On 01 Sep 2003 18:02:27 -0400, Neal Lippman <nl@lippman.org> wrote: <...> > A few months ago, I decided to put debian on my old Laptop, an IBM > Thinkpad 770ED (PII-266, 64MB Ram). Once again, with KDE running, the > desktop was so slow and unresponsive as to be really unusable (except > in an xterm window). This is a system that has run Win95, Win98, and > WinNT just fine over the years. > > So, my question is: Why does X seem to need so much more CPU power > than windows - such that systems I have tried to use that worked fine > with various windows flavors just were unusable with KDE loaded? I > assume the problem isn't in Linux itself, since my old Pentium 133 was > just fine with X not running, and enough people have attested to the > ability of systems with Pentium processors running Linux without X > being able to handle massive firewall, router, web server duties, etc. > Maybe the problem is KDE and not X - but I had similar trouble with > Gnome, so it isn't just a KDE issue. Many have probably told you the issues about large desktop environments like GNOME and KDE. Yes, this is true, but your issues could also be attributed to bottlenecks which you don't get in Windows. If you are running hardware that isn't supported very well with either open-source drivers or decent, up-to-date proprietary drivers, you will suffer from your system being bottlenecked. Hardware manufacturers tend to support only operating systems like Windows, and in proprietary form only. Thus, the hardware works well on Windows because the drivers are decent and supported, while drivers for alternative platforms like Linux are nonexistent. And since Linux is a constantly changing kernel, along with every other part of the operating system, it's difficult for hardware manufacturers to keep up with proprietary drivers, and open-source drivers aren't always an option for them. While Windows changes at a snail's pace and is much more restrictive and centralized, you get a wider range of hardware that runs well (I don't really know of any hardware manufacturer for PCs that doesn't support their hardware with Windows drivers.) This is so true for video acceleration, too. The two leading video card manufacturers, NVIDIA and ATi both only release proprietary drivers (some better than others) for their latest cards. Support for older cards probably doesn't even exist, though ATi has released the full specifications on some older cards that are still rather nice, and thus we have open-source drivers. Matrox also only has proprietary drivers for their Parhelia line of cards. And there's no guarantee how well these drivers are, since the manufacturers don't focus too much energy in that direction, and there will be a new kernel series approaching rapidly. And plus, some of these drivers are built and packaged for Red Hat only, so that adds to a variety of problems that could occur if you wanted to have it work right on Debian. Also, many people are bottlenecked by chipsets and miscellaneous devices not well documented/supported. This is a major reason why people aren't always getting the hard disk speeds/reads as they do in Windows. Luckily for that area, there are many good options. You just have to select carefully. I personally make sure all my hardware is well supported, documented and high quality. And I have a very nice setup that runs excellently with any type of operating system and software, with a souped up GNOME desktop. Plus, I've been able to do it on a budget of only being in high school without a job, so it can be done. ;) You just have to research/analyze your hardware decisions, and preferably select your hardware yourself. -- Scott Christopher Linnenbringer [sl@eskimo.com] http://www.eskimo.com/~sl/info.txt [sl@moslug.org] [NOTE: THIS MESSAGE IS DIGITALLY SIGNED WITH GNUPG/PGP]
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