Subject: Re: Performance observation
From: Randy Kramer (rhkramer@fast.net)
Date: Sat Feb 03 2001 - 16:23:33 CST
I'm interested in performance in general. Whats a "PI". If that
doesn't answer the question of which operating system you are using,
which operating system are you using? How much RAM do you have? How
many other programs are "open"?
The rest of this gets progressively off topic, but anyone who's
interested can read it. Comments are welcome, but, as I said, I
recognize it's off topic.
I'm making a subjective comparison of the performance of Windows 95
(with 64 MB of RAM) vs. Linux on boxes with KDE 1.2 or 2.0 and RAM of
31, 47, and 95 MB -- 4 different speed computers, but all using the same
model motherboard, and making a subjective allowance for the varying
processor speed. In all cases, I'm happier with the performance in
Windows. (I'm running a minimum of server processes under Linux (none
until recently, now although I'm running some on one machine, no one is
hitting those servers). Most of the comparison has been based on the
speed of switching between open browser windows (all with pages fully
preloaded). (On Windows I'm using IE5, on Linux either kfm or
konqueror. (Netscape is worse.))
(BTW, the Linux kernels are in the 2.2 series -- two of the boxes are
running Mandrake 7.0, one is running Mandrake 7.2, one is running
Caldera 2.2 (different processor and motherboard, Caldera 2.2 is the
only distro that would install and run "straight out of the box"). I'm
also experimenting with SuSE 7.0 on the 47 MB box. It has kde 2.0 and
the results seem better than kde 1.2 on that box. (kde 1.2 is under
Mandrake 7.0, kde 2.0 is under SuSE 7.0, I haven't tried Mandrake 7.2 on
this box.)
Under Windows with 64 MB RAM I can keep 20 to 30 browser windows open
and switch between them quickly and responsively. (Bigger browser pages
result in a problem with fewer open windows.) Under Linux and kde 1.2,
I experienced a significant slowdown with more than 4 open windows at 31
MB of RAM or 6 windows with 47 MB of RAM. kde 2.0 with 95 MB of RAM
does much better, and with a change in my browsing habits, I can get
good response (including page loading) with up to 30 browser windows
open.
(Difference in browsing habits: In Windows, I view one page, and start
opening other links that I think I want to look at, but keep returning
to the original page to continue reading. When I'm done with that page,
I close that window and start reading the next, following the same
approach. Under Linux with konqueror, there seems to be a lot of
overhead associated with opening a new window, so I try never to close a
window. When I find a link I want to read, I copy and paste it in an
open browser window which I've already read. It's a little more of a
pain, but it lets Linux (under kde) be almost as responsive as Windows.
In Windows I always run the Resource Monitor and pay attention. When it
becomes obvious that I've leaked a significant amount of memory, I close
windows without opening new ones until they are all closed, and then
reboot. With this approach, I was rebooting Windows once every 60 to
160 operating hours and avoiding crashes.)
I'm a newbie to Linux, but I've now made the big jump -- I use Linux
every day. I still use Windows every day for email, until I learn how
to install Netscape 3.0x under Linux (because I share mail directories
with other members of my family who use Navigator 3.0x under Windows).
I was hoping that Linux was the silver bullet. I don't think it is, and
even though I haven't spent much time with GNome, I don't think it's
particularly KDE's problem.
Randy Kramer
Martin Sevior wrote:
>
> On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, Jesper Skov wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, I figured I could use that as a nice excuse to have a look at
> > AbiWord performance, startup time in particular. But I was pleasantly
> > surprised to see AbiWord start up less than a second after being
> > invoked. Very impressive! For small documents there's absolutely no
> > difference between AbiWord and emacs responsiveness.
> >
> > So I've decided to rest my case and look at some bugs instead :)
> >
>
> Open a two page document and scroll....
>
> Martin
> (typing on a 133 Mhz PI at home)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat Feb 03 2001 - 16:28:06 CST