ASUS Eee PC 1201N Netbook On Linux Update

[porcodio]

I got Ubuntu 9.10 running on it with some issues however:
The microphone didn't work, but did after I installed the latest ALSA from source.
The N330 doesn't support Speedstep, so there's no power scaling in Ubuntu. Asus does have a power scaling app for Windows 7 though.
WIFI didn't work, until I downloaded the driver from the Realtek site.
However everytime I started aMSN, the WIFI connection would break permanently. Only a reboot could re-establish it each time. Since a stable WIFI connection is crucial in my case, I had no choice but to dump Ubuntu and reinstall Windows 7 (32 bit unfortunately).

[Svartalf]

You're going through wow64, the thunking layer. Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, didn't implement their stuff in the same manners that we did. When you execute a 32-bit application, all calls are not to native 32-bit libraries, but are actually thunked to the 64-bit space. Now, while it's not the same performance hit that the 16-to-32-bit thunks were, there's a hit and you're not running in 32-bits for everything like under Linux. Now, the drawback: You have to have the multilib stuff in place on Linux or you can't run 32-bit apps. Under Windows, you can run always. But there is a performance, etc. hit and a risk of it just not working right.

[Dragoran]

By running a 32 bit binary on windows 7 64 though you are not really benching it but the performance of wow64, windows 32-bit emulator.

"Emulator" this is just a mulitlib implementation + some wrapper libs; 32bit code is executed natively on the CPU.

[oliver]

Backlight issue

Micheal,

I think the backlight issue is mentioned here I belive. I think it's the same reason why it kicks in on my T42.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/498974

So report! and maybe someone will notice it

[kraftman]

I installed 2 gcc's on Win 7 32 bit and compiled with -O2:
gcc 3.4.5 = 15 to 16 seconds, executable size around 800KB
gcc 4.3.3 = 16 seconds, executable size over 3MB

Thus with GCC on windows the executables are a lot bigger and the runtime slower.

Thank you. It seems it's the Linux kernel that "kicks" such "high quality stuff" not the compiler. Btw. those executables sizes look strange.

[cl333r]

I installed 2 gcc's on Win 7 32 bit and compiled with -O2:
gcc 3.4.5 = 15 to 16 seconds, executable size around 800KB
gcc 4.3.3 = 16 seconds, executable size over 3MB

Thus with GCC on windows the executables are a lot bigger and the runtime slower.

[monraaf]

While benchmarks will come out soon that compare Windows to Linux

I certainly hope these benchmarks will not be as misleading as the recent 1080p on an atom article, as it doesn't help the credibility of Phoronix.

[cl333r]

windows 7 (32 bit) = 12 seconds

(Just installed Windows 7 32 bit on same computer)

@Kraftman
I've never used/installed gcc on windows, I'll try but don't promise anything.

The small C++ test/benchmark I'm using I put at:

http://sites.google.com/site/r45d15/cpptest

[kraftman]

I have on my computer XP, win7, Ubuntu etc.
I wanted to benchmark these OSes but not use anything that would involve drivers (eg. graphics driver, cause a lot boils down to the quality of drivers).
So I decided to create a simple (C++) test that would use the CPU and the RAM (allocating and initialising a lot of ints on the heap and testing their values).
And guess what, Ubuntu came out as the winner.

Ubuntu 32bit - 8 seconds.
WinXp 32bit = about 1 minute
Win7 (64bit but the .exe test was 32bit) = 13 seconds.

Under windows I compiled in Visual Studio with /O2, and under Ubuntu with gcc and -O2.

Nice Could you try doing the same, but using exactly the same version of GCC on both systems, please?

[Apopas]

We have 64bit systems since 2003. If there are not 64bit binaries commonly availiable for windows it's their own problem. Fair and simple. We can not be limited in old ways because they are not able to offer a pure 64 bit system and we shouldn't neglect each OS's specific advantages.