Helge Hafting: “128M, 300MHz and a 3G ide-drive is usually enough for office work
and compiling, but there are times I use some swap. Reading the
impressive reviews for pre11,
I decided to put it through a worst-case test. Well, worst-case
for my kind of use anyway.”

2.4.10-pre12 is impressive
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:16:46 +0200
From: Helge Hafting 
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org


2.4.10-pre12 is impressive compared to pre10.

128M, 300MHz and a 3G ide-drive is usually enough for office work 
and compiling, but there are times I use some swap.  Reading the 
impressive reviews for pre11,
I decided to put it through a worst-case test.  Well, worst-case
for my kind of use anyway. 

I started staroffice with 40 documents.  This is slow and tends to
ruin interactive performance for a long time.  I used
to get lots of swapping, and plenty of swapping in long after
finishing staroffice.  

This time I also started a kernel compile, a updatedb run, and a
rgrep in /usr/src while waiting for staroffice to load.
I also had netscape up.
It came up, with only 10M total in swap.  20-30M just for starting
staroffice used to be the case.  And interactive performance
was fine, even with all that going on. 

The normal under such circumstances is several seconds just to 
raise a xterm, with typing oocationally lagging and delays when 
pressing enter.  But only commands needing disk-io got delayed and 
only slightly.  Typing and window moving were just like
a normal X session with nothing else going on.

The rgrep seemed to
proceed at great speed, the compile ran very slowly.  I guess it
lost the bandwidth competition.

Then I went away for lunch, and when I came back there were
no more than 20M in swap.  Everything had finished except the
compile - it was still hampered by netscape doing one of its
100% cpu bugs.  

Staroffice and netscape _still_ performed fine, all that
io didn't destroy their working sets!  I quit staroffice,
the compile finished, and swap usage dropped do 15M.  

The machine have recovered perfectly - there seems to be none of
that long-term sluggishness that used to happen after 
updatedb or after swapping 20M.  The machine used to
recover to a usable state before too, but never this good.
Before, I had to reboot or use it a few hours.

Good work!  There's noticeable improvement for desktop use!

Helge Hafting

Issue #31 of the column is now online and it can – as usual – be found
on the GNU Webpage and its mirrors. Otherwise just follow the links at
the end of this posting.

Georg's Brave GNU World is a monthly column which is being released
simultaneously in seven languages (English, German, French, Japanese,
Spanish, Korean and Portugese) on the web and printed in the German
"Linux-Magazin" as well as the "Linux Magazine" U.K. and the "Linux
Magazine France."  This makes it the monthly column with the widest
distribution worldwide (afaik).

If you would like to receive mail about new issues directly, you can
subscribe to the "Brave GNU World" announcement mailinglist. Just
send mail to  with "subscribe" in
the *body*. The mailinglist is only for announcements that are related 
to the "Brave GNU World" and is of very low volume (between 1 and 2
mails a month).

The 31st issue covers the following topics:

 * Freeciv                  [ A Free Software Civilization Clone ]

 * XWeb                     [ Writing web pages in XML/XSL ]

 * General Server Pages     [ Writing programs for structured output 
                              made easy ]

 * GNU Classpath Extensions [ GNU and Java is no contradiction ] 

 * IDX-PKI                  [ An entirely Free Software Public Key 
                              Infrastructure ]


This column intends to provide a forum for all GNU maintainers,
friends and associates and I am always open to suggestions. So if  
you 

 * have questions about the GNU Project that might be of general
   interest 

 * have a GNU Project and would like to improve its profile

 * would like to start a GNU Project you are looking for people to
   start it with 

 * think something doesn't get the publicity it deserves

 * would like to see something made public

send mail to:

         "Brave GNU World "


This column is for everyone with an interest in Free Software,
so don´t hesitate to contact me if your project is under a Free
Software license and you´d like to see it introduced here.

The 31st issue can be found at

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.en.html
  [ English version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.fr.html
  [ French version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.de.html
  [ German version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.ja.html
  [ Japanese version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.es.html
  [ Spanish version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.ko.html
  [ Korean version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-31.pt.html
  [ Portugese version ]

or via the "Brave GNU World" homepage

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.en.html
  [ English version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.fr.html
  [ French version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.de.html
  [ German version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.ja.html
  [ Japanese version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.es.html
  [ Spanish version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.ko.html
  [ Korean version ]

  http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/brave-gnu-world.pt.html
  [ Portugese version ]

That´s it for now...

Regards,

                 Georg Greve

CNET: “Japanese video game maker Nintendo said Tuesday that about
300,000 of its new GameCube consoles were sold in the first weekend
after launch, disappointing some analysts who had expected the shipment
to sell out.”

InnerPeace Volunteers writes: “This report, originally written before Y2K, is still applicable now, particluarly in light of how the world has changed since the WTC attacks, and what may be ahead. InnerPeace does not claim to be a cure all, but it does not need to take all the straws off of the camel’s back to make a difference, either.

Since this report was written, two more free self-help chatterbots have been released by InnerPeace.Org under the GPL, including one on forgiveness, which is particularly relevant at this time. Starting InnerPeace support groups at your church or place of work is very easy to do.”

CNET: “Linux software leader Red Hat reported Tuesday that it posted a slim second-quarter loss before one-time items
as the company struggled to adjust to a slowdown in technology spending.

The company said its second-quarter adjusted loss totaled $100,000, or nil cents per share, compared with a loss of
$4 million, or 2 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.”

Cédric Gauthier writes: “The Soissons technopole (France) is organizing the first European Free Software Contest.
European developers will be able to contest by registering their free software projects, during one year.
Once a year, the handing out of awards is a way to make the best projects known to media, to allow easier meetings and to value new free software projects.

All your suggestions are welcome, more particularly regarding these subjects :

– Would you like to compete, what is the free software project you are working on,… ?

– Where would you advise us to give information on this contest (web sites, universities, …) ?
Soissons-Technopole (url in french, a translation in english is coming soon)

– By Grant Gross –

Members of the Open Source and Free Software communities continue to feel the effects of last Tuesday’s terrorist attacks on the United States, with community responses ranging from anger to concern over civil liberties to desire to discuss the events.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Free Software Foundation’s Richard Stallman have called for vigilance in protecting civil rights, while some in the community have suggested that a clamp-down on civil rights may be the price the United States has to pay to fight terrorism (see the responses to Stallman’s article).

Amid those debates, the DotGNU project has opened a new mailing list, called compassion@dotgnu.org, for members of the community to discuss the events of the last week. Barry Fitzgerald, a member of the DotGNU Steering Committee, says the list will be an open one to discuss the terrorist attacks and related subjects.

But he also urged restraint among list members. “Please be compassionate and treat
others in this list with respect,” Fitzgerald wrote to the DotGNU-developers list. “There is room for disagreement. There is no room for brutal grandstanding. Please join and share your emotions.”

Fitzgerald says part of the reason for the new list is to move such discussions away from the DotGNU-developers list. But he also acknowledged the need for people to work through their emotions.

“Many people harbor many different political opinions all over
the world,” he wrote to the DotGNU developers list. ” I personally feel that these diverse political opinions are
what gives us strength. These diverse opinions provide us with a sense
of refinement in our systems. Without our differences, we could never
adapt in a positive way to the events around us. As such, everybody
has something different to say about these horrible events. This has
affected everybody in a mutually unique way.”

To join the list, go to http://dotgnu.org/mailman/listinfo/compassion.

Kelly McNeill writes “I join those mourning lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on the United States last Tuesday. I’m still struggling to make sense of it all. In taking the oft-repeated advice that we seek a return to business as usual, I’ve found no escape from terrorism in returning to my work. To those of us who make a living tweaking and maximizing search terms on our clients’ Web sites, it is often clear from what people are searching for on the Internet, what people are thinking about around the U.S. and the world. “Terrorism” now ranks at position No. 48 on the most frequently searched list I use.”

Kelly McNeill writes “Satellite radio service in the United States is one step closer to launch. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday granted temporary licenses to XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio that will allow the companies to use ground-based repeaters for their digital radio services. The FCC’s conditional approval restricts the companies from activating ground repeaters until XM and New York City-based Sirius have coordinated use of the airwaves with wireless operators concerned about interference from the satellite transmissions.”

CNet reports that Toshiba’s latest laptops are including 802.11b wireless networking, bluetooth, network, and modem all built-in.