[oclug] Newbie Question

[Stephen M. Webb]

On 08/04/05 21:04, michael ondrechak wrote:
> On Apr 5, 2005 2:27 PM, Stephen M. Webb <stephenw at xandros.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> > If you want to take the OS plunge, get yourself a copy of a modern Linux
> > distribution and install it -- the good ones will create room on your
> > hard drive for installation without harming your existing OS.  Some
> > distributions offer a "live" CD, but those are actually poor
> > demonstrations and I don't recommend them for your purposes.
>
> Can you explain why the live CD is a poor demonstration?

Perhaps "demontstration" was the wrong word.  "Evaluation installation" would 
have been better.

If all you're doing is showing off a GUI to someone who won't have a chance to 
use the input devices, live CDs are perfect.  If you're a reviewer without 
the time to actually evaluate and use the system (which describes most 
reviewers I've read), they're perfect.  For evaluating the system in a 
meaningful way, they're dreck.

A live system runs out of a RAM disk.  Because you have no swap, your RAM disk 
can't exceed the physical memory of your system, neither can the real RAM.  
That means you can't do things like open a useful OOo document (or even start 
up Eclipse, if you swing that way) on a typical PC.  You need to load all 
files from CD (executable images, shared libraries, data), which is orders of 
magnitude slower than typical hard drives.  You just can't get a true feel of 
how the system responds under typical load if you're running off of a live 
CD.

Also, given the sheer size of the 2.6 kernel and all the modules you'd need to 
run under arbitrary hardware, and the size of modern applications including 
all shared library dependencies, you can only fit a few choice morsels of 
applications on a single CD.  Enough, perhaps, to briefly demonstrate the 
appearance of the desktop, or perhaps to browse the internat, but that's not 
much of an evaluation.

I keep live CDs around (usually an old Slackware 7 CD, after Slack you never 
go back) as a rescue disk.  I've had to rescue Windows many times.  Live CDs 
are a fine idea.  They're just no good for evaluating the software properly.

--
Stephen M. Webb
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