On 2006-11-10, Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> posted something concerning:
> Someone who reads COLA has asked me to post the following:
>
>
> One thing the FUD artists on COLA would like to have all believe that
> Windows XP is rock stable and Linux is always crashing. I got a kick out of
> "Oliver Wong's" accusation that his Ubuntu system crashes constantly (and
> therefore he would like others to conclude that Linux is a failure.)
>
> Yesterday, I had several task crashes on Adobe Professional. I was printing
> a large 362 page Adobe PDF into another PDF (essentially a save using the
> Adobe print driver) as 2 pages on one 8-1/2" x 11" page, so when I sent it
> to the laser printer, I would only have 91 sheets. (It is a training manual
> that the training department sent me. Sometimes they send manuals in PDF
> and let the user print them out instead of supplying in the classroom.)
>
> I have 384 MB RAM on my corporate desktop. I had several spreadsheets open
> in Excel, a Word document, PowerPoint and Outlook open.
>
> Once I closed the other applications, it took about 20 minutes for the
> document to complete the conversion.
>
> Those who complain about the long load times (which are not really long) for
> Open Office, obviously are either trolling or do not use Microsoft Office,
> to include Excel. Excel takes about 20 seconds to come up and load a
> spreadsheet.
>
> Excel crashing is a regular occurrence. Yes, a recovery module pops up and
> retrieves the broken document and restarts Excel, which is an improvement
> over versions previous to Office XP.
>
> However, there are limits to virtual memory in XP if one does not have a
> full compliment of memory (like 1 GB). I find it best to run only several
> applications at a time. If I am running a heavy one like
> Adobe Professional 6.0, it is best I operate those without much other going
> on. Otherwise, I run into task hangs until task at hand completes or task
> crash.
>
> When Erik speaks of how smooth his 500 MHz PC system with 256 MB memory runs
> in Vista with only 69% memory utilisation only humours me. The real test of
> an operating system is when applications are loaded and operated as in a
> typical environment (or particular environment for special users). Running
> an operating system without applications or server service is akin to
> keeping a car transmissioned in park and idling the engine. Perhaps he
> should sell used cars.
>
> COLA Myth Buster Advocate,
>
><anon>
I primarily use a laptop at work. It has 512M and runs a 1.9G P4
Mobile. I use it almost exclusively via wifi. The signal isn't always
great. But it's fairly good most of the time. The machine runs XP Pro
(ha ha ha) most of the time. The only times it hasn't will be mentioned
below.
I run mostly Outlook and IE. I'm forced to use IE for one application,
which is web-based. I sometimes take a few minutes out and check the
web. I do that part using Firefox. I added the desktop manager that
gives multiple desktops (as bad as it is I find I can't function very
well at all with only one desktop). I sometimes use, but rarely ever,
Word or Excel.
The machine logs onto a domain using the built-in wifi card via an
access point down the hall.
Without exception, I have to reboot the machine no less than 3 times a
day. It drags to the point that I can't even get it to do simple things
for minutes at a time unless I reboot it first. Most days I need to
reboot it twice just to get it to work OK (barely) first thing in the
morning. Most of the time I have to reboot 2 or 3 times before lunch. I
/always/ have to reboot right after noon. Most days I also have to
reboot twice or more after that. But on the best days I'll have to
reboot once in the morning, once right after lunch, and once more
before I leave work.
There are some exceptions to the the setup and use.
I've logged into local adminstrator and let the machine run all day. I
can still access the web-based program that way, but I can't get my
email. There's no login to the domain this way, so I'm not accessing
any network resources except the normal routing, proxying, firewalling
and external content filtering. The system still drags just about as
bad. It's hard to say if it's just as bad because I haven't run it that
way repeatedly and often enough to qualify it like that. But I can say
the effect was close enough to the same to call it identical. This is
still using the same wifi card from the same location in relation to
the access point.
I've run Ubuntu from CD on the same machine. I use it in persistent
mode, so it has swap, local storage, etc. That makes it almost as good
as running from an installed copy, though it's still a little jerky and
slow when running some things up. Using it this way, I haven't seen the
same problem I see with XP Pro (ha ha ha) on the same machine. Even if
something opene slow and memory has to be swapped, going back to the
previous app doesn't take eons the way XP often does. This setup used
the same wifi card connecting to the same access point from the same
location where I usually run XP on this machine.
Usually when I run Ubuntu like that, I use a different machine. It'll
be the same model, but half the RAM. The machine will rarely be the
same one because they have a different use than what I'm doing with
them, and they pass through the shop often and quickly. When running
Ubuntu on these, I've never had any problems similar to what I
experience with XP. These have all been in various locations, from a
few feet away from the access point to the same location as my main
machine, using the same wifi driver, since all of them have the same
type of built-in card.
I mention the wifi in this because I've noticed that a couple of other
machines are extremely slow getting connected. They also bog down very
quickly. I always assumed a relationship between the networking speed
and the machine. There's probably something to that. But I don't suffer
the same problems when running Ubuntu, so another vairable here must
also be the OS.
Erik's claims are just that: claims.
In both of the 2 cases where I mention using XP above, I can get
similar results to Erik's. I didn't look for specifics because I never
thought Erik would try this particluar line of crap. But I'd bet I can
show even less of the resources used because of the nature of the
machine. Until I load up the browser or open an application or two. It
takes no time at all to see things slow down afterward, and for the
resources to dwindle very quickly.
Everybody expects Erik to make things up anyway, so nobody should
really be surprised when he does. The only surprise any more is which
direction he's going to come from to try pulling wool over people's
eyes.
--
What kind of dumb menu system is that? Oh, so /that's/ Windows.
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