all of the current developments are about polishing, stability and performance.
I also agree that Red Hat 8 is a few pitfalls for unexperienced users which should be closed. The system works really well if you don't touch those but I can understand that this can happen for inexperienced users.
To change desktops without breakage you should have selected them from the "Session" item on the login screen.
Alan, I can't believe you or many people criticize Linux per se. I mean, criticism is good, but it is futile to criticize something for not being what it is not. It is the old thing about seeing a glass of water as half empty or half full. To me, Linux, in general, has made tremendous strides - and in a pretty short period of time considering the nature of OSS. At any rate, if one expects something to be what it isn't, then frustration is assured. But, if you get in the middle of it and go with it and see the progress as you continue to use it, it's really a lot of fun.
I set up a Redhat 7.3 box for my girlfriend. It has a 400MHz Celeron and 128 MB RAM. Although the startup time for OpenOffice is rather excessive, once it's up and running, it's not much slower than on my own machine (1.7GHz PIV w/ 512 MB RAM). I set the default desktop to KDE, which exhibits more of a slowdown compared to mine (also running RedHat), but it's still perfectly usable. I have trouble believing that the changes from 7.3 to 8.0 have caused a slowdown as much as one would think from this editorial.
it's like driving cars without really knowing the effects of driving fast or braking hard or swerving too much
It's more like driving a car without knowing exactly how the engine works internally. Without understanding how vacuum makes "power brakes." Without understanding how an alternator generates electricity. These are all things that should be hidden from the end-user.
Two words:
Try BeOS
Two Other Words:
Craniorectal Inversion
>>>I use BeOS and it isn't dead.
http://www.openbeos.org/
http://www.yellowtab.com/
http://www.blueeyedos.com/
http://www.bebits.com/ <<<
openbeos.org doesn't have an acutal operating system developed - they only have, last i looked, a FS module.
yellowtab.com - doesn't even have a working "what is zeta" link on their website - so i really don't see how your positive it's really BeOS. (Especially since they seem to already have bad info on the site like, "AtheOS is a BeOS Fork.")
blueeyedos.com isn't BeOS - i certainly do not remember BeOS being based off the linux kernel and Xfree.
bebits.com has very little useful software - not enough to recommend BeOS to a friend for use as a desktop OS w/o being embarassed.
Again it can summed up in two words:
Dream On.
I'll give you a pat on the back for those fine words + the good, even handed review previously.
I don't mind criticism about distributions as so long as the issues actually exist! don't call something crap until it is crap.
If I were to do a "Brian" review of my experience with Windows XP, I'd probably get lashing of teeth from the Windows advocate camp. However, what I take in account is this. Microsoft has $50 something billion dollars. don't you think they could atleast fix Windows once and for all? Do a MacOS X, and do something revolutionary instead of trying to mend something (NT) that was built upon a zealot hatred of UNIX + the hype of all things "next generation" such as "C++" and "Object orientated programming".
Time for a shameless plug for my company's SOHO edition of Vector Linux. If you want a really fast linux distro with full small office/home office functionality then you might come by and have a look at http://vectorlinux.org
Its all there office applications, games, multimedia and a size you can live with....1.2 gigs full install. We have had reports from 233 mhz pentium cpu and 64 megs of ram users that openoffice even opens at an acceptable speed. Its a free download and worth a try.
Open Office took 5 mins to load?
Some misconfiguration issues must be there....
is it really absolutely necessary to bitch about this guys article like you did? Your TROLL was almost as long as his article.
I've had the same problem as artem and christian. I don't remember which distro(Lycoris?) but it really ran much slower than anything else I've ever seen. Next time it happens I"ll try Artem's solution. My glitch was on a Duron 800 with 256 ram.(This system runs everything just fine, normally)
This really shouldn't happen, there's no excuse for a glitch like this.
I have Mandrake 9.0 running on a PII 350, with 128 ram, and it runs slowly, but its definitely useable.
Give Mandrake another try. But a memory upgrade to at least 256MB is highly recommended if you want to use KDE - KDE is simply memory hungry, so is mozilla.org.
Hi all.
I am a windows user who believes that win2000 is the most stable, useable, effective, and best implemented OS MS has ever come up with, so far.
But over the years, I have heard so much about the rise of Linux, that, to me, Linux must also be very stable, useable, efficient, and fast for it to be able to win over so many fans.
But from what I gathered in the previous 98 posts, I am not so sure anymore...
To me, Linux has always give me an impression that it is a geek's OS. In that, you have to know what you need to do when looking at an empty console, what commands to type, how to tweak and compile the kernel or the source codes, etc, in order to optimize your system for it to maximize a system's potential. As opposed to the dummified windows desktop environment whereby all you have to do is install the OS via wizards, install whatever applications you need to use, and you're set. So maybe all these unecessary unhappiness is caused by companies like RedHat who make claims that their distro is meant to be an easy to install and use gui desktop environment suitable for the typical joe blow user.
To make things worse, just for a single OS, we have so many choices of distros, file and window managers, desktop shell developers, shell specific/dependant applications, etc, that it all seems to me like a big mess! Yes, choice is good. But IMHO, there should be some form of uniformity and consistency so that, let's say for example, I run RH7 with G1.4, and my friend runs SuSE8 with KDE2 and I go over to his place to do some work, it should not take me anytime at all to familiarize with how to operate his system in an EFFICIENT manner! Computers are made to labour for us, not otherwise!
All these attempts to implement gui ala windows/mac by the various developers/distributors has raised the bar for the hardware requirements of a system to have in order to run Linux smoothly so much so that it seems to have overtaken wintel in pushing the hardware requirement envelope like one previous user has mentioned. And I have always thought that Linux was suppose to run better than windows on older hardware. Guess I was wrong too. (that's in reference to using a "windows like" gui for a desktop env). Maybe Linux was never meant or made out to be a GUI desktop type of OS in the first place?
I really hope that one day, Linux, MacOS or some other OS will seriously challenge M$ in the average home user PC's market. But for now M$ still looks untouchable and win2k is still the one for me for getting daily work done.
just my 2¢.
Half a year ago i had the same (slowly) problem as you with redhat, lycoris and mandrake but not with suse. Today, with the same computers, i stil have this problem, but only with redhat and lycoris. Mandrake 9.0 and suse 8.0 are running stable and fast. Suse is a little hard to get over internet, but mandrake is easy, go to their homesite and download it from there.
Sorry about my english i hope you understand!!!!
I just installed RH 8.0 on a 233mhz laptop with 64megs ram. GNOME 2.0 was very slow. I shut off all of the services I didn't need, and installed window maker. Now it runs like a charm.
i know it's tempting to dismiss older hardware, but saying a 500MHz machine can't run a GUI?! good grief... you think we were all using DOS prompts and command line interfaces three years? errr, no, i don't think so!
i have a desktop machine that speed, and i'm running a triple boot system with KDE 3.03 linux, win2K, and beos5. ALL OF THEM are fast and responsive. heck, it's actually pretty nippy... i also run linux on my 800MHz vaio, dual-booting wth winXP. the only reason for something to run slow on a 500MHz machine is that some setting somewhere is deeply, truly b0rked. (FYI i'm currently using mandrake 9, looking to investigate gentoo when 1.4 final arrives...)
I use a Celeron 433 192MB RAM with LFS (www.linuxfromscratch.org), but before that, it had 128MB and ran RedHat 7.2 with KDE2 nicely. Not too fast, but responsive enough.
It now runs LFS with IceWM, the extra 64MB RAM has made little difference in terms of responsiveness; currently it has only 177MM used. So I don't really see the issue being the CPU or the memory. Having said that, I don't run MySQL on a desktop machine, and don't see why anybody would.
>>"But over the years, I have heard so much about the rise of Linux, that, to me, Linux must also be very stable, useable, efficient, and fast for it to be able to win over so many fans.
But from what I gathered in the previous 98 posts, I am not so sure anymore..."
This is precisely why I feel posting this article was irresponsible. I have had bad experiences installing Linux, I've had bad experiences installing Windows 95, 98, ME (nightmare of nightmares!), and XP. Windows 2000 is a wonderful OS, in my opinion. For pure speed, load up Windows 98SE. The point is, I've installed a lot of operating systems. Sometimes things went smooth as silk, sometimes things bombed.
Posting an editorial like this about ONE USER'S bad experience installing an OS strikes me as biased and intentionally inflammatory and damaging to the reputation of the product in question. If an article like this had been posted about XP (not that it ever would have) intelligent users would have dismissed it for what it was: a fluke. The vast majority of XP users have no problems. Posting this article might very well turn potential Red Hat users away from the OS, and that's just wrong.
I once had a horrible experience installing an upgrade of Internet Explorer -- it obliterated an otherwise fully functional Windows 98SE install. I once had a bad experience installing MS Office. Anyone who's administered a fair number of machines has had LOTS of bad installs of LOTS of different things. It happens. We curse, shake our heads in frustration, and start over. Sometimes along the way we realize it was our own haste, irresponsibility or poor choices that caused the problem to begin with. Sometimes we discover whatever it is we're working with is just broken in some way. Life goes on.
OSNews has a large readership and an equally large responsibility to report such news impartially. It's OSNEWS, not OSOpinion. If OSNews intends to publish every bad experience had by every user installing any of the various operating systems in existence ... well, that's just silly, right? Because then people who are fond of the products in question are going to want to post rebuttals ... to which the original posters are going to want to post further counter-arguments ...
I've never read a story like this one about Windows on OSNews. I've never read a story like this one about BeOS on OSNews. I've never read a story like this about MacOS on OSNews.
Are we to believe that there ARE no such stories? I know better. I have several of my own. I guess the point is, even though I have those stories I know they DO NOT APPLY to the vast majority of my fellow users. As such, my personal disaster stories might make interesting anecdotes but they simply aren't material worthy of a spot on the front page of a site with a readership of thousands. Just as, in my opinion, this story wasn't worthy of such attention.
"Breaking News: A newbie has issues installing the latest version of Red Hat Linux! Dramatic footage at 11! Viewer Discretion Advised." People have trouble installing lots of things every day. A friend of mine recently had huge problems with a botched 98SE -> XP Pro upgrade. I fixed it over the phone. Life goes on. There was no need for a press release.
Other than potentially harming Red Hat 8.0's reputation out of all proportion to the obscure problems (which weren't even clearly defined) described in the article and possibly turning away users who'd been on the fence about giving Psyche a shot, I fail to see what purpose this article served at all.
If I'd known my past installation woes were fodder for such stories, I suppose I could have vented a great deal of frustration over the past few years by posting them to OSNews. More the pity I didn't deem them important enough to document for posterity.
The pings return around 0.080ms consistently, so the networking seems to be okay. I can access this machine from my Windows 98 desktop. They are connected together using a cable/dsl/router from linksys.
You misunderstood, has nothing to do with how fast your network or internet connection is, it's about X trying to resolve hostnames and not being able to. This isn't a problem with X, or rather, it's not a problem specifically with X, a lot of apps that rely on resolving hostnames, when there's a problem will stall while waiting for a dns response or something along those lines.
You should be getting your isp's DNS servers automagically setup on connect to the net, so that can't be the problem, try checking /etc/hosts and see what ip is setup for the hostname you gave your system. If you only have one nic (which you use to connect to the internet), then what's happening? Does it overwrite the network settings whenever you get online thus you no longer have an iface with an ip matching your hostname? Or maybe you have no ip to go with your hostname? You might try setting it up so your system sees your host as being 127.0.0.1 (keep your old setting, just comment it out though) and see if that changes anything.
So what could be happening is that you have no ip to go with your hostname (possibly like dhcp is overwriting your settings for eth0 when you connect), in such a case, X would keep trying to find the ip address for $HOSTNAME (echo $HOSTNAME) but it wouldn't find one, or it wouldn't find a valid one (the ip in /etc/hosts for your hostname wouldn't match your dhcp setup eth0). Well whatever, something along those lines.
This is just my guess, hope it helps.
2.5 megs of ram on a video card? Running any modern GUI in that will be an exercise in pain. I wouldn't want to run win95 with that.
By Xirzon (IP: ---.dip.t-dialin.net) - Posted on 2002-10-06 00:51:05
I think Xirzon's post says it all, good post.
For Linux to really move forward, it will need a good solid replacement for X11+XFree86
By Deathshadow (IP: ---.ne.client2.attbi.com) - Posted on 2002-10-06 02:56:27
Makes me sad now that BeOS is gone.
By Nicolás (IP: ---.red.retevision.es) - Posted on 2002-10-06 02:40:12
Another helpful and non-abusive post.
At home, I have installed Linux onto my two old Pcs. One Pentium II @ 450MHz/256MB Ram and the other Celeron 800MHz/256MB Ram. They run both Asus motherboards with Intel Chipset.
The Pentium II outperforms the celeron on performance under Gnome2. The celeron comes to knees when it has to load the desktop (it takes 20-30 secs) while the PII takes only 10-15. Celeron is slow as hell (prolly the low cache is the fault)
I just measured startup time of open office and yes it is slower than abiword. It took 8s first time startup and 4s second time. MrProject 2s first time. Evolution 6s first time.
This is NOT slow (RH8,Gnome). Ok I have a modern PC, PIII 800, but you must have that also for using NT (NT4/2000/XP). Win 95/98/ME are nothing to compare with, they are to unstable for a work desktop.
Cheers
After a good night sleep I now wonder how you managed to post this article?! A user installs RH 8.0 on hardware that is below the recommended specs and says "My Red Hat Linux 8.0 Frustrations". WTF?? That's really unfair to RedHat. It also shoots down your credibilty as a site editor. It really looks like you're just posting these kind of articles to generate (flame war) hits. Indeed, it is a good tactic, controversy after controversy, but it's really tarnishing my view on OSNews.
-fooks
The CPU (celeron 400) is actually pretty fast enough, but
the amount of memory (64 MB) is not sufficient for desktop
use. I've run KDE comfortably on a celeron 300 with 256 MB, but KDE will crawl along on my new XP 1800 when only
128 MB is used (there is constant swapping to the harddisk).
Since RAM is so cheap a memory upgrade would be the smartest thing to do. KDE will still be slower then Windows 98 but your productivity will likely be higher.
There is a certain degree of discipline demanded of anybody that is going to use a computer! Some people don't have it. You know what I mean:
- Launching an application twenty times (multiple clickin) just because it did not start up instantly.
- Pressing multiple random keys on the keyboard in an attempt to make things happen the way you want.
- punching the screen if the software does not behave the way you want or kicking the computer to make it behave
- and what have you
- People who think they are experts and decide to choose expert install modes without knowing what they are doing. Or even decide to install everything available on the disc.
There are people who do this and give them the latest top-of-the-line machines and it will be slow. I'm not saying there are not problems with the OS that should be addressed just that there are people who will bork everything no matter how good they are. And while reading this 'review' keep this in mind
Why Eugenia shouldn't have posted this article? It is a typical Linux newbie experience (and by the way, it is an editorial). The guy pointed to some problems we (I mean Linux and the other freenixes) have had for years and never corrected.
As for his hardware being below the recommended specs, when did Linux become such a ressource hog that you can't install it on his machines. I remember a time when one of the arguments in favor of Linux was: you can give a new life to your old computer.
I think the amount of RAM is insuffiecent to run either GNOME or KDE. My recommendations for you is 192MB for GNOME and 256MB for KDE. Windows XP, BTW, would be very slow on that machine. Only because of the amount of RAM.
Remember, RAM matters. And in Red Hat, don't bother with other window managers: they rarely work. If you in a search to find something that *works*, get Mandrake 9.0, and use XFCE, WM, Blackbox, or whatever that suites you best.
>A user installs RH 8.0 on hardware that is below the recommended specs
HERE is the recommended hardware BY red hat:
http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/technical/
As you can see, the recommended is Pentium 200 Mhz. Brian has a Celeron 400.
And you know, Brian has written other stuff as well apart of the speed issues. He wrote about usability, he wrong about some real problems (see: WindowMaker's broken menu links - a point that I agree with Brian 100%). But you only DECIDE to comment and TROLL on very specific stuff, and not on the article as whole.
If you do not agree with the author, you may very well COMMENT on his errors. THIS IS WHY we have this comment section. But instead of commenting and DISCUSSING, you *troll* about how this site's editor does not have credibility and how much OSnews has fallen in your eyes.
Go and give us a break, will ya?
AFAIK, laptops are one of the most trickiest computer types to install Linux in. I guess sure most of his problems are related to using a laptop instead of a desktop computer.
Anyway, I think including this poor review as an editorial is like... confirming OSnews is following a "bash linux" trend.
From the article:
"The computer is a Celeron 400a with 64MB of RAM and a 4.3GB hard drive."
From Red Hat's Hardware Requirements:
"Memory:
Minimum for text-mode: 64MB
Minimum for graphical: 128MB
Recommended for graphical: 192MB" <-- Note this line.
OSNewsflash: Red Hat Linux 8.0 will not run properly when installed on a machine configured with ONLY ONE-THIRD the recommended amount of RAM installed!
Well ... DUH! Come on! So Red Hat is to blame for this user's frustrations because it won't work on a machine without the recommended hardware specs? This is NEWS? Suppose this user had sent in this article saying:
"Damnit! I can't get Windows XP Pro to run the way I want on my machine with only 64Mb of RAM! I'm very frustrated!"
It wouldn't have been published. Period. Why? Because everyone knows XP Pro is going to run like crap in 64Mb of RAM.
So why was this published? It is NOT NEWS that software won't perform optimally without enough memory available. It's common sense.
I'm going to go try to install Windows 2000 on my old 486 with 32Mb of RAM. If it doesn't work, expect an article outlining in detail my "frustrations" to appear shortly. No, wait ... that would be silly wouldn't it? Windows 2000 isn't designed to support that configuration. Hmmm.
> I remember a time when one of the arguments in favor of Linux was: you can give a new life to your old computer.
EXACTLY. I remember back in 1999 and 2000 where the MAIN reasons people were pitching Linux to their friends was Linux's stability and speed compared to Windows.
Today, Linux's X/KDE/Gnome is not as stable as it used to be (not for me anyway) and it is DEFINATELY NOT faster than my Windows XP (on the same machine). It seems that Microsoft did a step forward since then and Linux two steps back. Sad.
And no, this is not "another low for Eugenia and OSNews" kind of comment (that some bozos seem to think), it is MY HONEST OPINION as Eugenia Loli-Queru. And who ever does not believe it, he/she is welcome to my house to witness it themselves (I have 4 different Linuxes installed on this machine - pick whichever you want - Linux in 1999 was faster on THIS machine. Today, it is NOT - even with GCC 3.2).
This all makes me wonder if AbiWord or gobeProductive will run better with low memory config system like this one.
And who ever does not believe it, he/she is welcome to my house to witness it themselves (I have 4 different Linuxes installed on this machine - pick whichever you want - Linux in 1999 was faster on THIS machine. Today, it is NOT - even with GCC 3.2).
Eugenia, are you trying to say new Linux distros aren't as fast as prior ones in a 1999 machine? I find that even reasonable.
Anyway, have you tried recompiling the kernel, xfree86 and using the window managers that were popular in 1999? Using Linux for old computers is still possible, and it wasn't because it was optimised for old hardware, or because it was so well done it would run like a blaze anywhere. It was because you were free to recompile, modify or whatever the source code. And that's still possible.
Not for the average user? Sure, but then in 1999 most Linux users weren't exactly the average user kind. Anyway, I see everyday 486 computers running as firewalls using Debian
>> "Anyway, I think including this poor review as an editorial is like... confirming OSnews is following a "bash linux" trend."
Amen.
Like I said, if he'd been trying to install Windows XP onto a machine with only 1/3 the recommended RAM the article would never have been published.
The rest of his problems CAN NOT be discussed apart from the simple fact that he was trying to run Red Hat Linux on a machine that it simply isn't designed to run on. Who can say which of his problems were Red Hat's fault and which were caused by trying to force the thing to run in ONE-THIRD the recommended memory?
This is NOT trolling, it's just fact. I just checked the system requirements on my XP Professional box. It requires 128Mb of RAM. 1/3 of that is ~42Mb. Do you think XP Pro would run well in 42Mb of RAM?
Answer honestly: if this article had been about "frustrations" while attempting to install XP Pro onto a machine with 42Mb (1/3 of 128) of RAM, would it have been published? Or would you have questioned why anyone would be silly enough to try to run XP Pro with only 42Mb of RAM?
I have here, beside me the WinXP PRO and the Lycoris boxes. It says for requirements:
WinXP: PC with 300 Mhz. 233 Mhz minimum.
128 MB memory. 64 MB minimum.
And Red Hat's XFree requires 192 MB... Right. And Red Hat 8 on text mode requires 64 MB.
As for Lycoris, it requires a 333 Mhz PC!!
So, who is bloated now? Back in 1999, that was not the case at all for Linux. It seems that a lot of things have been reversed since then...
>>> "Anyway, I think including this poor review as an editorial is like... confirming OSnews is following a "bash linux" trend."
Stop the HORSESHIT when you read something that you do not like.
"(I have 4 different Linuxes installed on this machine - pick whichever you want - Linux in 1999 was faster on THIS machine. Today, it is NOT - even with GCC 3.2)."
Windows 98SE was a big thing in 1999. It's also significantly faster than Windows XP on my machines.
Linux in 1999 was faster than Linux today on THAT machine. Windows in 1999 (98SE) was faster than Windows today (XP) on THAT machine.
So what?
Sorry, but that's my opinion. Mod me down if you want, but when I look at the article, it's hard for me to think of this as a review or editorial. And here in the comments, you are saying Linux is bloated cause Lycoris (a windows xp mimic) and Redhat 8.0 (aimed as a workstation desktop) require modern hardware, instead of remembering some distros as Debian or Slackware.
Sorry if I'm wrong, but if you think about it, it just doesn't look good. I would just like that Linux was criticised in a more fair way. Not generalisations based on an individual problem.
Eugenia: I have most of my OSes on a dual Celeron 533, and XP is fastest than all (except maybe BeOS on most cases, but not all).
Firstly, you have a dual processor comp. Secondly, you have an insane amount of RAM compared to 64mb used by the author.
Now, if you take out one processor, and downgrade to 64mb of RAM, how good would it be?
Brian: Believe me, I really, really, REALLY want to get away from MS. I don't want XP - people say it's faster, but if indeed it was faster, why are the system requirements higher than the 98 machine?
Windows XP only uses more RAM than Windows 98 (but if you are willing to spend days on it, you can bring it down to the same level as Windows 98. For that very reason, a machine using 256MB of RAM, Windows XP blows Windows 98 away.
Hiryu: have also used linux on that same exactly system but with kde2.2 (as far as I can tell, there's almost no speed difference between 2.2 and 3 that I can see at all).
Weird, I seen a huge performance increase when I moved to KDE 3.0.... but then again, maybe that's GCC 3.0.
Rob: They offered to restore the software to factory defaults and see if that cleared up the issues.
You should have tried that. My brother personally made a few bad installs of Windows (ironically all of which is Windows 2000) when he was a OEM, and the problems were fixed with a reinstall.
Anonymous: Get a mac. You won't regret it.
I never had a problem with my PC laptop using Windows XP, though I much prefer my brother's Compaq Evo (due to the looks, weigh and batery life). My brother: his laptop, or rather part of his laptop, went for service because the DVD-ROM got spoiled: not a fault of Compaq, he dropped the DVD-ROM (it can be removed easily from the laptop, BTW, which is does to he can have both a floppy drive and a DVD-ROM).
Sure, it is not "Unix", but bah! Who cares? When I want something Unix related, I always use Linux, but 99.9% of Mac customers don't care a hoot about UNIX in OS X, except the stability it brings (and features like real multi-users, protected memory, etc.).
Richard: If I didn't work for a major Intel OEM, I'd buy one and use it for my primary work/home PC.
I know of an Apple employee that uses a PC at home. Heck, there was this guy in OSNews (Bob?) that uses the Mac even with his father being a OEM.
The last I checked, working for a big OEM doesn't mean you sign an agreement promising not to buy Macs and any other non-PC products.
So, if you like the Mac, and have the money for it, go ahead! You probably won't loose you job.
Corey: I run QNX 6.2, OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business and Be on my ThinkPad. It has a Celeron 266 and KICKS ASS!
Uhmmm, neither of these OS can be considered "modern desktop OS" :-)
Xirzon: Many of the Linux desktop problems can be blamed on X11/XFree86[...]
NO! X11 doesn't cause the speed problems. XFree causes speed problems with some hardware, but isn't the ultimate cause. The ultimate cause? The desktops/WM itself. XFce had proved that even with the same feature set as KDE 2.0, it manage to beat it straight. It is possible to make something fast on Linux.
Very possible.
I'm stoping here.... no time :-)
But remember, the author's problem comes from the RAM. KDE and GNOME have pretty useful features, like XP, and require more than 64MB of RAM. And certainly, Openoffice.org needs more than 64MB of RAM. Now, just for arguments sake, I took out my Duron computer (1GHz), took out all the RAM except for 64MB, and booted into Null (not the final release). It is *fast*, not even close to the speed of which the author claims.
And yes, that Duron has a TNT, 16MB. Half the FPS of Brian's. But I'm quite damn sure the problem is with the RAM cause things are MUCH MUCH faster with 128MB of RAM.
1999: Give a new life to your old computer! Install a Linux distro!
2002: Give a life to your Linux distro! Install a new computer!
I haven't used RedHat 8.0, but Mandrake 8.2 and 9.0 on my Toshiba satellite 4090XCDT (Celeron 400) with 191 MB RAM is runing very fast both: Kde 3 and Gnome 2, and flying using Icewm as windows manager.
I don't know if your problems arises from RedHat 8.0 or because your 64Mb Ram in the laptop, anyway I have had older distribution of linux runing in a Pentium 200 32Mb Ram.
Francisco Alcaraz
Murcia (Spain)
Before start bashing against OSNews again, you should read again the article. We clearly state:
"Editorial notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com"
And this COMMENTs SECTION, is for this exact reason, to DISCUSS and COMMENT on the article. *NOT TO TROLL* though about how you don't want to see this article published because you don't like someone's findings and opinions. IT IS NOT YOUR CALL. Your ONLY *privilage* here (you have NO rights regarding the commenting section - just privilages), is to comment and point out ERRORS that the author might have done. To do discussion.
TROLLING about anything, it won't *change a thing*. Goodnight everyone.
"Stop the HORSESHIT when you read something that you do not like."
You still haven't answered:
If his "frustrations" had been based on trying to run Windows XP Pro with only 42Mb of RAM, would you have published the article or would you have looked at him funny and suggested he try again with a reasonable amount of RAM before making derisive remarks about the operating system?
It doesn't MATTER if the requirements are more for RH 8.0 than for XP, they ARE the requirements. Besides, anyone who has used it will tell you that XP Pro with only 128Mb of RAM doesn't exactly fly. Saying that Linux is "bloated" because of this is just a flamebait way of avoiding the issue: he was trying to run RH 8.0 with one-third the recommended RAM. It's neither shocking nor newsworthy that the attempt was a failure.
Again, what if it had been an attempt to squeeze XP in 42Mb?
>Again, what if it had been an attempt to squeeze XP in 42Mb?
It would have been plainly stupid.
And *I DID* email Brian a few hours ago, TELLING HIM that:
"Brian, it is true that your machine *does not* meet the minimum requirements of Red Hat 8.
http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/technical/
Memory:
Minimum for text-mode: 64MB
Minimum for graphical: 128MB
Recommended for graphical: 192MB"
When I read the article yesterday, I thought myself that the minimum *IS* 64 MB. I did not check the Red Hat site, I don't know EVERY detail about *EVERY* Linux distro in this world. That was a DETAIL in Brian's article. A single sentence among many.
Last time I remember putting Red Hat on my machines, before installing Red Hat 8 on my AthlonXP with 768 MB last week, the minimum WAS 64 MB.
Eugenia, I think we are doing discussion. A very long one, and that clarifies many things about Linux (and other OSs) problems (hardware vendors' support, all software requiring better hardware after some time because of unavoidable bloat...).
And sorry, but I just can't help thinking it's just wrong: OSNews is a good, heavily visited news page, with writers that most times know what they are talking about. How can it be possible that such a poor editorial was published here? I wish OSNews keeps improving and gets more fame, but these things just disappoint me
If you think that I can have my mind ON ZILLION things that are happening in the OS world (on zillion of different linux distros), so that I can keep ALL these readers happy, you are way off. I do not know everything at every point in time. I am still learning every day. As you do. I bet that 99% of the trolls trolling here, didn't know the minimum RAM required either before *I* actually search and find that Red Hat web page where they list their requirements.
In my opinion, their requirements for RAM are big. WinXP runs on 128 MB (recommended). X/KDE/Gnome should do as well (recommended is 192).
>How can it be possible that such a poor editorial was published here?
There is never a "poor" editorial. An editorial is an *opinion*. Saying that an opinion is poor, is just not right. Wrong, maybe. But an opinion, is never "poor". This is why we do DISCUSSION here, to solve problems and misconceptions. NOT TO TROLL THOUGH. I will NOT tolerate trolling against the author, myself and OSNews. DISCUSS if you must.
>but these things just disappoint me
Then write your own editorials, we will be HAPPY to publish them.
As I said elsewhere, I am not here to lick the balls of either Jobs, Gates and Bob Young. They are most likely to get a punch instead.
Read my above two comments for more information.
I'll stop here, since it seems I just got you angry (sorry). Anyway, I want to clear I don't want to troll, I apologize this got out of hand (but that doesn't mean I change my opinions). And BTW, I still think OSNews is a great page. I hope it keeps getting better.
>We did that when we pointed out he was trying to run the OS in 1/3 the recommended RAM
A LIE. Most of you, including you, you were trolling about how SLOW Celeron 400 is, NOT ABOUT THE RAM.
The RAM issue only started discussed on comments 130. After *I* linked to the hardware requirements of Red Hat.
You were TROLLING how the Celeron 400 is not enough, when Red Hat itself are recommending the P200.
If you have started shouting about the RAM, I would have been unhappy by most posts, but most of you, were talking about the CPU, where it is a point that it is NOT valid.
Brian,
I'm quite similar to you,
I code PHP (Like to be able to run scripts without ftping them to a remote server), hate windows crashes (previously ran Win98SE) and really wanted to get Microsoft off my computer.
OK, here's what I did, I have 56kbps modem, so downloading 3 isos is no good for me. I go to my local LUG (Linux Users Group - http://www.linux.org/groups/index.html), everyone looks like a nerd (and probably are) but are very helpful and friendly. While I was there, they taught an 80 year old man all about linux. What are distributions, window managers etc, how do I connect to the internet, how do I setup my printer and scanner, and this old man was no expert in computers. My point is, they are very helpful, and will get Linux working, and tell you what you need to know. I bought Mandrake 9.0 (3 CDs) off them for $10, and they installed it for me, but letting me choose the customisations (Explaining everything of course)
So just find a users group in your area, and get them to install Mandrake for you, if there's any problems, they'll find out how to fix it. Mandrake is dead easy for windows users, and runs PHP scripts out of the box. It's so easy to use. I often have several tabs in Mozlla open, as well as many plain text editing windows (I use Kate) with apache, mysql and many other things still running in the background. In my experience it isn't quite as fast as Win98SE, but I often had Win98SE slow down once I had more than 5 browser windows open (about 75% of the time), to the point that opening a subfolder took about 8 seconds. I am yet to see this happenning in Linux. It isn't perfect, but imho it's much closer than what you're using at the moment. I'm not sure what happened to your install, but it sounds like it's happenning to others, so give mandrake a try, hopefully it'll work.
While I don't think RAM's responsible for your problems (More likely it is sowtware, or it doesn't recognise your hardware), it would probably be wise to get more anyway, 64MB will be a little bit slow on linux, but it should still be usable. I had 64MB, but bought another 128 and it runs much nicer.
Anyway, I'll shut up now, just try Mandrake and get your LUG to help you install if there's any problems.
Jason
A LIE. Most of you, including you, you were trolling about how SLOW Celeron 400 is, NOT ABOUT THE RAM.
I wasn't. Perhaps you should re-read the comments, I talked about how laptop hardware can give problems when installing Linux (and that's true, though seems like it wasn't the case here).
You were TROLLING how the Celeron 400 is not enough, when Red Hat itself are recommending the P200.
Not me. Please, read my prior comments. My intention wasn't to troll in the first place.
Look, I can say that KDE is not running fast enough on older system (I tried to run it on Pentium 166MMX with 128MB before... and I bet you don't want to do that, but surprising others report KDE run faster on FreeBSD... so who knows....and btw, Gnome and Windowsmaker runs ok comparing to KDE on that system). Yet I think the system responsiveness differed case by case: if this article is aimed at comparing WinXP and Linux, then it might not be in depth enough, as testing should be done on more diversifed hardware configs.
If, however, it is to reflect the encounter newbie might have over installing Linux, the article has its place. I do believe, however, if there were phenomena due to misconfigurations then a follow-up article or something should deem pending. Since (online) journalism is also about fair and objectivity, not just pure circumstancial reporting without context - with at least certain level of accuracy committed to facts and informative guidance to readers.
Here. I *UPDATED* the story. Please click the story again and see the update I made to let people know about the requirements of RAM.
I am trying to be fair to ALL.
"A LIE. Most of you, including you, you were trolling about how SLOW Celeron 400 is, NOT ABOUT THE RAM.
The RAM issue only started discussed on comments 130. After *I* linked to the hardware requirements of Red Hat.
You were TROLLING how the Celeron 400 is not enough, when Red Hat itself are recommending the P200."
This simply isn't true. Maybe in all the postings you confused me with someone else. I never once mentioned the Celeron itself not being enough. It's well within Red Hat's specs. I *only* mentioned the RAM.
I wasn't trolling, Eugenia. I just honestly and strongly feel this article is very, very flawed: in your own words, that it is in error. That the article ITSELF is an error. I focused on the most glaring error: the RAM issue, NOT the Celeron issue (which isn't even an issue anyway).
I wouldn't say that about a Celeron. My favorite machine was a Celeron 333A running at 525Mhz VERY stable. It was very very fast -- I was over 500Mhz well before most other people. So, no, I didn't say a thing about the processor; you confused me with someone who has obviously never used one of those old Celerons. I think very highly of them.
Thanks Eugenia, I knew you'd do the right thing in the end
That's why I love OSNews. ^_^
>The article ITSELF is an error.
1. I disagree.
2. You are not the one who decides that. I am. You are only here to provide feedback (which in this case, I disagree).
The author writes his experiences with Red Hat 8 *IN TWO* machines. The second machine was in within the boundaries of the hardware requirements. And he was still not happy with the OS and he gives real reasons why not.
His first half of the article might have been a "off" just because of the RAM requirements that his laptop did not meet, but the *second half* is right on target and absolutely VALID, because the author explains exactly what happened.
Actually, the "laptop" part of the article is only the 1/3. The rest 2/3s are for the "valid" part.
But it is funny that people will completely "forget" to comment on the problems the author described on the valid 2/3s of the article and instead literally shout, troll, and generally write how "low this web site is" reffering only to the 1/3 of the article.
But no one actually REPLIED or DISCUSSED to the real usability problems the author has. For example: Why Red Hat shipped an unmodified WindowMaker where most of the menu links are dead? That was an 100% valid point. Why AbiWord looks so ugly and does not work well? Read the last 2/3s for more.
Brian, have you actually created a SWAP partition for your Red Hat 8? If yes, how big?
A experienced linux user will know the differences, i.e those software running in Linux are faster than before since gcc 3.2 has made a big step to it, the results is significant. urs "editorial" make me wonder, i.e have u really use linux before???? if not, saying something nonsense to encounter Linux is useless since a true Linux user will know that the proble u encounter is jus some bullshit =)
Configuration: PIII-1000. 512 Mb Ram. Mandrake 9.0 and Win4Lin with 96 Mb Ram.
In this case both Linux and Windows use the same hardware with some performance drawback for Windows because it uses Win4Lin.
Running this configuration then launching application one normally uses like an Internet .(Explorer versus Opera or Konquerer in linux) Spreadhseet or workprocessers: the ussual Linux ones versus Word, Excel etc under Win4Lin. Everything under Win4Lin runs more snappier and loads faster than under Linux.
Hence if you want snappy performance and still stick to Linux, run Windows on top of Linux through Win4Lin.
ROB:
> For pure speed, load up Windows 98SE.
I think it's a more complex question. For example in my case (athlon 1 ghz, 256 mb ram) from selecting the required option in lilo to get a fully working desktop it takes 14 seconds w/ win98 and 18 w/ linux. But under linux i run apache, mysql, and a few other services i need w/ xfwm4 and gnome(2)-panel: so the GUI knows much more than a win98 desktop (virtual desktops, nice eyecandy, etc). If i replace the GUI for something which knows as much as win98's, eg icewm then it's 1-2 secs difference between them. And compare the knowledge and staiblity of the two systems! And i think w/ some other kernel configuring (and maybe other 'hacks') i even could lower this (oh and don't compare the knowledge of 2.4.19 and win98's .
And when i'm starting to work linux performs much better. No crash, no slowing down after opening some apps.
As i see, linux now knows almost everything we need for a desktop os, now we (mainly the developers) can focus on clarify and optimize things, making really intuitive guis etc. And actually we can see this development in many areas! Compare the video playback ability under linux 2 years ago and now. The development w/ filesystems. And many other aspects.
bye, hirisov
I can totally agree that KDE and Gnome are slow as h**l and I run my dist on a computer armed =) with AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 512Mb RAM, 80Gb Maxtor. So I can totally agree that this guy had som "slow problems" on his machine. But i think that he should switch desktop interface to Blackbox or IceWM and he should also choose another dist for example Mandrake or Debian.
I don't think that depicting redhat or actually linux as not very usable is not true. It is true.
While I am using linux I find sometimes certain things that has problems. Not this much, but certain problems occur.
While I was trying to fix the problems, I never felt that I shouldn't do these things, because I like doing that, but neverthless for an average joe this is not the case. So obviously Linux is probably not ready yet.
The problems that this guy experienced is very normal, and it shows that there are still lots of work that needs to be done.
One thing I admire about Microsoft is that, even though everybody throw everything to them, reasonable or unreasonable, they challenge everything and work on what they are doing, and eventually they succeed.
Remember the times when there were lots of complaints about instabile Windows OSes. Now with XP almost all of them are gone.
During the last several years people complained about security and now Microsoft is challenging that.
What we need is the same mentality in other companies and products. When something goes wrong in linux an open source advocate come and say, no the user is guilty, he/she couldn't do it right. Obviously for Windows he/she says somethingelse.
Obviously there will be zealots all over the sectors in IT, what we need is to focus on the reasonable people who are smart enough to understand, admit and solve the problems.
Obviously this guy has a RAM problem. It reminds me when I installed Mdk 8.0 on my Celeron 566 with 64 MB: slow, impossible to work, and Gnome 1.4 was even slower than Kde 2. Then I added some RAM (up to 192 MB), and it worked fine (after removing the infamous Nautilus). And I discovered XFce.
Now I am running Salware 8.1 on the same machine, and Kde 3 is more responsive than Kde 2. But anyway, the "desktop" metaphore is not my cup of tea, so I enjoy XFce4.
------
http://korbinus.fr.st
I has installed RH 7.0 & was very lack on 750Mhz Duron! -> frustrating too
So time to try some optmizations/tips (sorry details not included):
1. reconfigure xfree (buffer, chip, memory, accel)
2. disable some unnecessary demons
3. recompile kernel to exact hw machine (this dist. has some debug info truned ON!!?)
4. reconfigure kernel cfg file (? etc/)
These steps was very helpfull on my system (but Linux getting TOO COMPLICATED)!
I don't think what is described in this story is true!
I have a Celeron400 with 128 mb of ram(on an 810 chip mainbord), and redhat8 is running fluently
this guy is playing RedHat on a desktop computer
with 128MB of memory and a notebook with 64MB,
so his situation is not better than running win98
with 16 MB to 32 MB of memory
why redhat is so slow on a low end PC ?
I think the kde/gnome's memory footprint is
simply not designed for a 64MB machine and
the stupid redhat's first things on start up
are to run cron jobs to use find command
going through the whole file system -
for an average user, it is not a happy experience,
since nobody is likely to tell them they can use
service crond stop
and
chkconfig --level 2345 crond off
to stop it once and for all
Celeron is not for the job ? Come on, I regularly
run XP on a Sony 505GX with a Pentium 266/64MB
and the XP's memory footprint can be shrinked to
37MB to 46MB on startup, enough for 2 to 3 IE windows
and even in that situation, it won't take XP 20 seconds
to open a browser window - that's the figure I saw
on a AMD k6-2 400 / 128 MB with lindows 2.0 running
netscape on the first try ( 8 to 10 seconds on repeated
attempts - since cache would improve the situation)
with linux, you saved money on the OS but you have to
throw in extra cash for added memory/CPU power to get
the painful untweaked gnome/kde experience
Have you tried kde without a mouse attached ???
Linux does not need more than 64megs ram to run well. Linux +Gnome/KDE/Mozilla/OpenOffice does. This is how I use RH 8.0 on my Laptop that has 64 megs of ram.
1.Shutdown all services you don't need.
2.Use black box or window maker.
3.Use opera(Mozilla is useable, but it is a memory hog).
This setup should be very acceptable....Linux can be run very well on old hardware, the new flashy desktops can't be.
I appreciate these types of editorials. (Although I can do without some of the religous rants in the comments sections.) I felt that Brian had experienced some of the craziness that I had run into and is certainly valid.
Many people here seem to have a hobbyist approach to computing. While many don't mind digging to configure their systems, this does not represent most of the computer-using public.
Although I enjoy computers, I also feel that the time I have spent re/installing operating systems (especially MS reinstalls) has been largely a waste of time. For most people, computers are tools. Even for many of us who like to get a bit into the technical details, productivity is the key to using computers. If we are not productive, then why use the tool?
I too am sick of Windows, especially their licensing policies. I have been trying several alternatives over the past six months with mixed success. My benchmark is that if a distribution is harder initially install (not fully configure, just initial install) than Win2K then the OS doesn't meet my needs and I move on. Sure this may not be the optimal way to do things and will probably ruffle the feathers of the Zealots, but it's my choice.
I don't mind reconfiguring X or tuning the system a bit. Which can be interesting and amusing, but I want to be able to USE my computer.
My Win2K intall is not too painful, except for my hardware I have to load new controller drivers and download all the updates which is time consuming.
To find a suitable replacement, I've tried several linux distros (debian, gentoo, mandrake, sourcemage), and the *BSDs (free, net). The linux distro that impressed me the most was Mandrake. Faster than Win2K to install and worked (printer, NFS, scanner, etc.). I did like the ports methods of *BSD better than RPMs so that's what I'm using now on my test box. Although I enjoy all these OSes, I'd like Jaguar on cheaper hardware.
In order for alternative (to MS) desktop OSes to be used by a greater number of people they must consider the user experience. Dismissing someone or their concerns because it is not your experience won't help The Cause.
I applaud OSNews for publishing this editorial.
Iff it is configured properly
Most distros don't do this properly
But then again most hackers don't use the default install. This is why there is a difference in speed to what the hacker sees and a newbie is seeing.
Yes linux has gotten bigger and slower over the years but not that slow.
I have seen an older version of OOo take 5mins to load on a windows98 machine with 64MB of RAM. I was not impressed thus I consider OOo to be bloatware. Has it changed?
I have yet to see a Linux distro that properly changes the menu when you change window managers. Currently if you change window managers you need to alter the menu to your tastes. There needs to be global menu settings files so that all window managers can read it if they choose.
Slackware Rules Redhat Sucks. <- Yes I am biased
Let me here correct some of your ramblings.
You are frustrated Windows user, so are 700,000,000 other PC users forced to buy Microsoft Bugs!
I also have tried various Linux distributions on my Laptops in the past, starting with RedHat Linux 5.2.
I am also dial-up internet user.
I was able to experience Linux RedHat 5.2. 7.0, 7,2, and 7.3, Corel 1.0, 1.2, Mandrake 7.0, TurboLinux 6.0.
I found out that none distro is better than to RedHat 7.3 and I am now on RedHat 8.0 orientation.
How long one can tolerate windows 9x ME the most viewed Blue Screen of Death?
Toshiba 2595CDT is NOT a computer but a piece of overpriced garbage, an ENRON of of PC industry! WorldCom of PC industry as we all agree was COMPAQ!
First it is Celer without or very limited L2 Cache, and second you are to stingy to get more RAM. Neither of windows will work properly if you have less than a bare minimum required to run Windows efficiently or an absolute minimum of 256 MB!
Using PC with less RAM is like putting DIESEL gas in PORCHE 911 Turbo! Do you think it will move?
Here we go again you are on another Celeron! This time also with 128 MB RAM, not enough to run efficiently any windows. Remind you you need at least 256 MB ram to run ANY Windows!
Here you claim that "these tasks should not bring a 500mhz computer to its knees!"
Hey that is NOT 500Mhz computer that is lousy celeron!
Needless to say, You aren't impressed.
Try Linux on a real CPU and not Celeron! Why don't you get more RAM? Why don't you learn how to set your swap file (RAM + 12 MB).
When using Linux unless you are in ROOT as administrartor or as Super User it is not easy to crap that system!
I agree with you that RedHat shouldn't assume that everyone who installs their operating system is familiar with Linux, and every change should have an easy fix, should something break.
If you are running Linux you can chose which packages to install. The best browser for Linux and Windows still is OPERA"!
In conclusion, contrary to your rant my experience was very positive one, after I installed it and PC performed very well.
Settings:
/ 100MB
/swap RAM + 12 MB
/usr 10GB
I installed it on Laptop Pentium I 266Mhz with 144 MB RAM
Pentium II 300 Mhz 320 MB RAM.
It for sure outperformed Windows 2000 PRO which I selected as the best OS ever released by WinTel Mafia.
So if you are so naive to still stick with Windows 98 instead of upgrading to REAL operating system that is your choice. Microsoft recommended to upgrade windows to better release. I upgraded Windows 95 to 98, than to Windows 2000 PRO and than to XP. Unsatisfied with it I upgraded both systems (one from win 95 to final win 2000PRO and one with win NT to XP and back to win 2000PRO).
Now as Microsoft suggested I upgraded Windows to better one Windows "X", one with Linux ReDhat 7.3 Valhalla and other with RedHat 8 Psyche.
I have NO problem with LINUX speed, but I set it properly and I am not stingy as you are trying to save few bucks on RAM!
RAM makes tremendous difference on both OS Windows and Linux.
If Linux RedHat 8 is to slow for you try Linux RedHat 5.2. It is smooth.
It takes no brains to install OS on any PC but requires a little skills to partition Hard Disk drive and to resixe the partitions, and the most important the desire to learn.
If you are not satisfied with Windows 98 you still have choices to move to Windows 2000PRO and if you don't liked DOS 6.22 will do very well for you.
I agree with you and I also "really dislike the MONOPOLY of Microsoft" with fraudulently sold with every system (hardware) Windows if you want it or not.
Hardware should be certified to run all OSs (Windows and LINUX at least), but we should be NEVER forced to buy hardware with pre-loaded OS we don't want or need.
Selling any hardware with preloaded OS against our will shall be considered nothing else but predatory monoplolistic criminal act of felony and FRAUD!
It is the USER who bought the PC who shall decide which OS to buy and to install not Microsoft in collusion with hardware assamblers.
You are also misleading others stating that LINUX keep getting bigger and bigger, more and more bloated, and ultimately, slower. LINUX is "THE KERNEL" and required DRIVERS to run hardware.
The APPLICATIONS provided with LINUX MUST be treated as additional (FREE software).
When running WINDOWS you must BUY extra software. When buying RedHat 8 Linux you get around 1000 softwares free with this distribution. To run equal on WINDOWS yoy will need to pay on average between 10 to 50 dollars for each of the 1000 provided free software applications.
The difference is that Windows is an EXPERIENCE programed by AMATOR programers sweating to get paid salary, while LINUX is programed by PROFESSIONAL programers with no compensation, but out of need to use better operating system.
It is easy to throw mud in the face of others but first you need to look what wrong you are doing before criticising others. Time to look in to a mirror at the stingy one who is trying to save few bucks on memory and not at LINUX as an alleged cause of poor performance on your hardware.
Finally what YOU have done to improve performance of your hardware? You are only ranting and that is NOT enuff! Spend few bucks to increase your RAM and than report back.
It is time to realize that it is not any of your two systems which aren't the latest-and-greatest, IT is you who is to stingy to get more RAM to make your systems performing better.
LINUX is KERNEL (and drivers), distributions are selected software recompiled with LINUX kernel so you dont have to search for ....
Any PC is always as good as the idiot at the keyboard ....
Do not try now to screw GUI LINUX in retaliation because you were screwed by WinTel mafia.
You dont like LINUX try QNX! http://www.qnx.com
http://www.qnx.com/developer/download/
install slackware 8.1, then install Fluxbox. fast, simple, easy to use and very good looking
OSNews is not a Linux bashing forum. It gets, good and bad, more attention than any other OS because of its nature and many, many distributions.
Brian's editorial has, flames aside, been worthwhile. The one big thing, I think, that has come out of it and the comments is that Linux (in general) has changed from a couple of years ago. The focus has shifted away from it being the OS you can run on your old hardware to a focus of it getting closer and closer to being a real desktop OS. It is, in different ways through different distros, becoming tantalyzingly close - not there yet, but getting there.
In the process of doing this, it has changed. It has moved away from being the OS you can run on old hardware (some distros can still do that) to one that is becoming more like Windows and OS X in what is needed in order to run it well. I mean, even Apple is sweating because they have to get faster hardware.
So, things have changed. Fortunately, because of OSS, a person can get small, fast distros. But, the companies aiming for major markets...well, they have to be able to compete and that means doing what Red Hat has done and that means having to have newer hardware with lots of RAM. Again though, the good part of OSS is that I'm sure there will always be small, fast distros of Linux avaiable.
Anyway, I have seen that all editorials, reviews and articles here reveal something worth discussing. But bashing the author and Eugenia does not illuminate what is revealed - it only obscures it because of the venom included. So, we see that, in the major distros, that the nature of Linux has changed, as it looks more toward being a complete desktop solution. This is an important insight that has emerged from Brian's editorial and the followng comments that clearly brought this out without the poison that only serves to hide insight.
I have just seen Red Hat Linux 8.0 perform _superbly_ on an IBM Thinkpad with 192 MB of RAM. No problems with installation, no problems with speed. Usability, appearance - everything excellent, near amazing. Does a better job than the old W2000 on the same hardware.
However, the problem with Red Hat 8.0, alike other Linux distributions, is that it is "violently" planted on hardware that has not been originally designed to support it. To me it is a small miracle that a system like that even boots. Take a new Honda and dump Mazda's operating system into it and see what happens. As long as Linux is handled separately from the assembled hardware, problems persist and you never now what you'll finally come up with.
I see you fucking dimwits (sorry for the language, it's the best way to express myself with regards to the folks here) who can't seem to grasp that maybe Eugenia is posting these reviews and such that don't -love- the GNU/Linux way because she _isn't_ biased? Would you really want OSnews to be another "praise Linux, for we are elitist children" site? I'll be honest, my experience with GNU/Linux has been pretty shit poor. I have tried Gentoo, with all the "responsiveness" patches for XF, the kernel, etc. I have the proper nvidia driver installed and am using it, and I will tell you one goddamn thing. XF with any larger window manager (KDE/GNOME), for me at least, runs like a 100hz system and Win98. Considering I am using an Athlon XP2000+ with a GeForce4 Ti4600 (and 1G of memory), that's pretty sad.
Rajan, I'm using kde3 compiled with 2.95.4 (the kde2 I used was compiled with the same) so that's probably why I don't see much difference. Can't wait til 3.2 becomes the main compiler in debian (which is planned for unstable).
Kde2 was totally fast enough on this p200 mmx (certainly FAR faster than it seems to be on this celeron), about the same speed as win2k on this same system (dual boot of course).
I actually booted to win2k on my system last night and I did some comparing, no benchmarks or anything like that but really, kde3 felt a lot faster, and the win2k UI is not as crufty as XP's. How much faster? I'd say much faster and far more responsive. But I'm not just using some stock kernel here either, I was using 2.4.20-pre5-ac3 (or close enough) with an rml preemptive patch but can the difference really be that big?? I just might have to try a stock kernel and see what happens (for those who are curious, I've tried a few recent 2.5 kernels and it's make a big difference in my desktop performance).
Kde3 also feels a lot faster than win2k on my friend's pentium II 450 mhz.
I'm not biased towards linux on this argument, I just seriously think something is wrong with this picture, though 64 megs of ram isn't so good for XFree86 in general in my opinion.
I'm also sincerely suprised winXP runs faster on Eugenia's system than does linux. Dual celerons though? Is this a bp6?
That would be the answer to that, that's not a good board to use with Linux. I worked for a firm that used dual celerons in a bp6 as the main nfs/nis/dns/samba/other-things server, the system started having problems and I told my boss (the admin over me) "duh". But really, abit aims towards consumer levels and I don't care for abit stuff anyway (I've found it to be unreliable and low quality in my experienes). So I told him to upgrade to a tyan tiger 100 (and he did), it fixed ALL the problems we had been having (no more crashing several times a week for example). In fact, I think it's documented that Linux doesn't (or didn't) get along with this board very well at all, I think the kernel source (this was back with the 2.2 series) docs explicitly mentioned that the board is problematic with linux. Before anyone comments on how it's been fine for them, I'm sure this is a case of "YMMV" and problems may not come out so much when you're not running a server (and in that case, only seeing crappy performance might be the only problem you might see).
Someone mentioned kde being faster on FreeBSD, I speak from personal experience when I say kde2.2/3 in linux is a lot faster and a lot more responsive than window maker on FreeBSD on my system, even with only one CPU enabled, so perhaps this is another case of "YMMV"? Though it seems that people generally agree that linux is "faster on the desktop".
You are complaining about THE Microsoft of Linux. Use a real distrobution, such as Slackware or Gentoo. I had MANY problems with RedHat (7.2), Mandrake (8.0), Suse (8.0) and Debian (woody). The problem with The first three are that they were buggy, incorrectly configured and hid all the usefull files to fix the initial problems. Debian's problem is that apt-get (it's package manager) is always a version or two behind. Though slackware doesn't have the best package manager, it worked right after the install. Gentoo, is the best linux distro I've ever used (if you have the bandwidth). If you're on dial-up, forget it, or prepare for a few days infront of the computer.
If those aren't working, try FreeBSD. FreeBSD (and Gentoo) use ports. They are IMHO, the singular best package manager on earth. They are much easier than going to the dealer's/vendor's/company's website, finding their download page and downloading, then installing it. Instead you only have to go to that program's port directory and type 'make install'. That's it, nothing more.
On another note, KDE, Gnome, Window Maker, etc... are not the only window managers out there. Fluxbox and Blackbox are VERY slim, take virtually NO system resources and run with less bugs with the same, or more features. There's enlightenment, fvwm, openbox, afterstep, aewm, hackedbox, amiwm, gwm, icewm, larswm, lwm, matchbox, pwm, plwm, scwm, tvtwm, w9wm, ctwm, blwm, etc... The list goes on and on. (If you'd like to learn more about the above window managers, do a search on google.com for XFree86 <wm-name>)
I guess what I'm trying to say is people bash Linux/FreeBSD left and right, but they are using the worst distrobutions, (namely because they spend the money to put a box on the shelf), yet expect the result to be better than windows. Would I recommend an avid windows user switch to linux/FreeBSD? Yes, IF they are willing to put the time into it to learn a new OS. Linux and FreeBSD are NOT MS Windows. The apps are different, the way of doing thins are different. These need to be learned in order for a user to be as comfortable with linux as they are with Windows.
Since when do we let Mr. Gates post his comments on Linux!
Well, As it has been commented previously, sure these two boxes are not the best boxes to run latest linux distros, especially not Red Hat or Mandrake , which are drastically optimised. But nethermind, i run linux and BSDs on boxes like olp Pentium 90, 32 EDO Ram, with 1M gfx ram, and it does run fine. Off course attemting to launch an fat window manager such as KDE or Gnome will make the box unuseable for at least 10 minutes, but blackbox, fluxbox and to the limit Windowmaker run very fast ! It is a shame the real pressure of certain distro in using Gnome or KDE. Do graphical desktop of linux boxes absolutely have to look like windows ? Maybe not ! Time to change !
I would just like to say, instead of discrediting him, how about we just post stories about how it has worked for some of us.
I have several systems running redhat 8, and I would say they all work better than the windows equivalents:
PII-366 - 192mb ram - 20 gig harddrive - laptop - neomagic video card - works great, very fast. Openoffice takes about 8-10 seconds to load
PIII-733 - 256mb ram - 20 gig harddrive - desktop - geforce SDR card - very good, everything comes up fast, even mozilla! (over 5 seconds faster than mandrake 9 for some odd reason)
Athlon XP 1600 - 512 ram - 60 gig harddrive - desktop - Radeon 8500 - obviously it loads hella fast on everything
Now, its true that win98se, win me, and win2k all run great on the systems above too. I actually have open office installed when I used windows also. Almost identicle in speed.
Nautilus does load slower than IE when explorering files. Takes about a extra 3 seconds. Once it is loaded though, no further speed issues are incurred, and it looks prettier.
All hardware was automatically detected at boot in redhat (expect for the nvidia driver if I want 3d accel, which is common among windows and linux), in the windows equivalents I needed to downloaded several drivers on my laptop to make it work.
I haven't seen this horrible performance that the author speaks of, but I would say it is definitely possible (abiet a bit exaggerated on the time measurements).
On all my systems, I make sure to run the command: /sbin/hdparm -c1 -d1 -k1 /dev/hda
to make sure DMA and 32bit mode is enabled. Other than that no changes were made to the default install.
OSNews is not a Linux bashing site. It has lots of articles, editorials and reviews of Linux because there are so many distros always coming out with new versions. With regard to Windows, there is not much to review since XP came out a year ago, except maybe the Service Pack. But, there are many articles about Windows in other areas - Longhorn, ,NET, etc.
We (or at least some of us) learn from the articles, reviews and editorials here at OSNews. From Brian's editorial and the following commentary (excluding the flames), I have seen how clearly that Linux, in general, has really changed over the past coule of years, from the OS you could run on old hardware to an OS that requires newer hardware and lots of RAM. Fortunately, because of OSS, I think we'll always have Linux distros that are fast and lean. But, these distros like Red Hat 8, it is becoming more and more apparent that they are becoming more like Windows and OS X in their system requirements in order to be able to do the same sort of tasks. So, I know I learned something, at least, and there was no need to call Brian a troll or bash Eugenia in the process.
I learned something when Eugenia was trying to configure that 24" monitor with Red Hat 8 - I learned what the video limitations are of RH 8. And Eugenia had to take all kinds of grief over that for no reason. We found out something about RH 8 that we wouldn't have known otherwise.
We still suffer here from the problem of some people wanting to be Mr.-Know-It-All instead or realizing that we learn from these articles and the discussion that follows.
As a result of this editorial and discussion, I also learned about a distro like Vector Linux. I checked it out. The basic install (they also have a SOHO version now that's much, much bigger) requires about 300 MB of disk space and 32-64 MB RAM - looks like it may be just the thing for Brian. There is so much to learn - why squander the opportunity with flames that only obscure what can be learned?
Okay, first of all, a note
[shameless plug]
visit www.ratedpc.com to read my article on Linux on Desktop and my view of Mandrake 9. Both articles were previously posted here.
[/shameless plug]
Now, as for this editorial. Everybody seems pretty quick at defending Linux while others just want to bash it. Nobody seems to realize that slowness wasn't the only problem the author had. There seemed to be some serious misconfigurations with menu and setups.
Now as for slowness, KDE is resource hungry and slow. Gnome 1.2 was resource hungry and slow. Gnome 2 is even worse. The so called anti-aliased fonts (Xft) makes X even slower. Backgrounds and eye-candy make X slow and big, forcing your computer to swap to disk. As some people have noted, switching to a lightweight desktop like IceWM is recommended. IceWM is the closest you can get to a Windows desktop. As a comparison, I ran KDE for a week on my box (no logout/reboots) it was taking 150 MB. I ran ICEWM for months and it does grow any more than 2-3 MBs. I've installed and run Mandrake 8.2 on a Cyrix 300Mhz (shudder) with 64MB EDO ram, and on-board video with 4 Meg shared ram. With the tweaks I have noted in my article, Mandrake 9.2 is quite fast and usable once it boots up.
I have noticed that in Linux, I have a lot more disk activity than in Windows. Getting a high performance 7200RPM drive will speedup Linux (not the kernel, but the whole distro) by considerable amount.
OpenOffice seems to want to load everything (and I mean every module) during startup. Why on earth does a word processor need so much time to load? Try adding a whole bunch of fonts (~50) and watch load time to double.
I still don't understand why the Linux boot needs to be serialized? Why can't we parallelize the services that are not dependent on each other?
Reza
Brian, have you actually created a SWAP partition for your Red Hat 8? If yes, how big?
I let RH do all the partitioning (wiped both disks completely and accepted the default configuration). So the answer is, I don't know how big it is. But I know it's there, because when I looked at the stats, X & GNOME were taking up all the RAM, and were then swapped when I loaded anything else (*shudder*) (on the laptop).
Look people, I'm not trying to get one over on you. I mentioned in I think my second comment here how my laptop did NOT meet the memory requirement. I thought I put that in the editorial, but the general meaning was, "it was too slow on the laptop, so I thought I'd try one with better specs." Sorry that I didn't make it more clear.
Brian. Like you I have had experiences where Gnome has been horribly slow. What I found was the problem was that sound was enabled but my soundcard hadn't been detected properly. Try turning off sound for events in one of the control panels in Gnome and see if that makes a difference.
/me running Windowmaker now on a K6-2 400 quite happily.
Darryl
I think the author makes a very good point, especially in the part about how easy it is to break a linux distro, i would recommend anyone with no linux experience but who wants to play a little with it, to try something like knoppix [http://www.knoppix.org/], just download the ISO cd image, burn it into a cd, change your bios settings so that you can boot from the cdrom first, and you're ready to go. It has great auto-configuration, it even runs my usb cable modem , something that no other distro has been able to do.
There is many people here saying "Oh come on! running it on a celeron500!!! No wonder it's slow".
I don't buy that statement at all. I have windows XP (much bulkier than '98) running on similar machines and still quite responsive to operate. Linux needs to perform as fast as windows even on the low end machines otherwise it is not a viable alternative.
The sound on the laptop worked fine. The desktop machine doesn't even have a soundcard (and the installer said "no soundcard detected") - as I mentioned, I just use my computer to get my work done, if I want to play music, I put a cd in my stereo
Sergio hit part of it on the head here.
The linux 'community' is very hostile... to newcomers. It's sad but true. M$ on the other hand has had the patience of a saint in this regard, despite years of abuse from those who swore the version of the OS they were using was the last. (Damnation, until XP came out I was one of them. 2K never supported half my hardware, 98SE was.. unpredictable, and ME just blew chunks) His use of the term zealot is quite appropriate, as we can see definate camps certain people not only flock to, but defend as if they are the holy scriptures. The linux community has begun to achieve cult status much like Mac users. I used to be an M$ basher from hell. I used it, but only because Nyetscape didn't view half the web pages I frequent properly, Macs are out of my price range and BeOS has no REAL applications available. I mean, until Mozilla 1 came out, what was Be's best Browser? Opera? Give me a break.
Every OS has it's pros and cons, and they seriously need to be taken into consideration.
You want idiot proof with only a handful of mainstream applications? Get a Mac.
You want support for everything under the sun (except sun?) Get Windows
You want complete control over everything the OS does or can do? Get Linux.
The problem now for linux is that as it matures, the people who have used it since the 2.x kernel came out are going to be increasingly distressed over the various things being added to support the average user. You know, Crapplets.
On the other side, your nubes picking it up are still going to be lost by the unix nomenclature, the nature of the questions involved in setup, and the simple fact that adding software is still complex and difficult. RPM's were a step in the right direction, but there really NEEDS to be more for the 'average joe' to use it.
My list of things I consider to be 'holding back' linux could go on for pages. The way device drivers are handled (in an inconsistant manner), the awkward 'mounting' drives legacy, etc. etc.
Personally, the reaction to Red Hat in the article is why I abandoned it back at r6. I went slack for a while since I had less problems with the text installer than the graphic, then Stormix (now defunct) and finally Mandrake starting with V7. While I keep BeOS and Mandrake 8 partitions on my 2nd hard drive, since I have installed XP I have not booted into either of them in months, except to test a handful of free pascal programs I've written to make sure they cross-compile.
For Linux the growing pains are really strong right now, and there is still a long way to go. The problem is big name products with real vendors like Apple and M$ behind them are doing leaps while linux is still barely managing baby steps. The pointless debate over desktops just adds to the confusion (one subject I'm indifferent on. I use KDE because it's what Mandrake puts on by default. Maybe I'm odd but after years of different GUI's I just don't see the difference), and it seems like instead of 'refining' the desktops with goofy animations and pointless skinning, more effort should be put towards things like the REALLY CRAPPY FONT RASTERIZER and working on making X less... more... well, I don't know what. XFree and Xwindows in general has always had a kitbashed, IBM Style K-LOC thing going on. It is slow, it is unresponsive. I always kind of chalked that up to poor implementation of hardware accelleration, but it seems to be more than that.
I want to like Linux. I want to like MAC. I want to like BeOS.
Unfortunately, none of them run any of the software I use daily, from Trillian (chat program) to IE6 (I'm already hitting pages that only work right in 5.5 or newer, how long before 6?) to my Game fix at home using titles like Morrowind or GTA3. All the good software these days, like it or not comes out for Windows first, which is why I still use it, despite the fact that every day I come here hoping to find something that is truly a replacement.
I don't think it's Linux being slow here, but the distribution bloatness. There are many leaner Linux distributions that will quite happily work with a Celeron 500 system or much less. One distribuition like this is Slackware, but there are quite a few others.
I have been a Linux user for years now.. I'm running KDE 3.0.3 on XFree86 4.2.0 on a Pentium II @ 333MHz with 384MB RAM.. Everything is fast. Since RAM is cheap nowdays, why don't you upgrade your computers to have lots of it =) change from 192MB to 384MB is very noticably.
My distribution is based on http://www.linuxfromscratch.org (i mispell that scratch often, beware . I have tried both RH and Debian.. RH's packet management sucks and Debian is too stable (meaning that if you go by the packaging system, you'll use months old software (yes, this can be argued, and you will probably win)).
That's all folks
-rzei
i've read the article last night, and seems like it really caught the attention of the people.
firstly, i have to declare that i really do respect people who are contributing to open source, i might seem whining about how slow and hard to use is linux after all, but i really think code developers and almost everyone contributing to open source is really putting hearths to their work and i really do believe that they deserve appreciation for their efforts.
I have been trying distros(not cause i'm so curious, but just to find a linux distro that i would use at home for internet and some office work.) Unfortunately, i haven't yet find a distro easy to use (installation has never been a problem to me, and i think its now easier to install linux than ms windows), fast, stable and complete system. In all my experiences with different distros i have confronted the same problem of dependency when i try to install a simple software. There was always missing *.lib, tarball etc. And i can honestly say i am not lazy or stupid(some geeks say that to people who faces problems like that;) lol and sure i'm not a computer engineer as well, but do really have to be one to use linux or freebsd? Would one of the experts explain me why it has to be hard to install a software or why it must a pain to uninstall it, or why would i have to read the manuel to find where it has been installed? I am not against source files or tarballs, but why don't people develop an easier file format(lets say linux executable file *.lef) whats worng with that isn't it the time, it was the first thing mac did while creating OSX from freebsd. Why hundreds of the same things installed when u install a new distro, how can user guess which one is more usefull? i am not agaisnt variety of software or diversity on dekstop, but isn't it the lost of time and labor to develop two of the almost same thing like KDE or GNOME. I think main problem against the rise of linux is the extreme diversty in it. And maybe like a mature kid(after all those years), its time for linux reconsider its strategy and path. People might say, linux is more a server OS for networks,servers etc. but i just want ask them one question; WOULD MICROSOFT SUCCEED UNLESS HE SUCCEED ON DESKTOPS AT OUR HOMES? PEOPLE USUALLY PREFER TO USE THE OPERATING SYSTEMS THEY USE AT HOME.
.. there is only way for linux to succeed, has to make a chooice on gui, or has to create a unique GUI, optimized and tuned just for linux. and has to solve the ongoing file systems conflict.. but like i said its only my opinion , i might me wrong since i'm not a computer engineer. but i do have idea about what normal user like
The linux 'community' is very hostile... to newcomers. It's sad but true. M$ on the other hand has had the patience of a saint in this regard, despite years of abuse from those who swore the version of the OS they were using was the last.
The linux "community" doesn't get paid to fix your installation. I commonly spend many hours out of my day in the Red Hat Linux newsgroups, helping folks out... on my dime. Granted, lots of folks will whip out "RTFM" before you can get the question out of your mouth. But you have to remember that the majority of these folks have spent a lot of time learning this stuff _on_their_own_. When the people they're trying to help show no interest in helping themselves, they're leaving themselves open to flaming.
Distributions, on the other hand, DO get paid and DO provide good, quality, "saint-like" assistance. Did you pay for the Red Hat boxed set? Good for you... you get 30/60 days (personal/professional) of paid, top-notch support. You downloaded the ISO's free of charge? You better learn to ask the right questions on IRC/NNTP/BBS. Sorry if this sounds blunt, and I'm sure not everyone will agree with me, but you need to quit comparing the OSS community to MS/Apple/whatever. Get a clue.
Every OS has it's pros and cons, and they seriously need to be taken into consideration.
Absolutely. Not to steal a page from Rob, but it's true... when's the last time you saw someone post a "editorial" on OSNews about how their 200mhz/64MB PC couldn't handle XP? Is Linux (Red Hat or otherwise) 100% ready for the desktop? Hell no. Will it ever be? Maybe, maybe not. One thing to chew on... Linux makes the easy things difficult, but makes the difficult things possible. I can't always say the same for Windows.
You want idiot proof with only a handful of mainstream applications? Get a Mac.
Agreed. I think OSX (pronounced /ecks/!) is beautiful, but I don't really need it. Hell, it doesn't matter... I can't afford it.
You want support for everything under the sun (except sun?) Get Windows
Or continue to promote a movement, knowing that the volume of users proportionally increases the number of bug reports, the number of driver downloads, etc. This all results in a better product for all of us... and the vendors take notice.
You want complete control over everything the OS does or can do? Get Linux.
Or *BSD. Or any other number of open-sourced OS's.
On the other side, your nubes picking it up are still going to be lost by the unix nomenclature, the nature of the questions involved in setup, and the simple fact that adding software is still complex and difficult. RPM's were a step in the right direction, but there really NEEDS to be more for the 'average joe' to use it.
Everybody's a "nube" at some point. Even you. Even me. Somehow, I managed to wallow through the darkness. Does this mean that every version of "Linux" needs to be "dumbed down"? Nope, let's leave that at the distribution layer.
My list of things I consider to be 'holding back' linux could go on for pages. The way device drivers are handled (in an inconsistant manner),
Inconsistent how? The fact that you can build a driver into the kernel OR as a module? You consider that a bad thing? I think it's wonderful... thanks to modular drivers, we can use non-free drivers (Nvidia) that wouldn't normally be allowed via the GPL. Perhaps you'd like to qualify this statement (even if it takes a few pages).
Personally, the reaction to Red Hat in the article is why I abandoned it back at r6. I went slack for a while since I had less problems with the text installer than the graphic, then Stormix (now defunct) and finally Mandrake starting with V7. While I keep BeOS and Mandrake 8 partitions on my 2nd hard drive, since I have installed XP I have not booted into either of them in months, except to test a handful of free pascal programs I've written to make sure they cross-compile.
I'm glad you found an OS that works for you. Did you know that lots of folks use Linux without problems? Or BeOS? Or OS/2? Oh, and did you know that operating systems generally become more stable as they age? What a concept.
I want to like Linux. I want to like MAC. I want to like BeOS.
All of which could probably care less about you. Guess what? It doesn't matter. They're still there if you change your mind (well, at least Linux).
Unfortunately, none of them run any of the software I use daily, from Trillian (chat program) to IE6 (I'm already hitting pages that only work right in 5.5 or newer, how long before 6?) to my Game fix at home using titles like Morrowind or GTA3. All the good software these days, like it or not comes out for Windows first, which is why I still use it, despite the fact that every day I come here hoping to find something that is truly a replacement.
Wow, quite a chicken-or-egg philosophy you've got there. Ever tried Everybuddy? Gaim? Mozilla? I find it humorous that you claim you want Linux to become more mainstream, but you don't want to invest the effort to simply become a usable statistic for the world's developers. Without end-users enforcing open standards, monopolies are allowed to promote their proprietary extensions as the de facto standard.
*whew*. G-damn, you got me worked up.
-fp
wish I could put it as well as you do; agree completely.
only wish osnews could find a bit of variety; the linux baiting is just getting so 'yesterday'..
this week IRIX was great, VAX was great (both were very well written too) and I am just hoping that next week brings more of the same! Osnews occasionally has 'xyz week', how about 'linux free week' and 'ui free week'? Just to let things calm down a little?
only problem I have is with ---.ne.client2.attbi.com being such a regular poster ;-)
/Nice
and they all run perfectly fine. now, i don't know what sup with all these people having problems. another thing we should seperate here is Linux the kernel from the GUI. What is really making those distros slow on your computers? I can tell you that my RedHat nor Mandrake runs FlightGear well, not playable anyway, on my P4 1.4GHz like WinME does. But that I believe is a video problem. Cause EVERY things else works perfectly find and FAST.
Oh, and the Linux 2.4.x kernels are slower than than 2.2.x. But then 2.4 supposedly has more features. But hey, WinME seems to be faster than Win9x. But I am plenty happy, I use Linux 98% of the time. Windows machine is for tax and gaming.
Thanks for allowing to share my experience.
.v
at Computerbank, we refurbish old hardware, install Debian, and donate it to low income groups, charities, anscchools and individsuals. Average box spec - P166 + 64 mb ram. We customised Sid a little bit (unstable), and run KDE3.03.
No issues, very happy recipients - the boxen run sweetly.
Dont see all the fuss!
How come it is that everyone must compair WinXP or anything other WinOS to Linux? Windows is a GUI OS, Linux is not. That is why X was created. This is like compairing WinXP with DOS. As for the Hardware, thats an odd thing. My 266 Pentium 1 laptop runs Win2k faster than my old Celeron 500. I have yet to install XP on my laptop, but when I did on my P3-800 I noticed that is was slower than Win2k on the same system. I have yet to have a problem with any of my linux installs. X and KDE run almost as fast as the GUI on Win2k, and thats a good thing. Also if your system hardware is labled "Made for Windows XP" or something like that might be were your speed problem is. I made sure all my hardware was linux compatable, and I have all the drivers needed by linux. After I get Mandrake 9 in the mail I'm thinking about using that as my full time OS. I don't have the speed issues some of you do.
Great editorial Brian. I ordered RH8 myself and if UPS shows up I'll be installing it tomorrow night. My box has a bit more horsepower than yours so I'm not too concerned about performance. Your editorial brought out enough people saying that they are running RH8 and aren't having any problems that I'm hopeful I won't either.
Maybe some of the "experts" who commented here can help get your box running well. Then you can post a follow-on editorial about how much better RH8 is over MS products.
I know that being a zealot is no fun. In fact, it contributes to taking the joy out of computing. When I was younger, I was a Mac zealot. It was not hard to become one because the conditions were ripe for it - feeling cornered by Windows and Apple management making terrible decisions, one after another. Ultimately, I stopped being a Mac zealot and have enjoyed using Macs much more since then.
I could have become a BeOS zealot easily, but fortunately, had learned from my Mac experience and avoided that. As a result, I enjoyed using Be to the hilt.
And now Linux...I *know* Linux is the kernel, but I'm talking about Linux distributions. It is so odd to me - Linux is the one OS where we have so many choices, so many distros, so many types of distros - distros for geeks, for mid-level users, for newbies and many in each category. Yet, despite this, Linux creates the most arguments. What is there to argue so vehemently about? And yet some of you can do nothing but state that so and so is an idiot, a moron, tells nothing but lies, simply because their experience was different than yours.
Almost 200 posts and only a handful pointed Brian to something like Vector Linux that might be the answer for him. All else, nothing but rigid, indoctrinated thinking, smugness, absolute self certainty, hot air, pompous ballast and just plain un-helpful, un-illuminating, un-insightful yammering. I don't blame Eugenia for being out of patience after a year of this. Zealotry is truly no fun, has no joy in it and sucks openmindedness, honesty and the willingness to learn from others and help others out of a person.
BeOS is dead.. live with it and move on!!!! Next?
[wL]
HAHAHA.. This is a trip. 99% of linux complaints are from newbies and people who run super low end hardware and complain about the speed. 2 suggestions. 1st-- read a book on linux. 2nd-- don't compare win98,ME, 2k, or XP to linux, it isnt the same. How about compare Windows 3.11 to Linux w/ X. Only fair comparison. No one said linux should be easy to learn or run. If you want quick and easy then run microsoft WinbugsXP. You get what you pay for! ;-)
Just a small point on the linux zealots. Normally you dont get that much here (personally I have always found that linux zealotry is a touch overstated) but this article appeared over the weekend so different crowd.
You get a lot less sysadmins and professionals and a lot more kids
I just don't understand why your having such problems. I run a 333mhz pc with 224megs of ram and I can run KDE and Gnome and anything else just as easily as in Windblows 98. I have been running Red Hat since 5.1 or 5.2 on the same pc and never had as much trouble as this poor guy. I was just wondering how much Bill Gate is paying people to spout such negative commentary.
> I was just wondering how much Bill Gate is paying people to spout such negative commentary.
If you do not have anything better to say, do not say such false and stupid accusations. This is not Slashdot where everyone can write whatever comes out of its a$$. Continue this approach of accusing people without evidence and you will get banned. The last sentence of your post was completely unessasery.
I installed RH 8.0 on a PII 266 with 64mb of RAM and it was completely usable.
On my brothers Celeron 500 with 96 Mbs of RAM, RedHat 7.3 actually behaves better than Windows 98. It is far easier to get the printer working under RH then it was with Windows, and I don't have to worry about the Windows virii affecting my linux installiation.
Just my 2cents.
I don't know how this editorial ended up being posted on OSNews. I'm generally very impressed with the content, but it would be an understatement to call this article substandard. The fact that this is an editorial makes no difference. Somebody at OSNews thought this editorial deserved publishing. I, obviously disagree.
First off, I'm not a Linux zealot. I don't even use linux (Win2K). Most of the article is a rant about slowness, but the writer seems completely oblivious to the fact that of the three machines he tried, only one of them met the minimum requirements and NONE of them met the recommended requirements.
Wow - I really don't want to get into the 'flame wars'
that have started here, just give another view of
a 'stupid users' installation experiences:
These are my experiences with RH8 over the weekend:
During install
* My Matrox Millenium G200 generated unusable X session
for graphical install - found option 'lowres' that
solved this. No big deal, but many newbies might think
their gfx card will not work after install and will
give up.
* Focus lost when prompted for root password. After
playing around with RMB menus, back and forward buttons
I finally got focus. Nearly gave up.
After install:
* My broadband connection didn't get enabled. After
looking around, I tried a 'dhclient eth0' manually
which gave me an IP. Redhat init never gives me an
IP, although I set it to DHCP and get address on init
in network settings.
* Firewall - I chose 'medium' security during install,
but this always gets set to 'high' - no error message
in the dialog box, but changes are never saved. Found
out that 'lokkit' is used underneath, running lokkit
from command prompt doesn't work either. My DHCP
problem may be related to this...
* In www.redhat.com, when you click on 'more info' there
is a screenshot that shows the panel to the left of
the desktop instead of at the bottom as is the default.
I logged in as a brand new user, moved the panel (in
gnome) to left of screen and logged out. Could not
log back in, panel generates crash (again and again,
since panel auto-restarts).
* I had Mandrake 8.2 in another partition. The Red Hat 8
uses Grub which I'm unfamiliar with - grub would not
load my partitions set up with lilo.
I used my Mandrake rescue disk to get lilo back and I'm
not on Mandrake 8.2 again. I expected more from Red Hat
than just a pretta facade
Please note that I'm not a newbie, but also not a system
admin - I need to get work done and have limited time
to look around for fixes. I've now used up more time on
getting RH8 to work than what I needed to get Slackware
installed back in 94.
Jim in Az
Sorry, do a 's/not on Mandrake/now on Mandrake' in my
above post. Lots of other types too, please forgive
me, I can't type when frustrated 
Jim in Az
I use WinXP and BeOS on my home machine, a dual P3 933MHz box with 512MB of memory. I installed RH8 hoping to have a good Linux desktop to work in my J2EE projects with Eclipse and JBoss.
The installation went right, it detected all my hardware, including my ATI Radeon AIW AGP, SBLive and 3C509 cards. The Bluecurve desktop looks pretty nice, the icons are just too big (at 1152x864 on a 17" monitor). I only missed mp3 and ntfs support.
Everything went right until I started to try out some applications. The system feels too slow. It takes 5 secs to open a Terminal window! The first time I ran the Terminal I thought I didn't do it correctly because it was taking too long to open the window and there was no GUI feedback, like a busy cursor, to tell me that the app was in fact loading, so I clicked again and again. I made this mistake several times with other apps, until I started to get used to the slowness.
Mozilla takes like 10-15 secs to run, and the fonts aren't antialiased (I edited /usr/lib/mozilla-1.0.1/pref/unix.js to enable FreeType, but seems that I also have to install TrueType fonts to make it work, dunno, I didn't try too hard to fix it). I'm getting used to CoolType on LCD screens, so I found the fonts in overall better than before, but still "ugly."
Later, I installed IBM JDK, Eclipse and JBoss. The Linux/Motif version of Eclipse has problems with fonts (some are rendered with weird artifacts), but the Linux/GTK version works fine (However, the GUI doesn't look very good, I think there are bugs in the Motif-to-GTK wrapper they seems to be using). I have been using these tools at the job on a P3-750MHz + 160MB machine running Win2K, and it feels faster (the GUI) than my dual-box with RH8.
I'm a bit disappointed, maybe I was expecting too much, but after reading some reviews and seen screenshots, I was hoping to have a BeOS-ish (ie. fast, elegant and good looking) GUI on top of Linux. Seems that I'll have to wait for the next release.
I am enjoying the debate. I have posted a few things elsewhere that have been taken as disrespectful of linux, specifically my recent experience with Mandrake 9.0 I even promised never to post there again to one of the more rabid linux defenders after being flamed....
My analogy to this discussion after watching Ken Burns "Civil War" on PBS here in L.A. is:
Linux is like the Confederacy... States Rights/ many distros... The Linux people may be tougher, more militant, more dedicated to a cause, smarter, braver, more hard working, more resourceful, much more independent and free sprirted. But that fight is against overwhelming odds in the real world. Limited resources no infrustructure (programs that just download and work). Not enough soldiers getting enough rations (food, money) income to make it a full time job. A real business. The fanatical adherence to the cause is creating intolerance for any other than a pure no-profit incentive model. What is truly worrisome is an unhealthy bit of techno macho snobbery to boot. ...XP was Appomattox to (Linux followers:windows crashes) the stability issue is gone....and so the real civil war between OS's for the desktop is really over. It makes them a bitter lot. Want help from these guys? You might be humililated. Even though your trying to give an honest try to see (hokey pokey) "what's it's all about."
M$ is like the Union..... Bill Gates is not Abraham Lincoln, But the cause of uniting the computing world so everything works reasonably easy and that the most advanced hardware is promoted by that synergy is in some eyes the product of greed. But It has freed alot of slaves of difficult technology where the average Joe who has a life other than playing with computers as their formost hobby can do so many things besides what a person is made to do with computers at work. America is a free market economy based on innovation (At least that what we say before we start a war to erradicate tyrants) I am glad Bill Gates is not in the oil biz. We would be trying to download cars that run on air but have a few (complications)!!!!!!!!
That is democracy I think.
P.S. Communism (soviet union) where the elite tell what is best, not the market place.....
P.S.S. I have just installed Lindows this weekend. Paid the $99 It works reasonably well found all the hardware and IP configuration right out of the box.
I speaking about Desktop only
* My Matrox Millenium G200 generated unusable X session
for graphical install - found option 'lowres' that
solved this. No big deal, but many newbies might think
their gfx card will not work after install and will
give up.
Can you be more specific? Did you run it through the test during the install? At what point did it become an "unusable X session"?
* Focus lost when prompted for root password. After
playing around with RMB menus, back and forward buttons
I finally got focus. Nearly gave up.
Again, can you be more specific? What do you mean, "focus lost when prompted for root password"? RMB menus? Are you saying that your mouse was not recognized properly?
* My broadband connection didn't get enabled. After
looking around, I tried a 'dhclient eth0' manually
which gave me an IP. Redhat init never gives me an
IP, although I set it to DHCP and get address on init
in network settings.
Sorry, you're still being incredibly vague. Are you saying that it didn't recognize your card? That it didn't save your settings? That it failed to recognize a DHCPOFFER?
* Firewall - I chose 'medium' security during install,
but this always gets set to 'high' - no error message
in the dialog box, but changes are never saved. Found
out that 'lokkit' is used underneath, running lokkit
from command prompt doesn't work either. My DHCP
problem may be related to this...
No, your settings are being saved, it's just that Red Hat's firewall tool (lokkit or redhat-config-securitylevel) does not read in the existing configuration. Hopefully this will be resolved in an update, but that doesn't mean it's not working. Save your settings and run "service iptables status" to confirm.
* In www.redhat.com, when you click on 'more info' there
is a screenshot that shows the panel to the left of
the desktop instead of at the bottom as is the default.
I logged in as a brand new user, moved the panel (in
gnome) to left of screen and logged out. Could not
log back in, panel generates crash (again and again,
since panel auto-restarts).
I gotta be honest here... you claim to be running into issues that just don't happen to the "typical" user. All the years I've been running Linux/BSD, I've never heard of panel crashes like you're encountering after a simple "panel move".
* I had Mandrake 8.2 in another partition. The Red Hat 8
uses Grub which I'm unfamiliar with - grub would not
load my partitions set up with lilo.
Let me get this straight... (sorry if I sound like a jerk, but...) you were already running LILO, you're comfortable with it, but you chose to install Grub anyways? No excuses for Grub-- I expect that it should have added it for you (although it may be that it only senses/includes Windows partitions), but I'm starting to question some of your actions.
I used my Mandrake rescue disk to get lilo back and I'm
not on Mandrake 8.2 again. I expected more from Red Hat
than just a pretta facade
Are you saying that you can't boot to Mandrake anymore? Sorry, your grammar is somewhat unclear (my apologies in advance if English is not your primary language). If this is the case, please post your grub.conf and the Mandrake partition information to the linux.redhat or linux.redhat.install newsgroups, and I'll try to help you out.
Please note that I'm not a newbie, but also not a system
admin - I need to get work done and have limited time
to look around for fixes. I've now used up more time on
getting RH8 to work than what I needed to get Slackware
installed back in 94.
I can appreciate that, but I really have to question your actions or decisions. Not that I'm calling you an idiot (seriously), but I've ran into people that just *shouldn't* be twiddling with their systems, because they always seem to do just enough damage to make their system generally unusable. Don't feel bad, I used to be the same way with my old '73 VW Beetle. :-P
-fp
Everything went right until I started to try out some applications. The system feels too slow. It takes 5 secs to open a Terminal window! The first time I ran the Terminal I thought I didn't do it correctly because it was taking too long to open the window and there was no GUI feedback, like a busy cursor, to tell me that the app was in fact loading, so I clicked again and again. I made this mistake several times with other apps, until I started to get used to the slowness.
This is obviously a case of some sort of misconfiguration on your system. There is no way in hell you'll convince me this is normal behavior. Check to make sure that your "hostname" is listed in your /etc/hosts file, or resolvable via DNS. Check top to see if you're swapping (you shouldn't be) or if some other process is going nuts.
Mozilla takes like 10-15 secs to run, and the fonts aren't antialiased (I edited /usr/lib/mozilla-1.0.1/pref/unix.js to enable FreeType, but seems that I also have to install TrueType fonts to make it work, dunno, I didn't try too hard to fix it). I'm getting used to CoolType on LCD screens, so I found the fonts in overall better than before, but still "ugly."
Uh, nobody's default Mozilla is antialiased. Nobody claimed it would be. To install True Type fonts, all you have to do is dump them in a ".fonts" directory in your home directory. That's all.
-fp
Thaks, fuzzyping, for trying to help. I'm not insulted
at all by you questioning my actions - I have to admit
I do a lot of stupid things. And yes, english is not
my native language - sorry for the mistakes in grammar
and spelling.
I wasn't really looking for answers here, just sharing
my experiences as what might happen to an average user.
But I really appreciate that you take your time to try
to solve my issues!
I'll try to clarify some things here
"My Matrox Millenium G200 generated unusable X session
for graphical install etc"
Then you choose a regular graphical install, the installer
probes for Gfx card and monitor and finds the correct
info for my system. But then X starts, the display
settings are horribly wrong, I get a tiny area in the
middle of the screen that is flickering and unreadable.
Not a big deal to me, as I said.
"Focus lost when prompted for root password."
The cursor that appears in text fields were lost, no
keypresses generated any events. Mouse worked fine. I
just had to trick the X server into giving focus to the
correct window by creating right-mouse-button windows
and closing them. Eventually X gave focus to the dialog
box text fields.
"My broadband connection didn't get enabled."
Yes, DCHPOFFER failes on init, it also failed after
inacivating and reactivating eth0 in the network settings.
Card recognized fine.
"Firewall - I chose 'medium' security during install..."
Thank you *very much* for answering this!!!
"...panel to the left..."
I understand you scepticism. I really want to know
if this happen to other people. It was basically the
first thing I did after logging in as a user.
"I had Mandrake 8.2 in another partition..."
Ok, this was a really stupid move. But I knew I could
get lilo back on and I wanted to see what grub had to
offer, since I was unfamiliar with it.
I *can* still use my Mandrake since I used the Mandrake
rescue disc to put lilo back on, so I can be productive
again Thank you very much again, fuzzyping, for
providing a helpful answer if that had not been the case.
Jim in Az
Brian: If you have an ATI video card you might try using the old MACH64 video drivers. That's made a difference for me in the past.
You can make Redhat work for you if you follow some of the advice you've been given here. Disable all unneeded services, including gdm (or xdm, or kdm)--you don't have any RAM to spare. Disable animations and sounds in KDE and GNOME. Explore lightweight alternatives. Configure logging. Recompile with optimisations as needed. And look to Redhat for support: that's what you paid for.
If you were to give it a go and report back in a few weeks, that would make for an interesting read.
Dude,
You must be checking you colon b/c your head is obviously up your ass!... I am writing this on an IBM ThinkPad 600 (266 MHz, 256 Meg Ram, 4 GB Hard Drive) and yes i am running RedHat 8.0 with none of the sluggishness that you mention... I don't understand what your problem is
Thats one of the funniest editorals I have ever read.I really needed that.Still LOL.
Linux : Because rebooting is for adding new hardware.
" I was hoping to have a BeOS-ish (ie. fast, elegant and good looking) GUI on top of Linux. Seems that I'll have to wait for the next release. "
You'll have to wait a lot longer than that
>> You must be checking you colon b/c your head is obviously up >> your ass!
Oh Dear, Eugenia I think you need a slashdot style moderation system to mod some of these people to -1 so we don't have to see them Oh and if we wanted some helpful answers we could surf with threshold at 4.
And Drizato, you have 256 Megs of RAM, this dude had 64-128MB of RAM. His machine is _obviously_ going to run worse, it doesn't matter if he has a faster processor because it's spending all it's time swapping to disk.
And to all the people comparing linux desktop performance to windows, Linux is _obviously_ going to be slower - it has a lot more work to do! Linux has to run XFree86 client/server with all it's features and complexity, and then it has to run a desktop environment on top of that. Not to mention that these desktop environments (GNOME/KDE) are much more configurable and flexible than Windows.
In about 2 or so years I predict that directfb will have enough features/stability/hardware support that it will be able to be used for desktop machines (and embedded devices). And this will be a much better comparison to windows. I've been reading the architecture for it, and it's really coding "to the metal" so to speak. There is minimal overhead between the WM and the graphics card driver, and it supports alpha channel blending, etc _in hardware_ (something the windows GUI is yet to do).
Directfb also seems to be geared for gaming as well (there's already an openGL module being written for it), and there doesn't seem to be any restrictions in applications asking for fullscreen mode at any supported resolution/colour mode... this means if u run your desktop at 1280x1024 and want to run ut2003 at 1600x1200 fullscreen, then it will do it, unlike X. It should also be easy to dynamically change resolution/colour modes without having to restart the graphical system - and just tell the WM that the res has changed and it should re-position the windows so they're not outside the range.
It would be interesting to develop a 1 CD debian (or slack) distro, that is basically "automatic install" like win9x, and only installs directfb (no X), and icewm on top of it, plus the directfb-enabled GTK libraries for running gnome apps. It would also be nice if QT was ported to directfb so KDE apps could be run as well. I predict a memory-optimized distro like this would be a perfect replacement for win9x on older machines, and would probably run in 32Meg of RAM (perhaps less).
And Brian, do us a favour and run icewm or xfce or something, and turn off all the services and things that you don't need. Also try running a less-than-state-of-the-art distro, like mandrake 8.1, and update the system with all the patches. You should have a pretty solid desktop then, and it should run pretty fast. I've got mdk 8.1 + icewm running on a pr233 with 40MB of RAM, and it's really really fast. Faster than win98 on the same box actually (maybe not after a fresh install of win98, as the performance degrades over time). A non-journaling filesystem like ext2 might be better as well.
Just my thoughts.. (wow i should be working..)
Can in under 2000 words, explain to again what the point of your post was? As it stands now, the post just seems like an incoherent plastering of random linux propaganda that you decided to hap-hazardly cut and paste into the text box as a substitue for a real post.
OK OK OK! I started off with a point, but then added other stuff. Points were as follows:
- too many trolls posting abusive messages, need (better) moderation system
- directfb is cool, and a desktop distro based on it would be extra cool
- Brian should turn off unneeded services, and use a lightweight desktop/apps
And give me a break, i have to write a 100 page report for uni and the internet is distracting me Although i could've written about 5 pages in the time i wasted writing that post
Can someone explain to me how useful it really is to have multiple posts of:
I don't understand why you have problem with Linux, I can RH 8.0 just fine on my system and I'm using:
CPU: 8086
RAM: 128k
So obviously OSNews is just trying to bash linux.
C'mon why you actually try helping the guy out with his problems or at the very least if your not so benevolent have a discussion as to what the problem may be for your own benefit.
Have you ever considered trying BeOS for a change?
Mr. Doe, you forgot the alarming number of people suggesting that he use BeOS. Um yeah, instead of using a popular and supported operating system like Linux, use an obscure OS that nobody uses where the company that owns it has gone out of business (well i think they're alive only to sue Micro$oft).
You need more than 128 MB RAM. There is no need to upgrade your CPU. It will do the job fine. Even on the RedHat site, they have recommended 192 MB. Without RAM even a 700Mhz PIII is slow while running GNOME/KDE.
Use the following tweaks :
1. Put in 256 MB RAM and 512 MB swap
2. Make sure that dma settings are on using hdparm
3. For the nvidia card install NVIDIA drivers. There is a huge difference in performance.
4. Shutdown unwanted services. Redhat Linux loves to startup all services by default.
5. If using KDE, disable antialiasing. KDE also has Kpersonliser which allows you to choose the amount of eye-candy you want.
6. If all the above works then dont shutdown your machine for as long as possible or ever. The Linux kernel caches all applications in RAM. After the first launch of any application, any subsequent launch will be much faster.
Toshiba 2595CDT is NOT a computer but a piece of overpriced garbage, an ENRON of of PC industry! WorldCom of PC industry as we all agree was COMPAQ!
Toshiba makes very good laptops, one of the best PC laptops around. Compaq also makes very good computers. I'm willing to trade my HP for my brother's Compaq Evo any day (even if the Evo is cheaper and have less specs), and yes, both are bought pre-merger.
How long one can tolerate windows 9x ME the most viewed Blue Screen of Death?
Than use Windows 2000/XP for crying out load!
Here we go again you are on another Celeron! This time also with 128 MB RAM, not enough to run efficiently any windows. Remind you you need at least 256 MB ram to run ANY Windows!
Windows 98 DON'T need 256MB. Let me repeat that for you: WINDOWS 98 DON'T NEED 256MB. Windows XP needs that much to be usable, but NOT WINDOWS 98, which the author uses. Since the author didn't tell what version of Win98 he is using, I'm guessing the first one, so it is 4 years old. 4 years ago, 256MB of RAM is as rare as 1GB of RAM nowadays.
Try Linux on a real CPU and not Celeron!
LOL, I have use Celeron 400MHz for 2 years, it is sufficient to run Linux at speeds a thousand times what the author claims. Celeron is not the problem here, OpenOffice.org won't get slowed down to 5 minutes startup with a small cache.
How bout some proof, ma'am?
It for sure outperformed Windows 2000 PRO which I selected as the best OS ever released by WinTel Mafia.
With that amount of RAM, *prrf*, obviously.
Hardware should be certified to run all OSs (Windows and LINUX at least), but we should be NEVER forced to buy hardware with pre-loaded OS we don't want or need.
When you go out and choose your hardware, you HAVE A CHOICE NOT TO BUY A PC BUNDLED WITH WINDOWS! There are plenty of Linux-only OEMs, like Pogo Linux. You have the ultimate power as a consumer: not to buy a machine with Windows. If you buy a machine with Windows, both bitch about it.
Also, both bitch about the hardware not being compatible with Linux. Wanna buy a Linux-compatible system? Find an OEM that does support Linux, or choose your hardware wisely. What you are asking is similar to asking all OEMs motherboards must be compatible with Intel's and AMD's processors.
Selling any hardware with preloaded OS against our will shall be considered nothing else but predatory monoplolistic criminal act of felony and FRAUD!
No. It is completely legal and ethical. The hardware comes with the software. Don't want the software? Don't buy the hardware for crying out loud. It is like crying foul when Nissan dumped the V5 engine for the V6.
Stop acting stupidly. You have the ultimate power of a consumer, not to buy the fucking hardware.
When running WINDOWS you must BUY extra software. When buying RedHat 8 Linux you get around 1000 softwares free with this distribution.
Right now, in my mind, you are a Slashdot troll. You are just one step from being a Usenet troll.
Most of that "1,000" application have similar capablities as most freeware on Windows (try http://www.download.com ot http://www.tucows.com bud)
Do not try now to screw GUI LINUX in retaliation because you were screwed by WinTel mafia.
Don't screw Microsoft and Windows in retaliation because you were screwed by the biased press.
One step away from Usenet troll.....
Anyway, replying to this extreemely trollish comment pretty much replies to most of the other comments. Have a good day.
Eugenia, how much more comments before it breaks OSNews records?
Seems to me to be the most comments in under two days....
You should submit this story to slashdot with a link to the comments section on the front page
My experience with Redhat 8 has been entirely different. First of all, I woudl recommend using more RAM. Linux tends to be more RAM centric then it is processor centric. Though I wouldn't recommend running it on a celeron.
However, the only issue I have run into so far which is actually a pretty major issue in my point of view but it is the only issue is that my cd burner doesn't seem to work properly. In previous versions of RedHat (every version of RedHat from 6 - 7.3) my burner worked flawlessly without any kernel recompiles or anything. Now it seems to fail miserably. I haven't had a lot of time to investigate the cause yet. However, many of the problems I encountered in the two betas NULL and Limbo have been resolved in the final release. I know that many of the issues that remain in the 8.0 release of Redhat will be resolved by 8.2 so I'm not that worried. I love the new interface personally. it's much easier to use.
I would have to agree that the new interface is unnecessarily bloated. However, that appears to be the direction all Operating systems are headed towards. As has been mentioend by others Windows XP is also very bloated. I personally found Windows XP to be slower on my Celeron 600mhz with 256 megs of ram then Redhat Limbo. As for the final release of Redhat, I haven't really tried it on my celeron so I am not sure how it would react. Redhat 8 does work just fine on my PIII 550 with 384 megs of Ram, however. And is not slow in the least. (unless you are talking about Open Office which is just friggen slow period, I hope that more effort is put into speeding up Open Office). As for user friendliness, RedHat 8 rocks. I was able to install RedHat 8 without making a single intelligent choice during the entire process. Basically, the only part of the install where I had to even make a decision was when I selected my root password and setup my user account. Otherwise, Redhat 8 detected all my hardware and installed it. The menus could be improved a little. I would have to agree with the editorial that there is a great deal of duplication in the menus. I think the preferences, system tools, and system settings menus should be merged. However, outside of Redhat 8 screwing up my ability to burn and the less then perfect menu system everything else rocks.
It's funny because this thread has reminded me of being in college and asking some Computer Science major a question about troubles I had with my computer. The two typical responses I got were either a stream of technical jargon or I was basically called a retard.
Nice going guys. Instead of pointing out that there might be some problems with his hardware or his setup you chose to basically call him an idiot, a liar and even a pawn of Bill Gates. This type of fanboy mentality is precisely the reason that Linux is having a hard time breaking into mainstream and maintains a "geek only" image.
Frankly this does not make me want to go out and buy or download the latest distro just so when I have a problem I am told that I need to recompile my kernel or that I must obviously be an idiot if I can't get it to work.
OpenOffice is slower on Windows too, so no need to complain for GNU/Linux.
I use GNU/Linux extensively at my workplace and I'm kinda happy with OpenMotif. It just beats the hell outta GNOME or KDE. Except that its not very easy to use like these cuz its a window manager and not a session manager I suppose.
All we need is a user-friendly fast desktop (like BeOS ofcourse) for GNU/Linux and/or *BSDs. Hope I would start writing one sometime later. Anybody for it? ;-)
The wording in this "anonymous" post sounds very familiar to me. In fact I thought I was reading some commentary from a known "former" (possibly a current) Microsoft employee who has been trolling numerous linux newsgroups and mailing lists for some time. I may be wrong, but this has all of the earmarks of one of his posts (tired of Microsoft and can't wait to get away, slow responsiveness from the UI, apps not playing well, not able to locate settings, etc). Sorry, I'll leave him unnamed in case I'm incorrect. But anyone that was on some of the SuSE or Mandrake lists in the last couple of years may recognize the writing, as might some who used various linux/unix newsgroups over the last year. He also trolled Redhat mailing lists for a bit, though not for very long.
Got Lindows?
Simply, if you want a nice windows type environment that simple with nice features and no server apps get Lindows.If you Need Linux for some server apps (because its not good for a desktop os) try Suse 8.1
The End.
Well, just manage to install it yesterday, it works just fine for me, except I can't locate any software to edit the menus, is there anyone know which one to use for editing the menus??
I also run RedHat (7.3) on a Pentium II 233 Mhz with 128 MB RAM. I have absolutly no trouble. It doesn't even scratch my swap...
try to type "man tar" on KDE-terminal,konsole, and then u will got funny looking symbol.
check this out:
<a HREF="http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~isia2/snapshot1.png">
Glitches KDE Konsole on RH8
I'm not sure what he is doing wrong because on my celeron 300a
with 128mb ram rehat 8.0 works like a charm, and is at least as fast as Windows Me (never bothered with XP on that machine). I sound to me like he has some kind of misconfigured hostname or other networking related problem. (both X and Gnome-Orbit depend on corect network configuration). He sound try configuring networking after install, and using the default hostname.
Wow! So many comments. But did any one realize that Linux did actually *not* crash even after five minutes -- succesfully loading up Writer!!!
Such a necked up system configuration would have crashed *any* windows, Xp or not. Wow!
Redhat Linux and of course linux, have a very small user base. So not much QA can be done before it is let out the door. Every possilbe chipset/mb+cpu+memory etc combinations can not be tested fully. But it does seems very isolated (I hope so). But does this post really deserve a space in OS News? It is after all a Red Hat review (and a Red Hat issue) and the author failed to try to get support from Red Hat even though he paid for the OS. Red Hat might have easily resolved the issue, instead of going up on an IRC channel to get help.
It damages the reputation of Red Hat Linux, as Red Hat might have been able to solve it for him, and he never gave them the chance. If he really did wanted to so badly to quit windows and use linux, that was the most logical thing to do. Sorry, but it is as bad as everyone says it is.
Hi all,
Linux will never a desktop OS as long as XWindow will remain
the root of the GUI.
Check: http://www.art.net/studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-window...
I had the same experience trying to run Linux RedHat 4/5 (
and also debian) on 486/32Mo: Win95 was fully usable while
Linux spent its time swapping to disk...
=> I see that some 4 years and 800Mips later things
haven't changed
Regards,
Nogfx.
PS: If you wanna see a really responsive OS, just try
AmigaOS or one of its clone:
-MorphOS: www.morphos.de PowerPC AmigaOS binary compatible OS
-AROS: Open-Source AmigaOS rewrite for x86
www.aros.org
I'm not going to read all the way through the forum because there's over a hundred messages, but I noticed a few people saying that a 400/500mhz is not enough speed to run any modern OS (and challenged the person to try XP). I have XP running on an AMD K6-2 400mhz (okay DOES have 290+mb RAM), 4gb hard drive, 8mb Matrox Mystique (2D-only), etc. It runs *fine*. In fact after being so impressed I'm thinking of seeing if it will run on my dad's 300mhz PII. Obviously this machine won't be running Grand Theft Auto 3, but for web-based stuff (like the article author was looking to do) it's totally acceptable.
I plan on trying Red Hat 8.0 at some point. However, I don't hold out hope for it ... I've been trying Red Hat distro's since 5 and still have yet to keep it around for more than a week. But that's fodder for flame and another article!
When I try to install RedHat 8.0, I have to do the
boot= linux askmethod
for anything to be displayed, I have tried the 'linux lowres' and still no picture appear.
When I do the 'askmethod' install it *stops* after I set the keyboard to 'en'.
What should I do:
I have a PIII-450
256 RAM
Riva TNT2 graphics card
Neil, Red Hat 8 is decidedly different from the past. It looks like you have enough processor power, RAM and disk space for it. This one's worth a try.
juste disable theming, it should improove your desktop experience
at least under KDE.
maybe you can try a lighter distribution, like Slackware.
> This is obviously a case of some sort of misconfiguration > on your system. There is no way in hell you'll convince
> me this is normal behavior. Check to make sure that
> your "hostname" is listed in your /etc/hosts file, or
You are right, I configured correctly the host and domain name and now Terminal opens in less than 2 seconds, it's much better, but after running some apps, RH8 starts getting slow again, but not as much as before (I've enough memory, so it's not a disk trashing problem).
Thanks for the tip! I'd had never figured out that such thing would slow down the whole machine.
> Uh, nobody's default Mozilla is antialiased. Nobody
> claimed it would be. To install True Type fonts, all you
Yes, I was just expecting it to be antialised by default because almost all the other apps I tried out had antialiased text.
> have to do is dump them in a ".fonts" directory in your
> home directory. That's all.
Thanks ... 1 less trip to google
that not true that you can't run newer os on older computer
i have a pIII intel celeron 400mhz and i run win xp on it , the only application that run slow (take 1 or 2 min to load) it Vs.Net so don't tell me that older computer can run new os that only mean that linux is'nt good as it's should be to be called an operating system
that not true that you can't run newer os on older computer
i have a pIII intel celeron 400mhz and i run win xp on it , the only application that run slow (take 1 or 2 min to load) it Vs.Net so don't tell me that older computer can run new os that only mean that linux is'nt good as it's should be to be called an operating system
I've upgraded three Linux machines to 8.0 and had previously installed null (the last 8.0 beta) on another one. The perforamnce of each machine is markedly quicker than with its previous 7.2 or 7.3 version of Linux. The machine on which the beta was installed was a 400MHz Pentium II w/256M memory. Mozilla takes fifteen seconds or so to start on that machine (which I consider to be a very long time), but overall the machine was very usable. I did not have to do any tweaking to get this performance.
This is just my anecdotal experience, your mileage may vary.
PS... Disabling font smoothing might improve performance a bit on slower machines. Use the Preferences->Font control.
Ok, I am a new to Linux, but I have installed every mandrake since 8.2 both on a laptop and 2 desktops (read Mandrake9 beta1,2..Rc1,2,3) All have worked ok yes, there have been problems but all important functions worked. I installed it with win2000 and winxp. Then I wanted to try Red Hat so I downloaded 7.3 and installed it on my 1G PIII, ups after install I booted up and all I got was a lot of 99 across the screen. After a repair of XP it was the same, a lot of 99 across the screen. Then I installed Mandrake 9 final, and wopty, I got my XP back.
Then I tried to install Red Hat 7.3 on my other desktop(intel P3 450mhz, asus p2b-f, gforce200mx, intel pro100 netcard) I installed on a clean HD. All I got was error when the installer wanted to start anaconda, and a kind ask for reboot. And it is the same with RedHat 8.0. A try on my other desktop with the same hd, all vent well!!!.
So now I can test RH8, and it looks nice, better than mandrake, but the fonts is still not clear, my eyes get tiered, this and this rpm shit(sorry but I am not English, and this was the only word I could think of) is in my opinion the to biggest problems in getting Linux to the public. Why can I not get an “EXE” file and just install it, I can not understand this, could someone not tell me?
I have made come Microsoft vc++ programs and to be sure all can run them all I need to do is to make a static link to mfc dll’s and all is included in the exe file. Why is it not possible in linux?
Run black box as a window manager, it is QUITE fast. I use it for web, irc, ssh, and php.
I think your real problem is code bloat. Linux and *BSD used to run great on 8MB RAM systems including X. Of course we didn't have all the bells and whistles that we do today.
Rather than full Red Hat try a more minimal distribution and don't install anything you don't need. My best computer is a P166 MMX machine with 128 MB RAM. It is no barn-burner but by carefully selecting what I install it is useable. Instead of Gnome or KDE I installed Xfce. Xfce is very useable and much smaller and faster than the larger alternatives. I'm running Gentoo which allowed me to only install the bare minimum on my system. For a web browser I'm using Mozilla. Mozilla is not fast on my system but it is fairly useable once it finally loads (takes a few minutes). I installed OpenOffice but truthfully it is not useable. I have been using TeX/Latex for word processing/typesetting. TeX runs fine but I don't think any WYSIWYG type program would run adequately on my setup.
Think small is good.
I think all Linux users need to take a step back from being zelots. I have a 750mhz ThinkPad with 192meg normally running XP (which flies along).. Having tried RedHat 7.3, 8.0, Suse 8.0, OpenBSD (which ran faster than any of the linux distros) and now testing Lycoris on it, Linux is just plain slow. You hear people saying to recompile this, modify this etc. The fact is, no desktop user should have to do anything like this.. It should just work. Here at work we have win2k running on old PII300 with 128meg ram and its very usual. Install any linux distro and the same machine and its like watching everything in slow motion
I installed redhat 8 on my athlon xp and it flew, everything loaded brilliantly, instant response. I then installed it on a celeron 500 laptop and it still ran not too bad. I dont know what you were doing, but you sure stuffed it up. RedHat may be a bit bloated when it comes to Gnome or KDE, but by gingo it is still dam good.
well you just dont know how to configure it properly. If you cant install a redhat or suse out of the box on a 750mhz thinkpad (unless it is a 750 celeron in which case its crap) and make it run quick something is wrong. I could install redhat 7.2 on a pentium 2 266 with 128mb ram and it was like a dream. Saying that linux is just plain slow is a pretty big call on your part. What you should really say is "i like a micro$soft os that doesnt bug me to tweak anything and does whatever it wants". And if a desktop user does not want to recomplile anything or modify any settings then they do not deserve to use linux.
Thats my 2 cents.
See mathew, you have just proved the point about linux users. Any neagtivity against linux, and you blame people for not knowing how to do things right. Since my back ground is with Solaris & CISCO, i dont think i'm your average user and dont know what i'm doing.
I have 3 identical systems. (Pentium2 266 128mb ram, riva tnt2, 10GB Hdd ) one has win2000, one has red hat 7.3 and the last one has win98SE. The linux box is by far the fastest, and most stable The only problem I have ever had is that I can't get the open GL drivers for the Riva to work properly. I run KDE and have nothing but praise for it.All the apps load within a few seconds and it is my primary internet connection ( I run it as a proxy for the other 2 ) I would change all the boxes to Linux if I could ( unfortunantly I need the win2000 box to run 3D studio Max, Bryce, Flash, fireworks, and dreamweaver as I am a web designer and my wife like win98 cause it's what she's used to although she's coming round )
The next fastest ( and not too far behind either ) is win2000 although it is no where near as stable as Linux. By far the slowest box is the Win98 one, it is also the most unstable.
I hope this helps
Brian Delaney
Try doing a command line top and see what's hogging your resources. It's probably something not configured properly because the person devoting his own time to helping write linux code didn't taylor Redhat 8 for a celeron 500a laptop. This "review" is a plead for help.
I'm posting this message from a PII 450 running Red Hat 8.0 using the default Gnome desktop. Not only is it running decently fast, it's running close to the same speed as Win XP which is also installed on this computer.
Of course I could be wrong
I have RH 7.3 running on a Celeron and it smells like roses my dear friends! Just try to install it again!
I installed Redhat twice on my system and was increadibly slow, like a 386. ON AN ATHLON 1.2GHZ!!! Therefore I got the impression that RedHat just sucks. So I never installed it again. Now I use Debian (from a netinstall) which I built up from the bare Debian distro (the net install 30 megs) myself. I run it on a 150 mhz laptop and use IceWM, it runs perfectly fine.
UNIX/Linux Operating Systems graphical interfaces are not only a GUI. There is an X server that is running in the background which takes up a lot of computer resources. X server is a wonderful thing to have and use, but it is not used by most new UNIX/Linux desktop users. This is why the 'GUI' is slow. For more information on X http://www.x.org/
Mandrake is only a fraction slower than win98. Its is infinitely more stable. Windows is almost unusable. However, Linux is still more difficult to configure than M'soft windows but manageable. I dual boot, but almost never use the windows partition. Also, M'drake 9.0 is much faster than 8.2.
To those saying "run windows on the same hardware, you'll get the same crappy performance": I run Windows 2000 on a Pentium (1) 100MHz. 1..0..0..MHz. With 128 megs of RAM, and not much else in terms of hardware. And... it runs fine. It's responsive. I can surf the web. I can edit text and even run Word with no problems...
SO HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE KEEP SAYING THAT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS LINUX INSTALL???
Get over it, some Micro$oft products work well for 'normal' users.
1) this lozier really doesn't "have much experience using Linux on the desktop" and it shows
2) you "CAN get away from Windows98" but nobody said it would take zero % mental effort
in the meantime, Windows98 is a perfect place for you !
Moby, You are the kind of person who gives Linux a bad name and stops Windows users from sparing any 'mental effort' in the first place.
Linux isn't easy and it's not going to be so for quite some time. If you managed to get it running 'well' on your system then give yourself a pat on the back and help those wishing to migrate but don't post pointless rants that only show your mental age.
This a little OT but I thought discussions were limited to 250 posts ?
I had a super slow mandrake 9 install that would take as long for windows to popup as what you're going through. Here's what may be wrong.
My hostname was blah.2y.net and I specified it during the install, however that domain didn't yet resolve to my local machine (it actually never will, since I'm behind a nat router) so when it would try to start applications it would contact the socket, you guessed it, blah.2y.net which didn't work. So applications would have to wait for the dns to time out. Adding a line like: "127.0.0.1 blah.2y.net" into /etc/resolv.conf fixed it and now applications are speedier than ever.
I'd try this before you continue to slam a distro (I was having the problem with slowness and I joined the mandrake support channel and someone had helped me fix it within 2 minutes)
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This is a reasonable review for a Linux newbie. (Which the author states that s/he is.) Windows people want a GUI, heck - most people want a GUI. Perhaps RH is not an appropriate distro for new users (as in we/they want it all working easily), but the review/editorial makes good points.
On a 500Mhz Celeron, with only 64 MB Ram, RH 8 works fine. The GUI is admittedly slow(er) than if I had more RAM, but it's still usable. Even while running 72 Processes, including Apache 2.0.40 for intranet page serving, it's good. Seems the author was biased against linux or RH to begin with. But that's just my opinion.
I mean - I wish Linux was more accessible. The sooner it just installs and works the sooner it will start getting widespread uptake. It's not about Windows v the world... it's about automation of low level configuration. Normal people just don't want to do that stuff.
The slowness problem is almost certainly fixed by doing :
/sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
I installed it on my laptop Mobile Pentuim (1) 266 and it blazes. Something is wrong with your machine. Either your video drivers are being detected or selected incorrectly or the network card isn't working or something. Hmmmm.....
Did you enable all 4 lines in /etc/sysconfig/harddisks ? If not, you'll never get dick for performance. Those 4 lines come commented for safety and maximum compatiblity.
They are:
USE_DMA=1
MULTIPLE_IO=16
EIDE_32BIT=3
LOOKAHEAD=1
Needless to say, without DMA, lookahead and 32bit disk access, your machine will run like crap.
>> Why don't you install Windows XP on these computers
>
>I have most of my OSes on a dual Celeron 533, and XP is fastest than all (except maybe BeOS on most cases, but not all).
>I installed Mandrake 9.0 yesterday. It is as slow as the >other of my Linuxes under KDE on that specific, and it is >even now compiled with GCC 3.2. I don't know why. WinXP >works just fine on that machine. And I have 4 more >Linuxes there, and they are all slower than XP. And BeOS >of course.
Have you ever considered turning off some un-needed services? Slackware and SuSE ship with virtually all network services disabled and get a pretty decent performance improvement because of it. If you want a comparable experience in XP, turn on the Personal Web Server and all of the network daemons. After your system has started to crawl, take another look at disabling services that aren't needed (APMD if you aren't using a laptop, Apache and so forth) and THEN give it another go.
I would also make sure that you are using 32-bit Disk I/O. That can also potentially improve things. The reason that it is not turned on by default by most distros is because they want to be as backward compatible with older hardware as possible. Your DMA flag for disk access may also need to be turned on.
All of these suggestions speed up a default Linux install significantly.
I have installed RedHat 8.0 on a 266 Mhz laptop with 64 Meg of Ram, and for the most part I am impressed. Mind you, I am a very experienced Linux user, but even my wife has been impressed. We've given up on using this piece of hardware with any thing else but Linux.
In many ways RedHat 8.0 is faster than the previosu 7.3. That said, there is a certain period of use required to "stabalize" performance. A process named UPDATEDB consumes an inordinate amount of clock cycles, for each environment change encountered. Once that process runs its course, overall performance matches any of the earlier Windows versions on this hardware.
Hardware misconfigurations will wreak havoc on any operating system. All versions of Windows will "lock up" if any of its necessary network connections are lost (whether hardware related or not). This is an issue that needs to be addressed better by ALL OS vendors.
For those who are looking at taking the leap to Linux, be assured that there is a large community of users who are willing to help. I recommend that anyone trying a new OS, identify individuals who can be used as a resource for these issues. You will be glad you did. Also, if you purchase a version of RedHat, you get free installation assistance. Take advantage of it. No one can make an installation that is obvious to all. Just recognize that you are not alone.
I had 3GB of free space on my HD so I loaded RH 8. The machine is an old K6-III 450 with 128MB of ram, HD is ata-33. Nothing fancy, it dual boots with win2k pro.
I have been surfing the net with the thing for at least a week and it runs just fine. I don't understand why a Smeleron would run so slow?
Anyway, I have not experienced any of the slowness your talking about. Guess I'm just lucky.
Cya
I've been in the industry since Windows 2.0 and I keep seeing the same mistake, over and over again. Completely clueless people investing into .0 software and expecting perfection. I also note with humour something that goes hand in hand with this, completely clueless people trying to install .0 software on equipment that doesn't meet even the minimum system requirements, as was the case with this person and his laptop.
I haven't played with Redhat 8, but I'm a big fan of 7.2 and 7.3, which does "just work" for me and everyone I know who uses it. I probably won't be purchasing Redhat 8, until at least 8.1. I'm an RHCE and this is what I practice, so you newbies out there would do yourselves and the poor support people who have to deal with your whining and complaining some trouble, and not buy software that has not been tried and tested in the "real world" yet. This isn't just about Linux .0 releases either, ALL software at version .0 is going to have some problems that wasn't caught in testing. There are only so many hours in the day and only so much a human staff of testers can do. That's the reality of software development, you would all do well to set your expectations accordingly.
>The hardware used for the article will not run a MODERN OS at a usable speed.
Hey, I use a celeron 400 and XP works much much faster than linux. So I really think that all of these put-downs in regard to the celeron are way out of line with reality. No I can't play the very latest games, but I can get a lot of decent work donw. And yes, I do prefer Linux even though it is slower for working on the net both for security and personal preferences. I do wish it were faster though. I stay away from both KDE and Gnome and use blackbox which works great. If I have to do any serious editing work, I've about given up working on Linux -- OpenOffice is just simply too damn slow.
I installed RH8 on a Gateway PC with a PIII 500Mhz and 128mb ram. It wouldnt detect my sound card and didnt set up my video card properly either. Once I sorted both those problems out I found the crippled version of KDE to be very sluggish. So I deleted RH8 and installed Mandrake 9. What a dream! It installed real smoothly and detected all my hardware no problem. KDE 3.0.3 also runs really fast, which is what I've come to expect from linux. I havent even re-compiled the kernel yet so I'll be interested to see how much faster it is after that.
Seriously, you run a new OS on a dinosaur computer and cry about it performing poorly? Christ.
RedHat 7.2 and Mandrake 9.0 run just as smooth as silk on this box (which has an 800 mhz proc) but if I stuck it on the junker box (with its 330 MHZ proc) it would run slow as molasses in January. Common sense. The only OS I could see running fast on a slow box like that would be BeOS or any GUI-less OS.
I really don't see how someone can respond to this article by saying that his hardware won't run any modern OS. I am currently using a PII266MHZ, and it runs fine. Gnome 1.4/KDE 3.0 from RedHat 7.2. No problems. Sure, OOffice takes a few seconds to load, but it's not unusable. Something else must be seriously wrong - either with his installation, his hardware og simply his definition of unusably slow. I don't buy the crap of 'YOU CAN'T EXPECT A MODERN OS TO RUN ON YOUR HARDWARE'. That is just not true.
I have RH 7.2 and one time when eth0 crashed, I had the same types of problems you did with eternal loading times. Gnome didn't like the DHCP configuration (I've got a cable modem) and I had to go through a pain-in-the-ass configuration sequence to get it running again. My ultimate solution was to just use Afterstep, which is better for low-RAM machines, and much more configurable. I just have a black desk-top with a pager, and use terminals to run apps. I've configured the keyboard to speed things up. I've yet to see a drawback, and it's more productive for me. It seems to me that RH'S priorities are f***ed up: they should have concentrated on making sure that multimedia and network services run smoothly straight out of the box, office apps boot quickly and produce good fonts, and not on producing some RAM-monster desktop.
On my laptop it blazes and is noticably faster than 7.3. My laptop is a PII-300 with 256 MB RAM and a 6 GB drive.
This is the stock install, no kernel tweaks, no removal of services, nothing. I simply loaded it and it works.
I'm running the stock GNOME 2.0 with OO and Evolution and Mozilla. It rocks, with fast rendering. OO is about as slow as Office 2K to load, but works just fine once loaded.
Dekkard,
AFAIK, laptops are one of the most trickiest computer types to install Linux in. I guess sure most of his problems are related to using a laptop instead of a desktop computer.
Really? Well, bugger me then, because I've installed Mandrake 7.2 and 9.0 on a Compaq Armada M700 laptop with little trouble at all.
In the case of MDK 7.2 the only 2 issues I had was an incorrect identification of the video card (easily corrected at the time of install) and the usual non-functioning Winmodem (fixed after install by going to linmodems.org and getting the Lucent driver). Mandrake 9.0 was even less painfull, having only the Winmodem issue to resolve and the OS installed in less than an hour.
As to Brian's laptop experience with RH 8.0, I'm not at all surprised. Although I don't blame the Celeron (like quite a number here have), I do blame inadequate RAM both in the laptop and on the video card. IMO, RedHat should have also mentioned a bare minimum of an 8M video card as well. There's NO WAY Gnome or KDE is going to run well with only 2.5M of video RAM, period.
I think this review is saying a lot. And most of the the people here are dodging the issue by hiding behind technical jargon.
The fact of the matter is linux contributers have turned a blind eye to usability in favor of more "glorious" pursuits such as raw performace and features. It seems "fastest" X is better than X "that is actually usable by anyone but me" has become the mantra the linux community. In fact, it appears almost everyone's defensive reaction is toward the performace issues, not the fact he broke the installation.
You people need to face up to the fact Linux is design poorly with respect to usability. I would be surprised if usability testing is done at all on most of this stuff. Crash testing, sure. Performance testing, probably. Usability testing? It seems if they did the person doing it should be fired for sucking it up so bad.
Red Hat said they want to capture the desktop market, well they're going to have to do more than just make it look good. People have to be able to accomplish more FASTER and EASIER. A lot of good anti-aliased icons and faster load times are going to do me if I have to spend hours or days reading man pages and coming to these message boards to get anything to friggin work.
I'm just disappointed you people can't figure that much out and I have to write this at the bottom of over 250 totally useless posts.
I track FreeBSD-STABLE on
a pcchips cheapo mobo with a
celeron 366 and 192 meg and a
16 meg ati Xpert agp card
and a 20 gig seagate.
KDE is slow but with windowmaker and its GUI config
I have multiple desktops ,and icon manager and good
responsiveness.
With an ati Rage 128 32Meg card and DRI things are
actually quite snappy.
I had the same slow gui problem (both Gnome & KDE) with Redhat 7.x. After I ran Xconfigurator (or whatever it was called--I can't find it in 8.0), and increased the resolution from 1024x768 to 1280x1024, both gui's were faster than snot! Does this make any sense to anyone???
I do not know if writer of this article gets payed by Microsoft or this is his honest oppinion ? Well, I ran in the past RedHat 7.0 (which is a very bad version) on my laptop Pentium II 300 with 64MB RAM and 3.2 MB hard drive. I was using GNOME and KDE. And I have never noticed anything slow about them. Windows 98 is much slower on my Celleron 800 desktop (with 128MB RAM) and craches all the time, than Linux on my Laptop (PII 300). TWM is a very nice windoe manager by the way.
Cheers.
from people who seem to be imitating the old joke about Microsoft tech support and lightbulbs. Maybe it should be re-written to linux zealots:
Q: How many Linux zealots does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We have an exact copy of the light bulb here, and it seems to be working fine. Can you tell me what kind of system you have? Okay. Now exactly how dark is it? Okay, there could be 4 or 5 things wrong ...have you tried the
light switch?
Just because it works fine on your box, doesn't mean it does on theirs, or that they have set anything up 'incorrectly'. Maybe it's just me, but when out of the box on a clean install the OS doesn't work right without sitting there pouring through various tweaks, it simply is not ready for use on the average persons machine.
I very happily run both Gnome and KDE (RH7.3) on a 500MHz Pentium III (Dell Dimension L500r) but I've got 256MB of RAM. Memory is stil cheap. Instead of crying about how slow everything runs, why not invest in some SIMMS and see what everyone else has been enjoying.
The person that did the review had no idea about the memory requirements of the applications that were being run.
Linux, with a window manager like fvmw runs very well on a machine with only 64 MB of RAM, in fact the linux kernel 2.4.x only needs 16 MB to run without X.
Linux can be run as an X terminal and for that it only needs 16 MB of RAM as a bare minimun.
Of course if you run the very latest desktops like KDE, or GNOME you will need the amount of RAM that Red Hat recommends or more, RH recommends 192 MB of RAM, I would recommend at least 256 MB, and this person has only 64 MB not even close to the recommended amount of RAM, that is the reason everything run so slow for the person that did the review.
win 98 is 4 years old, you can not compare something powerfull uptodate with something that is really old, even then RH runs a lot faster than win98 if you select a window manager like twm, or fvwm that uses very little memory.
I have 2 linux machines, plus a few linux terminals.
In the terminals I can run RH 7.3 with as litle as 12 MB or RAM.
Currently I am running RH 7.2 using mozilla on a pentium I 233, and it runs fine, I use fvwm on that machine, with 96 MB of RAM and it works fine.
On my other machine a K6-3 400Mhz I use RH 7.3, enlightment for window manager and gnome for desktop with 256 MB ram it works fine.
The other flaw in the review, is that Gnome and KDE are not window managers, they are desktop managers, and if you do not have a lot of ram you simply do not need to run a desktop manager.
fvmw, twm, gwm, enlightment, sawfish, etc are window managers.
In fact you can run X without a window manager at all, of course a window manger makes life a lot easier.
In the review there is no distiction between a desktop manager and a window manager.
What I can tell from the review, this was not a person that knew linux, or did not bother to check the memory requirements, and did not notice how bad the OS was swapping, the disk light was probably permanently on.
Believe me, I been using linux since 1992, first SLS, then yggdrasil, then slackware, then caldera, then Red Hat, then suse, and currently Red Hat, and I can assure you linux is a lot faster than windows, only on very specific situactions windows could be faster, but in general linux is a lot faster. I contributed to the original bogomips-minihowto by benchmarching a 486dx150, the fastest 486 ever.
I used to run linux on a 386-20 with X, and it worked fine.
When someone tells you linux is slow, that is bull shit, take my word for it.
LPI certified linux consultant. www.consultorlinux.com
I swear, all of you idiot's that complain about Linux being slow and Linux not doing what you want it to do... If you would take as much time as you waste complaining about Gnome or KDE (NOT Linux!! This is software written to run on Linux and other Unix like OS's as well) and read a little, you'd soon realize how damn ignorant you guys sound... I'm sitting here reading some of these comments and your main problem is you all simply think Windows is the standard for Operating Systems. You have to give up that idea. Unix was out there long before Windows. If you want Windows, stay with it. You're not going to get a Windows OS from a Linux distrobution. If you want a real OS, try Linux or other Unix.
Secondly, stop whinning about how "it doesn't work". It does work and works for millions of users that know what they're doing. It doesn't work for you because you are too ignorant to use google.com to view a few FAQ's. Hell, I have to read more FAQ's on Windows shit than I do on Unix. Why? Because Windows crashes on me so many times I have to find workarounds or hacks to fix all of the mistakes... It's like you people forget there is a world of free knowledge out there.
However, if you're expecting high powered and great stability from Red Hat, that is your first problem. Red Hat strives to be like Microsoft in every sense of the statement. I personally use Slackware. While this isn't as user friendly as Red Hat, I have NEVER had any of the problems you people talk about. It took me 30 minutes to read about fdisk to partition my system for Slackware, then run 'setup' and everything else was common sense if you are "computer literate" as the person described above. The think that helped me out more was that I didn't whine when things didn't go as expected and I didn't think Linux was trying to be like Windows. You have to understand, Windows was written to be like Unix and they failed miserably. Unix was the standard back when Apple and Microsoft started. You have to have the open mind to believe that you are going forward to a new domain where computers work how you tell them to. If you fuck something up, you fuck it up... You don't get programs overwriting your mistakes. What if you meant to make that mistake and it overwrites it like all of the pretty little MS programs do? I hate that shit... I want it to do what I tell it to when I tell it to and how I tell it to... This is Unix. Fast, Efficient, Stable...
Now, my point to this rant:
Shut up, Quit whinning.
Open your mind a bit more...
Use resources like google.com
If you don't know how to use google.com stop where you are now and go back to mowing lawns. If you do know how to use google.com yet you don't want to bothered with it, stop where you are now and go back to taking your ADD medication and making excuses for your pathetic ignorance. (Piece of advice; ADD is just and excuse for you being stupid... Politically correct as it were. You're taking sugar pills which create a placebo effect to your ignorant mind... You're really stupid, not Attention Deficient.)
See all this hub-bub? People are starting to care more and more about the Linux on the desktop. Momentum is gathering.
Sure, JoeAttentionDeficit still can't perform a clean install. But at the current rate of improvements, he soon will be able to.
I, for one, am VERY impressed with RH8.0.
Stay tuned Dorks.
...quite well on old hardware. I've got Windows XP running on a 166 mHz AMD. Of course it has a lot of RAM, but regardless, it works. I am sure that Linux could be installed on it, but why?
XFree86 is in IMHO always _a_bit_ slower than the Windows GUI. Can't be helped. But if you have a 64 MB machine, you settle for a lightweight Window Manager, such as blackbox.
I've used a few distros, but Gentoo is the closest I've ever seen to perfection. It will be optimized for your CPU, and it will not start servers and stuff at startup unless you ask for it, even if they are installed.
Dang, five more messages, it would be a OSNews record. Now, this article is no longer on the front page...
This is my two cents worth.I'm a long time MDK user. Last week I tried RH 8 on a ATHLON 900MHZ,256MB RAM, 32MB RIVA TNT2, 7200RPM 40GB HDD. It was horribly sluggish. Dissapointed, I caught hold of the Mandrake 9.0 - perfect ..everything was snappy. What was the problem on RH 8 ??? Faulty detection of H/W ? UN-optimized Kernel ? Beats me, but I'm staying with Mandrake 9.0
I said:
"Toshiba 2595CDT is NOT a computer but a piece of overpriced garbage, an ENRON of of PC industry! WorldCom of PC industry as we all agree was COMPAQ!"
You argue:
"Toshiba makes very good laptops, one of the best PC laptops around. Compaq also makes very good computers. I'm willing to trade my HP for my brother's Compaq Evo any day (even if the Evo is cheaper and have less specs), and yes, both are bought pre-merger."
COMMENT: Toshiba was class action sued and settled for U$2 Billion dollars.
"
Daily News
Toshiba Settles With Feds Over Substandard Computers
By Ian Stokell
October 17, 2000
Toshiba Corp. has settled with federal agencies for selling them substandard computers, to the tune of $33.5 million. However, law enforcement officials are still reportedly investigating other major computer manufacturers for doing the same thing.
The Wall Street Journal reported that most of the $33.5 million will come from a $2.1 billion private class-action suit, settled in November, involving the same issues.
The WSJ said that at the time of the November settlement, no financial or legal claims were made by the government, but now the Justice Department points to the problems as being obvious "defects" that "cheat taxpayers and subject Toshiba to federal penalties."
The WSJ added that instead of pursuing a separate civil case against Toshiba, the Justice Department decided it was best to be compensated under the terms of the earlier accord, and that the latest settlement signals the extent of the federal government's concern over the computer problems.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/technology ."
http://www.computeruser.com/news/00/10/17/news5.html
Now there is seond class action. So Toshiba must be really GOOD! As far as COMPAQ I personally have OUT of COURT agreement and settlement with COMPAQ with FULL REFUND for seklling CRAP and defective PC designs. This was to avoid lawsuit as that is what I asked, or I was ready to file class action against COMPAQ.
To avoid bancrupcy Class Action against COMPAQ
http://www.hagens-berman.com/html/courtdoc-compaq1-settlementnotice...
http://securities.stanford.edu/news-archive/2002/20020705_Settlemen...
http://members.aol.com/CClass450/index.htm
was one of the reasons COMPAQ seeked merger with HP.
So both TOSHIBA (I bot 7 of them if I recall now corectly - all returned) and COMPAQ as you THE EXPERT said must be top quality.
Next time try a real PC!
If you do not know what you are talking about stay restrained from any comments out of your intellectual capacity. There is a reason that COMPAQ (ComCrap) was called Peesario!
YOU CAN learn more how good CCOMPAQ was/is on http://www.compaqsucks.com .
I said:
How long one can tolerate windows 9x ME the most viewed Blue Screen of Death?
You replied:
"Than use Windows 2000/XP for crying out load!"
YES I AM using Windows 2000 PRO with sp3 with IE 6.0.0.2800.1106 and compatibility patch 2.6
Why are you speculating not knowing the facts?
I said:
Here we go again you are on another Celeron! This time also with 128 MB RAM, not enough to run efficiently any windows. Remind you you need at least 256 MB ram to run ANY Windows!
You replied:
"Windows 98 DON'T need 256MB. Let me repeat that for you: WINDOWS 98 DON'T NEED 256MB. Windows XP needs that much to be usable, but NOT WINDOWS 98, which the author uses. Since the author didn't tell what version of Win98 he is using, I'm guessing the first one, so it is 4 years old. 4 years ago, 256MB of RAM is as rare as 1GB of RAM nowadays."
COMMENT:
You do not know to much about Windows or even Linux! I have over 1000 installations of WINDOWS 95/98/NTsp6a/2000PRO sp3/Windows XP. Why windows 95/98/NT/2000 will run with less than 256RAM it performance is sluggish to degree that one can not use PC. Here I strongly disagree with you.
You can use minimum of 16 MB RAM on Win95. In 1996 8MB RAm was going for U$ 500, so they shrunk the requirments to sell PCs. To run Windows optimized anything less than 128 MB RAM is wate of bites and bytes.
To run any previous version effectively you need at least 256MB RAM or you are dragging behind OS.
If you are using PC as word processor you can be satisfied. I am using more powerful professional applications and I am not willing to wait 2 weeks for results of computations.
cont.
I said:
"Try Linux on a real CPU and not Celeron!"
You replied:
"LOL, I have use Celeron 400MHz for 2 years, it is sufficient to run Linux at speeds a thousand times what the author claims. Celeron is not the problem here, OpenOffice.org won't get slowed down to 5 minutes startup with a small cache.
What bout some proof, ma'am?"
COMMENT: the fact that you are using Celeron can only sumarise your knowledge about CPUs. Celeron was developed to keep cost down and profits high, and NOT with consideration for performance. If you are on celeron you are runing marginal operations and not "real" applications. If you are using PC as word processor only than you may be totally satisfied. Intel tried to screw all by introducing Celeron just to survive marginal profits on chip war with AMD.
Intro of Celeron was one of the biggest errors ever made in Intels history! Using Celeron is like driving race car on flats!
Why trying to save $ 100 on $ 2000 hardware to run on it less effectively $ 30,000 single piece of software! That is a pure lunacy.
I said:
"It for sure outperformed Windows 2000 PRO which I selected as the best OS ever released by WinTel Mafia."
you replied: "With that amount of RAM, *prrf*, obviously."
COMMENT: While you are farting others do use PCs!
If I am spending U$ 50,000 on PCs it is not for web browsing as you do. You could as well use WEB TV and be fully satisfied.
I said:
"Hardware should be certified to run all OSs (Windows and LINUX at least), but we should be NEVER forced to buy hardware with pre-loaded OS we don't want or need."
You replied:
"When you go out and choose your hardware, you HAVE A CHOICE NOT TO BUY A PC BUNDLED WITH WINDOWS! There are plenty of Linux-only OEMs, like Pogo Linux. You have the ultimate power as a consumer: not to buy a machine with Windows. If you buy a machine with Windows, both bitch about it.
Also, both bitch about the hardware not being compatible with Linux. Wanna buy a Linux-compatible system? Find an OEM that does support Linux, or choose your hardware wisely. What you are asking is similar to asking all OEMs motherboards must be compatible with Intel's and AMD's processors."
COMMENT: I have NOT asked you what EULA said. You are hallucinating if you believe what you've typed. I built my own systems and I do not need to buy retail crap. I can NOT however built QUALITY LAPTOP and must buy TOP QUALITY laptop with preinstalled Microsoft Crap just to reformat hard disk drive and made my own installation.
I am choosing my hardware wisely and do not need to be told by a high school drop out what and how to do.
I said:
"Selling any hardware with preloaded OS against our will shall be considered nothing else but predatory monoplolistic criminal act of felony and FRAUD!"
You replied:
"No. It is completely legal and ethical. The hardware comes with the software. Don't want the software? Don't buy the hardware for crying out loud. It is like crying foul when Nissan dumped the V5 engine for the V6.
Stop acting stupidly. You have the ultimate power of a consumer, not to buy the fucking hardware."
COMMENT: No it is NOT legal and ethical. Not giving buyers choices is a power of MONOPOLY. US AG shall investigate such fraudulent EXTORTION and put Microsoft on trail for extortion. Idiots like you will always be satified with the breakfast on a floor matt in front of the house of the platonic ex lover.
The bundling of OS with hardware without giving customer a CHOICE to buy it without, or a transaction with strings attached is illegal and violates consumers rights to free choice (Monopoly). Looks like you do not know to much about consumer rights and law.
I said:
"When running WINDOWS you must BUY extra software. When buying RedHat 8 Linux you get around 1000 softwares free with this distribution."
"Right now, in my mind, you are a Slashdot troll. You are just one step from being a Usenet troll."
"Most of that "1,000" application have similar capablities as most freeware on Windows (try http://www.download.com ot http://www.tucows.com bud)"
COMMENT: In my mind you are on drugs when expressing anecdotal unsupported by facts your own OPINION.
When I go trolling I use a power boat. There is plenty of shareware for Microsoft. For majority of shoddy software you still have to pay. Take a walk to PC store and look at the shelfs. Wonder how much software you've stollen ar bootleged. Leave testimony to EXPERTS and do not rattle with your biased opinions not supported by any facts.
to be cont.
I said:
"Do not try now to screw GUI LINUX in retaliation because you were screwed by WinTel mafia."
cont.
You rant:
"Don't screw Microsoft and Windows in retaliation because you were screwed by the biased press."
COMMENT: Press doesn't run my PCs, I do. Dissatisfaction with Microsoft software is well known. FBI, US DOD, NOAA, NASA, IRS, GA, all well characterised Microsoft quality of OS and its security. I do not need to express my opinion here.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/1999/fcw_6171999_crap.asp
"The Pentagon's top information technology official sharply criticized, in the plainest possible language, the quality of software that IT contractors currently supply to the Defense Department.
"The quality of software we're getting from vendors today is crap," said Art Money, senior civilian official, who is acting as assistant secretary of Defense for command, control, communications and intelligence.
"Vendors are not building quality in," Money said today at the GovTechNet International Conference in Washington, D.C. "We're finding holes in it."
DOD buys hundreds of millions of dollars worth of software each year, including everything from shrink-wrapped packages designed to run on the desktop to customized systems running millions of lines of code.
The quality of much of the software that DOD is receiving is so poor, Money said, that he is worried about the future of the U.S. software industry. Money predicted that if the U.S. software industry does not get its act together, it could suffer the same fate as the U.S. automobile manufacturing industry, with software sales moving offshore to Japan, for example."
http://www-datadmn.itsi.disa.mil/dqpaper.html
Instead of reading Microsoft dispatches read professional literature.
http://www.nipc.gov/warnings/assessments/2001/01-028.htm
http://www.nipc.gov/warnings/advisories/2001/01-030-2.htm
http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Advisories/AD20011220.html
You further rattle:
"One step away from Usenet troll.....
Anyway, replying to this extreemely trollish comment pretty much replies to most of the other comments. Have a good day."
COMMENT:
"If you do not know who you are and what you do your comments can quickly disclose how childlish and uneducated you are while posting your trash.
Next time tink before replying as BRAINLESS people have nothing interesting to say! You make ONCE fool out of yourself that may be coincident. You repeat the "evidence" the label will follow you for ever."
I am just giving you some examples I have MORE, no time to post them all ...
If you DO not know who I am be careful as I may be an expert who may shread you in an instance and you will shrink very fast like your penis taking bath in cold water. I am just trying to be as polite as I can under the circumstances ... after reading a piece of your fucken crap posted on this forum.
As you've demonstarted those who know the least always craw the loudest.
http://www.hoise.com/primeur/00/articles/monthly/AE-PR-05-00-48.htm...
http://www.hoise.com/primeur/01/articles/live/AE-PL-06-01-2.html
While we are talking here about the NEW Linux Psyche 8 DESKTOP usage Linux is well established and does not need any trolling:
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy73332.000/hsy73332_...
If you do not understand the functions of stacks, L2 an pipelines in CPU how you can understand what is right or wrong, good or bad ... Hard to rationalise with one who doesn't know what logic is.
My suggestion go back to school and learn first about analytical thinking and do not pound dead horse, it can not run any more!
Red Hat Linux 8.0
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/
Swap space in Linux is used when the amount of physical memory (RAM) is full. If the system needs more memory resources and the physical memory is full, inactive pages in memory are moved to the swap space. While swap space can help machines with a small amount of RAM, it should not be considered a replacement for more RAM. Swap space is located on hard drives, which have a slower access time than physical memory.
Swap space can be a dedicated swap partition (recommended), a swap file, or a combination of swap partitions and swap files.
The size of your swap space should be equal to twice your computer's RAM, or 32 MB, whichever amount is larger, but no more than 2048 MB (or 2 GB).
Reducing Operating System Overhead
In order to reduce operating system overhead, you will have to look at your current system load, and determine what aspects of it result in inordinate amounts of overhead. These areas could include:
Reducing the need for frequent process scheduling
Lowering the amount of I/O performed
Do not expect miracles; in a reasonably-well configured system, it is unlikely that you will see much of a performance increase by trying to reduce operating system overhead. This is due to the fact that a reasonably-well configured system will, by definition, result in a minimal amount of overhead. However, if your system is running with too little RAM for instance, you may be able to reduce overhead by alleviating the RAM shortage.
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/admin-prime...
The diference between Celeron and CPU with Cache L2:
Cache Memory
The purpose of cache memory is to act as a buffer between the very limited, very high-speed CPU registers and the relatively slower and much larger main system memory — usually referred to as RAM[1]. Cache memory has an operating speed similar to the CPU itself, so that when the CPU accesses data in cache the CPU is not kept waiting for the data.
Cache memory is configured such that, whenever data is to be read from RAM, the system hardware first checks to see if the desired data is in cache. If the data is in cache, it is quickly retrieved, and used by the CPU. However, if the data is not in cache, the data is read from RAM and, while being transferred to the CPU, is also placed in cache (in case it will be needed again). From the perspective of the CPU, all this is done transparently, so that the only difference between accessing data in cache and accessing data in RAM is the amount of time it takes for the data to be returned.
In terms of storage capacity, cache is much smaller than RAM. Therefore, not every byte in RAM can have its own location in cache. As such, it is necessary to split cache up into sections that can be used to cache different areas of RAM and to have a mechanism that allows each area of cache to cache different areas of RAM at different times. However, given the sequential and localized nature of storage access, a small amount of cache can effectively speed access to a large amount of RAM.
When writing data from the CPU, things get a bit more complicated. There are two different approaches that can be used. In both cases, the data is first written to cache. However, since the purpose of cache is to function as a very fast copy of the contents of selected portions of RAM, any time a piece of data changes its value, that new value must be written to both cache memory and RAM. Otherwise, the data in cache and the data in RAM will no longer match.
The two approaches differ in how this is done. One approach, known as write-through cache, immediately writes the modified data to RAM. Write-back cache, however, delays the writing of modified data back to RAM; in this way, should the data be modified again it will not be necessary to undergo several slow data transfers to RAM.
Write-through cache is a bit simpler to implement; for this reason it is often seen. Write-back cache is a bit trickier to implement, as in addition to storing the actual data, it is necessary to maintain some sort of flag that denotes that the cached data is clean (the data in RAM is the same as the data in cache), or dirty (the data in RAM is not the same as the data in cache). It is also necessary to implement a way of periodically flushing dirty cache entries back to RAM.
Cache LevelsCache subsystems in present-day computer designs may be multi-level; that is, there might be more than one set of cache between the CPU and main memory. The cache levels are often numbered, with lower numbers being closer to the CPU. Many systems have two cache levels:
L1 cache is often directly on the CPU chip itself and runs at the same speed as the CPU
L2 cache is often part of the CPU module, runs at CPU speeds (or nearly so), and is usually a bit larger and slower than L1 cache
Some systems (normally high-performance servers) also have L3 cache, which is usually part of the system motherboard. As might be expected, L3 cache would be larger (and most likely slower) than L2 cache. In either case, the goal of all cache subsystems — whether single- or multi-level — is to reduce the average access time to the RAM.
Main Memory — RAMRAM makes up the bulk of electronic storage on present-day computers. It is used as storage for both data and programs while those data and programs are in use. The speed of RAM in most systems today lies between the speeds of cache memory and that of hard drives and is much closer to the former than the latter.
The basic operation of RAM is actually quite straightforward. At the lowest level, there are the RAM chips — integrated circuits that do the actual "remembering." These chips have four types of connections to the outside world:
Power connections (to operate the circuitry within the chip)
Data connections (to enable the transfer of data into or out of the chip)
Read/Write connections (to control whether data is to be stored into or retrieved from the chip)
Address connections (to determine where in the chip the data should be read/written)
Here are the steps required to store data in RAM:
The data to be stored is presented to the data connections.
The address at which the data is to be stored is presented to the address connections.
The read/write connection to set to write mode.
Retrieving data is just as simple:
The address of the desired data is presented to the address connections.
The read/write connection is set to read mode.
The desired data is read from the data connections.
While these steps are simple, they take place at very high speeds, with the time spent at each step measured in nanoseconds.
Nearly all RAM chips created today are sold as modules. Each module consists of a number of individual RAM chips attached to a small circuit board. The mechanical and electrical layout of the module adhere to various industry standards, making it possible to purchase memory from a variety of vendors.
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/admin-prime...