[Gllug] Issues with Hotplug && Auto-mounting

Martin A. Brooks martin at hinterlands.org
Mon Nov 28 05:26:49 UTC 2005


Henry Gilbert wrote:
> Slackware was an interesting experience. First time I've fully
> installed and maintained that distro properly. Despite the bumps, I
> don't fully regret it. 

Anything you do that teaches you something isn't wasted time.

> Definitely very lean, fast and cutting-edge.
> The other distros I tried on that machine would just crawl.

I have to wonder about this.  With the exception of some very specific 
applications, in my experience, there's no perceptible difference in 
speed between an application compiled for generic i386 and one one 
compiled for the exact ix86 processor you're using.  Most distros ship 
either i386 or i586 binaries.

Your web browser, email client and favourite editor spend about 99.9% of 
the time waiting for user or network input; why would they need to do 
nothing faster?

Futhermore stuff like Firefox can take literally _hours_ to compile, the 
microsecond of processor time you gain by compiling for, say, i686 when 
your distro ships an i386 binary, is instantly and unrecoverably wiped 
out by the time spent watching GCC do its thing.

What is true is that slackware tends (tended) to come with less stuff 
running at boot time.  Less stuff running means faster boot times and a 
lower initial memory footprint.  I would bet that is where you get your 
illusion of speed from; your computer is doing less.

Mart.
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