Wow, that was ignorant.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| deathshadow Sep 27, 2005 8:16 PM EDT |
Ok, let's see... First off he didn't bother listing his system specs... Thinkpad T21, that's a P3 800 with 128 megs stock. Oh yeah, GREAT XP platform. Starts out complaining he can't connect with Ubuntu, then can't connect with 98, then can't connect with XP. Hmm. XP must be the problem... RIGHT. Installing XP over Win98 via Upgrade. Yeah, that ALWAYS works well. Lemme guess, left it running FAT32 too, right? To connect to Netscape... Ok, right off, anyone who uses Netscape or AOHELL's internet service deserves what they get. I realize it's the only connect that's available wherever you go... That does NOT mean it's any good or even reliable. The moment I hear the words "I had to download their dialer" I think wow, isn't that special, in the same way some olympics are special. Couldn't get the modem to work, out of curiosity is that a PCMCIA modem? Did he install the special PCMCIA drivers from IBM to get it working... Doesn't that laptop come with a Intel chipset V.90 built in, not the USR he was trying to use? Then he talks about downloading drivers " and had Netscape's web accelerator running." which of course has such an impact on binary downloads, oh wait, it DOESN'T... Of course he tries to do ICS, and of course "Netscape's proprietary dialer would not allow for Microsoft ICS." No shit sherlock, that's why it's called a proprietary dialer... Of course, this must be XP's fault. RIGHT. He goes on and on about crappy third party software we all KNOW is crappy third party software... Then of course comes the goofy utilities. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Registry cleaners are rolling the dice on completely BONING the machine every time you use them... They even SAY SO in their disclaimers. The article might mean something if it wasn't built on a house of cards... It is filled with one stupid assumption after another and lots of finger pointing at the wrong cause to the various problems encountered. I'm actually surprised on one thing though, as a linux zealot I'm amazed he didn't start pointing fingers at the hardware for every driver issue. |
| dinotrac Sep 27, 2005 9:11 PM EDT |
deathshadow... Excellent observation. Everybody should know that you can't expect to install XP on a machine that meets the recommended requirements!! Quoting: PC with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended • 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features) Courtesy of http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/sysreqs.ms... . It seems that we agree Microsoft is not to be trusted. BTW -- You might want to go and learn a thing or two about computer hardware. An 800 mhz PIII was a decent chip. Don't forget that Intel intentionally degraded the performance of the P4 on a cycle per cycle basis as a tradeoff for being able to get more cycles. An 800 mhz p3 runs more like a 1.1 mhz p4. Not a gamer, but plenty for office apps. |
| deathshadow Sep 27, 2005 9:20 PM EDT |
WAS is the operative word... and yes, I've seen it run halfway decent right down to K6/2-350's... But to be honest running it on anything less than 1ghz is iffy at best, regardless of what the box or M$ says... One BIG key is the RAM. Anything LESS than 256 is garbage with XP, like driving with the parking brake on. 256 isn't great, although it seems at 384 the OS kicks into overdrive. From 384-768 you don't seem to see any real difference unless you are using a specific application that's ram hungry (like photoshop), although at the gig mark the OS seems to take another jump in speed. I take more issue with the system specs not even being listed... although I do consider that below MY standard for XP minimums. |
| dinotrac Sep 27, 2005 9:50 PM EDT |
deathshadow -- XP Pro runs very nicely on my wife's 650 PIII with 384 mb. She doesn't do games or video encoding, which would probably overload her poor little box. XP on her notebook actually seems snappier than the Win2000 pro equipped Thinkpad T41 (1 gig of memory and 1.7G Pentium M) I use for work. I have not doubt, however, that games and multimedia would be happier on the the Thinkpad. I think you're right about memory being key. 128 mb will function, but it won't make anybody happy. Kinda sad, though, when you think about it. The first box I ran Windows on had 4 mb of memory, and even Win 95 could run tolerably on 8 mb. |
| Koriel Sep 28, 2005 6:45 AM EDT |
We have XP running on a PIII 800mhz with 384mb ram, its fine just a wee bit sluggish but it has a cheap onboard sis video so that may explain some of its sluggishness, although mp3's have a tendency to drop out when app switching and i wouldn't even bother trying to run it on 200mhz, 64mb ram will solitaire boot in that? |
| deathshadow Sep 28, 2005 9:49 AM EDT |
Dinotrac - I know what you mean about it being kinda sad. I can actually recall running Win 1.0 on a 640k 8mhz XT with a hercules card (and dismissing it as 'cute, but hardly functional'). While we've certainly come a long way since then, there's also been a feeling of diminishing returns. Doesn't help they keep futzing with the UI and goofing around with new filesystems instead of fixing the underlying problems in the first place. (and that applies to most ALL operating systems). If my grandmother can learn to use XP, you are DONE with the UI. FIX THE DAMNED OS AND QUIT WASTING TIME ON STUPID SHIT LIKE TRANSPARANCIES AND THEMING. I've been a little disgusted with the min specs on a number of things. Take servers: That a php/mySQL database can choke on a RHE 3 dual Xeon 2.8 with a gig of RAM at a mere 200 simultaneous users, while a little over a decade ago I was handling 4000+ users with a borland paradox database under Netware 3.12 (5000 user license) off a 486/50 with 32 megs of RAM... Even IF the difference was Internet vs. Lan, I'd expect a 1gbps outbound and most of the client systems being on broadband to AT LEAST be close to competative with 10b2. |
| dinotrac Sep 28, 2005 1:43 PM EDT |
deathshadow - It is a drag to be an old man in this field. When I started out, people looked at the code they wrote and gave some thought to how it banged the box. Admittedly, when the machines cost millions of dollars, optimization is more than a matter of pride. I wish I knew how many times in the last 5 years or so I've been told not to waste time on "premature optimization". Might as well take that nifty new hardware and not be able to do anything nifty and new with it. |
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