On Sat, 2006-04-15 at 13:04 -0400, Peter Johansson wrote: > Herbert Graf writes: > > > Linux is pretty resource hungry. While CPU is important, memory is MORE > > important. Personally, to run FC4 I would recommend a minimum of a > > Pentium4/AMD Athlon XP and at least 512MB of memory. > > Egads! It's one thing to hear this from ignorant reporters, but > something entirely different from an engineer! You know, I knew my post was going to provoke this response, but for some reason I didn't think of including my standard disclaimers. > The Linux *kernel* can still be made to run without much difficulty on > a 386 with 4 megs of RAM. Agreed. > It is only the bloated linux-kernel-based > *distributions* (such as Red Hat and Suse) that have more intensive > resource requirements. But we ARE talking about Redhat (Fedora). The user in question WASN'T asking about any Linux, they were asking about Fedora. My comments are absolutely correct if you are talking about Fedora in graphical mode. Note I DID mention that if you don't use X you don't need nearly the same amount of resources? > Other distributions are far less resource > intensive. Again true, but completely irrelevant. > For example, I have Linux running just fine on a old Toshiba Libretto > micro-laptop with a 166 Mhz Pentium-MMX cpu and 64 megs of RAM. This > machine is a touch on the slow side when running X/Windows, but it > runs just fine in text console mode. Another laptop is a 233 Mhz > Pentium with 96 megs, which I use a network music client in my > bedroom. It runs X/Windows, XMMS, and Firefox just fine. (Slowly, > but then I'm never in a rush in the bedroom. ;-) > > Now granted, I'm a long-time Linux user and I know what I'm doing. > Most of the lightweight linux distributions do *not* come with all of > the fancy auto-configuration tools you get in Redhat and Suse, and if > you aren't lucky enough for things to just work out of the box, you > could be in for many hours of hair-pulling. All true, and I agree, I've run Linux on a 386DX40, but that isn't relevant. The OP clearly wasn't very familiar with Linux, and was asking SPECIFICALLY about FC4. In that case, assuming they will run X (a beginner SHOULD start with X since the learning curve is FAR less steep) my comments stand. > But all that said, the tools for PIC development under Linux are far > more limited than those available under Windows. For example, last I > checked, you still couldn't use the ICD2 for debugging under Linux. > Of course, even this isn't an issue if you only have a basic > programmer. Agreed, which is why I still run a win2k machine for my PIC devel. > One of the reasons I made the switch from Linux to Windows was simply > because of the PIC development tools. I'd certainly go back to Linux > in a heartbeat if the tools were available. But even that isn't > *really* the issue for me. What *I* want is better integration with > Emacs. I run Cygwin under Windows, and for the most part, I'm quite > happy with that, and for the most part I can forget that I'm running > on top of a Windows kernel instead of a Linux kernel. Simply porting > MPLAB as-is to Linux really wouldn't help me all that much, because > I'd still have no better integration with Emacs. Well, for me, the benefits of Linux far outweigh the annoyances of Windows. Yes, PIC devel isn't really that great if you want to use the ICD2, but that's OK, I have a machine dedicated to that task. On the desktop Linux is great. It requires quite a bit of knowledge (I still get stumped from time to time, google is your friend) but it is worth the effort IMHO. BTW, the reason I'm so "passionate" about this resource issue is many people have come to me asking if switching to Linux is a good idea. They ALL are under the impression that their "too slow for winXP" machine will be MORE then fast enough to run Linux. The fact of the matter, for a bigger, one of the "big" distros is the best idea, and those distros ARE quite hardware intensive. I want to dispel the myth that beginners have that if they want to switch from windows to Linux their old machine will be more then enough. It's not, for a beginner. TTYL -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist