On Thu, 2002-03-14 at 16:58, Faheem Mitha wrote:
Dear People, This is a offtopic question, but is related to Linux in that I need to do something in Windows I can easily do in Linux, and I wondered if someone could help me. I'm about to purchase a machine to install Debian on, but the people I'm getting it from only support Windows. I want to put the hardware under some load, but there doesn't seem to be any canonical way to do this in Windows. If they know Linux stuff I would just ask them to recompile the kernel a bunch of times. But this is probably not an option here.
Not sure what you're looking for. If you're just trying to make sure the hardware is "up to snuff" for use in Linux, the specs should be easily checked against published compatibility lists. If you're trying to test the hardware, you can do such things as making a bootable floppy with mem86 to test the RAM, or run Scandisk-in-thorough-mode/Defragment (depending on the version of Windows and the defragmenter available) to stress the hard drive. Burn a CD (or copy the contents of a burned (not pressed) CD to the hard drive. Copy the contents of the drive to a second partition/drive/network drive. Run a memory hog, like AutoCAD (or PhotoShop?). If it's FAT32, use FIPS to create a small partition on the end of the drive and install base Debian and compile some kernels. Open up as many windows as you can (Netscape and IE and Word and Excel and download Mozilla and Notepad and connect to a remote machine via HyperTerminal and Pinball (Win95 CD) and Quake and and and).
You're right; I don't know of any canonical way to stress the hardware, unless you go the route of stuff like CheckIt or Norton's (CheckIt's old, and Norton's has become useless fluff, but the older versions were good, but not new-Windows-based).
Kent