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Low Cost PCs: Bad for Linux
But the fact remains that selling so many of these low-end machines may not be good for the cause. |
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Comments (6)
ok, almost makes sense
This comes closer to making sense than most of the stuff on MadPenguin. It's true that cheap crappy hardware is not worth the low price. But if you look at the new generation of low-cost Linux machines that are being developed, they're not the same old cruddy low-end PC hardware. They're going with modern lower-spec hardware and custom software that doesn't need 500 horsepower just to boot up, let alone do anything. This is a seriously cool trend, and I think it will catch on in a big way.
Agreed. He also does a poor differentiating between "cheap" and "inexpensive". They don't always go together, and sometimes the expensive stuff is pretty cheap in regards to quality.
> They're going with modern lower-spec hardware and custom software that doesn't need 500 horsepower just to boot up, let alone do anything.
Agreed. Since we're talking madpenguin here, I find it ironic that a perfect example is to be found at MadTux.org: http://store.madtux.org/index.php?cPath=57
They offer a $139 Vector Linux box with a Via C7 1.5 GHz with 256MB of memory and a 13.5 GB hard drive.
This is an older system, but it's more than adequate for an XFCE based install like Vector Linux. They offer a number of higher priced systems, but none of their desktop systems run more than $300.
Agreed. Since we're talking madpenguin here, I find it ironic that a perfect example is to be found at MadTux.org: http://store.madtux.org/index.php?cPath=57
They offer a $139 Vector Linux box with a Via C7 1.5 GHz with 256MB of memory and a 13.5 GB hard drive.
This is an older system, but it's more than adequate for an XFCE based install like Vector Linux. They offer a number of higher priced systems, but none of their desktop systems run more than $300.
Low cost does not always mean low quality.
Look at CPU prices, for example. The hot new chip may be $1000. Next year it will be $500 with no reduction in quality, just intense competition on the leading edge. Look at RAM. The prices are volatile. This is commodity stuff/supply and demand.
Most parts I have seen are built to industry standards that makes them plug compatible so you are likely to have the same hard drives from the same maker in a cheap or expensive PC. It all depends on how aggressive the sales department felt that day they wrote the deal. OEMs shop around for the best deals and it is not from the dumpster. They seek quotes from a variety of suppliers or lock one in for a sweet deal for a period of time. Volume production and sales permit fantastically low prices for the same capability.
The average user of a PC surfs, e-mails and perhaps writes a document. The slowness of a PC more depends on the software running, the tasks being done and the Internet connection than the hardware. If you have a printer connected by USB 2, do you think the speed of the computer matters? No. Any PC made since PCI 33MHz can keep USB 2 maxed out from RAM. RAM is so cheap these days that most transactions are from RAM to the device, not from the hard drive to the device, so even the speed of drives is almost irrelevant.
A typical 64bit CPU that is fairly common today can run all the apps for dozens of users at once given enough RAM. Look at your CPU meter. It hovers around 1% on average on my machine. I do not even have dual core.
The truth is that with reasonable software, any PC made since the mid-pentium era can do everything a person needs done running the app. The old machines may be just a bit slower loading the app because the drives were slower then. Keep the app in RAM and this problem disappears.
This has been the case since the late 90's. Read this M$ internal memo from 1997 on the subject: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/365.pdf "The only counter argument to make here is that current PC technology is sufficient for office tasks and consumer desires and that any performance bottleneck is not in today's PCs but in today's COM pipes,"
Linux looks good on anything since about PIII because Linux is not a "MIPS-eating" piece of software but a standard interface between the user's app or service and the hardware, and not a marketing ploy.
Look at CPU prices, for example. The hot new chip may be $1000. Next year it will be $500 with no reduction in quality, just intense competition on the leading edge. Look at RAM. The prices are volatile. This is commodity stuff/supply and demand.
Most parts I have seen are built to industry standards that makes them plug compatible so you are likely to have the same hard drives from the same maker in a cheap or expensive PC. It all depends on how aggressive the sales department felt that day they wrote the deal. OEMs shop around for the best deals and it is not from the dumpster. They seek quotes from a variety of suppliers or lock one in for a sweet deal for a period of time. Volume production and sales permit fantastically low prices for the same capability.
The average user of a PC surfs, e-mails and perhaps writes a document. The slowness of a PC more depends on the software running, the tasks being done and the Internet connection than the hardware. If you have a printer connected by USB 2, do you think the speed of the computer matters? No. Any PC made since PCI 33MHz can keep USB 2 maxed out from RAM. RAM is so cheap these days that most transactions are from RAM to the device, not from the hard drive to the device, so even the speed of drives is almost irrelevant.
A typical 64bit CPU that is fairly common today can run all the apps for dozens of users at once given enough RAM. Look at your CPU meter. It hovers around 1% on average on my machine. I do not even have dual core.
The truth is that with reasonable software, any PC made since the mid-pentium era can do everything a person needs done running the app. The old machines may be just a bit slower loading the app because the drives were slower then. Keep the app in RAM and this problem disappears.
This has been the case since the late 90's. Read this M$ internal memo from 1997 on the subject: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/365.pdf "The only counter argument to make here is that current PC technology is sufficient for office tasks and consumer desires and that any performance bottleneck is not in today's PCs but in today's COM pipes,"
Linux looks good on anything since about PIII because Linux is not a "MIPS-eating" piece of software but a standard interface between the user's app or service and the hardware, and not a marketing ploy.
Quoting: Linux looks good on anything since about PIII
I say PII, maybe even PI. I remember running Debian Sarge on an old AMD proc with 64mb of RAM, full GUI. It was pretty responsive, it just took a little time to start and switch between apps.
Hot air
This is one of those silly blog postings where the author takes a grain of truth (i.e., I'll accept that some cheap hardware is of lower quality than some expensive hardware) and spins it into several paragraphs of crap.
For the record, I've had a lot of luck buying the cheapest hardware I can find for desktops, prototypes and other situations where 24/7 is not mission-critical. And 99.8% of the time, cheap hardware works great and I save a bundle for that .1% decrement in service.
A much bigger issue is driver support than the actual hardware and so far expense and name-brandedness haven't been very good predictors of whether they have unsupported hardware. In many cases, I have the worst problems with flashy new components like proprietary video cards or (when they were new) SATA drives.
For the record, I've had a lot of luck buying the cheapest hardware I can find for desktops, prototypes and other situations where 24/7 is not mission-critical. And 99.8% of the time, cheap hardware works great and I save a bundle for that .1% decrement in service.
A much bigger issue is driver support than the actual hardware and so far expense and name-brandedness haven't been very good predictors of whether they have unsupported hardware. In many cases, I have the worst problems with flashy new components like proprietary video cards or (when they were new) SATA drives.
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