[extropy-chat] Optimal computer configurations [Was: Commentary: Does Karl Schroeder's opinion reallymatter?]

[Robert Bradbury]

On 4/27/06, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The small Linux versions like Puppy or DSL run quite adequately on old
> pcs.
> I have an old Compaq 90MHz Pentium 1 laptop, 72MB of memory, with
> Puppy, DSL and Win98 multibooting. You can use the old pc for all your
> email and browsing while the main pc runs molecular modelling and
> heats the room.  :)


Nothing wrong with that though I think DSL and perhaps Puppy are still based
on Linux 2.4.  2.6 is "supposed" to better for interactive use (though
Firefox's abuse of the VM system is making it difficult for me to accept
that premise).

Though I will admit that Linux is beginning to venture into the land of
"complete" bloatware.  Lord knows what it will end up like once 8-layer
BluRay disks that can store 200 Gb become popular as a distribution
medium... (Fedora already consumes ~3.3GB on a DVD disk).

Linux *should* be able to run on small systems.  A relatively robustly
configured 2.6.16 kernel for the Pentium 4 still weighs in at < 4MB
(program+data w/o buffers).  I can still read mail using Pine which avoids
the absolute requirement for "X" (using X stretches the 96MB system).  And
of course it is used in routers like the Linksys which only have something
like 4-8MB of memory total (I think).

If you revert to older browsers such as Netscape 4 and keep the desktop as
"light" as possible (GNOME isn't 'lightweight' but it isn't as bad as KDE)
then you could probably get by with 256MB, perhaps even 128MB.  But *many*
more web sites that are informative (NY Times and Kurzweil AI come to mind)
almost require you to use Javascript [1] (bad, bad, web provider -- I
shouldn't have to run *your* program on *my* computer to see the content).
Fortunately there are enough sites such as Google, Gmail & Amazon that "get
it" and don't require you to enable Javascript to browse & use their sites
effectively.

Robert

1. Side note: Firefox works best (for me) with some extensions, esp.
NoScript (selectively disable/enable Javascript); AdBlock (selectively block
various ads) & Session Manager (lets you save & restore complete sessions in
case Firefox memory usage gets out of hand).
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20060427/6f008091/attachment.html>