Anyone have a spare machine?

[Jack]

--- Luke-Jr wrote:

>...
> > >
> > > + a crapload of RAM
> > >
> > > Unless you use only very few applications at a
> time, even 1 GB won't
> > > be enough. I generally sit around 3 GB RAM
> usage-- mostly swapped,
> > > which kills performance.
> >
> >   Or you could just use less applications at once.
> 
> 
> Hence "Unless you use only very few applications at
> a time".
Please do tell me, how is it anyone can use more than
a
few applications at a time? I've found that I am
limited by
having two hands each with five digits. I've not yet
matered
using a foot keyboard yet. With these 10 digits I have
only
two eyes to process the incoming information, all of
which must
be processed by a single CPU. Just how many tasks can
one 
really successfully hope to accomplish with such a
configuration?
While it may be really cool to say you run 50
applications all at 
once, the truth is I suspect most of them are sitting
idle most
of the time and just using up RAM that could be made
better use
of by other more frequently used applications. Or if
as you say,
you are constanly swapping from cache you might look
into organizing your work habits to minimize the
caching, by finding the application that are getting
cached and finding the ones that aren't used
frequently but are not being cached out to disk.

Even when I'm working I rarely use more than a
handfull of applications at a time.

I may have a single terminal up, with multiple tabs.
Occasionally,
I will have two terminals up with multiple tabs. I
always have a mail client up, and it's usually the
Mozilla suite, because I almost always have a browser
up. When working I may have Openoffice up with several
documents open and a spreadsheet to track time,
GnuCash for maintainence of accounts, Gramps, the Gimp
for doing graphics, and Quanta. Ocassionaly I'll have
a chat client open. My KDE desktop never caches any of
these applications. Granted some applications require
mega memory, but most of us don't require 3+GB RAM. I
use 512MB and that is more than sufficient. 

> >   I run Gnome all day on a laptop with only 384
> MBs of RAM.  It's my primary
> >   work station and I never run into serious
> performance problems.
Ditto here except I use KDE 3.3

> Perhaps you only do one or two things at a time and
> don't have on average over 
> 50 windows open?
> 
Luke, you should consider joining AA (Applications
Anonymous). 
;')

$0.02,
Brian JD.