Re: [pc110] Re: Linux, X, and glibc2

Edmund Wong (edmundw nospam at korax.net)
Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:18:37 -0400 (EDT)

> > 1) Most X wordprocessors do their kerning using floating-point operations. Linux emulates the FPU in the kernel if you lack one, but it's a BIG speed hit. WinWord uses integer math. So the net result is that WinWord/Win95 display characters and menues, etc., nearly instantly, while Maxwell/Linux take around 3-5 seconds PER CHARACTER.
> Ugh. Tell your Xserver not to do font scaling then
Write your text in vi? ;)

> > 2) More Win95/DOS games, drivers, and apps are optimized for the X86 processor. Linux apps are usually written in portable C/C++, which is not as fast.
>
> Myth number 1. Almost nobody writes asm code any more. I've worked and still
> have good contacts in the game industy. There's just a lack of good Linux
> games. Its getting better however. Note btw - quake is too fp intensive
> to play on the PC110 but Doom is fine.
Note what he said, he meant that Windows code is made specifically for the
x86 while code for Linux is made highly portable. This is partially true;
bear in mind that most people develop their apps for all *NIX platforms,
not just Linux. Take Netscape, for example. They have two "parts" to the
code - a common "core", but the frontend is made specifically for the
operating system you run it on. This makes it a wee bit slower than IE,
which is developed mainly for Windows.

However, a lot of code is made specifically for Linux, mostly stuff that
does Linux-specific operations.

>
> > 3) DOS apps run faster under Win95 (which is really DOS based) than under DOSEMU under Linux.
>
> I would expect then to be pretty close full screen.
>
I would expect it to run a bit slower. I mean, what did you expect?

Win95 DOS:

grab some RAM and spawn command.com in a simulated DOS. most things are
still handled by the "true" BIOS and the DOS kernel that has already been
loaded before Windows did.

DOSEMU:

grab the RAM, start emulating a BIOS, CPU, etc. start the DOS kernel
(which hasn't been loaded yet), and put you in a simulated environment.

See how much more dosemu has to handle? Just what did you expect?