[ltp] What is the fastest Thinkpad I can get now?

[Pedro Ribeiro]

On 22 March 2010 23:29, Jan Girlich <vollkorn@cryptobitch.de> wrote:
> Am Montag, den 22.03.2010, 11:49 -0700 schrieb John Jason Jordan:
>> I do a lot of desktop publishing for print on Fedora 11 x86_64. I
>
> Just a thought: Use a 32 bit system. 64 bit binaries are bigger. More
> HDD space, longer reading/writing times and more RAM usage. You have a
> 3GB barrier, though.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#Pros_and_cons
>
> Cheers
> Jan
>

Bear in mind though, if you use pre-compiled 32bit packages (basically
all distros except Gentoo and other source-based), the packages
probably are not compiled to use SSE2, which can incur a large
performance penalty especially in multimedia applications.

John,
I would say your problem lies somewhere else. Maybe disk
fragmentation? Don't believe the fallacy that Linux does not suffer
from disk fragmentation - it just doesn't suffer as much as Windows.
Always keep your partitions 20% free.
A new computer would give you 20% AT MOST performance increase. And
I'm being generous.

Try:
- format all your partitions with EXT4 or XFS (would solve fragmentation too)
- ditch GNOME/KDE and use a lightweight desktop such as XFCE or LXDE
(you don't need to stop using the applications you have now)
- upgrade your OS (Fedora 11 is old) but keep using 64bit
- ditch Compiz and the like
- buy a fast SSD like the Intel X25

In that order. Good luck!

Pedro