Silliness So what are you doing RIGHT NOW? - Page 1538

DMcCunney · 10-03-2010, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

Then either I'm blessed or you're cursed. Just a few months ago I installed it on 2 separate machines (1 with a 30GB drive and 1 with a 40GB, both ATA-133) for a friend of mine to unload on FleaBay for US$15 or whatever. Both had 128 MB RAM and 733 MHz processors (one was an AMD K6 I believe, the other an Intel Celeron). All the way through a Service Pack 3 update, neither would win any races but neither choked. One of my long-ago store-bought Gateway machines had 256 MB and a Celeron; XP didn't give me any more problems than anyone else dealt with and I was greedy, at least by 2003 standards.

I guess it depends on what you're willing to settle for.

XP technically "runs" in 256MB of RAM, for suitable values of "run". If you're willing to wait for several minutes for operations to complete, it might be OK.

In the installs you mention, how long did it take XP to boot from a cold start? How long did it take in invoke, say Word (or Open Office Writer). How long did it take to load Firefox, and what was it like once up?

If your answers to any of the above are less than one minute, please tell me what magic spell you used. Did you burn the manual on the altar with the sheep guts?

For a 128MB RAM box, I'd install Linux, make sure I gave it a swap partition twice the size of RAM, and have low expectations of what it would do. (On my notebook, for example, I don't even try to access YouTube - I see a slideshow of still pictures, not video.)

There was a poster on the Puppy forums who detailed how he got Puppy up an a machine with 16MB RAM. It involved stripping out everything he could remove that would still permit a GUI using JWM, and he had to build the actual image on a more powerful machine and trasfer it to the target box when it was ready.

Quote:

Doesn't surprise me; drive I/O is the biggest speed killer of them all.

Which is why more RAM to provide a larger and more effective cache is the first performance enhancement I recommend. PCs are I/O bound, not compute bound, and spend most of their time waiting for something, like a read or write to complete. As the pundit once said "All machines wait at the same speed".

A faster processor is usually not a significant improvement.

Quote:

Gnome uses GTK. So does XFCE, though not as extensively. This is why Ubuntu (and Fedora) suffer from what I've referred to as a 3BGD error, for "3 Billion Gnome Dependencies".

Gnome may use GTK, but the converse is not true. Wiping the Xubuntu install and installing from MinimalCD gave me a system that was usable, with a choice of XFCE or LXDE as the GUI when I boot into it. (I prefer XFCE, and use it under Puppy as well, in place fo the default JWM.)

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That's why I mentioned the multiboot CD in the first place; don't need a floppy drive that way, just make ISOs. Just trying to be helpful.

I'll look at it. The biggest use for a USB floppy at the moment would be booting from a Windows boot floppy, which might let me successfully install Win98SE to a specified partition. I tried running Setup from the Win98 CD when booted into FreeDOS, but setup claimed it needed at least 16MB RAM to continue. FreeDOS sees the full RAM, and I can use XMS to create a 2MB RAMdisk and 8MB of cache, but whatever it's reporting to Windows setup obviously isn't what it wants to see.

I can boot from the CD and run Setup, but then it insists on trying to format and use the entire drive.
______
Dennis

WT Sharpe · 10-03-2010, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Quote:

Originally Posted by happy_terd

You two are a lot a like. I wonder if anyone ever noticed that.

Why I outta.....

..........

kennyc · 10-03-2010, 01:21 PM

I think it's warmed up enough to get out for a nice walk.

Back in a bit.....maybe.....

WT Sharpe · 10-03-2010, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

BaH! I even hate that....and so does my sock-puppet Tom.

Actually I kind of enjoy buying things off the Internet ... unless it's for something my wife has asked me to buy. Then she sits over my shoulder and constantly asks me to click on some link she has spotted which usually has little to do with what she's trying to make up her mind about. When I shop, I usually know exactly what I plan to buy ahead of time. When she shops, whether it's in a brick and mortar store or on the Internet, the shopping process is as much a tiresome fact-finding tour as anything else. When I hit that "buy now" button for myself, I feel a sense of exhilaration and expectation. When I shop with her, after checking every possible make and model, nine times out of ten she decides to wait until later before committing herself to buying and I feel drained afterward. As a sport, I think shopping's generally a female thing. It must be something in their genes. There's something about having two X chromosomes that makes them see shopping as enjoyable, in a similar manner to how it screws with their ability to enjoy the humor of The Three Stooges.

vivaldirules · 10-03-2010, 01:41 PM

Aha! HT left kenny in charge and now kenny's gone, too!

FISH FIGHT!!!

FlorenceArt · 10-03-2010, 01:42 PM

I guess I need to count my chromosomes... back in a bit.

WT Sharpe · 10-03-2010, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

Then you haven't visited: http://www.thinkgeek.com/

Oh, man! A Start Trek pizza cutter shaped like the Starship Enterprise! That's cool as all get-out!

thinkpad · 10-03-2010, 01:45 PM

I saw that one. It would elevate anyone's geek status with a factor of 10

Not to mention it's useful...

FlorenceArt · 10-03-2010, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Oh, man! A Start Trek pizza cutter shaped like the Starship Enterprise! That's cool as all get-out!

ShortNCuddlyAm · 10-03-2010, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

I hate shopping.....oh wait this isn't vent and rant....

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

You and me both, bro! That, and talking on the phone.

And I find it especially irritating to see people who are doing both at the same time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I hate shopping too.

I hate clothes & shoe shopping in actual physical shops. Shoe shopping online isn't too bad, if I know what size in what brand I need; and especially on sites that tell you if the sizing runs large or small. Clothes shopping is just painful on or offline - trying to fond somewhere that sells what I want in my size is tortuous, and I detest going round too many shops (more than two, really) to find what I want. Food shopping wouldn't be too bad if it weren't for all the other shoppers dithering and stopping mid aisle to debate this or that brand oblivious of everyone else trying to get past.

I quite enjoy shopping for fabric, jewellery making bits, yarn and the like, and can browse for a while in those shops, but again only if I have something in mind. Same with tech stuff. Bookshops... I can spend a while just browsing in them, without any clear goal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

When she shops, whether it's in a brick and mortar store or on the Internet, the shopping process is as much a tiresome fact-finding tour as anything else. When I hit that "buy now" button for myself, I feel a sense of exhilaration and expectation. When I shop with her, after checking every possible make and model, nine times out of ten she decides to wait until later before committing herself to buying and I feel drained afterward. As a sport, I think shopping's generally a female thing. It must be something in their genes. There's something about having two X chromosomes that makes them see shopping as enjoyable, in a similar manner to how it screws with their ability to enjoy the humor of The Three Stooges.

The only things I have in my jeans are some old receipts...

My mother, who should know better by now, thinks I enjoy endlessly traipsing round clothes shops "just looking"

WT Sharpe · 10-03-2010, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

I guess I need to count my chromosomes... back in a bit.

Don't take me too seriously!

WT Sharpe · 10-03-2010, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

I saw that one. It would elevate anyone's geek status with a Warp factor of 10

Not to mention it's useful...

Fixed it for you!

thinkpad · 10-03-2010, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

My mother, who should know better by now, thinks I enjoy endlessly traipsing round clothes shops "just looking"

That's the worst. Shopping without a purpose is just murder. I could not do it even if someone paid me. There would have to be one hell of a good looking girlfriend for me to be dragged around in a shopping mall

poohbear_nc · 10-03-2010, 02:14 PM

I watching the Steelers and Ravens game.

thinkpad · 10-03-2010, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Fixed it for you!

Now we're starting to think alike

10-03-2010, 01:21 PM	#23058
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,907 Karma: 119230421 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	I think it's warmed up enough to get out for a nice walk. Back in a bit.....maybe.....

10-03-2010, 01:41 PM	#23060
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	Aha! HT left kenny in charge and now kenny's gone, too! FISH FIGHT!!!

10-03-2010, 01:42 PM	#23061
FlorenceArt High Priestess Posts: 5,761 Karma: 5042529 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Montreuil sous bois, France Device: iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 6 Plus	I guess I need to count my chromosomes... back in a bit.

10-03-2010, 01:45 PM	#23063
thinkpad David Posts: 1,808 Karma: 8916183 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Norway Device: Kindle, E.Edge (sold), Irex Iliad (retired)	I saw that one. It would elevate anyone's geek status with a factor of 10 Not to mention it's useful...

10-03-2010, 02:14 PM	#23069
poohbear_nc Bah! Humbug! Posts: 63,543 Karma: 135239851 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Durham, NC Device: Every Kindle Ever Made & To Be Made!	I watching the Steelers and Ravens game.