Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0

David Ecklein dave at diacad.com
Sun Apr 24 19:56:01 EDT 2005


Quibble, quibble, quibble.  Hey, it's ok....  keeps the conversation going,
if nothing else.

The good points Dan Jenkins makes outweigh the quibbles.  That having been
said...

OK, so Jim Lynch's system is not a "hot rod" to Jenkins and some others.
But it is far enough beyond the average system in current mass deployment
(let alone those obsoleted by M$'s high cholesterol XP) that it really isn't
an appropriate test bed for a product like Linspire, given its particular
ambitious target.

Newegg has 160 Gb Samsungs for $80.  I wouldn't touch one, given my own
experience with Samsung.  Since then, they have probably improved; your
mileage may vary.  I want to know what kind and where good 160s can be had
for less than $70, except through some kind of a screwy rebate deal or
perhaps one-of-a-kind closeout.

Any video card that sells for over $200 better be not merely "good" but
"insanely so".  That's more than the Walmart Linux machine sells for.  A
card like this might be found in a serious gamer's box.  The crazy ones (in
the eye of this beholder) spend even more, of course.  Again, Newegg does
currently have a refurbished FX5900XT for $146 if you seek "bargains" and
act fast.

I don't think 700 Mhz machines were mainstream in 1999.  The acceleration of
hardware development and fall of costs is sometimes overlooked; Jenkins has
forgotten that the late nineties were still dominated by Slot-1 Intels.  The
fastest machines I put together that year used under-500 Mhz processors; the
most elaborate was a custom CAD configuration with a P2-450 that went for
well over $2000.  It was only in 2000 that AMD announced the K6-2-550.  I am
not sure the Celeron 700 was on Intel's drawing boards in 1999, nor were 80
Gb hard disks found in garden variety systems at that time.

Whatever the shortcomings of my post, I do not feel Jenkins addressed the
core spirit of it.  That is, how will some variety of Linux (Linspire or
others) rescue these older but useable machines?

Dave Ecklein
dba Diacad Associates
www.diacad.com




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Jenkins" <dan at rastech.com>
To: "GNHLUG" <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 3:48 PM
Subject: Re: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0


> David Ecklein wrote:
> > Just one general quibble: why do people always test software on
platforms
> > that are so far from the normal and affordable desktop configuration?
> >
> >>...Here are the specs of our test box:
> >>
> >>*Motherboard* ASUS A7N8X-E
> >>*Processor* AMD Athlon XP 3000
> >>*Graphics card* MSI FX 5900XT
> >>*Hard drive* 160GB WD Hard Disk
> >>*Memory* 1GB RAM
>  >
> > Anything might look good on this hot rod.
>
> It's not really a hot rod nowadays, just a current, fast
> system. I've seen 160 GB H/D for under $70. The RAM is
> about double what I consider a base system, but is not
> unusual. The CPU and video are good, but not insanely
> so. A client of mine just ordered a dozen similar
> systems (albeit with somewhat slower CPUs) as basic
> desktops. It's getting tough to find systems with hard
> drives much smaller. A hot rod, to me, would involve
> multiple CPUs at least.
>
> Having said that, in-house most of our systems aren't as
> fast. (I'm sending this from a 1 GHz with 256 MB.)
>
>  > I would be more interested in a
> > test system which picked three or more different configurations ranging
as
> > follows:
> >
> > (1) By today's standards, an older but useable AT form factor system
> > (millions are right now marching off the recycling cliff), say Pentium
200
> > class cpu with 1 Mb PCI graphics, 500 Mb HD, 32 Mb RAM, CDROM and
diskette
> > readers, the usual sound and I/O.  This system will barely run Win98.
Will
> > a particular flavor of Linux (Linspire or other) save this machine?
>
> The graphical install of Mandrake 9 & 10 warns if there
> is less than 64 MB. It usually fails if there is 32 MB.
> It takes about 1 GB H/D for a minimal graphical install
> and upwards of 4 GB if you install everything.
>
> I've been working on a K12 Linux Terminal Server project
> recently. I've been using Fedora Core 3. On a system
> with Pentium II-300, 96 MB RAM, 10 GB H/D, it runs slow,
>   but it is functional. It's running Gnome. I tried KDE
> on the same platform, and it was unusably slow. (It
> wasn't an apples to apples comparison though, as it was
> Mandrake 9 running KDE vs. Fedora running Gnome. It was
> just to see if it worked at all.)
>
> With 128 MB or more RAM, I find such a system perfectly
> usable as a desktop environment running either KDE on
> Mandrake or Windows 2000. The RAM appears to be the
> bottleneck for the graphical desktops more than the CPU
> speed. (Of course, I don't game, do multimedia, or such.)
>
> > (2) A discount store ATX el-cheapo a couple years back with something
like
> > 700 Mhz Celeron, 4 Mb AGP, 128 Mb RAM, 10 Gb HD, etc.  After an initial
> > period of elation, and consequent addition of every piece of software
the
> > user (or their kids) can find, these Win9x/xp systems ultimately
disappoint,
> > requiring major upgrades.  How well will a mass market Linux fare on
them
> > and reduce the urge to ecologically sin with the machine?  Most dumps
make
> > you pay before they take them.
>
>  From our experience, that would be a 1999-era system,
> about 5-6 years ago, not a couple. I would say most of
> our clients are currently using a number of systems in
> this class. To be honest, most are running Windows 2000
> (or even Windows 98), not Linux. We use these sorts of
> systems as servers running Linux for a number of smaller
> networks.
>
> > (3) Finally, a decent and timely desktop with a 2-something-Gb cpu, 256
DDR
> > RAM, 64 Mb AGP, DVD burner, 80 Mb hard disk.  What advantages will a
mass
> > Linux product offer, due to this configuration, that will favor it over
M$?
> > The case here may be weaker for the average user, but it must be made,
since
> > these machines are now affordable and in the market.
>
> Recently a client bought an HP system at Sam's Club with
> similar specs. It came with Windows XP Home. It had MS
> Office and various other programs preinstalled. The
> software expired 60 days after he purchased it. The cost
> to purchase (and re-activate) all of the bundled
> software came to just under $800 (several hundred
> dollars more than the system itself cost him). We
> converted him to OpenOffice and a few other Open Source
> applications running under Windows.
>
> -- 
> Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
> Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
> *** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century
> _______________________________________________
> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
> gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
>





More information about the gnhlug-discuss mailing list