Mailing List Archive

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:36:50 -0600, Abraham Al-Saleh <alsaleha@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to strongly disagree. I work technical support for a living.
> When I ask the user what OS they have, and they say Windows ME, I die
> a little inside. I >know< that it's going to be an incredibly long
> call. The one good thing about it is that it has the CAB files
> installed by default, so you can usually reinstall networking
> components a lot easier.
>
> On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:23:42 -0600, Ian K <omega_2_1@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > What is it with everyone and Windows Millenium?

Yep, in all my travels through Windows land, I've found exactly one
fan of WindowsME, and that's Ian.

--
/\/\
(CR) Collins Richey
\/\/ "I hear you're single again." "Spouse 2.0 had fewer bugs than
Spouse 1.0, but the maintenance ... was too much for my OS."
- Glitch (tm)

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On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:57:18 -0600, Collins Richey <crichey@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:36:50 -0600, Abraham Al-Saleh <alsaleha@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:23:42 -0600, Ian K <omega_2_1@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > > What is it with everyone and Windows Millenium?
>
> Yep, in all my travels through Windows land, I've found exactly one
> fan of WindowsME, and that's Ian.
>

Same here. I haven't seen anyone who liked it.
<shudder>
It came on the laptop I got freshman year of college. Thing wouldn't
even BOOT most of the time, and that's with the OS pre-installed!

-Andy

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On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> Mostly, yup. It makes a lot more of a difference on some non-x86 archs
> -- we gain something like a 30% to 60% performance boost over debian on
> sparcv9, for example. On x86 it does pretty much zilch, and anyone who
> spends more than about thirty seconds messing with CFLAGS has grasped
> the wrong end of the stick.

CFLAGS are trivial but not that trivial - they do matter for multimedia
and -Os is also a good idea for a desktop system to be used globally.

IMHO people should think about them a bit more, so that they would come
to realize why it's not a good idea to use -O3 -ffast-math globally.

And some people even use a program called Acovea to determine the
"best" cflags for global usage even for a normal desktop system.
That's simply madness...

PS. According to my experience, Gentoo is considerably faster (or
"smoother") than Debian but I doubt it has little to do with cflags.

--
T.G.

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> What is it with everyone and Windows Millenium?
> Its no worse then 98se.
> Of course, Linux is better, but ME is probably one of the better
> versions of Windows.
> Go ahead and Flame me, i dont really care. :)

The Windows NT based systems are the only ones, that are worth a
comparision to Linux since they have a proper Kernel etc.

Windows ME (which is still DOS based) is not worth the time it takes to
install it. Guess why MS dropped the DOS-based Windows-series ...


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On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:18:00 +0100
Ciaran McCreesh <ciaranm@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:51:54 -0500 "Gabriel M. Beddingfield"
> <gabriel@teuton.org> wrote:
> | 3. compiled
> | I don't know if I have any performance gains yet... it's hard to tell
> | because I'm not comparing apples-to-apples. I'm waiting a couple
> | weeks before prelinking while I add my packages.
>
> We don't compile things for performance. We compile them for
> flexibility.

This is a constant theme on some of the Linux user group lists I am on:

Gentoo newbie: i am thinking of moving to gentoo, is it true that i will
get z% better performance and where are some tests that have verified
this?

Repeated bash head against wall answer: yes you may get some performance
gains, but the real reasons to shift are the great package management,
ability to choose exactly what you want through finely grained package
choices and USE choices and a great learning experience.

Of course we must remember that speed increases WERE touted as a major
selling point at an earlier stage of gentoo. that perception lingers.

>
> --
> Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Fluxbox, Sparc, Mips)
> Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
> Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm
>

--
Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz>


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On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 15:52 +0000, James wrote:
> Sven Köhler <skoehler <at> upb.de> writes:
>
> > And it's easy to write your own ebuilds.
>
> Hmmmmm. Let's see. I would agree with this, once my first attempt
> is successful. I agree it does look straightforward, but things can be
> somewhat
> intimidating.


<snip>


> It'd be great to create a 'howto build an ebuild' using JFFNMS as an
> example! Something 'brain dead' for those of us faced with declining
> cerebrial skills. I'd even be willing to take on maintenace of the
> package, as it espouses manythings that I'm learning about and keenly
> interested in.
>
> Yes I've looked at 'usr/portage/skel.ebuild' and
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=2&chap=0
> <Time, kids, clients, hurricanes, and a nagging wife are the real
> culprits here>
>
> PS. I got $400 (USD) burning a hole in my pocket on this one!
>
>
> sincerely
> James
>

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~arch" emerge abeni

An ebuild ebuilder to help create ebuilds. If it helps you.

--
Brian <dol-sen@telus.net>


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Nick Rout wrote:

> This is a constant theme on some of the Linux user group lists I am on:
>
> Gentoo newbie: i am thinking of moving to gentoo, is it true that i will
> get z% better performance and where are some tests that have verified
> this?
>
> Repeated bash head against wall answer: yes you may get some performance
> gains, but the real reasons to shift are the great package management,
> ability to choose exactly what you want through finely grained package
> choices and USE choices and a great learning experience.
>
> Of course we must remember that speed increases WERE touted as a major
> selling point at an earlier stage of gentoo. that perception lingers.
>

WERE?

"We produce Gentoo Linux, a special flavor of Linux that can be
automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or
need. Extreme configurability, performance and a top-notch user and
developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience."
-- http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

In my dialect, "optimized" typically means "as lean and fast as
theoretically possible." In this context, "customized," "extreme," and
"configurability" can all easily be interpreted as words emphasizing
"optimized" and "performance." At least, that's how *I* took it when I
first read it.

THAT SAID... I think you guys are 100% spot-on correct when you say that "we
don't compile for performance, but for flexibility." I looked into gentoo
because I was considering performance. I liked what I saw because of the
flexibility and great package management.

Still, the image on the street is "Gentoo is a compiled distribution for
people who like to tweak settings for performance." What do you do to
"fix" that image? ...presuming it needs fixing. ;-)

--
G a b r i e l M . B e d d i n g f i e l d


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On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 23:45, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:49:08 +0800 Ow Mun Heng <Ow.Mun.Heng@wdc.com>
> wrote:
>
> | So.. performance is an afterthought?
>
> Mostly, yup. It makes a lot more of a difference on some non-x86 archs
> -- we gain something like a 30% to 60% performance boost over debian on
> sparcv9, for example. On x86 it does pretty much zilch, and anyone who
> spends more than about thirty seconds messing with CFLAGS has grasped
> the wrong end of the stick.

I see, But it's an added benefit then.
have you tried Yoper? I believe it also uses optimisation flags such as
gentoo and it achieves pretty impressive results

--
Ow Mun Heng
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 2 on D600 1.4Ghz CPU kernel
2.6.7-2.jul1-interactive
Neuromancer 11:12:12 up 1:47, 8 users, load average: 1.94, 1.43, 1.34

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On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 10:52, Gabriel M. Beddingfield wrote:
> Nick Rout wrote:

> > Of course we must remember that speed increases WERE touted as a major
> > selling point at an earlier stage of gentoo. that perception lingers.
> >
>
> WERE?
>
> "We produce Gentoo Linux, a special flavor of Linux that can be
> automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or
> need. Extreme configurability, performance and a top-notch user and
> developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience."
> -- http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

> Still, the image on the street is "Gentoo is a compiled distribution for
> people who like to tweak settings for performance." What do you do to
> "fix" that image? ...presuming it needs fixing. ;-)

I have to agree with that.

I went to gentoo because I tried out Yoper and it felt fast.
Then articles after articles came out that mentioned gentoo.

I tried it out. It feels faster (or am I on placebo?)
But most of all, after the fast'ness, I'm growing onto the great package
management.

--
Ow Mun Heng
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 2 on D600 1.4Ghz CPU kernel
2.6.7-2.jul1-interactive
Neuromancer 11:28:18 up 2:03, 8 users, load average: 3.27, 1.98, 1.55

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On Sun, 17 Oct 2004, Ian K wrote:

> What is it with everyone and Windows Millenium?
> Its no worse then 98se.
> Of course, Linux is better, but ME is probably one of the better
> versions of Windows.

I think you've just been very lucky. The general consensus is that it was
the worst version of Windoze ever produced (even pro-M$ magazines like PC
Magazine said so).


--
interrupt

1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event
that interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts
flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine. See also
trap. 2. interj. A request for attention from a hacker.
Often explicitly spoken. "Interrupt -- have you seen Joe
recently?" See priority interrupt. 3. Under MS-DOS, nearly
synonymous with `system call', because the OS and BIOS routines
are both called using the INT instruction (see interrupt list)
and because programmers so often have to bypass the OS (going
directly to a BIOS interrupt) to get reasonable
performance.


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On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 16:24, Ajai Khattri wrote:
> I think you've just been very lucky. The general consensus is that it was
> the worst version of Windoze ever produced (even pro-M$ magazines like PC
> Magazine said so).

If you *really* want to install windows, try 2000 or XP, but don't
forget to update & turn firewall on (you are vulnerable to Blaster &
friends!!!).
--
MOLNAR Peter <mp428@hszk.bme.hu>


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MOLNAR Peter wrote:

>On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 16:24, Ajai Khattri wrote:
>
>
>>I think you've just been very lucky. The general consensus is that it was
>>the worst version of Windoze ever produced (even pro-M$ magazines like PC
>>Magazine said so).
>>
>>
>
>If you *really* want to install windows, try 2000 or XP, but don't
>forget to update & turn firewall on (you are vulnerable to Blaster &
>friends!!!).
>
>
Don't forget to unplug the network cable. Someone installed it on my
computer (for a particular project obviously) and when it
re-re-re-rebooted I went for a glass of water and *pow* computer is virused.

--
Adi


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