Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4 but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Anyone got a suggestion?
Thanks, Tom
On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 16:17 -0500, Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4 but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Anyone got a suggestion?
If it has a working floppy drive, there are PXE boot images out there that *might* work...
Another option would be to remove the hard-drive, install it on a *similar* machine (486/isa) and then put the drive back into the Dolch. I have several of the 586 versions of this box, and had to do something like that when the built-in CD-R failed on one.
Steve
-- I am having the time of my life, but I would rather be whisting in the dark.
On Tue, 2006-01-31 at 16:17 -0500, Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4 but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Anyone got a suggestion?
FC4 requires a Pentium II or later processor (586 minimum) so FC4 isn't really a possibility for you. FC1, perhaps (2.4 kernel). As far as install media, Smart Boot Manager may work. It boots off floppy and can handle lots of other devices that the BIOS doesn't grok. I have no idea if it works with a parallel-port CD or not.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer rstevens@vitalstream.com - - VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com - - - - I won't rise to the occasion, but I'll slide over to it. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4 but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Anyone got a suggestion?
I'd check on how much memory it has. Linux likes to have more RAM than Win95 is comfortable in. As far as booting and running, you may try to boot using Smart Boot Manager (SBM) http://btmgr.webframe.org/ I have used it to boot successfully Knoppix LiveCD on a 486 machine. If it has an ATA drive interface (which I suppose it does) it ought to be easy to add a CDROM drive to it, and boot SBM from floppy. I don't know whether SBM can manage a boot from a parallel I/F CDROM drive. I know that it can manage ATAPI.
Mike
Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4
This would be a very pain-filled process.
How much disk do you have? Unless it's extraordinarily large for a 486, quit now. It will not work.
How much RAM? As I recall the 486 is limited to 16 Mbytes, and that's nowhere near enough.
but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Look for a machine with, at least, 512 Mbytes disk and 8 Mbytes RAM: with such a machine you have some prospect of getting a really old distro up.
On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 04:17:53PM -0500, Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4 but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Anyone got a suggestion?
tomsrtbt. http://www.toms.net/rb
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net wrote: Hi All:
The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive. How about installing to an old cast-off HD on another machine, and then transfering that drive to this machine? Good ole 486 ought to run faster with Linux on it than Winblows. I used a 486/66 with 16 megs of memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One day I had about 12 users on the terminals and all 4 modems lit up with users, all playing in nightmare mud OS, and running editors, and I cranked up Doom II on the server. It was slow as heck, but the fact that it ran at all was pretty great! Enjoy dinking around with it!
The harddrive install ought to work... Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ ================================================ --------------------------------- Yahoo! Autos. Looking for a sweet ride? Get pricing, reviews, & more on new and used cars.
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 00:25, Rickey Moore wrote:
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net wrote: Hi All:
The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive. How about installing to an old cast-off HD on another machine, and then transfering that drive to this machine? Good ole 486 ought to run faster with Linux on it than Winblows. I used a 486/66 with 16 megs of memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One day I had about 12 users on the terminals and all 4 modems lit up with users, all playing in nightmare mud OS, and running editors, and I cranked up Doom II on the server. It was slow as heck, but the fact that it ran at all was pretty great! Enjoy dinking around with it!
The harddrive install ought to work... Ric
snip <<<<<
Thanks to all you guys who replied. Some good suggestions that I will play with as time allows and get back with the results when I have any.
Thanks, Tom
On Wed, 1 Feb 2006, Thomas Taylor wrote:
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 00:25, Rickey Moore wrote:
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net wrote: Hi All:
The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive. How about installing to an old cast-off HD on another machine, and then transfering that drive to this machine? Good ole 486 ought to run faster with Linux on it than Winblows. I used a 486/66 with 16 megs of memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One day I had about 12 users on the terminals and all 4 modems lit up with users, all playing in nightmare mud OS, and running editors, and I cranked up Doom II on the server. It was slow as heck, but the fact that it ran at all was pretty great! Enjoy dinking around with it!
The harddrive install ought to work... Ric
snip <<<<<
Thanks to all you guys who replied. Some good suggestions that I will play with as time allows and get back with the results when I have any.
I've tried this before, and that was about the only way to do it. However, running with the wrong arch kernel, glibc, etc may pose a problem. I couldn't do it with FC3 with i686 to i586, everything would segfault.
Justin Zygmont jzygmont@solarflow.net wrote: I've tried this before, and that was about the only way to do it. However, running with the wrong arch kernel, glibc, etc may pose a problem. I couldn't do it with FC3 with i686 to i586, everything would segfault. If someone has their RedHat 6 boxset, wouldn't that work? Damn, my "ex" has all of my old old RedHat and Caldera CD's. Maybe she'll peep this and send them to me. <cackles> ... and pigs will fly out my butt. <snickers> Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ ================================================ --------------------------------- Bring words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net
Thomas, were you on the old Caldera list about 6-7 years ago?? Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ ================================================ --------------------------------- Bring words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 08:46, Rickey Moore wrote:
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net
Thomas, were you on the old Caldera list about 6-7 years ago?? Ric
snip <<<<<
No, never used Caldera linux.
But thanks for the suggestion about the older RH set. Think I have a 6.2 and a 7.1 sets somewhere in a large box from a move a couple of years ago. Hmmm, wonder which box it's in.
Thanks, Tom
Thomas Taylor wrote:
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 08:46, Rickey Moore wrote:
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net
Thomas, were you on the old Caldera list about 6-7 years ago?? Ric
snip <<<<<
No, never used Caldera linux.
But thanks for the suggestion about the older RH set. Think I have a 6.2 and a 7.1 sets somewhere in a large box from a move a couple of years ago. Hmmm, wonder which box it's in.
Thanks, Tom
I have an old version of FreeBSD which I could copy off and send.
Mike
Rickey Moore wrote:
Thomas Taylor linxt@comcast.net wrote: Hi All:
The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
How about installing to an old cast-off HD on another machine, and then transfering that drive to this machine? Good ole 486 ought to run faster with Linux on it than Winblows. I used a 486/66 with 16 megs of
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.
memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One
What version of Linux did you use? I don't know of any which can run in 16MB of RAM.
day I had about 12 users on the terminals and all 4 modems lit up with users, all playing in nightmare mud OS, and running editors, and I cranked up Doom II on the server. It was slow as heck, but the fact that it ran at all was pretty great! Enjoy dinking around with it!
There are several reasons to use "older" machines. All of my machines are "older", but they serve my purposes. It's good to "recycle" and keep those things going. I have no need to have the latest and fastest, mostly, I guess, because I'm not a PC gamer. That seems to be the driving force behind bigger and faster machines.
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Q: Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? A: I don't know, and I don't care.
Ignorance, like epoxy, can be cured. There is no cure for stupidity.
Mike
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 11:59, 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.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 11:59, 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.
Mike
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.
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
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
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
--- Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
The machine I use most except for this one runs MSDOS 6.0 w/o any version of Windows.
Have you ever tried OpenDos? Caldera and the Canopy Group got the rights to Digital's libary which included the old DR DOS and Concurrent DOS, which they kinda shoved together along with a bunch of Novell Stuff and released Open Dos as an opensource alternative to MSDOS. They were in the midst of the "Anti- everything - about- MicroSoft" lawsuits, at the time. I think that was one way they were pulling the tail of the tiger, who was on a short leash. Just gave away what used to cost large.
Ah yeah, Ray Norda! He started Caldera with some of his Golden Parachute money from leaving Novell. Heckuva guy! He had it bad for MicroSoft who had done to him nasty in the past and was willing to do it again in the future. <cackles> Gotta admit, he had the large ones. Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ ================================================
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On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 13:09, Mike McCarty wrote:
My original point stands. Windows is not a cycle hog.
It has much more overhead when switching among several processes.
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.
Windows pre-loads much of the MS office library code. Compare Open Office/windows, Open Office/Linux. Linux will still lose because X has more overhead but you'll be closer to reality and in return for the X overhead you get the ability to run any X app remotely.
So do many other apps, like my web browsers. I think this qualifies as "creating a new process".
No, it has next to nothing to do with process creation. 'cat' would be closer.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 13:09, Mike McCarty wrote:
My original point stands. Windows is not a cycle hog.
It has much more overhead when switching among several processes.
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.
Windows pre-loads much of the MS office library code. Compare Open Office/windows, Open Office/Linux. Linux will still lose because X has more overhead but you'll be closer to reality and in return for the X overhead you get the ability to run any X app remotely.
So do many other apps, like my web browsers. I think this qualifies as "creating a new process".
No, it has next to nothing to do with process creation. 'cat' would be closer.
I know what I'm talking about, we're just talking about different things, using the same words, I suppose.
I have 15+ years of experience optimizing real time operation on telephony equipment, so I do know.
From a user's perspective, Linux is noticeably slower on the same hardware.
From a cycle-by-cycle perspective, Windows (when quiescent) is not a cycle hog. I find that CPU intensive apps (like multiprecision numerical computations, Drhystone, etc.) when compiled using DJGPP and run under Windows XP, 95, and 98 runs in the same time as the same source compiled and run under Linux.
I haven't specifically timed actual context times or interrupt latencies. But for actually starting applications, Linux is definitely and noticeably slower.
Mike
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 14:34, Mike McCarty wrote:
So do many other apps, like my web browsers. I think this qualifies as "creating a new process".
No, it has next to nothing to do with process creation. 'cat' would be closer.
I know what I'm talking about, we're just talking about different things, using the same words, I suppose.
"Process" means something very specific in unix-like systems. It's what you get when the fork() system call completes successfully, and you can benchmark it by measuring forks/second.
I have 15+ years of experience optimizing real time operation on telephony equipment, so I do know.
From a user's perspective, Linux is noticeably slower on the same hardware.
Not necessarily.
From a cycle-by-cycle perspective, Windows (when quiescent) is not a cycle hog. I find that CPU intensive apps (like multiprecision numerical computations, Drhystone, etc.) when compiled using DJGPP and run under Windows XP, 95, and 98 runs in the same time as the same source compiled and run under Linux.
Yes, if you aren't making system calls, the OS is not all that relevant except for it's time-slicing overhead. Try running a few hundred of your computations at once in separate processes so you have a chance at noticing.
I haven't specifically timed actual context times or interrupt latencies. But for actually starting applications, Linux is definitely and noticeably slower.
I'll agree if you always qualify that as "X applications". I'm sure you realize that many useful things do not require the creation of a screen window.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 14:34, Mike McCarty wrote:
So do many other apps, like my web browsers. I think this qualifies as "creating a new process".
No, it has next to nothing to do with process creation. 'cat' would be closer.
I know what I'm talking about, we're just talking about different things, using the same words, I suppose.
"Process" means something very specific in unix-like
More precisely and accurately, it means an instance of a running program.
systems. It's what you get when the fork() system call completes successfully, and you can benchmark it by measuring forks/second.
This is the usual means of process creation, yes. It's not a definition of a process.
I have 15+ years of experience optimizing real time operation on telephony equipment, so I do know.
From a user's perspective, Linux is noticeably slower on the same hardware.
Not necessarily.
I didn't say "necessarily", nor "for every user", nor "in every circumstance".
Men have more upper body strength than women. Doesn't mean there aren't women around whose every muscle is stronger than mine.
From a cycle-by-cycle perspective, Windows (when quiescent) is not a cycle hog. I find that CPU intensive apps (like multiprecision numerical computations, Drhystone, etc.) when compiled using DJGPP and run under Windows XP, 95, and 98 runs in the same time as the same source compiled and run under Linux.
Yes, if you aren't making system calls, the OS is not all that relevant except for it's time-slicing overhead.
Even the time-slicing overhead is negligible. The difference between using the same program running MSDOS 6.0 and WinXP console was < 0.1% on my machine, using Dhrystone compiled with DJGPP v2. I *know* what the quiescent overhead of MSDOS 6.0 is :-)
Try running a few hundred of your computations at once in separate processes so you have a chance at noticing.
Possibly. That's certainly something worth trying. Hmm, 100 copies of Dhrystones running is an intriguing concept. It would take some sort of script to start them all. I'm not familiar enough with Windows to be able to start 100 copies of Dhrystones running in console a window from a script (batch file). On Linux, I'd just put them all in the background.
Are you familiar enough with WinXP to suggest a means for running 100 concurrent copies of a console app (without having to start 100 windows up) and timing the results? Or, if 100 console windows must be started, some way of starting them all, and then having them load up the program, but wait for some signal which would make them all start at once? Something like that, so window creation time doesn't enter into it (though program load time probably should enter in).
I haven't specifically timed actual context times or interrupt latencies. But for actually starting applications, Linux is definitely and noticeably slower.
I'll agree if you always qualify that as "X applications". I'm sure you realize that many useful things do not require the creation of a screen window.
Certainly. Just running Drystone doesn't require creating a window. Nothing I have written does, as I don't particularly like GUIs, and have never written a GUI app.
I wonder what could be done to speed Linux/X up?
Mike
I wonder what could be done to speed Linux/X up?
Mike, I've been on this rant for a LONG time! :) Runlevel 4 just sits there. Why not have X and X only running, with no server or network features at all. Zip, Nada, nothing in the way of deamons. Compose office stuff or code, play video games, Dvd movies, anything local requiring more speed. When you need the network, or to run server stuff, runlevel 5 time. Would that provide any significant gain in X responsivness? Anyone care to guess? I dnloaded an app called alsakiller or something to that effect, ALSA eats up about 3% of the CPU share, I think I'd kill that off and just run OSS in runlevel 4, for the games and video. whatchothink, Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
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Rickey Moore wrote:
I wonder what could be done to speed Linux/X up?
Mike, I've been on this rant for a LONG time! :) Runlevel 4 just sits there. Why not have X and X only running, with no server or network features at all. Zip, Nada, nothing in the way of deamons. Compose office stuff or code, play video games, Dvd movies, anything local requiring more speed. When you need the network, or to run server
Well...
I don't compose Office Stuff. I do code, but usually want more than one window open for editing and compiling. I don't play video games on my computer, nor watch movies. The only other thing I really do is research the web, or read e-mail, both of which require network connections.
stuff, runlevel 5 time. Would that provide any significant gain in X responsivness? Anyone care to guess? I dnloaded an app called alsakiller or something to that effect, ALSA eats up about 3% of the CPU share, I think I'd kill that off and just run OSS in runlevel 4, for the games and video. whatchothink, Ric
I suspect that most of the slowness for *my* computer has nothing to do with that so much as that Linux eats memory like there is no tomorrow. So loading *anything* requires retiring a bunch of cache or swapping virtual memory. My CPU is hardly ever loaded more than 20%, and usually much less than 10%. When it is slow, I hear the disc going nuts.
top - 23:59:30 up 1 day, 10:56, 5 users, load average: 0.10, 0.35, 0.44 Tasks: 82 total, 2 running, 80 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 8.3% us, 1.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 89.7% id, 0.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.0% si Mem: 248088k total, 241792k used, 6296k free, 15128k buffers Swap: 524120k total, 185244k used, 338876k free, 50680k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 4150 root 15 0 186m 23m 5560 S 4.0 9.6 163:23.20 X 4578 jmccarty 15 0 30452 8776 4252 S 3.0 3.5 0:38.74 gnome-terminal 6269 jmccarty 15 0 169m 62m 13m S 2.0 25.9 47:51.04 mozilla-bin 4500 jmccarty 16 0 19240 3180 2568 S 0.3 1.3 2:41.40 clock-applet 17040 jmccarty 16 0 3008 900 728 R 0.3 0.4 0:00.04 top 1 root 16 0 2064 276 252 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.95 init
Mike
--- Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Rickey Moore wrote:
I wonder what could be done to speed Linux/X up?
for the games and video. whatchothink, Ric
I suspect that most of the slowness for *my* computer has nothing to do with that so much as that Linux eats memory like there is no tomorrow. So loading *anything* requires retiring a bunch of cache or swapping virtual memory. My CPU is hardly ever loaded more than 20%, and usually much less than 10%. When it is slow, I hear the disc going nuts.
I hear you Mike, as I said my old 486/66 with 16 megs of ram and 16 megs of swap, doing all of the serving that it did, I ran the old Netscape Enterprise server (really nice too!), a Palace Chat, MudOS, sendmail, ytalk, webpages, and a BBS package, 4 modems and the two dickens terminal servers, ran at least as responsive as my k5 AMD with 128megs of ram and 128megs of swap does now. Something is really consuming the machine and I am not expert enough to know if it's my own setup or what. Like I've said before I've been out of touch for quite awhile, and when I installed Fedora this LVM thingie pops up and I'm wondering just what the heck another layer of 'stuff' between me and ext3 is actually good for, when I'm not running RAID or a networked harddrive farm. Just 10 gigs of harddrive space between two drives, is more management actually needed and is there a performance penalty for a simple single client machine?
So, for us 'users' who are not code developers, and who would actually like to play a Dvd or game or any other app that doesn't require networking, or server tasks all the time, would something like my proposed level 4 be a benefit? Lotta new stuff I'm learning and see alot of the old problems. ALSA ( just what the heck is it really good for?) ran nuts and ate somewhere in the neighbor hood of 70% of my system resources (according to 'top') when I set it to full duplex. Now it's down to around 2 to 3%, which I still consider high as it should be dead, unless called upon by an app in the manner of OSS, in the old days as a module. ALSA stays alive for most of the time. Is this a good thing? Maybe we need to start a new thread "How to trim the fat" Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ ================================================
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On 2/1/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One
What version of Linux did you use? I don't know of any which can run in 16MB of RAM.
I have a 16MB laptop with a 133Mhz pentium that can run Knoppix and DSL. Networking is easy with SLIP or PLIP.
Billy Tallis wrote:
On 2/1/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One
What version of Linux did you use? I don't know of any which can run in 16MB of RAM.
I have a 16MB laptop with a 133Mhz pentium that can run Knoppix and DSL. Networking is easy with SLIP or PLIP.
Perhaps I should have been more specific :-)
I don't know of any which can run on a 486 in 16MB of RAM and no swap. I've got a 486 (actually an AMD586) which I'd like to run Knoppix or the like on. It has 16MB of RAM, but very little hard disc. It has a 3GB HD partitioned into two FAT16 partitions, one of them full, the other with 40MB free. I'd like to run almost any version of Linux on there, for purposes of file transfer. It has an old 10 Base 2, but I could probably put a 100 Base T on there, as it has one PCI slot (IIRC).
Mike
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 13:29, Mike McCarty wrote:
I don't know of any which can run on a 486 in 16MB of RAM and no swap. I've got a 486 (actually an AMD586) which I'd like to run Knoppix or the like on. It has 16MB of RAM, but very little hard disc. It has a 3GB HD partitioned into two FAT16 partitions, one of them full, the other with 40MB free. I'd like to run almost any version of Linux on there, for purposes of file transfer. It has an old 10 Base 2, but I could probably put a 100 Base T on there, as it has one PCI slot (IIRC).
This would be the obvious place to start: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ but you might be able to get knoppix to load if you don't try to run X. Try 'knoppix 2' at the boot prompt with as old a version as you can find. If that works, you might be able to run as an xterminal with your desktop elsewhere by starting X with 'X -query server' where server is a more powerful box with XDCMP enabled. You'd have a better chance with 32M ram, though.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 13:29, Mike McCarty wrote:
I don't know of any which can run on a 486 in 16MB of RAM and no swap. I've got a 486 (actually an AMD586) which I'd like to run Knoppix or the like on. It has 16MB of RAM, but very little hard disc. It has a 3GB HD partitioned into two FAT16 partitions, one of them full, the other with 40MB free. I'd like to run almost any version of Linux on there, for purposes of file transfer. It has an old 10 Base 2, but I could probably put a 100 Base T on there, as it has one PCI slot (IIRC).
This would be the obvious place to start: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
Have a download in progress even as we speak. :-)
but you might be able to get knoppix to load if you don't try to run X. Try 'knoppix 2' at the boot prompt with as old a version as you can find. If that works, you might be able to run as an xterminal with your desktop elsewhere by starting X with 'X -query server' where server is a more powerful box with XDCMP enabled. You'd have a better chance with 32M ram, though.
It's worth a try, anyway. I like Knoppix. But I've not had much success getting it to run on old machines. I have a 90MHz Pentium machine which can just *barely* run Knoppix. It takes like 1/2 hour to boot. Knoppix really needs a swap with only 32MB of memory. I haven't gotten it to run on my 486 at all. I'd like to set it up as a server, and use that as a connection for backing up the discs over there.
What I've done in past is reboot my main Windows 98 machine using an MSDOS floppy and use pkzip to zip up one directory tree after another, then transfer the files using Interlnk over a serial cable. As you can guess, this is slow. But it does allow me to back up that machine on CDROMs. I'd like to be able to use a network connection and transfer files that way.
There's probably a way to get those files to my Linux machine using something, but I don't know what that is, and haven't searched for it. Maybe I'll do a Google in a minute...
Mike
On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 14:14, Mike McCarty wrote:
It's worth a try, anyway. I like Knoppix. But I've not had much success getting it to run on old machines. I have a 90MHz Pentium machine which can just *barely* run Knoppix. It takes like 1/2 hour to boot. Knoppix really needs a swap with only 32MB of memory.
That is mostly from KDE - gnome would probably be even worse. I've used it on an old laptop with 32M and it worked pretty well in 'X -query' mode as an Xterminal with the desktop and apps running on a faster machine.
I haven't gotten it to run on my 486 at all. I'd like to set it up as a server, and use that as a connection for backing up the discs over there.
I'm not sure what versions will still work on anything less than a pentium. If it doesn't boot at all, the compile options are probably the problem. You'll also have trouble auto-detecting devices on an ISA bus.
What I've done in past is reboot my main Windows 98 machine using an MSDOS floppy and use pkzip to zip up one directory tree after another, then transfer the files using Interlnk over a serial cable. As you can guess, this is slow. But it does allow me to back up that machine on CDROMs. I'd like to be able to use a network connection and transfer files that way.
There's probably a way to get those files to my Linux machine using something, but I don't know what that is, and haven't searched for it. Maybe I'll do a Google in a minute...
Look for the LanMan client for DOS. You can probably still download it from MS and it will work with samba within the old dos 8.3 filename restrictions. The downside is that it has a huge memory footprint. I sort-of remember a dos ftp program that ran over packet drivers and a free tcp stack but I'm not sure where to find that stuff now. I glued together a version of gnutar that ran under DOS and talked TCP to an rsh server long ago, but the GPL restrictions on gnutar prevent redistribution even though all the parts could be found for free.
On Wednesday 01 February 2006 3:02 pm, Les Mikesell wrote:
This would be the obvious place to start: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ but you might be able to get knoppix to load if you don't try to run X. Try 'knoppix 2' at the boot prompt with as old a version as you can find.
MepisLite is also optimized for older computers - might be worth a look...
--- Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal
servers
which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running
procomm. One
What version of Linux did you use? I don't know of any which can
run
in 16MB of RAM.
<giggles> What is the oldest version of Linux you have used?? The very first kernel ran on a 386. I doubt he (Linus)as a student had 16 megs of ram in Helsinki. Memory cost a fortune back when. My first 486 set me back about $1800. I, at the time, was running Caldera Linux, the first 3 editions, which was RH based. Donnie Barnes used to hang there all the time. Caldera was the Republican version of RH. It cost about double RH, so only older and <ahem> more mature users hung there... nice crowd
I don't know of any which can run on a 486 in 16MB of RAM and no swap.
The rule was swap = actual ram. 16 megs of ram = 16 megs of swap. Harddrive space was much less than a GIG, so swap file space was eyed as a necessity, yet evil.
I had Windows 3.1, so running it under Linux (32) was faster than it's native dos... Caldera included wabi to run Win3.1 It worked slick and quick. Win95 was just coming out then, and all of the tales of blue screen death steered me away from it with much prejudice. Ric
================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ...the Sin of Ignorance, and ...the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ ================================================
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Rickey Moore wrote:
--- Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal
servers
which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running
procomm. One
What version of Linux did you use? I don't know of any which can
run
in 16MB of RAM.
<giggles> What is the oldest version of Linux you have used?? The
I've used 6.x
very first kernel ran on a 386. I doubt he (Linus)as a student had 16
Yes, I'm aware of that.
[snip]
Mike
Billy Tallis wrote:
On 2/1/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
memory to service 4 modems, two 8 serial port dickens terminal servers which had a collection of terminals, XT's and 286's running procomm. One
What version of Linux did you use? I don't know of any which can run in 16MB of RAM.
I have a 16MB laptop with a 133Mhz pentium that can run Knoppix and DSL. Networking is easy with SLIP or PLIP.
I downloaded a version of Debian for a Stylistic 1000 tablet. I was able to change things to run X on it. The only problem I had was not being able to log in without a keyboard. I have to go back and play with it one of these days to see if I can get xvkbd to work with GDM. (I also want to get more RAM for it.) The original image was built to turn the tablet into a firewall/ router/Access Point.
486 DX 100 CPU 16MB of RAM 350MB hard drive.
Mikkel
On Tuesday 31 January 2006 16:17, Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hi All:
I've got an old 486 computer (Dolch PAC). It's what was called a semi-portable computer - requires AC power. It's housed in a ruggedized case and the only media it can use is a built-in floppy drive. It has two serial ports (mouse is on one) and a parallel port. It also has a network port, supposedly 10 MHz, but I haven't been able to get it working. The bus structure is ISA with room for two cards.
It currently has Windbloze 95 on it. I would like to replace that with FC4 but don't have a way to do it currently. I was thinking of getting one of the CD-ROM external devices that uses the parallel port for communication (called a backpack originally). There are a couple of these on ebay but I'm not sure if it would work as the BIOS doesn't allow booting from anything except the floppy or hard drive.
Anyone got a suggestion?
Thanks, Tom
Hmm, think I'll put on my asbestos underwear while Mike & Les continue their flame war. He,he,he.
Tom
Thomas Taylor wrote:
Hmm, think I'll put on my asbestos underwear while Mike & Les continue their flame war. He,he,he.
I haven't seen anything Les wrote to/about me which I would consider to be a flame, or which I found offensive or critical of me in any way. I haven't *intended* to flame him in any way.
And I'm certainly interested to see whether he can suggest a way to run 100 copies of a console app under WinXP. I intend to give that a try to see what happens, if anyone can suggest a simple way to do it.
Mike
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 00:09, Mike McCarty wrote:
And I'm certainly interested to see whether he can suggest a way to run 100 copies of a console app under WinXP. I intend to give that a try to see what happens, if anyone can suggest a simple way to do it.
If I did it in a working scenario I'd install the Cygwin tools and run the same bash script that I'd use on Linux. I'm not sure how this would work as a benchmark though. There may be more efficient ways to spawn processes in windows than the cygwin emulation of fork.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 00:09, Mike McCarty wrote:
And I'm certainly interested to see whether he can suggest a way to run 100 copies of a console app under WinXP. I intend to give that a try to see what happens, if anyone can suggest a simple way to do it.
If I did it in a working scenario I'd install the Cygwin tools and run the same bash script that I'd use on Linux. I'm not sure how this would work as a benchmark though. There may be more efficient ways to spawn processes in windows than the cygwin emulation of fork.
I was actually intending to investigate the context switching aspects of XP vs Linux. Installing Cygwin seems a little bit high overhead (in disc space, etc.) to me. I may have still installed a MinGW on my XP partition. That might be a way...
Good idea.
Mike
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 02:24, Mike McCarty wrote:
If I did it in a working scenario I'd install the Cygwin tools and run the same bash script that I'd use on Linux. I'm not sure how this would work as a benchmark though. There may be more efficient ways to spawn processes in windows than the cygwin emulation of fork.
I was actually intending to investigate the context switching aspects of XP vs Linux. Installing Cygwin seems a little bit high overhead (in disc space, etc.) to me. I may have still installed a MinGW on my XP partition. That might be a way...
If you calculate that space requirement in terms of cost at current disk prices it probably wouldn't sound that bad.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 02:24, Mike McCarty wrote:
I was actually intending to investigate the context switching aspects of XP vs Linux. Installing Cygwin seems a little bit high overhead (in disc space, etc.) to me. I may have still installed a MinGW on my XP partition. That might be a way...
If you calculate that space requirement in terms of cost at current disk prices it probably wouldn't sound that bad.
Oh, it's just the trouble of doing the install, then doing the uninstall, and the trouble of trying to make sure it was all gone. If I actually wanted to *use* it, it wouldn't be bad. But I don't want to drag a whole UNIX environment into my Windows environment, any more than I want to drag a whole Windows environment into my Linux environment.
And right now *any* actual cost sounds bad to a laid-off engineer.
Mike
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 11:24, Mike McCarty wrote:
I was actually intending to investigate the context switching aspects of XP vs Linux. Installing Cygwin seems a little bit high overhead (in disc space, etc.) to me. I may have still installed a MinGW on my XP partition. That might be a way...
Oh, it's just the trouble of doing the install, then doing the uninstall, and the trouble of trying to make sure it was all gone. If I actually wanted to *use* it, it wouldn't be bad. But I don't want to drag a whole UNIX environment into my Windows environment, any more than I want to drag a whole Windows environment into my Linux environment.
Actually both of those are very desirable things to have available. The Cygwin X environment has been built so you can execute it from a CD: http://xlivecd.indiana.edu/. I don't know if they include bash in the package or not, but if not, a similar approach might work.
And right now *any* actual cost sounds bad to a laid-off engineer.
You need to find at least enough contract work to make some new toys tax-deductible .
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 11:24, Mike McCarty wrote:
But I don't want to drag a whole UNIX environment into my Windows environment, any more than I want to drag a whole Windows environment into my Linux environment.
Actually both of those are very desirable things to have available. The Cygwin X environment has been built so you can execute it from a CD: http://xlivecd.indiana.edu/. I don't know if they include bash in the package or not, but if not, a similar approach might work.
That looks worthwhile. I'll go have a look right now.
And right now *any* actual cost sounds bad to a laid-off engineer.
You need to find at least enough contract work to make some new toys tax-deductible .
:-)
Mike
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 11:24, Mike McCarty wrote:
I was actually intending to investigate the context switching aspects of XP vs Linux. Installing Cygwin seems a little bit high overhead (in disc space, etc.) to me. I may have still installed a MinGW on my XP partition. That might be a way...
Oh, it's just the trouble of doing the install, then doing the uninstall, and the trouble of trying to make sure it was all gone. If I actually wanted to *use* it, it wouldn't be bad. But I don't want to drag a whole UNIX environment into my Windows environment, any more than I want to drag a whole Windows environment into my Linux environment.
Actually both of those are very desirable things to have available. The Cygwin X environment has been built
Hmm, looks like it is used to connect as an X client. Might be pretty restricted. I'm downloading it now, though.
Mike
On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 14:11, Mike McCarty wrote:
Actually both of those are very desirable things to have available. The Cygwin X environment has been built
Hmm, looks like it is used to connect as an X client. Might be pretty restricted. I'm downloading it now, though.
Technically it is an X server (the concepts are backwards in that a server serves a display and keyboard and a client is a program using them), but calling it X terminal software might make more sense. However it does contain bash (I dug up a copy) and leaves you at a bash prompt to ssh off to other hosts to start programs. You can probably copy the 'run' batch file and edit it to just set the paths and open the bash window without starting X.
Hmmm.. I'm surprised that it doesn't have a way to start in 'X -query host' mode for a full desktop XDCMP login. That should work just as easily and sometimes is what you want to do. The -multiwindow mode that it starts lets single window apps mingle with MS windows and is also a handy thing to have, though. You can run nautilus if you want something that looks like the desktop without menus or task bars.
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