Re: [TCLUG:9929] Adding RAM for slow machine

[^chewie <chewie@guinness.urw.org>]

On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, Dave MacCallum wrote:

DM >Should I shell out the approximately $140 to get 64 MB of RAM?  
DM >Because of the way my system is configured, I'd then have 80
DM >MB installed. I've been told that with this processor adding
DM >more RAM above 32 MB won't make much difference.  Is this
DM >true?

No.  Don't shell out that kind of money and don't believe that
performance doesn't improve with memory dependent upon the speed of
your processor.  Keep the concepts separated and you won't get
confused.  Think about the duty of a processor: compute.  Think about
the duty of memory: hold information at fast access speeds.  These are
exclusive of eachother.  The processor technically does not hold the
same type of information that your memory does, and memory does not do
any processing.

Where you benefit by adding more memory is removing the burden or
necessity to use your swap partition, your harddrive version of a
RAM block.  What this means is that if you have a program that
requires 8 MB of memory to run, but you don't have space for it in
your physical RAM, it will write the least accessed memory blocks to
harddisk in your swap partition.  When you switch back to that least
accessed program, you will "swap" it with the least accessed process
in the physical RAM.

It really has nothing to do with your processor speed.  Your computer
slows down to do the swapping.  You can improve performance by going
to a faster access harddrive, such as SCSI or ATA66, or increasing
your memory...or simply not running as many programs at once.

DM >I'd also appreciate other suggestions for less "hoggish"
DM >browsers.  I've installed Amaya 2.2, which isn't bad, but is
DM >really more of an editor than a browser.  This is NOT a
DM >criticism, since that's what it sets out to be.

There are some out there that don't take up too much space, but
seriously, the most robust(standards compatible) browsers are going to
be hoggish. Opera for Windows is VERY nice in that it only takes up a
little over a floppy disk for distribution.  They are working on a
Linux port as we speak, but it is not released and will cost money in
the end.  Sorry if this is depressing news.

To look at browsers, check out your distribution package libraries for
descriptions or look to http://freshmeat.net for news on new and
existing software projects related to *NIX systems.

Later!

    ^chewie

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