Best OS

[Chris McMillan]

:cool:

Right folks.

Abit Kt7A duron 800@1000.5mhz

I've got win 98se, winme and win 2000.

What is the best one for overclocked systems that run music Apps. such as Cubase.

Get those brains working. :rolleyes:

Cheers Chris.

[Maxi]

Win 2k is my recommendation as its so god damn stable and i run cubase sweetly

[JADS]

Windows XP.

James

[Dave]

Win2k
By far the best for any audio app.

I don't really like WinXP, and I don't like the plans that MS have for the final.
But give beta 2 a whirl if you like.

[JADS]

I've only used it so far on my friends systems (for which I helped them install and set it up), heard mostly positive things about MS' new baby and from what I can see it looks like a very nice OS.

James

[[TD]Domipheus]

win2k

[Craig]

i'm going to go on a strange vote here, Win 98, it does everything i want, so it'll do that for you :)

[[TD]Domipheus]

how much ram u got? if it is 256 or more, go for win2k as win9x memory management is just pure pish.

[JADS]

Win98 is getting on a bit.

James

[[Jedi]Brian]

Win 2k rocks - its stable/fast and can manage memory beter than the other M$ Operating Systems.

[Graeme*Kustom*]

True - but getting drivers for some audio hardware can be a pig with win2k - so sometimes win98 is better... depends on what hardware you`re going to be using...

[JADS]

98 is the best of the 9x group of MS operating systems, which isn't saying much!

James

[[Jedi]Brian]

I have had absolutly no problems with drivers for win2k on all systems that i have built for ppl or instaled it for. - Maybe i am just lucky

[[Jedi]Kalakian]

Win 2K is by far the best. I wouldn't use it if uv not got a lot of RAM though. I would suggest only using it on systems with a minimum of 128Mb RAM but woukld recommend a nice 256Mb.

Nt4.0 is a nice stable OS but it's mince for games :(

Win Me just doesn't work - better off with DOS 3.2 :p

Win 98 sux, but 98SE is not bad if all u want to do is play games - not very good if u want to actually USE ur computer :p

[JADS]

Win98SE is not particularly good for serious use. Mind you none of the 9x systems are. It is the best of them though.

Currently running an FTP server, HTTP server and Shares. Developing Java/Haskell solutions with it. Running it pretty much 24/7. Swapping around drivers/programs pretty much every day. Win98SE simply wasn't designed to cope with anything demanding!

:p

James

[Yossarian]

LINUX

no other linux people here?

ok, i'll get me coat.

yossarian.

[JADS]

Ummm depends if you like trying to find the hardest possible way of doing things or not. Windows is better for 95% of users.

Windows XP Beta 2465 is nice,

James

[[Jedi]Brian]

linux is good if u have too much time on your hands - it takes forever to learn and as for getting games and CD-RW to work under it well - errr well thats as far as i get

lol

[Yossarian]

well windows wastes just as much time with frequent crashing and pathetic need for re-installs every 3 months.

linux doesn't crash, simple as that. the file system doesn't need de-fragged coz it isn't the hideous FAT32. all software is free and open source.


linux is good if u have too much time on your hands

errrr, nothing about that statement is even almost right. any form of high availability server/network node runs linux, web servers that run win2k are administered by very odd people who probably run screaming from command prompts.

though your inability to develop further with linux only proves it is not yet ready for mainstream use...which is clearly a good thing.

y.

[JADS]

Taken from a recent solution to a problem in Linux


it sounds like your booting straight into X, but X is having video probs.
thus, it flickers like hell, and won't let you do jack ;-)

so, you need to re-configure, to not boot X (then you can fix prob.)

firstly, you need to get to a shell.
at LILO prompt type something like .... "linux /bin/bash" <RET>
linux should then boot straight into root prompt.

mount hard-drives using "mount -a"

once done you need to edit "/etc/inittab" (e.g. "vi /etc/inittab")

within you'll find a line like this ... "id:5:initdefault:"
which needs to be changed to this ... "id:3:initdefault:"

this changes your default run-level from 5 to 3...or from X to shell.
these are the runlevels that Redhat uses, which Mandrake is based on,
but it *might* be different. If so, it should be documented in the file.
DO NOT SET TO "0" !!!!! this is bad ;-)

once done, save file, exit editor.

run "umount -a" to unmount discs.
reboot.

system should now boot into standard login screen.

you can now attempt to fix your video probs. I have a GeForce2 running
no-probs under linux. Check out the nvidia site for drivers and info.



How amazingly user friendly, :D

Windows 2K and XP are hard to crash, people here have had 2K systems running for 104 days non stop, until they had to pack up the systems and take them home, :)!

Most home users that use Win 9x series won't do enough to it to make it need reinstalling. Give them Linux or Windows and it would be interesting to see which they get further with (ignoring the god awful Mac OS).
www.microsoft.com (http://www.microsoft.com) runs on NT servers and that takes some serious hits per day, more than most sites. Never had a problem with it, one site that you can pretty much guarantee will be running 24/7.

James

[Dead_One]

W2k Adv server has 99.9999% uptime if correctly configured.
I've had 2k servers running for 9 months without needing a reboot
and then it was cos i moved house

[Yossarian]

JStormont the problem description is of a run level change, nothing more. in my opinion a user should know about different run levels but microshaft shield you from all that with soooo many crap levels of abstraction. how is editing one number from 5 to 3 difficult? could you not manage that ? even if you had all weekend?

as for 2k web servers i have one thing to say - Jill.c. a weakness appeared in the M$ code and precisely 34 minutes later the Jill.c source code was flying around the web (even got put on theregsiter). i have the Jill.c code and i've tested it on my own machines (coz i'm not a hacker) and it works like a dream...secure? are you mad?

it shows the massive adavntage of having netowrk critical code as open source, when microsoft release a new web server client they only find out about security problems when someone hacks www.microsoft.com. (http://www.microsoft.com.) whereas with linux literaly thousands of programmers test and analyse code for weaknesses...so there are none...simple...and elegant.
www.microsoft.com (http://www.microsoft.com) runs on NT servers and that takes some serious hits per day

win2k actually and it has been hacked more than 20 times this year...quite a recent one was "all you GPFs belong to us" hidden away in the knowledge base, took them a week to spot it. secure? really?

basically if you want to go deeper into a computer than Solitaire then windows does not allow it. linux is 100% customisable an is without doubt 'the future'. even micro$haft know this that's what the Hailstorm Project is about, they know their days are numbered.

yossarian.

[JADS]

So let me get this straight...

1. Linux is totally 100% secure and bug free
2. You can hack into a NT4/W2K server
3. Layers of abstraction to make things easier for the users are not good
4. Microsoft is simply going to dissapear
5. Windows as shipped in 97% of all systems is going to be taken over by Linux
6. Windows is totally uncustomisable.

What we have here is Linuxitis, an extreme case at that (you possibly dream about Linux Torvalds in ways we don't want to know). You refuse to believe that your precious OS can possibly have any faults or flaws, to you it is perfection in code. To everyone else the OS is simply a neat bit of code that is the underlying structure for using your PC, but to you it is something more, something beautiful. You read through the C code every day, smiling at the little comments placed by the coders inside it. You naturally find the hardest possible way of doing anything in an OS, because it is only proper for Linux.

The only cure is to go out more, forget about PCs and live your life in the real world, :D! Scary it may seem at first, but soon you will learn to love this outside environment.

If not the men in white suits will be along shortly to take you to a nice safe place where you can be gradually weaned off...

:D

James

[Yossarian]

odd how windows zealots always reply personally when they are wrong.

1. linux is 99.89%, win2k is 92% IMO
2. yes you can, easily, in 30 seconds
3. well it depends what its for. in windows IRQ conflicts are a bugger to fix coz windows wants to have total control over all I/O and IRQ setups...linux allows total freedom.
4. no, not dissapear, they will become a billing company, Hailstorm and the Dot Net thing is their future.
5. i'll address this further down.
6. yes it is, compared to linux where customisation can go down to a code level if needed.

the windows operating system doesn't really have a future. look at how long micro$haft have taken to get a 64bit OS ready...it still doesn't work and linux-64 has been runnin on Itaniums for months. Sun, Digital, Compaq all have 64 bit OSes but microsoft are not able to mould the hideous lump of kludges that is windows into 64bit.

You read through the C code every day, smiling at the little comments placed by the coders inside it

better to write some...much of linux is in assembler.

You naturally find the hardest possible way of doing anything in an OS, because it is only proper for Linux.

i wish i understood this one. in what way is editing a file to change a config difficult? at least all options are availalbe unlike windows where you have the options the micro$oft programmers think you should have.

i would rather locate fixes to problems at a low, possibly even code level than rely on the Micro$oft Knowledge Base HAHAHAHAHA!!! or even worse...asking the micro$oft community HAHAH!!!! does it have one?

i can only assume you have either never used linux or you used a very old distro, try Mandrake 8. i dislike microsoft for ethical as well as technical reasons...when IBM wanted an OS they went to see the author of CPM-80, he was off flying his plane so they got impatient and went to Bill Gates, he said he'd make them an OS. he did. he totally ripped off CPM-80 and called it DOS. what a nice story.

if you want to play the odd game or use the internet then OK windows is fine but if you really want to use your PC then it is soooo restrictive...development of anything in windows is hellish.

yossarian.

[JADS]

Windows Zealot?

Interesting terminology as I really don't care less about the operating system. For me Windows makes a hell of a lot of sense, I can tweak it as much as I like, it runs pretty damn fast on my Celeron 400, it is THE main operating system for code development in the world, I don't have to do any work to set it up and best of all I have 10 years of experience using Windows, :)

Linux will never hit mainstream, it will never be an operating system for consumers. As that is where the main user base lies Linux will always be an enthusiasts OS, UNIX will run the servers (Linux is a bit mickey mouse) and Windows will be shipped in 95% of systems+ for a long time to come. I mean what is the point of being able to customise down to code level for 99.9% of users?

Hacking into a properly setup NT4/W2K server is not a case of 30 seconds and you are in. I remember many nerds believing they were hackers in my last school trying desperately to breach NT4, they tried all the tools and all their tricks and no one got it.

Interesting you say you dislike Microsoft for ethical reasons... Microsoft are a business pure and simple, all businesses act the same way as Microsoft. The only reason anyone notices is because MS is so huge, :)!

James

[Yossarian]

linux is mickey mouse? i think that nicely sums up your level of understanding/tolerance.

i am leaving now this is not worth the time.

if you want to believe that the future is windows...fine but you will get a shock.

Hacking into a properly setup NT4/W2K server is not a case of 30 seconds and you are in. I remember many nerds believing they were hackers in my last school trying desperately to breach NT4, they tried all the tools and all their tricks and no one got it.

yes, windows users know little about network security you prove that nicely.

yossarian.

[ 21 May 2001: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

[JADS]

Compared to VMS and UNIX, Linux is micky mouse. It is still an extremely powerful OS based on the UNIX core, but even with 8 processor support in Linux Kernel 2.4 it won't satisfy the really big servers. Those are professional level applications and run the main servers/super computers in the world.

The future for servers will be Unix, the future of consumer level OS will be Windows. Linux will be an enthusiast system that sees penetration into web servers and lower level system servers. Things don't change as everyone is perfectly happy where they are, except MS who have grand delusions of knocking off UNIX for Windows in the high end servers, which isn't going to happen.

James

[Yossarian]

here is but one example...google is one of the most powerful systems in the world, it has pattern matching algorithms that are not long since out of academia...what does it run on? 6000 clustered linux boxes.

another example that springs to mind...NASA last year installed a new fluid dynamics analysis station, the most powerful on this planet...the computers were Silicon Graphics systems running guess what? linux-64.

you seem to have a strange understanding of the connection between linux and unix...i suggest you read a little...

yossarian.

[ 21 May 2001: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

[JADS]

As I said its good for webservers, :)!

James

[Yossarian]

huh? WTF have massively sophisticated recursive pattern matching techniques got to do with web servers? the 6000 cluster does NOT run the front end web site (which is linux & apache anyway BTW).

fluid dynamics processing is like a web server? are you drunk?

also, the MET Office computer (i think is most powerful in the world) is linux. Deep Blue now runs a linux front end, IBM are pushing linux in embedded comms applications...etc etc.

yossarian.

[ 22 May 2001: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

[Dead_One]

It always amazes me to see people slag off microsoft simply because they are microsoft. In how many other business sectors do market leaders get insulted for doing what is needed to make their business profitable. Why should ms give windows away free?
They are a business which is there to make money, not to help people or be part of a community.
They produce a product which does what it says on the lable for 99% of the people who want it. Most people don't want to be able to recompile their os every day, they want to be able to work at home on their presentation for the office the next day, play games, surf the net with easy to use tools, get upgrades for their pc that work out of the box without having to write drivers etc.
I agree win2k/nt4 security is breached more than linux, this doesn't mean linux is more secure, just that more people have a chip on their shoulder re ms, and so spend time trying to find flaws/ bugs etc, which they then make available to the rest of the world and all associated skript kiddies.
Linux does have a place, and will continue to increase its market share, but as it does so it will become more and more like windows, with distros coming pre installed and charged for, and drivers etc being provided by manufacturers, apps being sold etc, then the linux empire will be just as hated as the ms one.
I'm not saying that ms is the best os in the world, but you have to admit, if you take a step back and be totally honest, that ms have achived what they set out to do, namely build a very sucessful business.
As for security and stability, if you run a properly configured win nt/2k system, using approved hardware and software, it will run for as long as you want, and do the job you paid for!

Just my opinion, but its backed up by over 10 years in the comercial IT sector.
As for unix running all the servers, if you study the figures you'll find that a lot of new servers are actually being run on an ms platform, as it saves the companies hiring a ms specialist, a unix specialist, someone to do the novell, etc.
With the exception of Apache, and the main reason now for the popularity of that is that for years when people wanted a ms web server, all they could go for was iis 3 and below, pretty bad choice for a mission critical server. Now even apache is available for windows, makes you think doesn't it?
As for the challenge of customizing linux to the code level, you could always take up rewriting ms drivers etc to get rid of the security breaches and conflicts! Surly thats what you already do for linux.

As i said , my opinion based on what i've seen comercially.
Paul
It director at 2 succesfull it companies, making over 100k profit pa.
Mcse, Cisco and Novell accredited

[Yossarian]

well maybe its because you work in the comercial side you are comfortable with a company that has done the following:

- ripped of CPM-80 100%
- modified windows95 OSR2 so it would crash when running Quicktime...internal memos and code dumps prove this, was done to damage apple
- ripped off apple research and called it USB, apple have since kicked their **** with Firewire
- released the pathetic joke that was WinNT, i have never been so shocked by a major company.
- called open source programmers - "pirates"...i better not say more on this one as it soooo ****es me off.

also, you seem to ignore the non-existance of a 64 bit micro$haft OS...this is PATHETIC. all major software OS companies have one for their systems (compaq, apple, sun, sgi, ibm) but M$ are not capable of it. NO HIGH DATA REFERENCE SERVER WILL BE 32 BIT IN TWO YEARS. the fact that micro**** have been working on M$-64 for 5 years surely indicate how crap its going to be...who the hell is gonna out source a server application on M$-64??? you? if so then you must be a don-nut of some sort.

IBM have switched allegiances, they even spray painted penguins all over New York...their embedded systems are using linux kernels...their servers are largely linux based now most with RISC CPUs.

yossarian.
4th year computer science
6 years programming in windows/linux/solaris for the following OS targets - windows/linux/solaris/M16C microcontroller/M6000/vxWorks real time kernel/RTLinux (real time)

[ 22 May 2001: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

[JADS]

- Most software is a copy of another
- Never had any problems running Quicktime under Windows 95 OSR2.1
- USB was an Intel invention
- NT widely considered the best OS MS produces
- Yeah that is a bit off

Whistler is a 32bit OS modified to run under a IA-64 environment. I even have a video of it running on a McKinley processor and not crashing. In fact I believe it was the Linux 64 demonstration that went some what awry, :)! Blackcomb will be developed on two levels, it will be a 64bit and 32bit OS and it will be released in 2003. In 2003 most majoy business computer will be run on 64bit processors and Microsoft comes along and launches their main 64bit OS, sounds like good business tatics, :)!

IBM switched allegiances? IBM have been at Microsofts throat since the early 90s, there is no love lost between these two industry giants. Mor than likely they were simply waiting for the Linux platform to mature before they moved over to it.

James

[DanAdams]

I really don't see a major disruption of the Microsoft hegemony happening in the near future - certainly not in the desktop market - and, frankly, I wouldn't want one. As far as I see it, both Linux and Windows serve different purposes - for the vast majority of people, Windows is (and will be for some time) the most convenient choice for a "visible" OS - whilst Linux/*nix variants may maintain/increase market share in embedded devices, servers etc, I can't see Windows being displaced by Linux - frankly, Apple stands more of a chance This is because:

1) People like convenience and familiarity. People know Windows and popular MS apps. They don't want to have to relearn.
2) People like fluff and ease of use. WinXP/Apple OSX look pretty and are easy to use, linux is still a bitch.
3) Windows and Mac have lots of games and apps. Linux doesn't.
4) When people go down to PCWorld (where 99% of the population buy their PC equipment, for better of for worse) they want to find hardware and software that will work on their machines - Linux hardware support will always lag on the linux model because the COMMERCIAl companies that make the hardware most often ship on Windows and possibly Mac drivers - there is a lag whilst Linx drivers are hacked together, and they still are not shipped with the hardware.
5) People are idiots. Why do you think "Windows for Idiots" and the like sell so many copies - people don't want to have to find linux drivers, recompile their kernels etc etc. They want plug-and-play, they want auto-installs, they want auto-updates. They don't want to have to think.

I just don't see Linux breaking out of the enthusiast market, at least not in the near future.

Since we're all laying down our credentials:

Computer Science MSc
Experience as MS network admin

Dan

[Craig]

can i just butt into this with something simple,
which can you play good games on, Counter Strike, Tribes 2 etc?
and this shows what's good at what, Windows Plays the games, Linux runs the servers, a happy world all round :)

[Yossarian]

i run counter strike within linux...uses a wine port and works well. only lose 5 fps on windows.

with Quake 3 for instance i get 25% better frame rate in linux using a publicly writtin GL library, MesaGL. i find it amusing that MesaGL or GLX or DRI in linux beat the commercial GL libs in windows, bear in mind the MesaGl etc were written by volunteers...

yossarian.

[JADS]

So you totally bunk Microsofts products even though in all likelihood you will be using them in the real world? I wouldn't do all this complaining at work or you won't be well liked at all, :)!

James

[Yossarian]

real world? the software companies i have been in contact with use slightly more mature operating systems that Win98. i don't use windows at all, not at uni or at home.

personally, i think running unsecure systems and leaving web site, email and accounts open to attack from any script kiddie would be more unpopular that stating fact. most companies want people to have opinions. so you would dislike someone who had a different opinion than you? your problem methinks.

yossarian.

[ 22 May 2001: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

[JADS]

Me? I don't dislike anyone, :D

Reminds me of a mac debate I have been having my friend of many years, the debate is now 8 years old and still going strong. Neither side is backing down, but I think I may have the upper hand in processing power in the future if Intel can get this IA-64 to the desktop. Microsoft is doing well with Windows and although it will never be as easy to use as Mac OS (which has just become a unix derivative), it will constantly become more powerful and easy to use.

All hail Wintel, ;)!

James

[Yossarian]

oh god, i see whats coming :)

IMO the G4 is the most under-rated architecture on the face of planet earth. the RC-5 times are staggering but most idiots buying a PC look at clock speed alone, thats why some people buy the P4 - the worst chip in the world but intel knew this and commited the evil crimes on the P4 to con people. why else does a 1.7GHz P4 get beaten by a 1.2GHz Athlon?

the Itanium is a lemon, HP have shouted at Intel to STOP IT NOW, but they won't listen. HP are financially involved in it but are running for the hills now that its been tested. the itaniums successor (whose name escapes me) is a totally different RISC like deisgn and WILL be a success. it has been quite amusing to see the leaked memos of HP pleading with Intel to shelve the IA-64 :D

apart from anything else its 4 years late and the compiler isn't even ready yet. intel decided they were not competent enough so they've for The Chinease Academy of Science to do it but it'll take ages.

the itanium will NOT be a serious competitor to RISC 64 bit architectures and it'll be too expensive for the home user. oh god, what the hell is the successor called? ARGHHH, brain fade!! starts with a 'W' !! anyway it'll be quite good.

if i had £3000 in my pocket i'd get an apple G4 Titanium Powerbook...best comp ever but its too expensive...of course i'd have to run PPC Linux on it :).

yossarian.

[DanAdams]

OK, now I can agree with you - Macs are fantastic. If I had 10,000 I'd buy a nice little G4 for a server, a new iMac for the girlie, Titanium powerbook for out and about and a fantastic G4 dual CPU cube with 22inch cinema display. mmmm. and I'd run mac OSX.

Anyone else seen the Quicktime file of Jobs showing off the new Apple store in Vriginia somewhere. heaven

Dan

[Yossarian]

have you seen a Titanium up close? i almost fell over when i did, the screen is just totally astonishing...a million times better than even a high spec IBM laptop. haven't used OS X but i have used PPC Linux which is superb, as is SuSe Linux for PPC.

yossarian.

[DanAdams]

yup, we've got a store here in Hull that (unusually) focuses on Apple hardware, so I have had a chance to look at all the latest hardware from them - the titanium's screen is pretty spectacular, and I just can't believe its battery life too - something like 6 hrs (stock) - that's not bad! Don't think the keyboard is too great, but I still want one :-)

I just love the current Apple displays too - not just the 22' (and now 17") cinema displays, but the CRTs too - have you seen them? The 17" studio display is really nice - far nicer than any other CRT i know of.

I would probably kill for a titanium laptop :-(

Dan

[Yossarian]

haven't seen a CRT :( but i'll steal one soon.

come to think of it i think i'd kill for a titanium as well !!

yossarian.

[ross]

I installed Win2k today. Now dual booting that and 98SE. Win2k is sweet.

[JADS]

Hmmm I personally think macs are extemely ugly, but maybe that is just me, :)! The titanium looks nice, but it is a mac and thus is on a badly supported platform compared with the PC.

Itanium will be replaced by Itanium II funnily enough, codenamed McKinley. The same kind of VLIW as Itanium, but with vastly improved ALU and FPU units, a shorter pipeline and much higher clock speed. All in all it should be pretty impressive, :) It will not be a RISC (well not proper) processor! It is based on the same IA-64 architecture as the Itanium. After that comes Madison and Deerfield, Madison taking on the high end and Deerfield starting to tackle lower end workstations. Intel want it on the desktop within 5-7 years, :)

This architecture is Intels planned replacement for the x86 architecture, which they believe will last for 25 years. I happen to agree. If you think the Mac G4/4+/5 is fast you aint seen nothing. These things would cane it at the same clock speed, but McKinley will be well in the GHz at launch.

Talking about the P4, it is like the Itanium a proving ground. Just really a manufacturing test bed, find out if it works and if it does, build on it. The P4 is an extremely scalable architecture and it is likely in its next true revision next year we will see some really serious performance from the P4.

If I had £10,000... hmmm could buy a decent laptop, several PCs, a server, a gigabit connection between the lot and still have enough left over for a holiday, :)!

James

[Yossarian]

the fact is the P4, the Itanium and the Athlon are all psuedo-RISC architectures. what the P4 and the athlon do is take the CISC x86 instruction and break it down into 3 or 4 macro-operations (RISC ops) which are almost exclusively register-to-register operations rather than the hellish mem-to-mem CISC things. so even though they support the hideous x86 instruction set they sort of emulate it using RISC load/store techniques.

a shorter pipeline and much higher clock speed

these do not go hand in hand. shortening the pipe vastly lowers the clock speed and the pipe on the itanium is quite considerable hence the high clocking.

Talking about the P4, it is like the Itanium a proving ground. Just really a manufacturing test bed, find out if it works and if it does, build on it. The P4 is an extremely scalable architecture and it is likely in its next true revision next year we will see some really serious performance from the P4.

you think the P4 'works'? problems it has a are sooo plentiful its quite amusing. only one decoder (athlon has 3), only one path for FPU within pipe (athlon has 3), 20 stage pipeline (a marketing trick to fool the masses), an 8KB L1 cache (yes, 8KB = pathetic and throttling). the fact is the P4 is one great big marketing ploy to fool those who judge a machine performance on clock speed alone ignoring CPI, the sort of people who think MIPS is a valid measure of CPU performace.

yossarian.

[ 27 May 2001: Message edited by: Yossarian ]

[JADS]

The x86 processors are pseudo RISC, but the Itanium isn't. Well it is essentially a RISC processor.

these do not go hand in hand. shortening the pipe vastly lowers the clock speed and the pipe on the itanium is quite considerable hence the high clocking.

This I know, but Intel and HP have managed to significantly increase the clock speed of McKinley whilst shortening its pipeline, which is on the whole quite impressive. They struggled to achieve 800MHz with the Itanium.

you think the P4 'works'? problems it has a are sooo plentiful its quite amusing. only one decoder (athlon has 3), only one path for FPU within pipe (athlon has 3), 20 stage pipeline (a marketing trick to fool the masses), an 8KB L1 cache (yes, 8KB = pathetic and throttling). the fact is the P4 is one great big marketing ploy to fool those who judge a machine performance on clock speed alone ignoring CPI, the sort of people who think MIPS is a valid measure of CPU performace

It works, you can buy a Pentium 4 system. That is all Intel needed to prove in this generation. I agree that the current P4 is a total washout, but the Pentium 4 was designed as a scalable architecture to last another 7 years if necessary. Not only is its clock speed potential extremely high, but also the sheer number of improvements to increase performance that can be made to the core is high.

James

[Yossarian]

ah yes, i think i read that with 0.13 micron fabrication the P4 could theoretically hit 10GHz quite soon...ouch!

i like short pipes and RISC instruction sets, like a MIPSco CPU :)

yossarian.

[JADS]

On a .13 die they can hit 6GHz with the P4... which is pretty damn fast, :)

I like the fastest processor that can run all my applications, which at the moment is the 1.33GHz Athlon, but that may change, :)

James

[Thomas @ Kustom]

Quite heated debates going on here,

I come from a commodore and Amiga upbringing, so I'll always love Amigas and Macs, PCs are nice too, but something about Amigas and macs always seemed a bit more personal 8) (Am i getting weird here)

Yossarian, U evidently have done your homework, I wouldn't really have cared what google runs on, I just used it without considering, but now that I know, I'm interested. In your Opinion what's the best Linux to get? Bearing in mind I'll be starting from scratch - I have SuSe linux that claims to boot from cd and do the hard work for you, is this a good starting point or would you recommend something else?

I'm not taking sides here, but I've been thinking about linux for a while, and I'm all the more interested now.

[JADS]

Mandrake 8 looks nice, but that might just be me, :)

James

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by Thomas @ Kustom:
<STRONG>Quite heated debates going on here,

Yossarian, U evidently have done your homework, I wouldn't really have cared what google runs on, I just used it without considering, but now that I know, I'm interested. In your Opinion what's the best Linux to get? Bearing in mind I'll be starting from scratch - I have SuSe linux that claims to boot from cd and do the hard work for you, is this a good starting point or would you recommend something else?
</STRONG>

mandrake 8 is best at most things like hardware compatability, ease of use, ease of setup, customisation. it makes a very hoopy server but bear in mind MDK just will not work on anything less than a pentium...as many people have found out to their cost :).

i tried the suse off CD and hated it, it feels like a sort of psuedo-OS. Suse is an excellent distro yes but not this terrible 7.1 Live thing that runs off CD.

all modern distros will boot off the CD for install purposes only ... so maybe this is the Suse you have....i suggest you avoid 7.1 Live though :).

i moderate a linux forum on another hardware companies web forum (better not say which one here :)) and i am often found lurking on ICQ if ya' need some help/advice/alchohol or fluffy penguins :)

yossarian/

[Thomas @ Kustom]

WOW!!!
I got you 2 to agree on something!
I'm so happy *GROUP HUG*
Mandrake 8 it is.

[JADS]

:) We agree, its a miracle...

Enjoy Mandrake 8!

James

[Yossarian]

i've changed my mind coz i didn't see his post....debian 2.3 it is !!

;)

[JADS]

Red hat...

James

[Yossarian]

Calderra

[JADS]

YellowDog

:D

James

[Yossarian]

Correl

:p

[JADS]

Icepack

:p

J

[Yossarian]

icepack? never 'erd of it.

but i genuinely think PPC Linux is best

:p :p :p :p :p

[JADS]

Hmm I prefer the simplicity of Slackware...

J

[Yossarian]

well i must say NetBSD floats my boat...

[Dead_One]

what about beos???

[ross]

ewww beos.

[Graeme*Kustom*]

beos is kinda cool.

tho really amigaOS kicked the asses of all of it :)

and it could run a mac as `just another task` and multitask between that and any other OS u threw at it :)

An 040 based amiga with 24mb ram was blindingly quick :)

[JADS]

Got a lecturer who swears by Free BSD and more importantly OS/2. I have pages of stuff he taught us on OS/2, 10+ pages on OS/2 and 2-3 on Windows, :)!

James

[Yossarian]

i'm not sure if i mentioned before but i think linux is best...

;)

[Graeme*Kustom*]

really? I think I must have missed that one :)

But, hey, there`s no point in arguing over that kind of stuff, everyone has their personal favourite , every1`s happy ! - it doesnt matter if it doesnt suit someone else... !

I use Windows because it`s what I work with in my job, and its the most convenient - runs the programs I need, supports my hardware and generally does what I want from it.

[Dead_One]

ive got a copy of the original windows if anyones feeling retro, not 3.1, not even windows 2, but ms windows!!!
see how far they've come.

[JADS]

Got the original DOS (the one MS borrowed off another company) somewhere...

J