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[Fairlight]

Simon--er, no...it was Brian K. White--said:
> 
> Nowadays, (at least in the windows world)  it seems like every new machine
> with specs that say it should run twice as fast as the last, actually runs
> slower than the last. It's not just windows either. Linux distro's all tend
> to install enough gnome or kde stuff in their default "desktop" installs to
> bog any machine down in the finest windows tradition. Even if you "clean out
> the crap" from your new factory windows install, or re-install fresh leaving
> out the crap, it's still never exactly "fast" just "not as slow".

I can attest to what you're saying.

On -exactly- the same P166MMX/128MB with a Barracuda 2.1Gig as my linux
drive, I just went from RH 5.2 running 2.0.36 to SuSE 9.0 running
2.4.21-199 (which is probably equivalent to 2.4.25).

BOY, did things get slower!  I used to be able to boot linux 3 times in
the time it would take win95 to boot once.  Now, -discounting- the SCSI CCD
tries and aborts it takes time to do on LUN 1 on each target with the newer
version of the BusLogic driver, it takes roughly as long if not slightly
longer to actually boot linux with the same services running as I had on RH
5.2.  And it's not actually SuSE's fault.  The kernel just is not as fast
as it used to be, IMHO.  I don't have extra modules loaded, either.  It's
just plain slower.  I think the VM change between 2.2 and 2.4 may have had
a lot to do with it.

But I've definitely had that experience, as recently as last week, on
identical hardware that never changed.

And FWIW, I -liked- RH, but SuSE 9.0 blows away even the best RH dist I
ever used, local or remote.  It's just plain put together a LOT better.
Bill Campbell has been saying it for a while now, but after spending a
few days enveloped in the guts of it, I have to say it's really very well
engineered.  Even if RH reversed course tomorrow, I wouldn't look back--I
like the SuSE that much more--and that was -before- I brought up X11.  I
didn't bother with the KDE or GNOME bloat...just X11 with WindowMaker for
me, which is what I was using on RH 5.2 since AfterStep became a PITA to
configure when they changed schemes at about v1.4.

I miss AfterStep, actually.  Which is neither here nor there...  :)

mark->
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