Running Ubuntu 9.10 With Older PC Hardware

[V!NCENT]

Interesting theory... about nvidia silicon, you are probably right.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/07/nvidia-warns-of-high-failure-rates/1

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208802249

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1028703/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

The list goes on and on and on... It basically comes down to this: the problem is still not fixed in their latest GPU's and software hacks are trying to keep the failure rate lower by increasing the time the failure occurs and hopefully comes just at the end of the warrenty.

It's not just the mobile series that are now rot as fsck...

[kuolas]

What about nVidia binaries? Don't even get me started on their silicon failure rate (which is probably also linked to why they are not going FLOSS)

*sigh* <- that's all I can currently say about it

My advice to you is to 'sit it out' and buy a cheap ass ATI card when ou know the Gallium3D drivers are solid

Interesting theory... about nvidia silicon, you are probably right.

I love ATI hardware, I think it's well developed on the silicon level. My (today) dream machine would be an AMD K8 with an ATI RS690 because it THE most stable hardware out there...

K8 has survived many revision making it more or less "bug free" and RS690 it's targeted to the embedded market now, that mean long time suport... on the silicon, their drivers have spired some months ago.

In the future I won't buy any Core iX or nvidia hardware. nvidia is crappy and buggy, no questions there. In the case of intel, they don't have a good platform aproach... so many chips and chipsets... they are repeating the P4 and RIMM" an endless sockets nightmare once again.

Too bad that ARM platforms are not so "normalized" like in the PC business... ARM CPU are really great. But my problem with ARM lies with PowerVR and it's lack of open source drivers.

[V!NCENT]

My findings is that Ubuntu wants to become the next Microsoft!

Ubuntu wants to out-mac the Mac, but instead is turning into a giant elephant.

But except for the speed panelty (which will improve BTW), that's exactly what I want.

Linux != Ubuntu, Ubuntu = Linux

So if you hate all the automation, go with Gentoo or (B)LFS or something... oh wait.*

*yeaaaaaaaaaah SuSE, Mandriva, Joe Sixpack's uber 1337 pr0n pwn3R3r l33t St4R TraxXx LinuX0rs, etc...

[tormod]

Wrong! I can boot sidux and after enabling 'linux-firmware' I was able to enable desktop effects and although things were slow, the OS was usable. Same hardware, different distro.

My findings is that Ubuntu wants to become the next Microsoft!

Slow and useable? Maybe you would get the same effect in Ubuntu by disabling DRI. Please compare the two Xorg logs too see what is different in sidux.

See also Ubuntu bug #1

[Panix]

Truth is that Ubuntu 9.10 has pretty much the same Xorg stack as in Debian sid, so please keep us posted about your findings.

Wrong! I can boot sidux and after enabling 'linux-firmware' I was able to enable desktop effects and although things were slow, the OS was usable. Same hardware, different distro.

My findings is that Ubuntu wants to become the next Microsoft!

[tormod]

Truth is that Ubuntu 9.10 has pretty much the same Xorg stack as in Debian sid, so please keep us posted about your findings.

[Panix]

karmic is abysmal

C'mon, tell the truth.

Ubuntu 9.10 is absolutely crap on older hardware. I cannot use it on my T41. I tried the LiveCD and it crashes each time. It's practically the same as it was at the Alpha stage. Imho, the developers didn't care about older hardware and didn't address the issues. What other reason could there be?

Ubuntu has a rep, too, for horrible support for users with ATI cards, the older ones or the new.

What a POS! I'll be installing sidux or Debian, thank you!

[Apopas]

Yes, newer versions of gcc can generate better code from the same source. This is the whole point of what a lot of the changes to gcc! Optimizing compilers are a hard problem. Lots of developers spend lots of time working on gcc to make it generate better code. They've obviously had some measure of success, as MAFFT runs faster when compiled with newer gcc.

Indded. I made also some multimedia tests under Gentoo and found that they performed better with tha latest gcc.
For example that's what I got with lame:

gcc-4.3.4 + O3 = 1m6.207s
gcc-4.4.2 + O2 = 1m5.916s
gcc-4.4.2 + O3 = 1m5.716s

I repeated the tests five times.
Well not a tremendous boost, but even O2 is a bit faster than an older gcc with O3.

[Peter_Cordes]

I am particularly intrigued by the last test: MAFFT Multiple alignment program. What could this be due to? Is there anything in gcc or libc that could be making this slight but consistent improvement over time?

Yes, newer versions of gcc can generate better code from the same source. This is the whole point of what a lot of the changes to gcc! Optimizing compilers are a hard problem. Lots of developers spend lots of time working on gcc to make it generate better code. They've obviously had some measure of success, as MAFFT runs faster when compiled with newer gcc.

[tormod]

Have you looked at kernel config? Debugging is turned on.

Some kernel debug flags are on and have always been. Some modules will print out a bit more messsages, and the kernel binary is slightly bigger than it has to be, but the performance impact should be minimal.