The state of 64-bit Desktop Linux

[Marc Lanctot]

Giles Orr wrote:
> Hi Marc.
> 
> 2009/2/11 Marc Lanctot <lanctot-yfeSBMgouQgsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>:
>> My main machine at home has really been slow and I realized I made a bad
>> purchase 2 years ago. I'm quite sure it was low quality hardware that was to
>> blame, a HP Pavilion that came with a Pentium D chip which I'd never heard
>> of. I never figured out if Ubuntu was the cause of any of the slow down but
>> I do know that when I used Fluxbox over Gnome, or KDE applications vs. Gnome
>> applications the slowdown was more tolerable. If I left my machine on all
>> the time.. after 2-3 days it became unusable unless I rebooted it. It became
>> quite loud too, regardless of how many fans I'd used to try to fix the heat
>> problem.
> 
> The Pentium D may run hot, but it's not generally accused of being
> "slow" (yes, the Core series is better, but the D is still a lot newer
> than a P2).  There's probably some other problem, my first thought
> would be to run memtest86 ...

I've done that. I've also cleaned the heat sink several times, as 
Lennart suggested.. in fact at one point it was a monthly thing :)

I think it may be because I put a higher-end NVidia card that required a 
50W power supply which my casing was not designed for. I did my research 
on the fans and got the best ones people recommended.. but still it was 
hot and still it ended up being noisy. It could have just been that the 
power supply + video card generated too much heat.

The funny thing was that during one of my love/hate Ubuntu-Debian 
reinstall periods I noticed the fan problem suddenly disappeared after 
I'd re-installed Debian. I thought that was odd. Several months later I 
put Ubuntu back on after a new release (figuring if there was any 
bug/issue in the OS or daemons with detection of CPU temperatures it'd 
have been fixed by now), bam fan issue reappeared after a few days of 
re-customizing. Unfortunately it also coincided with the changing into a 
warmer season, and I was too lazy to go back to Debian to re-verify 
after having customized Ubuntu to my liking again. I realized maybe it 
had something to do with the video card working hard and generating more 
heat in Ubuntu, so I scrapped compiz. That got my videos and Gnome 
working more smoothly but ultimately didn't fix the problem. At one 
point, it would be quiet for a while but any time I compiled a C++ 
program, it would send my fan off into a rage, and not go back to 
normal. Found nothing about it online. That's about the time I started 
experimenting with the fans.

It's been hell. I can't wait for the new machine to arrive. I used to be 
able to work from home it's become so awkward with this pitiful excuse 
for a computer .. :(

> 
> I'm using Sun's native Java.  Haven't used it heavily, but no problems.

Do you know what version? My big test, which 64-bit Blackdown has failed 
in the past, is running the Text Twist game on Yahoo games. If it 
doesn't come up or it comes up without sound, then it's not working 
100%. My girlfriend and I make a hobby out of that game, so this is a no 
no :)

>> - Is the 64-bit NVIDIA drivers stable and working well (compared to the
>> 32-bit ones). I'm getting a "256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI
>> Capable". The most intense thing I do with my video card is watch movies (no
>> games, no video production, etc.) With my current machine, even watching a
>> single movie will cause noticeable slow down afterwards.
> 
> I'm using a low-end (6200?) dual head nVidia card, following Lennart's
> advice from several months ago for compiling the module: I suppose
> that means I'm using the Linux driver, not nVidia's own.  I don't have
> OpenGL support, but haven't bothered to pursue it as it isn't a big
> problem for me.  I have dual head, that's all I wanted.

Why would you do that over using the proprietary driver (I mean other 
than RMS's loss of freedom argument)? Isn't it crippling? Are you 
implying that the proprietary driver doesn't come with dual head support?!

>> - Is there any reason I would install, say, Debian vs. Ubuntu. Of all the
>> distros I've tried these two remain my favorite.
> 
> I prefer Debian, and run it with fluxbox right now, but the window
> manager changes periodically.  But since you need a big dose of
> user-friendliness fast, Ubuntu may be the better choice.

*sigh*

Thanks for all the info :)

Marc

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