Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

[John Wendel]

Mike McCarty wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 12:48, Mike McCarty wrote:
>>
>>>>> This is a common misconception. Windows is often portrayed as a cycle
>>>>> hog. Since doing benchmarks is one of my hobbies (I dunno why), I have
>>>>> run benchmarks on about a dozen machines I own, with three or on some
>>>>> even five different OS installed. Windows is not a cycle hog.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Until you try to do something... Benchmark the time to create a new
>>>> process on windows vs.about anything else, or the time wasted
>>>> in context switching among them.
>>>
>>>
>>> By far the slowest machine/OS combination I have is Linux (FC2) on
>>> my fastest (2.7GHz) machine. Windows XP on that same machine is
>>> noticeably faster (not just measurably faster).
>>>
>>> As an example, I just "right clicked" on my desktop, and it took
>>> five (5) seconds for the menu to pop up. Selecting "open terminal"
>>> took ten (10) seconds before first prompt. I have no unusual scripts
>>> which run at terminal startup. Windows XP is much faster in starting
>>> a console window.
>>>
>>> I just opened Open Office "Writer Word Processor", and it took
>>> thirty nine (39) seconds to initialize.
>>
>>
>>
>> You are observing disk access time and window creation time,
>> next to nothing to do with CPU time. For a similarly
>> 'look and feel' approach to process creation time, run something
>> like '/bin/echo test' on a virtual console and time it on the 2nd
>> run when the program will be in the disk cache.
> 
> 
> I am aware of what I am measuring. Thanks for the reply.
> 
> My original point stands. Windows is not a cycle hog. Also, my
> second point stands. As far as "until you try to do something",
> Word starts much faster on my machine than does Open Office.
> So do many other apps, like my web browsers. I think this
> qualifies as "creating a new process".
> 
> Mike


Not trying to start a flame war here, but I think your box may have a 
problem. I can start open office writer (1st time, not cached) in 15 
seconds on my 933 Hhz PIII, 512 MB crap box. Of course, 15 seconds is 
way too long! Right clicking the desktop produces an menu in less than 
1 second. You need to find out what's consuming excessive CPU or 
memory, since the bad performance you're seeing is not normal.

I agree with you that XP does seem more responsive than Linux, for 
most desktop applications. They've done a lot of work to improve this 
aspect of their software. I still won't ever install it on any box 
that I own!

Regards,

John Wendel