[sclug] Cheap'n'nasty Tesco Linux machines

[Phillip Chandler]

My understanding of Dual Core (pretty slim actually, but here goes) is
that both are only used for things like multitasking and gaming etc. So
theoretically if your a home user just wanting to do basic stuff like
check email, surf, write letter to auntie Mildred in Australia, then
dual core is a waste of money because to do the basics you would only be
using one core. Therefore the 2nd core is redundant, the first one has
to be running at 100% for other work to be transferred over to the send
core. Dual core would also be perfect for places like NASA or a
university doing vast computations.

If your using one for burning a dvd and the second for playing doom 3,
then dual core kicks in and works great. But who would be burning a dvd
and playing doom while their waiting ?

So my thinking here is that when they advertise a machine as dual core
with a speed of "X" which is based on both cores working, then
technically if your only going to be a home user (as described above)
then in my mind your not going to be getting the speed stated, your only
going to get the speed of one core, ie half the speed.

So the questions here are, do I sort of understand the concept of Dial
Core ? Do I even sound like I know what Im going on about ? Is the idea
above have some credibility ?

Thanks


On Thu, 2008-03-13 at 20:51 +0000, Alex Butcher wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Mar 2008, Phillip Chandler wrote:
> 
> > Just been to their web site
> > ( http://direct.tesco.com/q/N.1999034/No.10/Nr.99.aspx ) and it actually
> > looks quite good considering its only ?139.93. And theres plenty of room
> > for adding extra cd/dvd and hdd. So you could quite easily add a
> > secondary hard disc, but how would you set the 2nd hdd as the /home
> > partitions ?
> 
> Install the disc, partition it, format it, mount the new /home partition at
> a temporary mountpoint, copy the current data from /home to the temporary
> mount point, then unmount, adjust /etc/fstab and remount it as /home.
> 
> > But seeing as its only supplied with Ubuntu 6.06 Id be inclined to do a
> > fresh install of 7.04.
> 
> Your call, but the version they've supplied is the Long Term Support
> version, which is probably more appropriate for less technical users who
> won't want to upgrade their distro install every six months or so.
> 
> > I was a bit miffed with the 2nd machine being ?50 more for a 1.9ghz
> > speed and 512mb ram where as the ?139.93 is 2.66ghz speed and only 256mb
> > ram ? Is this a typo on their part ?
> 
> The 2.66GHz machine is a Celeron D 331, the 1.9GHz machine is a dual-core
> Athlon with a faster front-side bus, more cache and 64 bit extensions. The
> clock speeds of any two different architectures are not directly comparable,
> rather like comparing car engine designs (e.g. Mazda's 1.3l Wankel rotary
> engine develops 238 horsepower, compared with ~100hp from the 1.4l Rover K
> series).
> 
> Best Regards,
> Alex.
> -- 
> Alex Butcher, Bristol UK.                           PGP/GnuPG ID:0x5010dbff
> 
> "[T]he whole point about the reason why I think it is important we go for
> identity cards and an identity database today is that identity fraud and
> abuse is a major, major problem. Now the civil liberties aspect of it, look
> it is a view, I don't personally think it matters very much."
>   - Tony Blair, 6 June 2006 <http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page9566.asp>