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Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:17 pm
by alex.barylski
AKA Panama Jack wrote:m3mn0n wrote:Principles aside, what have your actual experiences been like?
Well, I have more than one computer. My primary computer is a 3.2ghz Intel system. I have a 400mhz low end desktop with 256 meg of ram. The recommended low end for XP is 300mhz with 128 meg of ram.
Running XP on on the 400mhz system is like wading through a vat of wet concrete. It is slower than snot and it is ALWAYS accessing the swap drive for the littlest thing. It is a 100% pain in the butt to tr
y and do anything on the computer. There is absolutely no way anyone could ever be reasonably productive.
Before I installed XP on the computer I had installed Linux with the KDE desktop and it was blazingly fast in comparison to XP. Plus I could have a number of applications running in the background without the infernally slow disk swapping. BTW, Windows virtual memory system is one of the slowest I have ever seen.
By running XP on my 3.2 gig system it HIDES all of the FLAWS in XP with the extra speed and memory. I would love to switch to another windowed operating system that wasn't such a CPU and RAM hog. But unfortunately for entertainment software I am basically stuck with using Windows. Some of the games I have do include Linux versions but very, very few. If the game manufacturers would start releasing MULTI-SYSTEM DVDs for their games with executables for Windows, Linux and Max then Microsoft would NOT have the stranglehold on entertainment software it currently enjoys.
I would switch in an instant because I would rather have a BLAZING 3.2gig system than mearly a Fast 3.2gig system. Windows XP just holds back the potential of the CPU.
Hmmmm...I've had the opposite experience on my 950Mhz desktop...
I had XP but when I bought a laptop I needed a real XP install so I dropped XP form my desktop and installed that copy on my laptop...the desktop (950Mhz AMD w/ 256+ RAM) now has Ubuntu...
Some operations are faster...typically shell operations...like moving files, unzipping, etc...but over all...it runs drastically slower than XP did...
I figure all the abstractions Ubuntu (Linux?) has is the reason for the slow down...
Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:32 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
2GB of RAM will solve a lot of problems...

.
I can't run XP on my lower end PC - it's close to yours PJ. I do find Linux (a slightly dated Ubuntu) to be a lot faster. Granted I don't have much running in the background and it's reasonably stripped of fluff - but then how do you defluff XP? Maybe Kieran Huggins new thread has something worth checking.
It really is a bit funny to compare XP and Windows 95 in terms of everyday typical user needs. One runs on a whopping 66MHz processor with 8MB RAM, XP requires at least 500MB RAM and a huge processor increase before it runs at some minimal acceptable speed. Maybe Vista's followup will required Quantum Computing...
Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:46 am
by Jenk
Many reg-hacks can be applied for both XP and vista to de-fluff it.
Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:42 am
by AKA Panama Jack
Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:2GB of RAM will solve a lot of problems...

.
Heh heh, how true... I have been able to survive with only 1 gig of ram but two would make things a little easier. How sad is that.
Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:I can't run XP on my lower end PC - it's close to yours PJ. I do find Linux (a slightly dated Ubuntu) to be a lot faster. Granted I don't have much running in the background and it's reasonably stripped of fluff - but then how do you defluff XP? Maybe Kieran Huggins new thread has something worth checking.
Well, the easiest way is to use the Service Manager and disable about half of the active services. Many of them are not needed and quite frankly totally useless memory/CPU wasters. You change them from Manual or Automatic to Disabled. This prevents them from loading. You just have to be careful. If you disable the wrong service Windows XP won't boot.
Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:It really is a bit funny to compare XP and Windows 95 in terms of everyday typical user needs. One runs on a whopping 66MHz processor with 8MB RAM, XP requires at least 500MB RAM and a huge processor increase before it runs at some minimal acceptable speed. Maybe Vista's followup will required Quantum Computing...
Everyone had an idea what was to come with Windows ME. It wouldn't run on a 133 mhz CPU and there really wasn't that much damned difference between it and 98SE. You could run 98SE on a 133 mhz system.
With Vista they threw a million monkeys in a room with computers and after 5 years of random keystrokes they created Vista and it shows.

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:57 am
by daedalus__
There is too much stuff to quote so I am going to simply say what is on my mind.
Oh, how Daedalus ever did love Windows 98 SE.
I can vouch for how much faster I think Ubuntu is than Windows. I recently got Steam working, as I mentioned in my Linux thread. On my server, my latency is lower by 10 (don't ask me how), and I get somewhere around 20-30 more FPS than I did in Windows. I must say, "ROFLORL?!".
I also like the way that there are only 36 seconds in between the time I click the restart button and the time I am back in my web browser and Eclipse, compared to the usual three or four minutes it takes me to do the same in Windows XP.
There are probably more reasons that I know that Ubuntu could run slower, as it did for Hocky, but for this Inspiron 9400, it was a huge improvement.
AKA Panama Jack wrote:a million monkeys in a room
I thought that was what Microsoft was?

</joke> (really though ive never met a microsoft employee that i liked)