Complete Newbie

for what i've observed in my 6 year Linux and Windows comparison, i've found that:

"given the same hardware and contemporary OS releases, Linux will have superior performance over windows"

that means, that i think all your claims about speed are wrong.

but, i won't just leave it like this, i'm gonna install Jlime in my 680, and will benchmark it against WinCE, so that everyone here can see whether WinCE or Linux is the fastest on the J's.

NOTE: i'm not trying to escalate this to a Linux vs Windows Flamewar, nor am i doing this as something personal, i'm just trying to give the most accurate facts to the HPC community. I'm neither in WinCE's nor in Linux's side, i think both are very different but amazing OSs

well, i never tried jlime, but i read that those pda linux gui's require quite some resources. it is mainly ram, and i don't say wince is more optimized (it may be and it may not be), but wince runs from rom so it doesn1t eat that much from that meagre 16 MB.

oh and sorry for the misunderstanding, i didn't claim anything, i was just saying that i'm concerned about speed (well, and remaining amount of ram). i don't state it as a fact as i never had experience with it...

i'm looking forward to the os comparisons! it would be really great to see them! (and help me format that damn CF to install jlime on my j680 )

Edited by cmonex 2005-11-16 9:22 PM

Cmonex...

I am not saying that opie is perfect, but all open source programs are modifiable..

Matrixcore, I think one of the reasons why Linux is generally faster is the fact that everything (especially in Gentoo) is compiled just for your system. The other reason, one that I despise (and would greatly like to discover how to DISABLE) is caching. Linux cache's a lot. I mean, it is ridiculous. When I had 256mb of ram, 94% was used regularly. When I upgraded to 512mb, 94% was used regularly. Didn't matter when I switched from Gnome to Fluxbox. Over 60% of the memory used was cache, and this would happen within minutes. No, unlike my first speculations, it isn't Xorg. On my 720, 7 - 9mb of the ram used is in cache. If anyone knows how this could be limited to maybe 5 or 7mb, that would be excellent. It is the one *feature* of Linux that I absolutely hate.

Yeah, it has led to poor game performance. I tried UT2004 with my geforce 4 mx 440, and it was pitiful. A friend gave me a fx5200 (for free ), and the performance wasn't any better. If that tells you anything...

Anyways, Linux for the 680 is nice and configured at the moment, the rest of the work to be done is really learning how to suspend the machine. If there were as many people working on that project as there are for...many other open source projects, it would be done already. Sigh.

-Yeah, I'll get to programming when I am not so worried about my pitiful gpa...

I tried startx - after looking it up - and it says "Startx: not found". I dont think opie is built in, the entire image is only 2.6mb.

OPIE is precompiled, but you have to download it from the device. I cant do that since i dont have a pcmcia network card (yet). If i were to copy the files to the compact flash card could i still use ipkg, or would it desperatly look for the internet?

Edited by chazco 2005-11-17 2:30 AM

sure. if someone has the time and knowledge
i don't

I GOT IT TO WORK!!!

Opie runs really fast compared to CE! And it runs Konqueror. It also can run something called blackbox and another gui.

Excellent.

Hahaha, cmonex. There is your proof.

Chazco, exactly like I said, but glad that you discovered it for yourself. Although you already figured it out, you can indeed install programs locally with ipkg, by telling ipkg where to look.

Have fun.

I didn't figure out the ipkg bit. I found a premade userland with all the GUIs in it.

All i'm hoping for now is working suspend support...

Sooner or later...

All i'm hoping for now is working suspend support...

Can I ask: Does Linux support better colour than CE? I ask because the Linux graphics look much better...

it seems you didnt really read my posts..

I read all your posts.

Your 680 has a maximum amount of colors, Linux cannot make it display more. And most likely, the CE driver is better. But I cannot be sure of that. What may be making it look better is the way opie is using the colors, and perhaps the higher dpi text and such that Linux uses by default. You might be able to squeeze some more out of your machine with Linux, but I wouldn't be the one to know (still waiting for kernel 2.6...if anyone would tell me what is going on that would just be slightly helpful...)

On CE, a jpg image looks terrible. On Linux it looks like its supposed to. I dont know why though...

Can anyone recommend a page that gives a good introduction to Linux. I think i'm hooked.

chazco, maybe you just forgot to install the updated HP display driver for the 680. the 680 is 256 colours by default, and the updated driver allows it to display 65,000... maybe linux is aware of it and displays 65k.

No - it was installed. I thought that at first, but apparantly not. Maybe it didn't install correctly. I'm starting to think something was wrong with CE on it when compared to Linux. Maybe a bad bit of ROM?