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

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:54:46 +0000
Pedro Ribeiro <pedrib@gmail.com> dijo:

>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

Thanks to all who replied.

It looks like a fully decked out W510 is what I need, although the
Lenovo website fails to state what resolution the screen runs at and a
bunch of other details.

As for fragmentation, I use ext4. I have tried Xfce and none of my
applications run any faster. I tried Compiz once a couple years ago and
found it silly. I haven't used it since.

My current 320 GB hard drive is one of the fastest on the market, but
it is currently throttled to 100 MB/s on my T61. And it has 60% free,
so fragmentation is not where the problem lies. 

Here is an example of my problem: I am currently trying to print a PDF
to a PS file from Evince. The PDF is 118 pages. I started it 15 minutes
ago and it has completed 15 pages. In that time one of the the CPUs or
the other has been at close to 100% the whole time, but the disk light
hardly ever comes on. The final file size will be < 200 MB, so you know
it is not lagged from writing to disk. It is the CPU and RAM where the
bottleneck lies. And I can't continue working on the project until
Evince completes the PS file.

The problem may also be lie in inefficient code. Yes, I tried pdf2ps
because I know it is fast. However, it puked up the PDF file and
wouldn't write it to a PS file. Evince is slow, but it is more
reliable. Even if the programs I use are inefficient, I know zero about
programming, so I cannot do much about it. And I do agree they are
inefficient. In the past I used InDesign on Windows and it screamed
compared to anything on Linux.

I have found that my 4 GB of RAM is barely enough. That is, today I
never swapped to disk at all, but in the past I have seen swapping
occasionally, although usually only for a short while. My next computer
will have 8 GB. More important, I hope the CPU will be able to access
the RAM faster than on my T61.

A desktop computer would definitely be faster (and cheaper for the
amount of power), but I need everything portable. I work on DTP stuff
at several locations. 

Thanks again for the replies. I think I am going to start saving my
money for a new W510.

As an aside, I clicked to reply to Pedro's message and my mail client
(Claws) sent it to Pedro, not the list. I am resending to the list, and
Pedro please disregard the duplicate. Strange that "Reply" sends it to
the individual and not the list.