Mail Archives: opendos/2000/10/27/10:41:09.1
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob McGee" <i812 AT iname DOT com>
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 10:19 PM
Subject: Overclocking, Linux issues: was Re: About Micro$quash...
> You're right about http://www.tomshardware.com/ -- it's a great resource
> on many hardware issues, especially overclocking. But I specifically
> recall reading there that *Intel* is by far the best bet for
> overclocking. Tom and associates say that one reason the AMD's are
> cheaper is because they're already a bit overclocked.
This is true, however, Intel chips run hotter than AMD chips at the same
type and speeds. AMD will even run at higher speeds to start with at a lower
temp. This was mostly true with the older 386/486/5x86 chips. The newer
Pentium class chips are the opposite. I was referring to the older AMD
chips. Also the chipset has to be considered as well. Some motherboards are
much more reliable for overclocking than others and may not even be
dependent on the make of CPU. For example, according to Tom's, my MB should
be able to withstand 150MHz and even 160MHz. However a little trick has to
be used in order to get it to function properly. The BIOS will not set the
bus speed correctly, so you must start it at 133MHz, then bump it up to
150/160 after it boots. (actually after the BIOS runs the system checks.)
However, my MB is very unstable at either 150 or 160. I did overclock it to
160 in order to install ME. I just hit the turbo switch right before it
would check for CPU speed, then hit turbo again before it started the actual
install process. Fortunately I figured out where to do it and there is a
click on next after the CPU speed was checked and I could lower the speed of
the CPU before it would crash the system. Actually you will notice very
little system performance with a 10% to 20% increase in CPU speed. However,
with newer MBs, you want to increase the FSB speed to as high as you can,
and this sometimes means you also need to increase the CPU speed as well. I
am thinking of the Tyan K6 trinity motherboards to jack the FSB to 100MHz.
It is undocumented. Some CPU speeds do not need to be increased to do this.
Some K6 boards can now run AMDs at 600MHz with a FSB of 100MHz instead of
550MHz and a FSB of 83MHz. I could care less about the 50MHz increase in CPU
speed, but definitely want the 100MHz FSB. I believe I read where the ABIT
boards can run up to 133MHz FSB.
> I personally wouldn't mess around with overclocking anything, but
> especially not AMD.
Same here except for what I mentioned above about increasing the FSB.
> > security.) NT also has better security than does 95/98/ME. However, if
you
> > want real security, go with Linux
>
> I'm not so sure about this. I wholeheartedly recommend Linux over any MS
> OS, but is it really more secure? Sure, in some ways, but I know I could
> easily get root access on any Linux box (if I had physical access, that
> is.) I'd have to work a bit harder to get Administrator control on NT.
I was basically talking about internet security and viruses. True, you can
overcome just about any security system if you have physical access. You can
make a custom boot diskette and bypass all of the security. You can do the
same with DRDOS security and hard drive, directory, and other acess by
booting with an MSDOS diskette! Since something like 90% of the users use
WINDOZE in this country and many use standard programs shipped with it, such
as: Outlook, Outlook Express, and other MS software like IE, these are easy
to attack on the internet. At least NT does have some security for this and
breaking into a system. You can make Linux almost completely hack proof. I
have a system I use for FTP or any other type of login where it is
impossible for them to acess any other area or subdirectory structure except
in the area that they login to. They cannot get any access to any other
areas of my system. It is a little trick I found by experimenting.. Of couse
this also assumes that when you are browsing around the internet that you
are not logged on as root!
> Not ever having had to do that I'm really not informed. I do know that
> it can be done, though. But with Linux you need only a boot/root disk
> and a text editor.
>
> Security has so many different meanings that it's hard to say what's
> "more secure" than something else. But of course the security of Win9x
> (ME too) is an sad joke. Those are just toys in the world of network-
> enabled operating systems.
>
> As far as free Unix clones go, I've heard that FreeBSD tends to be more
> secure. I can't say from experience. But as slow as Linux is gaining in
> acceptance and support, the *BSD's are even slower. Linux is where most
> of the action in Free Software is.
Actually Linux is catching on faster than any other OS in the history of
computers. The first non alpha version i.e. beta version (1.0) was not until
either late 1994 or early 1995.) It is a very young OS and has grown at a
tremendous rate. Even commercial UNIX's are now modifying their OSes to use
Linux prigrams directly. SCO, Solaris, and others. BSD is just another UNIX
clone. In fact Slackware uses the same method as BSD while most of the
others use the System V method (ATT UNIX.) UNIX has been around since about
1976 and is probably the oldest OS still in existence. Even CP/M was
Basically derived from UNIX and MSDOS was basically derived from CP/M. Of
course there have been massive changes and many, many features left out, but
the real basics are all there. In fact there are even DOS commands available
to make DOS look more like Linux. I even Linked Linux commands to DOS
command names! The DOS and CP/M filesystems are completely different, but
the UNIX/Linux filesystem has greatly evolved in just the last few years as
well.
> > If you know nothing about Linux or are afraid of Linux, but would like
to
> > check it out, try DOSLinux. It is mainly for the internet and does not
>
> My own entry route into Linux was Slackware's own ZipSlack. I still
> think it's an excellent way to begin a Slackware installation, because
> it gives you a well-selected, fully functional Linux system. It installs
> (unzips) onto a FAT filesystem (-16 or -32, does not matter.)
>
> Another good choice is Slackware-derived LoopLinux. It's preferable for
> use on FAT-16 because rather than using many small files, it's all in
> one BIG file which mounts as a loopback device (a pseudo-disk) in Linux.
> One file not including the DOS loadlin.exe loader and the Linux kernel,
> that is. That amounts to much less cluster usage than ZipSlack or other
> UMSDOS-based Linux distros. It's also easy to expand by creating more
> loopback filesystems. (You can do that with any Linux system, not just
> LoopLinux. For more flexibility in managing filesystems for future
> growth, I myself use a loopback file for my /usr partition.)
The reason I suggest DOSLinux is because the author of this distribution
makes it very quick and easy to get connected to the internet without having
to edit a bunch of files in the /etc directory. It is all done automatically
and you will also have the command to dialup to the internet in your own
personal directory. Other similar features have an automatic install by just
typing in a single command and answering a few questions. Most of the others
I have seen, require you to read the Beginners Guide to Linux which was
written for Slackware and is in file form on the internet. I got the actual
book with my initial Linux purchase of the Linux Toolbox from Infomagic back
in 1995.
> > include compilers, many script languages and much of the complicated
aspects
> > of Linux. If you have a good understanding of DOS you can use this. It
also
>
> A person well-versed in DOS has nothing to fear from Linux. It will take
> some time to get up to speed (and to get used to the Unix ways of doing
> things), but you can match your DOS productivity in very little time.
> The bash shell is orders of magnitude above the best DOS command
> interpreter I've ever seen.
>
> I recommend "mc", the Midnight Commander, a visual file manager which is
> a good aid for learning your way around. (With current versions of
> ZipSlack you have to install ap1/mc.tgz and d1/ncurses.tgz first.)
>
MC comes already installed and ready to use immediately with DOSLinux and is
already set up for the color version. All of the ncurses are also installed.
DOSLinux also comes with bash. You can also add any Slackware package to it
without having to fool around with special scripts. Also if you know what
you are doing, the mc distributed with DOSLinux also includes looking at and
decompressing RPM, SRPM, and DEB files and you can also install them if you
can figure out what changes need to be made to the Slackware /etc files.
> > [snip]
> > requirements are for his latest version, but you must have at least a
386sx
> > and 2MB RAM to run Linux. Most likely his latest version requires 4MB
RAM
> > and 8 MB for x-windows, unless something has changed. This has been the
> > requirements need for Slackware distribution for many years. But I would
> > highly recommend 16MB and to get by without any swapfile or swap
partiton
> > 32MB should do it for a single computer. You can get by with 24MB, but
one
>
> You can run on 4MB, but it's painful. It's very difficult to *install*
> on only 4MB, but that's not an issue with a DOS- or Windows-based setup.
This is not true for Slackware text install. You only need 4MB of RAM, but
you do need two floppy drives if I remeber correctly or was that with 2MB of
RAM. I had 8MB when I first installed Slackware, RedHat,and Debian. I got
all three with my orginal purchase. If you wanted to use the GUI method of
install you needed 8MB.
> (ZipSlack requires a 32-bit unzip utility such as WinZip. I don't know
> if it can be done in DOS, even DPMI.)
I believe I have seen some utility somewhere that will do this in DOS. it is
probably available from simtel.
> IME even a 386 with only 8MB can be a useful Linux workstation. It's
> amazing how much can be done in Linux even without X. I understand from
> Glenn McCorkle here that Arachne for DOS can give you a graphical Web
> browser under DOSEMU (and the Linux version is coming someday.) X and
> things under it like Netscape would quickly choke anything less than
> 32MB, though.
Not so. I used a 386DX40 with 8MB RAM for a couple of years with Linux. I
did get some drive thrashing with Netscape, but found out how to fix it. I
just went into netscape and stopped it from caching stuff. I had a 16MB swap
space. I did eventually run out of virtual memory one time when I had seveal
consoles open and several Xwindows consoles open and tried to open another
VC for telnet before I ran out of VM. All I did was stop that process as
root on another console and slammed in a blank Sysquest cartridge and added
another 8MB of swap drive and restarted the new VC with telnet and just kept
on trucking. I had more things open and running simualtaneously and faster
on that old antique system that I ever have been able on this 133MHz 5x86
with 48MB RAM using WINDOZE!!!!
> An FPU (387/487) is also very helpful for Linux. I was fortunate that my
> Linux 386 was a high-end one (DX-33 w/FPU). I can't say for sure that a
> 386SX or one without FPU would have done as well. Linux will emulate the
> FPU if it's not there, but of course that's slower and uses memory.
I did not have an FPU. I never did put the old 386SX25 in and run it, but it
should have run okay. I suspect that the way I used Linux, the only thing
that would have been greatly speeded up would have been compiling. It took
forever (hours) to compile a new kernel or other compiling.
> > There are even WINDOZE emulators available, but I have not checked to
see
> > how far the free ones have developed. There are commercial version which
>
> WINE (http://www.winehq.org/) is the standard and is considered ready
> for many uses. WINE Is Not an Emulator anymore; it's now a complete
> Windows-compatible platform.
Does it run under Linux or is it now another OS entirely?
> I personally haven't tried it. I've heard that the Corel Office and
> DRAW! suites for "Linux" actually are WINE-based (IOW, they didn't port
> any code at all; just tweaked it for WINE.)
Well, Corel/Word Perfect was supposed to have been writing their complete
suit for Linux. There were announcements for it's release, but I never
really bothered with it, once I found Star Office, I did not see much need
for it.
> What may be a better option for most users who need to run Windows for
> some reason is VMWare or the Free Software clones of it. You can boot
> Windows (or any other OS) inside a virtual machine under Linux. I've
> heard some subjective comments from users who believe that their Windows
> performance is better under VMWare than native Windows. (I don't dare
> try it on my P166, which sometimes has its hands full running X & KDE.)
This could be true, but there will also be cases where programs will be more
sluggish than under WINDOZE. This was true with the dosemu. Some programs
ran a lot faster and some slower. I would imagine the Graphic games would
run slower under dosemu than under actual dos. It seems like graphics has
always been the area where things get slow. For example, people who owned
Amiga or APPLE ][gs computers and bought the IBM PC card for them had real
problems with speed when graphics was used. However, with a Virtual Machine,
there may not have to be any graphics coversion involved, it may depend on
the type of graphics card being used. I would suspect a person should look
for a graphics card that had very good performance with both Linux and
WINDOZE and OS/2 and whatever other OS a person may want to use.
I remeber an old OS called VM386 that operated similarly, but this was
before WINDOZE 9x came along. I don't know what OSes would run on it but is
was also a networking OS. It used terminals on it's system. I sent in for
information on it many years ago and was very impressed with it. It seemed
to be a UNIX like system. It could also run multiple CPUs if I remeber
correctly. I know that the company that was selling it also had backplane
boards for installing multiple CPU cards.
QNX was also working on something to run WINDOZE programs, but everytime I
would check with them, they would say they were still working on it. My
understanding was this was not an emulator, but would be able to run WINDOZE
programs directly under QNX. QNX is also a UNIX clone, but don't let them
hear you say that! Unfortunately QNX is strictly commercial and is not
cheap.
Pat
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