Re: Solaris impossible to use for desktop

From: Ghazan Haider (ghazan_at_ghazan.haider.name)
Date: 08/16/03

  • Next message: Paul Eggert: "Re: Free AV" 
    Date: 16 Aug 2003 02:47:16 -0700

    > You're missing one very important alternative -- Mozilla. It's even
    > supported by Sun these days, and in general it tends to render IE
    > pages just fine. In fact, I have only seen one IE page it doesn't
    > render right.

    Yeah sorry. I just checked Mozilla and am downloading it. Last time I
    checked was around 6 months ago.
      
    > Is the Linux kernel fully preemptive now? I think they have been
    > working on that but I wasn't sure if they'd finished. At any rate,
    > the Solaris kernel has been fully preemptive (within itself, not
    > in the sense of supporting preemptive multitasking of user processes,
    > although that's true too) for quite some time.
    >

    I dont know whats 'fully', on the desktop it feels snappier than
    Solaris both on x86 and sparc.
     
    > If your Ultra 5 is not very responsive to interactive usage,
    > the Solaris kernel is not at fault. In fact, my Solaris x86
    > system on a 600 MHz Athlon is still more responsive than Linux
    > or Windows on a 1.1 GHz Athlon.
    >

    Well, I use a compiled linux kernel with preemptive multitasking and
    gnome, but not much else on my 700MHz athlon with 256mb ram and
    geforce2mx and its much better than solaris 8 x86. On the ultra 5
    tried linux once and it was impressive with kde. Ive been trying to
    tune Solaris 9 to that point.

    > Still, I myself have noticed poor interactive response on Ultra 5
    > systems specifically. (Well, Ultra 10 systems, but they're effectively
    > the same thing.) I have always had a hunch that it's somehow tied
    > to the IDE implementation on the system since whenever I had disk
    > activity (esp. CD-ROM activity), it seemed that the system slowed.
    > (Perhaps DMA for IDE is not enabled, causing the kernel to hog the
    > CPU trying to do I/O?)
    >

    Thats quite possible, and since I like my Ultra5 muchly, I'm investing
    in a scsi controller and a 330MHz cpu with 4mb cache. Already have a
    fast scsi hdd. This machine should eventually run websphere + db2 for
    me unless it performs like it is now.

    > Also, keep in mind that the Ultra 5 you have is very likely equipped
    > with a really, really cheap and slow (esp. by today's standard)
    > graphics device. You're very unlikely to have FFB graphics
    > (is it even available on Ultra 5?) and instead probably have PGX, which
    > basically sucks. The Ultra 5 was one of the cheapest Sun machines
    > ever made at the time, and that was one of the corners they cut.

    Yes, but running two tasks and switching between their windows takes
    quite a while, and not if youre just switching between two simple text
    editor windows. That rules out the graphics. But the 2 tasks to switch
    arent heavy on the hdd either, rules that out although the IDE there
    doesnt help. I'm specifically interested in the multitasking
    performance and why Solaris cant use that CPU the way linux is.

    > Actually, Solaris has kernel support for interactive processes.
    > There are three scheduling classes: timesharing (i.e. batch mode,
    > in effect), interactive (for desktop use), and realtime (it's soft
    > realtime, definitely).
    >
    > One thing you could try is doing a "ps -cef" to see if your interactive
    > processes are actually marked interactive -- look for "IA". Of course,
    > if you have logged in on the console, this should happen by default,
    > so it's unlikely that's it.
    >
    > It's also possible you have too little memory for the kinds of things
    > you're trying to do -- especially on an old machine like that.
    > Naturally, too little memory will easily ruin performance.

    Ive now 128MB, but with quite small programs its the same with no hdd
    thrashing. This is solaris 9 with all the latest patches applied. 256
    megs have been ordered anyway, hope that makes a big difference.

    > > 4) Limitations with hardware. I put in a 15GB ide drive ( ATA66) on
    > > the machine's 33MHz IDE connector replacing the standard 4GB drive,
    > > but its slower.
    >
    > Slower than what? The standard 4 GB drive? It's quite possible that
    > the drive Sun shipped with the machine was actually a nicer drive
    > with more cache or with a higher rotational speed.

    Trust me, the 4gb drive is a clunky 4200 while the 15gb is 7200 and
    came with an athlon 700. The 4200 is now living in a pentium2 and not
    doing better than the 15gb. I suspect the IDE on Ultra5 has been
    'tuned' to exactly the parameters of the 4GB drive with no
    autodetection or self-adjusting blocksize etc for the 15GB.

     
    > However, if you don't like it, you certainly don't have to use it.

    I intend to use it, which is why I'm here. Just making sure I'm using
    it to the max.

  • Next message: Paul Eggert: "Re: Free AV"

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