[jr2]

Multi-tool.  Pretty much a Swiss Army knife.  Boot Mini XP, live Linux, do Anti-Virus scans, reset Windows password, do memory patch of Windows or Linux kernel in memory to boot without password as any user, do mem test scans, hard disk scans, clone hard disk, etc, etc.

[S-99]

Oh ok, cool.

[Nuke]

one redeeming factor for linux is can run on anything, where as windows vista/7 drew a line in the sand and said they wont run hardware lesser than this. sure you can dig up an old windows and use that. linux lets you stay modern on archaic hardware. case in point (and the reason i posted this) you can run ubuntu on an emulated arm processor running on an $8 microcontroller (at a whopping 6.5 khz):

http://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/building-the-worst-linux-pc-ever/

theres even a 3 and a half hour video of the boot process!

[jr2]

@Nuke; vLite FTW (for Vista/7; use nLite for XP)

Running XP on a 486 with 32MB RAM... heh, not worth much.  Seeing people's jaw drop.. priceless.    It is useful in certain situations, for example, 233MHz Celeron, 96MB RAM, needs to go on the Internetz... using nLite + XP is actually less trouble than trying to hack '98 or 2K up to snuff to go online.

[Nuke]

ive used that before, managed to get a pc to boot xp only using a 2gb cf card for storage. of course it sucked that i couldnt install much in terms of software. so i got a 16 gb cf card instead. still i only use it as my porn computer. its probably loaded with viruses by now. would probably be better off running a linux though.

but anyway say you want vista or 7 that can run on a computer with less than 1gb of ram (usually even less than 521 megs). most of the time the installer just freezes up. linux is quite at home on these systems. even modern distros.

[jr2]

Hmm, less than 1GB won't boot ubuntu IIRC (at least it won't boot the linux-based BitDefender live CD...) but maybe I'm mistaking that for 512MB... people run **** for RAM and then wonder why their computer runs slow and the hard drive fries every 3 years (swap file thrashing)... they whine about paying $50 to clean it up, and won't pay $100 extra to upgrade the RAM to 2GB (or more if it's not old DDR RAM).  And they wonder why it takes so long to fix... It's cause computers without enough memory to even boot the OS without resorting to using the swap file are going to run like absolute ****.  Hello!  ... sorry, /rant..  Anyways, people who opted to upgrade to 2GB are very happily using their computers with performance mostly on par with a new cheapo box you could get from Walmart for $399.

[Nuke]

but you miss the point i was trying to make. that a linux distro will run on older hardware than a generation equivalent windows. sure 256 megs is **** for ram today, but in the late 90s through the early 00's, it was still common to see low end machines in the 265-512 range. i put 1gb in my 2003 rig, and upped it to 2gb, and the machine still runs fine (under win7 even). when you have old hardware, and want to do something with it (other than doorstop), but dont want to use a legacy os, then linux is pretty much your only choice. unlike most people i like old hardware. and if i do employ a piece of ancient hardware its typically for some hackish project of mine. regardless of how slow it is it can still do math faster than you can.

also the reason the ubuntu live cd doesnt run with a tiny bit of ram is because most of it is used as a cd cache, and the slow and archaic optical drive must be randomly accessed. its a recipe for slow, youre better off with a slax live cd. to run ubuntu you have to actually do an install.  i have installed ubuntu to laptops that couldn't boot into live cd mode. the link i posted showed ubuntu booting on an 8 bit mcu emulating an arm processor, very slow, but it booted.

[S-99]

Low end machines from 90's and early 2000's having 256 or 512 mb of ram? That was back when memory was pretty expensive. It was a while before memory at least fell to one dollar per megabyte, and even that was expensive. On my first computer i built, it only had 64mb of ram. Unreal tournament required a minimum of 32mb. Fs1 could be played in software mode on a pentium 120 with 32mb ram. Game requirements back then we're pretty modest in terms of required memory. It did blow my mind a little bit to see that my dad's 1995 packard bell pentium 120 and 32mb of ram could play fs1 in software mode.

Basically in the late 90's and early new millenium, you were sitting pretty comfy with 128mb since that was a lot of memory then.

[Nuke]

you know what i may not have the time right. in 2002 i was building machines which typically had 256 megs ram. at the time most of my computers ran 512 megs, but these were lower end rigs, for buisness and educational use. i rembember back then putting 2gb into a server and thinking how would anyone ever use that much ram, and now here i am with 4x that much, and wondering about the same. late 90s, like the machine i bought around the time fs2 came out, started with 128 megs which i upped to 256. so maybe late 90s doesnt apply but definately early 00s. even if i had a late 90s computer, i wouldn't throw it away (though id probibly break it down for parts).

[Mongoose]

It kind of does seem like we're at a point right now where you can afford to throw gobs of RAM in just for the hell of it, regardless of how much memory anything you're running would actually make use of.  Is there really any application under the sun that would push 8 GB's worth to the limit?

[TwentyPercentCooler]

It kind of does seem like we're at a point right now where you can afford to throw gobs of RAM in just for the hell of it, regardless of how much memory anything you're running would actually make use of.  Is there really any application under the sun that would push 8 GB's worth to the limit?

Firefox?

[Mongoose]

Touche.

[Nuke]

frankly im rather annoyed at avgs frequent "omg firefox is using 300mb wtf?" messages. i mean use the ****ing ram. thats what its there for.

[KyadCK]

It kind of does seem like we're at a point right now where you can afford to throw gobs of RAM in just for the hell of it, regardless of how much memory anything you're running would actually make use of.  Is there really any application under the sun that would push 8 GB's worth to the limit?

Anything  that renders

Java

Ramdisks (this one kills it off really quick)

VMs

A single linux VM in a ramdisk

[sigtau]

Interesting opinions.  I especially like the fact that Linux can run on just about any hardware (Damn Small Linux is incredibly useful for this purpose), so with that said, do you guys typically keep LiveCDs around for troubleshooting purposes like I do?  It's saved my ass a few times when I needed to make a few emergency backups before doing a complete HDD wipe.

And it's interesting that you guys mention Ubuntu.  I used Ubuntu back in 2008-2009, back when I had an interest in small-systems programming (since Linux seemed more convenient for that at the time) and it was rather good, especially in the 8.04/8.10 days.  Now it seems to have gone to **** and become horribly bloated.  Mint appears to be based on Ubuntu, but they have cut out the crap that makes Ubuntu 11... well, Ubuntu.  No Unity, no cloud bull****, nothing of the sort--just easy package installation and high rate of hardware compatibility.

That said, Nuke, do you think Linux Mint 11 would run on that horrifically slow processor that you mentioned earlier?

Java

This, right here, always pisses me off; especially when it's out of context.  I'm not going to derail my own thread, but ****ing hell, this is a pet peeve of mine.  I've been coding in Java for eight years now and I have never had any application I code take up as much memory as people claim it seems to do.  Minecraft nonwithstanding (from what I understand, it uses anywhere between 0.5 to 1 GB at a time), it's not that bad.

[KyadCK]

Java

This, right here, always pisses me off; especially when it's out of context.  I'm not going to derail my own thread, but ****ing hell, this is a pet peeve of mine.  I've been coding in Java for eight years now and I have never had any application I code take up as much memory as people claim it seems to do.  Minecraft nonwithstanding (from what I understand, it uses anywhere between 0.5 to 1 GB at a time), it's not that bad.

It wouldnt be so bad if it didnt try to preallocate everything. Minecraft ACTUALLY uses only 100-400mb at a time, but java takes out a much larger chunk anyway.



And it stays this way. If MC is using ~250, java has 600. If MC is using 400, java is at the full 1gb. It's constantly about 2.5x what the game is using.

Even if it is meant to be this way, that is one hell of a good argument for saying java is a memory hog. "Maxing 8gb" might be exaggerating it, but my computer has been known to "idle" (the state I leave it alone at, all background programs I want running) at 5.5gb, so if I only had 8gb instead of 16, it wouldn't take a whole lot for java to push it over the edge.

[Nuke]

Interesting opinions.  I especially like the fact that Linux can run on just about any hardware (Damn Small Linux is incredibly useful for this purpose), so with that said, do you guys typically keep LiveCDs around for troubleshooting purposes like I do?  It's saved my ass a few times when I needed to make a few emergency backups before doing a complete HDD wipe.

And it's interesting that you guys mention Ubuntu.  I used Ubuntu back in 2008-2009, back when I had an interest in small-systems programming (since Linux seemed more convenient for that at the time) and it was rather good, especially in the 8.04/8.10 days.  Now it seems to have gone to **** and become horribly bloated.  Mint appears to be based on Ubuntu, but they have cut out the crap that makes Ubuntu 11... well, Ubuntu.  No Unity, no cloud bull****, nothing of the sort--just easy package installation and high rate of hardware compatibility.

That said, Nuke, do you think Linux Mint 11 would run on that horrifically slow processor that you mentioned earlier?

it would probibly run better. but on the other hand i very much doubt its booting more than the bare minimum, also you note that its running in a terminal, since the machine has no display hardware what so ever. actually the chip they are using is probibly one of the bast atmegas out there. for an 8-bit microcontroller it has some beef. 16k sram, 128k flash (aka program memory, its a harvard architecture meaning seprate program and data memories), and can run at 20 mhz. it even has some ram and flash expansion (operated in software btw). problem is when you emulate a 32 bit processor with an 8 bit processor, things get slow. its like trying to emulate a pc on a super nintendo. its not something that you normally do. its just a clever way to pimp the fact that linux can run on anything.

btw i cant say that ive ever tried mint. its been a couple years since i fooled around with linux. when i did it was ubuntu (and varients), fedora, i use a slax live cd for troubleshooting, i may have tried debian. but it seems i have a surplus of machines that need operating systems, and so its long overdo to give the os another chance. unfortunately i have a shortage of monitors, input devices, and space.

Java

This, right here, always pisses me off; especially when it's out of context.  I'm not going to derail my own thread, but ****ing hell, this is a pet peeve of mine.  I've been coding in Java for eight years now and I have never had any application I code take up as much memory as people claim it seems to do.  Minecraft nonwithstanding (from what I understand, it uses anywhere between 0.5 to 1 GB at a time), it's not that bad.

i would argue that the performance hit from the virtual machine has little to do with the performance hit of a java application. of course maybe i dont understand how the vm works. does it allocate a vm for each application, or is it one vm for everything? i would also argue that in addition to the program you also would need to run libraries and so fourth. i really have nothing against applications that use ram as needed. in fact i have a bigger problem when applications dont use ram and instead use hard drive resources, when there is plenty of additional ram in the system. the exception of course is when the os hogs all the ram and leaves none for applications, and ends up wasting a lot of time paging out to the swapfile to free up memory.

[KyadCK]

does it allocate a vm for each application, or is it one vm for everything?

2 instances of minecraft = 2 instances of java, each with their own ram limit in task manager. So I'm going to say one for each.

[el_magnifico]

IMHO, Linux distros tailored for slow systems tend to suck for home users. I strongly recommend using mainstream, full-blown desktop distros, since I'm under the impression distros such as Damn Small Linux give a bad first impression of Linux to many people.

it's not that bad.

Yes it is.

Don't take me wrong though, I love Java.

[Nuke]

im kind of the opinion that an os should only contain bare essentials for configuring and running the system, and allow the user to select their own applications as needed. windows especially (though im sure the same applies to linux as well) is just loaded with software that i just dont use. software that id rather not have wasting space on my system. i kinda frown on any software suite that comes with an operating system, and i kinda wish operating system developers would keep em separate.