how does linux do it

i have a computer now that is using rh9
it has the following
amd xp 2000
soyo kt400 firedragon ultrablack motherboard
512 ddr 2700 ram
and other esentials


when i was using windows 98 i had to take of the side of the case and set a boxfan next to it just to play deus ex

yesterday on rh9 i was surngin the net/chatting on gaim and xchat/downloading linux distros/buring an iso to cd/ and listning to music and that was a hell alot more of a load then a game and linux never slowed down all night
infact i think it got faster

how does linux do it

it is kinda a duel post
question/praise

linux owns
:thumbsup:

My guess would be that when you were chatting/net gaim/xhcat and downlaoding *nix distros, your not using your graphics card. Therefore less heat therefore the ability to do all that.

To mee *nix and XP prefrorm the same.

But thats my opinion.

A lot of it is in the design of linux itself. The modular nature of many of the components (rather than have everything tied into the OS) means the OS can load and unload only what is needed. In addition, the history of Linux/Unix is originally a kernel that was designed to handle many things at once rather than single processing.

And lastly, the bloating in Windows is far greater than the bloating in Linux and specifically RH (I find that RH puts a lot in). But then again, you can remove a lot.

Quote:

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..when you were chatting/net gaim/xhcat and downlaoding *nix distros, your not using your graphics card

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I take it you mean the 3D portion of the graphics card since I would think that one would still need the graphics card to view gaim, Xchat and browsers :D . Even in Windows when doing similar tasks it can be slower (whether using 3D graphics or not). I still believe this is part of the bloating factor that Windows has included (additional components in the OS that truly aren't necessary -- seriously, who needs menus to "fade in and out"?)

Regarding Multitasking -

I find the problem that Windows has is that it doesn't know what priority to put tasks at. By default everything gets a normal priority, and any process that wants can take the entire pool of resources by itself while other tasks suffer heavily. I usually bring up task manager and lower the priority of things that I don't need, and programs that I'm not concerned about.

CD Burning software gets a high/realtime priority, and Windows seems to work on that task as often as possible even when it doesn't need to. It is an enormous drain on resources, so at times I drop the priority of those programs myself, but I also have quite a few CD Burning Failures when Mozilla trashes my performance. At the very least I can multi-task during that stuff. My only gripe is that the high/realtime priorities wouldn't get all of the CPU cycles and thensome. If they simply got the CPU they need, no more and no less, I feel that Windows would be much better at multi-tasking.

My own expirence in Windows is fine. Except for Mozilla eating most of my system resouces, and the issues in CD-Burning, and huge slow-downs while writing to the HDDs, my PC is just great. I have enough RAM that I should never need to use Virtural Memory, but Windows 2000 doesn't seem to like it and would much rather swap stuff to my HDD and back killing my performance during the reads and writes. I'm looking into making a large RAM Disk to set as the place to get Windows to look for virtural memory so performance is better, but I can't find the post on AO where a member talked about it... Also, I want to break into 1GHz, but unfortunately this is as far as my motherboard goes. Can't be set beyond 150MHz on the FSB... :(

BTW, I'll just toss in my system specs for comparison:
P3-800MHz @ 900MHz
896MB RAM (@ 150MHz)
120GB Internal HDD
120GB External HDD
Tape Drive (Disconnected)
Floppy Drive (Disconnected)
DVD-ROM/CDR/RW Drive
CD-R/RW Drive
NVIDIA GF-3 TI-200 w/ 64MB RAM (+ 128MB System Ram) @ AGP 2x (I can't get 4x working right)

Current Temps:
CPU - 21c -> 60mm fan @ 4,500RPM
System - 25c -> My mobo usually runs hotter, even more so after 150MHz FSB
Air Temp - 19/20c -> I could easily drop temps into the negative and 0c range by opening my room Window...not that I want to freeze my butt off...

Tim_axe, is it just me or do you find that it's near impossible to alter the priority of processes in Windows? I find in linux it's relatively easy to do (not that I actually tweak around that much) but with Windows, even as admin, the processes won't set to a lower priority.

I can only change the priority of stuff in Applications. I get access denied trying to kill or change priority of the default processes. I don't understand why I have 3 instances of some important process running though... Since Mozilla is usually eating my performance, I lower that and it works all of the time after that little warning box.