Performance testing (pass 1)

[Joe]

Stephan Schutter wrote:

>I compared Windows XP and RHL 9 on a Dell Laptop (C610) 
>
>CPU:	1000MHZ
>RAM:	256MB
>
>Software: 
>
>OS:	WinXP			RHL 9
>	Open office		OpenOffice
>	MS Office 2k		MS Office 2k
>	
>
>Software startup times:
>		WinXP		RHL 9
>		  (s)		 (s)
>OS bootup	37		70
>Login		8		21
>
This suggests problems with your setup - just for giggles I checked my 
celeron 1200 and it took all of 8 seconds from login to fully populated 
desktop including gkrellm -

>Def Browser	1		7
>
OK, close, it took 6 seconds for moz to come up for me - but moz has 
never been about quick startup.

>Word 2k		4		6
>Open Office	10		21
>
oo  is slow indeed, and is my main complaint - but I hear SO7 et al are 
much faster at startup

>Def TextEdit	1		3
>
took 1 second here

Your system may need the standard tweaks, the long login time especially 
suggests basic configuration issues.

>
>1. If Open Source writes better software; then why is it fatter and 
>slower?
>
In most cases it is neither fatter nor slower - one might well ask why, 
if windows nt/2k is so efficient, why can it not even boot up on a low 
end system which could be used to run a website, or a 
firewall/dns/dhcp/vpn/router box with linux? on the other hand, desktop 
apps are microsoft's forte, and have been their focus for many years - 
you find it suprising that one of the wealthiest and most fanatically 
driven corporations has been able to make their desktop apps snappy?

One thing that people fail to realize is that X11 is fairly heavyweight 
- it's a complex and sophisticated client/server, network-transparent 
windowing system, whereas on windows you have a simple pc gui: 
single-user, and local-only.  you're not really comparing apples to apples.

Even so, linux desktop performance is not bad, apart from pathological 
cases like yours - and is getting better. Just as all the  server room 
shortcomings were addressed, so now the desktop shortcomings are being 
addressed.

As to your question on whether "anyone at redhat" is interested in 
performance, I'll let them speak to that.

Joe