Re: RH9 Poor performance, stability

From: Zinn (zinn_at_spam.all.people)
Date: 06/17/04 

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 01:33:15 -0600

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 10:00:29 -0500, chrisv wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 03:28:21 -0600, Zinn wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:38:39 -0500, chrisv wrote:
>>
>>> Zinn <zinn@spam.all.people> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Memory Requirements
>>>> This section lists the memory required to install Fedora Core 2.
>>>> Minimum for text-mode: 128MB
>>>> Minimum for graphical: 256MB
>>>> Recommended for graphical: 512MB
>>>>
>>>>So the 192MB quoted by the article as a minimum for graphical was
>>>>wrong. The *minimum* for graphical is 256MB. The recommended is
>>>>512MB.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>To tell you the truth, I'm not only shocked, I'm pissed off. I've
>>>>got to upgrade from 384 fucking megs of memory just to get my Linux box
>>>>to stop swapping and freezing? What in the fucking hell is this?
>>>
>>> Idiot. They almost certainly "rounded up" to 512M, as most machines
>>> have an "even" amount of memory (256M or 512M or 1G).
>>
>>People like you are only interested in reality to the extent that you can
>>fit it into your preconceived world view.
>
> How ironic. By the way, how much memory do most people recommend for XP?
> 512M, I'd say.
>
>>You say, "They almost certainly ..."
>>based at best on a hunch. Hunches are not certainties, or even almost
>>certainties. What's worse is that your real reason for this "almost
>>certainty" is not a desire to understand the truth, but that you want to
>>explain away Linux's shortcomings.
>
> I suppose you think that the number 512M was precisely calculated?
> Obviously not.
>
>>The article I quoted mentioned 192MB
>>of ram, which is a less round number in binary than 384.
>
> No, they are exactly the same "less round".

384 is divisible by 128. 192 is not. That makes 384 rounder in the
sense that matters here. It means that you can get 384MB from 128MB and
256MB modules, while to get 192MB you need a 64MB or smaller module.
128MB and 256MB modules are now much more common than 64MB ones.

>>I use plenty of
>>machines with non-round amounts of ram.
>
> Doesn't refute my point that most are round. Plus, people just like round
> numbers, especially when it makes no sense to precisely calculate the
> "correct" value, in the context of common memory sizes and costs.
>
> True, the minimum requirement stated was a "non round" 192MB, but the
> minimum SHOULD be a more precisely-specified number, as anything below
> that may lead to completely unacceptable performance of the OS. The
> "recommended" amount of memory is a much more nebulous number, depending
> on the individual computer (CPU, HD, etc), what it's running, and the
> expectations of the user.

Minimum ram and "completely unacceptable performance" are just as nebulous
as "recommended," if not more so. For the recommended, you could take
the amount of ram you actually need to run the OS, gui, and a standard
set of apps. This could be calculated fairly precisely. For the
"minimum," it's not clear what you'd consider unacceptable. It's a
question of how much swapping you can tolerate, which is hard to quantify.

>>> There's not much difference between 384 and 512. If 256 is minimum,
>>> and 512 is recommended, 384 will work fine. You can easily tweek the
>>> interface to turn-off some of the eye candy, also.
>>
>>384 is only 75% of 512. It is a significant difference.
>
> It's a very small difference, and you'd know that if you had any clue as
> to how computers work, i.e. virtual memory. It's very unlikely that your
> particular computer usage works "just fine" with 512M but would experience
> significant performance degradation if you had only 384M.

Trying to fit reality to your biases can lead to some strange arguments.
Here you're arguing that Linux's memory management is so wacky that adding
33% more physical memory to your system wouldn't have much effect. If I
posted a new thread titled, "Linux's wacky memory management,"
and I argued that Linux couldn't take advantage of a major 33% increase in
physical memory, you'd probably indignantly respond that what I was
saying was bull*** and a troll.

>>You say, "384 will work fine." That is either your hunch or your wish,
>>but it is not the reality. The reason I started this thread is that my
>>machine, with 384 MB ram, does *not* perform well with Red Hat 9.
>
> Bad logic. If the grass is wet, does that prove that it rained recently?

If you've got a better explanation, post it. Nothing would make me
happier than to get better performance out of my machines.

> I'll note that I'm responding to you now from a RH9/KDE machine which has
> only 256M, and it works fine.

You're one of the only contributors to this thread who claims that you're
getting good results running Gnome or KDE with that little ram. If you
read the other posts, you'll find quite a few that sound like sincere
Linux users who've experienced the same performance problems as I have
running Gnome.

>>When
>>you want to understand something, you do not start with your wishes and
>>try to force them upon reality; you must start with the facts and seek
>>explanations for them as they are.
>
> How ironic.
>
>>The fact is that 384MB does not perform well.
>
> The fact is you're drawing unfounded and incorrect conclusions from your
> (claimed) experience.
>
>>The best explanation I have at this point is that Red Hat 9 and/or Linux
>>and/or Gnome is simply so resource hungry that 384MB is not sufficient.
>
>>Explanations from trolls don't carry much weight.

Go complain to those Fudsters at Slashdot, who ran the article I quoted.
That article states, with greater force than I have, that Linux is
buggier and more bloated than Windows, or indeed any other operating
system that's ever been written. Slashdot thought the article merited
discussion. Maybe they've been bought out by Bill Gates, but I don't
think so.

>>That is consistent with the recommended ram for Fedora, it is consistent
>>with the article I quoted, and it is consistent with the experience of
>>some other Linux users in this thread. According to the Slashdotted
>>article, Linux is currently the most bloated general purpose operating
>>system to have ever been written. I see no reason to doubt that
>>assessment.
>
> KDE is not Linux, and you're too stupid to have your "assessment" matter.
>
>>As for tweeking the interface, I do not run eye candy. My Gnome desktop
>>does nothing remarkable. I run XEmacs, Mozilla, Pan, Evolution, some
>>terminals, and occasionally a file manager. There is nothing
>>extravagant to turn off. I just want a gui interface following the common
>>paradigm, along the lines of other desktop operating systems like
>>Windows, MacOS, OS/2, etc. Compared to most others, Gnome is not very
>>capable to begin with, so I don't see what I'd be turning off.
>
> If you haven't turned it off, you are running the default "eye candy".
> It's not hard to turn off.

Why don't you state something specific.
  
>>>>I've got a 300 mhz machine with 128mb ram running Win2000 Pro fine. I
>>>>notice the disk requirements have also ballooned out of hell. They
>>>>require between 900mb and 7.5 gigs hard disk space! This is out of
>>>>control. This is insane. The Gnome desktop doesn't even do all that
>>>>much. To think I'd been ditzing around wondering what *I'd* been doing
>>>>wrong.
>>>
>>> Idiot. Hardrive space is about a dollar a GB.
>>
>>The current cost of hard disks is not the only issue. There are many
>>inherent advantages to keeping operating systems leaner, like OS/2, Mac,
>>or even Windows, rather than extremely bloated down like Linux.
>
> I guess you're just a common troll, if you are claiming Windows to be
> "lean". I'll treat you accordingly. Idiot.

Every existing version of Windows is leaner than current versions of
Linux, like Fedora. This also seems to apply to many
individual applications, like XEmacs which is only a text editor but
consumes in the hundreds of mb of disk, and is very slow and memory
intensive, and Open Office, which takes several hundred mb of disk, and
is so slow it takes about a solid minute to load on my machine.

>>Upgrading a hard drive is not a pleasant task. In some cases, it is not
>>feasible to upgrade a hard drive.
>
> Who said anything about upgrading a harddrive? Looks to me like your
> usage: "I run XEmacs, Mozilla, Pan, Evolution, some terminals, and
> occasionally a file manager." would easily fit on a 10G hardrive that
> might be found on a 5-year-old machine. Any machine built in the last few
> years will likely have 40G or more of hardrive.
>
>>This is the case with 4 laptops I own,
>
> You own 4 laptops huh? And despite their age, they all need to run a new
> OS? Sure.
>
>>none of which can run Linux because it is too slow, inefficient, and
>>bloated.
>
> But "lean and mean" Windoze XP works just fine, right? Laptops of course
> have small and slow hardrives compared to desktops. If you want to put a
> modern OS on an old laptop, maybe you shouldn't expect blazing performance.

Read the slashdotted article. It discusses the author's experience
running operating systems on legacy hardware. Windows XP worked better
for him than Linux on legacy hardware. He discussed, and rejected,
the possibility of installing a stripped down version of Linux without
Gnome or KDE etc., since the capabilities of such a system would be so
inferior to current Windows systems. In my opinion, OS/2 would be
another option for legacy hardware. OS/2 can run in as little as 2
to 4 MB of ram if you rip out the standard gui and replace it with
something stripped down, but certainly 16 or 32 mb of ram are fine. On
the whole, OS/2 is also a more powerful platform than Linux in my opinion.
It'd be nice if the maintainers of Linux would study OS/2 as a model of
how to improve the power of the platform at the same time as you can
dramatically reduce its resource requirements. Of course, it's more
likely that the earth will fly out of the solar system than that will
happen.

>>In fact, there is a great deal of legacy hardware that is not worth
>>upgrading, but which could be put to good use running Windows 2000 or
>>OS/2, but which couldn't support a system like Linux, which is too
>>bloated out of control to run on any but the fastest hardware.
>
> Why are you compring a 4-year-old Windows OS with the latest Linux with
> all GUI features enabled?

The 4 year old Windows 2000 is what I've mostly used. The memory
requirements of Windows XP are similar to those of Windows 2000.

Also, it's not like current versions of Linux have a more advanced
gui or other capabilities than Windows 2000. The quest to give Linux a
Windows-like gui started about 10 years ago, but the dream of achieving
a user interface for Linux on par with that of Windows 95 is still
unattained. What's even more disappointing is that what Windows (and also
OS/2 and even earlier, NeXT) could do 10 years ago with 8 or 16 mb or
ram, it takes Linux 256 or 512 mb to do.

>>Bloatdown,
>>even on new systems, also complicates a lot of disk maintenance
>>problems like synchronization, backup, search, integrity, etc.
>
> Tell that to Billy Gate$.
>
>>Like I mentioned above, I have a 300 mhz machine with 128MB ram and a 2
>>gig hard drive. I picked it up for $15 at a junk shop. I brought it in
>>to one of my offices. The sysadmin, a unix guy, would have preferred I
>>run Linux, as would I. However, Red Hat 9 doesn't run reasonably on
>>it, so it had to be Windows 2000.
>
> See above about your stupid comparisons. Also, hardly fair, considering
> the RH9 comes with a ton of useful apps and utilities, while Win2k by
> itself is virtually worthless.
>
> True, RH9 may consume $4 more of your precious harddive space. Now,
> how much will you pay to buy the Windows apps that come free with RH?
>
>>Linux is the most bloated, memory hungry, operating system to have
>>ever been written.
>
> Liar.

Take it up with Slashdot. They ran the article that stated this.

>>Many of the recent distributions, such as Fedora, and apparently
>>Mandrake 10.0, are also buggy.
>
> Windows is buggier AND far less secure.
>
>>In my own experience, these
>>distributions are buggier than anything I've ever used from Microsoft.
>
> Sure they are, Wintroll.
>
>>Compound this with the expense of having to upgrade hard drives and
>>memory to get decent performance,
>
> And Windows users never have to do this, huh?
>
>>and the Linux proposition is not that compelling anymore. Linux
>>advocates would be better off insulting the maintainers of Linux and
>>Gnome and Fedora, etc., and asking them to get their act together,
>>than insulting me. Insulting people like me, who just want to get
>>things done, and aren't in love with one piece of software or another,
>>will only push us away.
>
> You have to grow yourself a brain. We can't do it for you.
>
>>I'm just telling it like it is.
>
> Not.

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