Mail Archives: djgpp/2000/02/18/20:26:45
Hello.
Chris Jones wrote:
>
> > > the same time under Win2000, whereas under Win95 the music would
> > > start skipping if I did anything else.
> >
> > This maybe a problem that is unrelated to the OS's multitasking as
> > win95 takes far less CPU resources than 2000.
>
> Maybe it's better managment of task priorities - perhaps Win2000 gives a
> higher priority to background tasks.
Well, I think I am in a position to post a comparison, having used Windows
'95, Windows NT and Linux on the same Pentium 133:
Win95 + Winamp - 20% processor usage, jumps/pauses now and then
WinNT4 + Winamp - 10% processor usage, smooth whatever
Linux + mpg123 - 10% processor usage, smooth whatever
I think that Windows NT actually takes up less processor time than Windows
95, because it doesn't have to keep making costly switches between 32-bit
and 16-bit mode.
If you really want to screw up a Windows '95 box, you can completely kill
it by bombarding it with WinPopup messages. The LANMan messaging part is
in 16-bit mode - good luck getting Windows's attention so you can kill
WinPopup.
Now, when it comes to memory, NT uses more, but give it 48MB and it's a
happy bunny. Windows 2000 needs much more AFAIK.
> Well it takes about 12% of the CPU on my computer - I'd call that quite
> intensive.
Indeed.
> > There is a superb dos emulator called DOSEmu for linux.
>
> Ok, well can some linux guru answer these questions:
I'm not exactly a guru, but I've been using Linux for a couple of years
now.
> 1. Where can I download linux?
Take a look at this site.
http://www.linux.org/
or this one:
http://www.uk.linux.org/
You should find links to all the popular Linuces. Personally I use RedHat,
but I tried Debian (briefly, like for a few hours). There are lots of
different distributions. Which one you choose is up to you.
You can install it straight off the Internet using FTP. If you do that,
you're a braver man than me (and with more bandwidth), but some of my
friends have done it successfully. If you're on JANET, I don't think it'll
be a problem. There's a Linux mirror at Sunsite
(ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/linux/).
> 2. How easy is it to install?
Er, not especially in my experience. I've installed it about five or six
times and I don't think it's gone smoothly yet. The upgrade from RedHat
5.1 to RedHat 6.0 went smoothly (but not 6.0 to 6.1!).
Read all the docs you can before you install - it'll be worth it. Also,
keep a computer working that you can read these docs on. It could well
save you. Read all the HOWTOs that seem relevant. Check that you can get
your hardware working with Linux before taking the plunge.
If you're afraid of hacking configuration files about, then it's probably
not the best of ideas. Once you get familiar with it, there's a better
feeling of understanding than with Windows - I find trying to get stuff
working with Windows frustrating now, because it hides stuff from you (or
makes it non-apparent).
> 3. Will it install on a FAT partition, or does it need its own type of
> partition?
You can do either, I think. UMSDOS is the phrase your looking for if it's
going to be on a FAT partition. It's probably better to give it a separate
ext2 partition, to keep it separate.
> 4. Does it dual-boot gracefully with DOS/Win2000/etc?
Don't know about Win2k, but I had it triple booting with Windows '95,
Windows NT with no trouble. I installed Windows '95 both before and after
Linux and Windows NT after Linux. You may have to re-run the Linux boot
loader to reinstate lilo (the boot loader) after you install a Microsoft
OS, but it shouldn't damage your Linux partitions.
> Well Windows 2000 has never crashed for me except where DOS apps are
> involved. So if you only run Windows apps, it very rarely crashes.
Windows NT is rock solid in my experience. I've only seen about five or
six bluescreens in four-five years, and none of those were on my machines.
It has to be said that with all this OS vs. OS stuff, I still find that I
use all the GNU tools on all the platforms I use. It seems that GNU will
outlast most OS's ;)
HTH, bye,
--
Richard Dawe
richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com ICQ 47595498 http://www.bigfoot.com/~richdawe/
- Raw text -