I don't know why AbiWord is opening slower for you, but I'm running well half the times you quote on an 850Mhz system. Start Abiword 2.2 secs...
When I compare it against a 1.5 GHz Thunderbird running Winblows, Linux screams past windows. You may be encountering a drive limitation. On both of my systems I'm using UDMA100 drives and 512Megs RAM. Any program that takes a minute to load (short of DNS problems) has something seriously wrong... BTW: AbiWord has a delay loop on the opening logo screen. If you elminate it and compile you'll cut 2 seconds again. -JMS |-----Original Message----- |From: Randy Kramer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] |Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 3:16 PM |To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Subject: Re: [expert] how to free cache from physical memory space? | | |Jose M. Sanchez wrote: | |> This is not true. Linux does not have the overhead of Windows. |> |> It may SEEM to be slower to you because the application you are |> running may have more memory overhead than an equivalent one in |> Winblows. This is why the "Gurus" are quick to point you towards a |> "lightweight" GUI. KDE is still rather large, though the |next release |> promises to finally optimize it. | |I have some figures (below) for AbiWord under Linux and |Windows, and I timed one Linux application (which I can't |recall off hand) that takes 1 minute and 5 seconds to load -- |I don't remember it probably because it's long gone, although |the name may come back to me. | |Here are links to my figures: | * |http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/01/February/0118.html |(fairly subjective -- no stop watch timings) | * |http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/01/August/0475.html |(topic is slightly different but timings are still useful for |Windows / Linux comparison -- unfortunately the mail archive |seems to have condensed the white space in the tables so they |are a little hard to |read) -- I've reposted the table below.) | |Note the difference in times for AbiWord in Windows vs. Linux. | Almost the same code -- not much difference in memory |overhead, if any. | |Here I repost that table with white space -- see the original |post for relevant notes: | |<quote> |Action Windows Linux |Open AbiWord 3.3 secs 4.8 secs |Open new blank document 0.75 secs 1.8 secs | |Open IE5 1.0 sec na |Open new blank window 0.5 sec na | |Open Konqueror na 10 secs |Open new blank window na 4 secs | |Open Word97 3.9 secs na |Open new blank document almost instantaneous na |</quote> | |I can run Windows95 and Office97 adequately on a Gateway |Colorbook laptop with a 486dx50 and 8 MB of RAM (500 MB hard |drive). (It's slow to load, but stays ahead of my typing and |commands after loading.) I wouldn't think of trying to |install or run Linux/KDE. | |> |> However in a one to one comparison, Linux usually fares better. |> |> Try running Blender on Linux and in Windows on the same system. (or |> Maya) These are both "heavyweight" 3D applications. Linux normally |> outperforms Windows in my experience. | |As it happens, I've never used Blender or Maya. Don't seem to |have a use for them. Maybe some day. | |> |> |I'm |> |hoping someday Linux will be better in this area. |> |(I'm sure that Linux gurus reading this would point out |that you can |> |use light weight GUIs (like BlackBox or IceWM) or the Linux command |> |line to get better performance.) |> | |> |> By the same token, I have at a minimum 4-8 separate "desktops" |> available to me in KDE. As a result I can leave things |simultaneously |> running on each desktop and barely notice the application load. |> |> It's not unusual for me to bring up Maya or Blender and |render on one |> desktop, PAN and download "stuff" from newsgroups in another (for 8 |> hours at a time!), & surf and read E-Mail in a third while listening |> to MP3's. In windows I'd need three systems to get similar |> performance. |> | |> So for me, Linux is far faster and useful. |> |> If Linux seems slower, then something is amiss. | |See below -- come fix it (please) -- it's basically a "stock |install" (in expert mode so I could choose packages) of |Mandrake 7.2 with MandrakeFreq. I've had similar results with |every installation of Linux I've tried, among them Caldera |2.2, 2.3, and 2.4, RedHat 5.2 and 6.2, Mandrake 6.2, 7.0, 7.1, |7.2, and some others that I installed only long enough to say |that I did (things like Slackware, TurboLinux, |StormLinux.) (Clearly, not all of those included KDE 2, I'm |not even sure any more if all of them included any version of |KDE, but I think they did. Caldera 2.2 was my first |"permanent" Linux installation, and IIRC, it was my impression |there of GNOME vs. KDE that made me stick with KDE. I should |probably check out GNOME again some day.) | |> |> Soapbox on: it's pointless to compare a P-II computer w/64 |megs of RAM |> running Linux with one with 256 megs of RAM in Windows of the same |> speed, as many people insist on doing... | |The comparison is between two computers with identical |motherboards, comparable CPUs (233mhz (Windows) vs. 200mhz |(Linux)), comparable hard drives (same rpm, size, seek times). | One runs Mandrake 7.2 with MandrakeFreq which updated KDE to |2.1 -- it has 128 MB of RAM. The other runs Windows 95 (IE5) |with 64 MB RAM. I typically have 12 to 30 windows open in |Windows ("on the desktop"). Linux is slower with any number |of open windows. (This despite my observation back on 20010203 |-- see the first link above.) When I switch windows (or open a new IE |window) in Windows, the response is instantaneous, in Linux, |the "sewing machine" starts. I've shut off all the services I |can, and am basically running only an Apache server (for my |local LAN -- i.e., I'm the only |client) -- it's not running Samba, NFS, FTP, bind, postfix, |portsentry, and a host of other things I've disabled. | |Randy Kramer |
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