Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: stopthegop on November 16, 2006, 03:05:08 AM
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Ok, I'm a little bored tonight.. :idea:
Did a quick reboot test to confirm what I already knew, but now I have some "official" numbers to throw around. First my hardware:
Amiga:
A4000D in Elbox tower, CyberstormPPC 233/68060 @ 65MHZ, (2) 147GB SCSI 10K drives, 10 SFS partitions, Voodoo5, 2M Chip ram, ~200M Fast RAM, DVD r/w, CD0, sdlt320 scsi tape drive, x-surf, z3 fastlane, and delfina. Software loaded at boot time: OS3.9/bb2, Powericons, WarpOS5.1a, Rexxmast, asyncwb, WarpWB, NewMode, AISS, deficons, rawbinfo + ~40 assigns made in s:user-startup.
PC:
6 month old Dell Latitude laptop running OEM Windows XP sp1. Intel Mobile Pentium 3.0GHZ. 1 partition (C:), 140GB stock IDE hard drive. 1GB RAM. Fresh defrag of drive as of yesterday. Software installed is WinDVD, Citrix client, MS Office 2K, and Windows itself.
Warm Reboot:
Dell - 95 seconds
Amiga - 13 seconds
Cold Boot:
Dell - 58 seconds
Amiga - 18 seconds
Draw your own conclusions on this one...
:roll:
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If I take the sdlt drive out of the equation on the Amiga, you can subtract 3 seconds from each of the Amiga's boot times.
So x86 fans,why does a brand new PC reboot thirteen times slower than a 15 year old Amiga even though it has a processor thats (supposedly) forty-seven times faster??
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My C=64 boot in about 3 seconds.. :-D
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So x86 fans,why does a brand new PC reboot thirteen times slower than a 15 year old Amiga even though it has a processor thats (supposedly) forty-seven times faster?
Because boot time is not dependant on processor speed. Most time is spent on disk I/O and waiting for hardware to become ready. 15 year old Amiga loads maybe 1/50th of the data the modern Windoze installation does, too.
Then again you only need to wait Windows boot up once, whereas Amiga keeps crashing frequently... ;-)
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My PC boots to the Windows logon in 21 seconds, post is about 10 seconds more (more on a cold boot).
But, you're comparing apples to oranges here. Of course it's going to take longer to load more things into memory. Are you really comparing the functionality of the 15 year old Amiga OS to a modern OS like Windows XP? :crazy:
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Then again you only need to wait Windows boot up once, whereas Amiga keeps crashing frequently
Maybe your Amiga keeps crashing, but mine works fine. And even if I do on occasion need to reboot the Amiga its not big deal because it only takes 10 seconds. I think you must really have your beer goggles on tonight if you're suggesting that Windows does not need to be rebooted constantly. :) Well, let me qualify that. Windows needs to be rebooted frequently, and in a server environment, constantly.
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I believe that was sarcasm.
BTW, my desktop never gets rebooted (unless it needs a patch, update, or software installed.). I simply put it in suspend when I leave and resume when I come back.
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Are you really comparing the functionality of the 15 year old Amiga OS to a modern OS like Windows XP?
Yes. Please tell me what great advances micro$oft has bequeathed the world of computing these last 15 years? Besides 'innovative' new ways of squashing or stiff-arming competitors, I mean... Its a gimme that, ok, you can play DVDs and watch digital video faster and in higher resolution than on any Amiga. But thats a credit mostly to hardware manufacturers, not micro$oft. Thats really about the only thing I can think of that my PC actually does better than the Amiga.. Maybe web surfing, too, come to think of it. But again, thats only because micro$haft has been playing with a corked bat for so many years so that most websites are only functional with their software; ignoring set standards, and endlessly declaring new ones, often without providing documentation.
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I believe that was sarcasm
I know. I'm being sarcastic a lot of the time, too, and it never comes across that way. Sarcasm is hard to convey in text. :)
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Piru wrote:
Because boot time is not dependant on processor speed. Most time is spent on disk I/O and waiting for hardware to become ready. 15 year old Amiga loads maybe 1/50th of the data the modern Windoze installation does, too.
Then again you only need to wait Windows boot up once, whereas Amiga keeps crashing frequently... ;-)
Nuh uh.. I thought that too, but that doesn't appear to be so. There's been a few tests done recently using new RAM drives instead of Hard disks to boot up XP, i can't rememeber where the tests where done, toms hardware i think. But the difference between a 10k Western Digital Raptor booting up XP and a RAM drive booting up XP was barely different, apparently they put it down to processor and system waiting.
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I agree with stopthegap on this one.
The m$ OS has grown more and more sluggish during the years, only if you can afford to always upgrade to your hardware you may not notice so much.
I think many people use their PCs just to read mail and browse the internet, occasionally use an office product or play a game. My opinion is that they have thrown to much into the OS and to be pre-loaded at startup, instead of providing just a user interface and let the programs start when the user calls for them. Most users never need all the functionality in the "modern OS" like XP.
I prefer to turn off the machine every day after using, cause its rather noisy and is in the living room, and doesnt have a suspend mode. Ok its a rather old PC, but still least 100 times faster than my A4000 was when looking at the specs - but it sure doesnt feel that way.
Just to open a File Explorer window feels like it takes forever sometimes, makes me wonder what the heck is going on inside the box...
If the Amiga could keep up with the web and the file standards commonly used today it would be my number one choice for everyday use. Sadly today it doesnt...
Are you really comparing the functionality of the 15 year old Amiga OS to a modern OS like Windows XP?
Yes. Please tell me what great advances micro$oft has bequeathed the world of computing these last 15 years?.....
[/quote]
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Need to restart Windows constantly? On my desktop computer it usually runs for about 2-3 weeks between my reboots, and it hasn't crashed one single time, it does get sluggish over time though.
Not that my Amiga is crashing much either, it usually only crashes when I try suspicous stuff from Aminet or sometimes with odd games, but Windows is definitely alot more stable than AmigaOS.
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Windows is definitely alot more stable than AmigaOS.
Windows is to stable as a piss biscuit is to fragrant. Clearly we have different definitions of 'stable'.. If you only have one or two PCs to babysit then I think Windows can lull you into forgetting (or forgiving) what a royal pain in the ass it is. Multiply your babysitting responsibilities by about 1500 or so and it becomes a never ennding game of tactical reboots ("zone here, mirror there, reboot here, etc..", service packs ad nauseum, updates, LCRs, CSRs, patches, bug fixes, virus killers, etc, etc.. ). Don't get me wrong. In a perverse way, I actually really like Windows. For one thing, I've always been kind of amazed that Windows works at all, despite being sloppily written. And two, because of Windows, I have a decent job. If commodore had been able to continue developing the Amiga and if it was Amiga, not Wintel, that was the dominant platform in large data centers today, no question about it; the "IT" business as we know it today would probably not even exist.
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@stopthegop
Dont forget to factor in the time you have to wait for the system to SHUT down as well. Thats another 10 seconds at least. God knows what it's doing in that time, it still baffles me what on earth it's "saving" during that time, and then there's the whole well known issue of shut down times suddenly increasing for no apparent reason which plagues so many people, and often the only way to sort it out is a re-install of windows. Being an IT technician for Windows computers you really do realise how often these same problems crop up, and is why I reeally want my Amiga OS back.
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The 95 seconds for the dell to warm boot is including the time it took to shutdown. That part alone took almost 35 seconds.
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well my amd64 3500+ (venice core), gig of ddr400 on a asus nforce 4 mobo, x850xt crossfire card etc etc
cold boots into winxp64 in under 30 seconds, most of that is post
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stopthegop wrote:
Well, let me qualify that. Windows needs to be rebooted frequently, and in a server environment, constantly.
I manage a total of 16 Windows based servers and around 500 Windows based workstations (plus a few macs and *nix based servers) and I can assure you, what you have stated here is a gross overexageration. We get the odd workstation freeze and the servers get a reset every now and then for a security update, you cannot honesty tell me that the words frequently and consistantly apply to this scenario. Crap hardware, poor configuration and/or lackluster security are generally the cause of many Windows woes.
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JJ wrote:
well my amd64 3500+ (venice core), gig of ddr400 on a asus nforce 4 mobo, x850xt crossfire card etc etc
cold boots into winxp64 in under 30 seconds, most of that is post
Yeah, mine takes just a little over 30 seconds, and it's a dated Athlon XP with PATA.
I dunno... if Windows is "streamlined" a bit, my experience is that it shouldn't take that long to boot. Naturally, my old A1200 booted much faster (and my Pegasos was literally a few seconds), but AmigaOS isn't loading up a fraction of what Windows is at bootup. And ya know what... if your amiga is set to auto-run things during bootup that make it more usable (like TCP, commodities and various other things I can't remember ATM) it will take much longer than 10 seconds.
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. Crap hardware, poor configuration and/or lackluster security are generally the cause of many Windows woes.
Cheers :pint:
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Oh and while I'm at it, let's take a quick look at the footprints of two base OS's shall we:
Windows XP: over 1GB
Amiga OS 3.1: under 10MB
The sheer size alone should be indicative of load times. Sure the Pentium had ooodles more raw processing power, but it also has a truckload more to load. A while back I installed Win98 on my Athlon XP 4000+, it loaded so fast I didn't even get a 98 splash screen, the machine had POSTed and loaded 98 in just over 10 seconds.
Additionally, in your case, you're running a Dell. More than likely, you're using the default install of XP that came with it, hardly a fully optimized environment to begin with. Dell, HP, etc. etc. bloat there machines to the hilt with crap, no matter what you do, you will never clean them up properly. The only option is to format and do a clean install of Windows from a retail CD. People who know me will testify that I'm not the biggest fan of Windows, however, I really grow tired of people bashing it with little or no insight into what they are actually saying.
Edit...One more thing, if you really hate Windows that much, put your money where your mouth is and do what I did, buy a mac, actually, buy several, as in my case.
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stopthegop wrote:
Software installed is WinDVD, Citrix client, MS Office 2K, and Windows itself.
i don't like citrix...it's stupid...it adds an extra layer of rubbish onto an already full windows system
their remote desktop thing is already present in the form of (guess what) "Remote Desktop" on windows server 2003, and their thinclient service is already present in the form of windows xp embedded...tis stupid
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adz wrote:
stopthegop wrote:
Well, let me qualify that. Windows needs to be rebooted frequently, and in a server environment, constantly.
I manage a total of 16 Windows based servers and around 500 Windows based workstations (plus a few macs and *nix based servers) and I can assure you, what you have stated here is a gross overexageration. We get the odd workstation freeze and the servers get a reset every now and then for a security update, you cannot honesty tell me that the words frequently and consistantly apply to this scenario. Crap hardware, poor configuration and/or lackluster security are generally the cause of many Windows woes.
indeed. "standard operations" (office, internet explorer, game gear emulators) never (well almost) result in a crash. and if they do, then they're recoverable.
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Comparing boot times from an amiga to an xp pc is retarded in my oppinion. I don't use a PC like I use an Amiga.
My 1.4 GHz pentium D laptop with Xp boots in 75 seconds. This seems like a long time doesn't it? But I only have to boot this thing every 4 or 5 months. When i'm done using it I just shut the lid. With the lid shut, and unplugged from the wall, it floats for 4 days. When I want to use it again, I just open the lid, and its up and running in 2 seconds. Same thing with my powerbook.
My desktop PC stays up for months at a time. I just leave it on. You don't get to do this with an Amiga because you'll be resetting that sucker every single day.
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Windows XP: over 1GB
Thank you for proving my point. Most if not all of that one gigabyte is useless lard. Thats the whole point. We went to the moon on 64K, now we need a gig just to type a letter?
the machine had POSTed and loaded 98 in just over 10 seconds.
And I've got beachfront property in Arizona for sale.
Additionally, in your case, you're running a Dell
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?? A peesea is a peesea.
More than likely
Never assume.
you're using the default install of XP that came with it
Actually I'm not. I always trim as much fat as possible on my windoze installations. Which is not easy because windoze itself is fat, which is the original point of the thread.
Dell, HP, etc. etc. bloat there machines to the hilt with crap
Right. Its called Microsoft Windows XP.
no matter what you do, you will never clean them up properly
They "clean up" just fine with fdisk.
The only option is to format and do a clean install of Windows from a retail CD.
Thats the only option??
People who know me will testify that I'm not the biggest fan of Windows
You just play one on tv?
I really grow tired of people bashing it with little or no insight into what they are actually saying
Moi? I know full well what I am saying. I first started using computers in 1980 on an Apple I, started programming them with an Atari 400 three years later. and have been working with computers professionally for the last twenty plus years. By no means do I claim to know everything. but I think I have a little bit more than "No Insight into what I'm talking about".
if you really hate Windows that much
I do.
put your money where your mouth is
I have. Many times over.
do what I did, buy a mac
I kept my Amigas and upgraded them to the hilt instead. If I wanted a mother-in-law in a box, then I would buy a Mac.
actually, buy several,
See above.
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More useless ramblings from somebody who obviously doesn't have any experience developing software.
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@koaftder
Nice point by point response there! When did I claim to have experience "developing software?" So programmers are the only ones who can be knowledgeable about computers? Thats mighty pretentious
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Gravity resets my abacus in 1 second.
I am very interested in Amiga and the fast boot time is appealing. I'd like to continue to learn about Amiga...It would be nice to own a modern one some day.
Despite everything said about Misrocoft, the PC/Windows world has also given me plenty good times over the years.
I'm not concerned with my PC's boot time. The most worrysome for me on XP is licensing infringement and the threat of viruses. I cope.
All in all, I'm looking forward to dabble with OS4 if that ever becomes a reality. XP is good enough for my business needs. I'm not interested in Vista.
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Then again you only need to wait Windows boot up once, whereas Amiga keeps crashing frequently...
Only if you run buggy software ;-)
Though in real life, the average amiga crashes more often thanks to the non existing memory protection. But it can be rock solid if you stick with a few apps that you know is pretty much bug free.
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Windows XP: over 1GB
But what features does it have that require such ridiculous amounts of ram? It seems to me like it aint coded to efficiently use ram. You can use a lightweight OS like AmigaOS for most of the same tasks as a Windows pc, so what is the benefit of it using so much more resources for doing the exact same task?
Windows is in my opinion bloatware...
Edit...One more thing, if you really hate Windows that much, put your money where your mouth is and do what I did, buy a mac, actually, buy several, as in my case.
OSX is pretty slow and resource hungry as well..
Though the real reason for me having a PC, is due to the fact that i like to play a game every now and then. I use linux whenever possible though..
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stopthegop wrote:
@koaftder
Nice point by point response there! When did I claim to have experience "developing software?" So programmers are the only ones who can be knowledgeable about computers? Thats mighty pretentious
You are not going to get a point by point response from me because your arguments do not warrant it.
You did infer to have some knowledge in software when you claimed that you could crash xp kernel by writing zeros from 00000000-0000FFFF in a userland process. You still have a check right here for $100 dollars if you'd like to demonstrate it.
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stopthegop wrote:
Windows XP: over 1GB
Thank you for proving my point. Most if not all of that one gigabyte is useless lard. Thats the whole point. We went to the moon on 64K, now we need a gig just to type a letter?
Yes, all useless lard.
Thousands of device drivers
Secure/multi-user file system (also now EFS)
Current TCP/IP stack (with IPSec)
Common multimedia API (DirectX)
Power management
Task scheduler
etc.
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You did infer to have some knowledge in software when you claimed that you could crash xp kernel by writing zeros from 00000000-0000FFFF in a userland process. You still have a check right here for $100 dollars if you'd like to demonstrate it.
You want me to demonstrate a corrupted registry? I think I remember mentioning that. Anyway, that box has already been fdisk'd windoze reinstalled on it. Next time one of my windows machines {bleep}s its registry though I'll be happy to show you how such a program could take down a windoze box, no problem (you won't have to wait too long, promise).
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stopthegop wrote:
You did infer to have some knowledge in software when you claimed that you could crash xp kernel by writing zeros from 00000000-0000FFFF in a userland process. You still have a check right here for $100 dollars if you'd like to demonstrate it.
You want me to demonstrate a corrupted registry? I think I remember mentioning that. Anyway, that box has already been fdisk'd windoze reinstalled on it. Next time one of my windows machines {bleep}s its registry though I'll be happy to show you how such a program could take down a windoze box, no problem (you won't have to wait too long, promise).
That silly little program you claim to have compiled with lcc and crashed your xp box had absolutely nothing to do with the registry.
Show me a registry key you can set from an unprivilidged user account that causes xp to bluescreen.
I bet the vast majority of your problems with windows are related to you installing all kinds of crap programs while logged in as administrator like 90% of all the other windows users.
Ive seen a lot of amiga systems where the user has installed wads and wads of useless crap and guess what? Their systems guru and are bogged down as well.
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I'm no windows fan, but my Win2K install is solid as a rock. The only instability I have ever experienced with it came down to a faulty DIMM.
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Tomas wrote:
But what features does it have that require such ridiculous amounts of ram? It seems to me like it aint coded to efficiently use ram. You can use a lightweight OS like AmigaOS for most of the same tasks as a Windows pc, so what is the benefit of it using so much more resources for doing the exact same task?
Windows is in my opinion bloatware...
I wasn't refering to RAM, I was refering to the HDD footprint.
OSX is pretty slow and resource hungry as well..
Though the real reason for me having a PC, is due to the fact that i like to play a game every now and then. I use linux whenever possible though..
I use my home PC for games and I use my Mac for work, its that simple. I wouldn't exactly call OSX slow, you can still run the lastest version on relatively old hardware quite well. I use a PowerBook G4 866 for surfing the web and storing my photos on the go and its plenty fast. One of the guys at work had it running on a G3 600 and it ran fine.
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@stopthegop
You're reply to my second post is more bloated than Vista :lol:
Stop talking through your ass and put together something decent if you want to hear more from me on this topic.
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Good grief.... what is it about the Amiga community that causes everyone to slightly miss a point, and descend into flames!
The underlying point *is* valid, and one that has been oft asked on the 'net.. why is it, that with machines getting faster, productivity seems to decrease (to cover most/all bases of "longer boot times", "longer load times", "harder to actually get anything done", etc).
I used the same "argument" on the occasional really obnoxious "my PC is faster than yours because" types - I;d challenge them to a simple test, pitting and betting my computer against theirs: from cold boot, write and print a one line letter. I'd even state that mine would be done before theirs finished POST. I'd just omit it was a C64 running EasyScript in ROM cartridge.
Part of the answer is that the Amiga, as a hardware platform, is pretty non-complex; ie the hardware is all the same. Its a 680x0 class, with ACS or ECS.
This affects us in two ways
1. The hardware "POST" is simpler, and quicker, on an Amiga than on a PC. Especially a PC with additional cards (stuff a few SCSI cards in a PC to see an extreme of this)
2. The number of possible base drivers necessary to ship - and potentially install - to boot a potential computer. In the case of the PC, its a heck of a lot.
Additional drivers are supplied by manufacturer, and really amount to a few libraries or device drivers.
Windows, otoh, has a vast potential range of hardware that might be found. MS ships many drivers, and manufacturers ship plenty more.
But that isnt the whole answer.
Windows has a greater amount of abstraction, ie the kernel, HAL, APIs, drivers, stacks, and so forth. There are a goodly number of services that are started, often by default, and many of which are modular and have dependencies. All of which equals disk access.
not being a programmer, I cant comment on the following, but I understand that modern compilers do not, by default, compile for speed - compile time switches are required - neither for compact code.
The next I can believe: MS does not, as a design goal, require compact code, but code that is, for example, "compatible", "secure", and "bug-free". IGNORE the reality of what comes out (those listed are by example, so dont detract by banging on about security or lack thereof), concentrate on the phrase design goal: if there is no requirement to produce compact code, then priority can be given to meeting the stated goals (ie those I listed, and whatever MS's design goals may be).
I can well beleive that compact code is not a requirement; in a world where the average PC ships with 512MB, where even 3 years aho it was 256mb, where hard drives are now averaging 300GB, where is the driver for compact code?
So we have a number of factors that lead to increased load times, even though drives are getting faster due to increased data density and spindle speeds (and hence lower latency), where bus speeds are faster, where CPU speed is faster, and so forth.
Oh, and add into the mix that despite the increase in RAM, Windows virtual memory system must be factored in - ie it pages out to disk on the slightest excuse. Now, a very very knowledgable acquaintance explained this, and frankly I was wibbling, but the crux is that the basic philosphy of Windows memory management was sound for its day (tis safer to swap out at start, than fail to load and have o swap, which takes a hck of a lot longer), but is perhaps not so relevant today.
And it isnt just Windows this affects (bar the memory management). Look at Linux running ona modern PC. I remember installing RH and Mandrake, v7/8 circa 2001, on a dual PII and a Thinkpad T20. Nice. Booted quick, was slick to use. Just stuck Suse 10 on my laptop and my desktop... feckin hell! Its like running through treacle.
None of course, answers the question.. just why does Windows slow down over time, especially shut down times!
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Stop talking through your ass and put together something decent if you want to hear more from me
You were not specific about what part of my response you had a problem with. In fact the only thing you said that was specific was the word "ass". But you should know the is a discussion about operating systems, not an autobiography.
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So how long does AROS take to boot up :crazy:
Wow, this really got out of hand. A simple "look at this and comment" thread descends into a flame fest :flame:
Its time for a group hug ppl :knuddel:
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This discussion seems to have gone in two directions, which boots quicker and which is more stable?
Trying to compare the systems on a Boot Time basis is just nuts in my opinion, XP has so much more to load than your average Amiga. In an effort to make XP universal, it comes out of the box ready to automatically configure a plethora of hardware devices. That's gotta take up some space. OK, so it's bloatware, you won't get any argument from me on that. But I have to wonder what Amiga OS would be like if it had equal quantities of development and industry usage over the years. The requirement to keep up with the times would probably have bloated Amiga OS somewhat as well.
I teach low-level IT subjects (Hardware/SysAdmin/Networking)and run a classroom with a number of Windows 2003 Server/XP-Pro domains. I have been teaching since 2000 and have experienced usage of a variety Windows OS's in a classroom environment. All the PC's the students use are identical to each other and the OS is also identical and reimaged daily, so it's as if it's a new install everytime the students sit down for a new class.
In 2000 I was using Win98 clients with NT4 servers, a dreadful combination, and while the NT4 servers were reasonably stable, providing you didn't try and install something on them, the Windows 98 boxes were forever crashing.
A year or so later we moved to Win2000 servers and clients at this point I found Windows to be stable and fast. When you have 16 students installing loads of Apps, Utils and adding new hardware and drivers simultaneously, it was amusing to see random Win98 crashes on some machines, even though all students are doing exactly the same thing at the same time on an the same operating system build, that seemed to be mostly gone with the introduction of Win2000.
Now I'm using XP/2003 and again it's proving to be a stable environment, but I personally feel that the Windows 2000 environment was faster and more stable.
One thing I have noticed is that apllications under XP crash more frequently than they did on 2000, but at least when the App goes belly up, it dosen't take the OS with it. XP closes the program and usually you can restart the program and continue without a reboot required.
XP is more stable in my opinion.
During my recent foray into bringing all my Amiga's back to life and building them all into working systems again I have taken many visits to the GURU. I had in fact forgotten just how frequent this was, and back in the day, I guess I just took it forgranted or saw it as the normal operation of an Amiga.
All that said Amiga's RULE :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :-D
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Amiga; made by C=, OS written by C=.
XP-PC; made by 1000+ manufacturers, OS by M$.
My Xbox boots in <10 seconds, showing that when M$ have control of the hardware...