[nycbug-talk] BSD on a desktop

[Scott Robbins]

On Sat, Jul 31, 2004 at 09:14:16AM -0400, G. Rosamond wrote:
> 
> On Jul 31, 2004, at 12:49 AM, Scott Robbins wrote:
> 
> >
> >Oops, see I was in error here--I'd written there was a version 1.2.x
> >which there isn't--openoffice.org's FreeBSD version is now on the same
> >level as Linux's, 1.1.2.  It does seem faster than previous versions,
> >but (subjective opinion) does seem to open a bit faster in Linux than 
> >in
> >FreeBSD--however, the difference is minor, perhaps a second or so.
> >Also, as they're all on different boxes, not sure how much of this is
> >simply due to hardware.
> >
> 
> Unless you're using FBSD 4.10. . . which is still 1.0.

www.openoffice.org has its own binaries, including 1.1.2 for FreeBSD
4.x.

> I do notice a general speed difference with the newer versions. . .

Yes, I didn't benchmark it, but it is noticeable--I found it more
noticeable in Linux, but it's still noticeable in FreeBSD.


> 
> I know there are hacks to increase speed of OOo startup, but haven't 
> googled yet, so I'll keep my mouth shut <g>


<rant>

This is one of the things, (imho) that shouldn't require google. It's a
freakin' desktop app, and should, if one is into advocacy, just work.  
</rant>
Of course, this is easy for me to say, I'm not a coder.  :)  

Still it does seem that, especially if advocacy is an issue, that one
shouldn't have to do extra work.  Those speed up tips might be on their
page somewhere--as I really seldom need it, I've never bothered to look
hard either--seems to me (but with my memory, I could easily be wrong)
that one had to do something that seemed to be too much trouble.  :)

The other thing that joe user doesn't realize is that one reason MS
Office opens so much faster is that it's preloaded into memory.  (Or
something like that, that's what I seem to remember.)  With
hardware these days, that isn't often noticeable, but when setting up
users' MS boxen, one of the first things I do is remove it from
startup--no one has complained about slow opening yet.  


However, if we're comparing to Linux, vs. MS or Mac, then, this becomes
a non-issue.  

Ohhhh--I forgot realplayer--haven't gotten that working properly with
Linux-opera either.  Mezz, the developer has a post on forums about
getting things to work with it and mentioned that he hadn't been able to
get it working, so at least I'm in good company.  Realplayer ~does~ work
if I want to open something with it, but if one clicks on a vid link on
the web, it doesn't open.  I think I did get it to do that in Linux with
opera, but I've forgotten what I did.  :)  (Again, it's not something I
do often or really need.

So, there's one more disadvantage to FreeBSD as desktop.  However, 
(again, to me, with my needs) it's too minor to merit me not using
FreeBSD as my main workstation. 


-- 

Scott 

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