Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1695 mails)

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 4:53 AM, Per Jessen<per@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > You could probably do with a bit more RAM - PC100 DIMMs are not
> > > really that expensive anymore.
> > Actually, the SODimms are.  $25 for a PC100 256MB.  However, that is a
> > moot point since that machine, a Thinkpad X21, has a Max RAM of 384MB.
> >  The next model up, the X22, can go to 640MB.  Just my luck.
> Ah, sorry about that.  Yes, SODimms are still pricey in comparison.

The X21 is from late 2001;  that is ~8 years old.  It seems entirely
reasonable to be that such a machine is going to really struggle to run
a current desktop install.  Expecting a five year life span from a
computer is the bench mark I hear most often.

> > > Or buy a new desktop machine - I bought two 2nd hand Dell Optiplex'es
> > > just the other day for use as office machines.  2.4GHz Celerons with
> > > 512M RAM. I added another 512M to both, and each machine was still
> > > only CHF60.

I use a 1.6GHz P4 / 1.2GB RAM for a desktop and performance is
reasonable, not great.  But that is about to slide over the five year
mark.  Upgrading the video card helped *A LOT*.

> > I have an E1200 overclocked to 3.2Ghz with 2GB RAM overclocked to
> > 1Ghz.  Honestly, it gets annoying to be told I need to buy new. 

Unless the drives or GPU are seriously lame I don't see why performance
on such a  box wouldn't be entirely adequate.  Unfortunately CPU/RAM
isn't the entire performance equation.  I've see 'older' machines
perform pretty well while newer and [theoretically] faster machines are
dogs.

> Apologies, I didn't quite mean it like that - I was trying to make a
> friendly suggestion that you are perhaps expecting too much from a
> P3/700 with 384M RAM as a desktop.  

Yes.

> I am all for maintaining support for older hardware, but at some point
> the older hardware will/must be left behind.  Especially for a desktop
> machine/distro, where it's difficult to utilize the new multi-cores
> with a couple of gigabyte and make it run on e.g. a P3 with 384Mb at
> the same time. 

It is also just the times.  AJAX websites and other content just require
more horsepower - even to browse the web.  [Which is kind of the myth
behind using Google Docs or that ilk to save old machines - it does not
work as web applications are horribly horribly horribly inefficient].
The benchmarking we've done in-house shows that the web browser is one
of the most resource intensive applications people run, much more so
than their office suite or groupware client.


-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx