Old 486 computer & external CD reader advice needed

[Mike McCarty]

John Wendel wrote:
> 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!

I've never *installed* Windows on any machine I own. This box (2.7GHz
HP/Compaq Presario) I bought with Windows XP "pre-installed". I re-
partitioned and put Linux as an alternate boot. Actually, I almost never
do boot Windows. I do have Windows on three machines I own (2x Win98,
1x WinXP). The machine I use most except for this one runs MSDOS 6.0
w/o any version of Windows.

I've certainly installed and run Windows on other people's machines.

Mike
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