Comments on: SSD or HDD? (and good KDE distros) http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/ A troll's eye view Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:28:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Stu http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-439 Stu Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:08:08 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-439 @ Greg - don't confuse matters ;-) Yep, PC-BSD is also on my list of things to try but has been there for well over a year now. One day, maybe. @ Greg – don’t confuse matters ;-) Yep, PC-BSD is also on my list of things to try but has been there for well over a year now. One day, maybe.

]]> By: Kevin Kofler http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-432 Kevin Kofler Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:11:39 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-432 The funny thing is that Adept was actually developed by a Red Hat employee (in his spare time). But it's discontinued now as it was being developed primarily for Kubuntu and they're no longer using it. The funny thing is that Adept was actually developed by a Red Hat employee (in his spare time). But it’s discontinued now as it was being developed primarily for Kubuntu and they’re no longer using it.

]]> By: Robert http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-431 Robert Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:06:49 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-431 I would say if you can spare the money, get a Kingston 40GB SSD they are making them under license from intel and are plenty fast for a sub 100€ disk. If I weren't tiptoeing the student budget line I would definitely get one as my OS disk I would say if you can spare the money, get a Kingston 40GB SSD they are making them under license from intel and are plenty fast for a sub 100€ disk. If I weren’t tiptoeing the student budget line I would definitely get one as my OS disk

]]> By: Greg http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-430 Greg Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:02:07 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-430 Wait for the official release of PC-BSD 8.0 (it is in R.C. by now) and forget all those linux distributions, forever. Cheers, G. Wait for the official release of PC-BSD 8.0 (it is in R.C. by now) and forget all those linux distributions, forever.

Cheers, G.

]]> By: Stu http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-426 Stu Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:25:05 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-426 @ Kevin - ah ok, I guess it shows I haven't used Kubuntu properly for a while then. The (KDE) graphical package manager was still Adept last time I remember, though I think because I wasn't a big fan of that I just always used the command line so I could have missed the presence of KPackageKit that way. Nice to see KPackageKit spreading (aren't openSUSE using it for updates too?). If I recall correctly some Arch/Chakra people are working on an alternative KDE GUI too (also for their package manager in addition to PackageKit) which could be interesting. General comments - I'm up and running now with the Intel SSD. Some observations: - Installing was very fast - Boot time isn't noticeably changed (though I haven't timed either before or after) - The time delay between entering a password in KDM and having Plasma Desktop fully loaded seems shorter - Applications launch noticeably faster - No hard disk noise during boot and software updates etc is a bit weird, but nice really - Suspend (to RAM) and resume is now pretty much instant (though I wouldn't have thought the hard disk is much involved in that in terms of data transfer, perhaps the SSD can just be switched off and back on quicker) @ Kevin – ah ok, I guess it shows I haven’t used Kubuntu properly for a while then. The (KDE) graphical package manager was still Adept last time I remember, though I think because I wasn’t a big fan of that I just always used the command line so I could have missed the presence of KPackageKit that way. Nice to see KPackageKit spreading (aren’t openSUSE using it for updates too?). If I recall correctly some Arch/Chakra people are working on an alternative KDE GUI too (also for their package manager in addition to PackageKit) which could be interesting.

General comments – I’m up and running now with the Intel SSD. Some observations:
- Installing was very fast
- Boot time isn’t noticeably changed (though I haven’t timed either before or after)
- The time delay between entering a password in KDM and having Plasma Desktop fully loaded seems shorter
- Applications launch noticeably faster
- No hard disk noise during boot and software updates etc is a bit weird, but nice really
- Suspend (to RAM) and resume is now pretty much instant (though I wouldn’t have thought the hard disk is much involved in that in terms of data transfer, perhaps the SSD can just be switched off and back on quicker)

]]> By: Brian http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-425 Brian Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:11:40 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-425 Another decent option to consider if you wanna spend less is the Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB drive. It uses the same controller and firmware as the Intel G2, but comes in a bit cheaper... Newegg has it for 200. The Intel G2 is a 10-channel controller, and 80GB fully utilizes all the channels. Kingston's 40GB drive uses 5 channels and the 64GB drive uses 8. The number of channels is directly correlated to bandwidth but latency isn't affected. Judging from the way the 40GB drive performed it's primarily sequential read/write that suffers, and both should come in around 20% slower than Intel's 80GB drive on Kingston's 64GB. Random performance is pretty much unaffected because it's dominated by small files that can't (individually) be parallelized across as many channels, so a SSD's main advantages - bootup and application loading - should be very close to Intel's 80GB drive for about a 100 bucks less. But, if you do lots of work with saving/loading photos or other bigger files then you would probably notice a difference between the two and maybe it's not worth it. Then again, it'll still blow the socks off any HDD so ya know... everything's relative. Another decent option to consider if you wanna spend less is the Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB drive. It uses the same controller and firmware as the Intel G2, but comes in a bit cheaper… Newegg has it for 200. The Intel G2 is a 10-channel controller, and 80GB fully utilizes all the channels. Kingston’s 40GB drive uses 5 channels and the 64GB drive uses 8. The number of channels is directly correlated to bandwidth but latency isn’t affected. Judging from the way the 40GB drive performed it’s primarily sequential read/write that suffers, and both should come in around 20% slower than Intel’s 80GB drive on Kingston’s 64GB. Random performance is pretty much unaffected because it’s dominated by small files that can’t (individually) be parallelized across as many channels, so a SSD’s main advantages – bootup and application loading – should be very close to Intel’s 80GB drive for about a 100 bucks less. But, if you do lots of work with saving/loading photos or other bigger files then you would probably notice a difference between the two and maybe it’s not worth it. Then again, it’ll still blow the socks off any HDD so ya know… everything’s relative.

]]> By: Aerion http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-424 Aerion Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:02:00 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-424 Another hearty recommendation for Arch Linux here. After years of Kubuntu I grew tired of the ugly stepchild treatment it got from Canonical, and the fact that each new release seemed to introduce more problems rather than less, I discovered Arch Linux. During all those years on Kubuntu, I had done a great deal of distro hopping - mostly on my laptop but occasionally on my main PC if I liked a distro enough to try it out on a daily basis. Having 'grown up' on Debian, I found myself returning to Kubuntu time and time again. The main reason for switching back was APT, and the fact that Kubuntu is the closed thing to an up-to-date (and supported) Debian. I did look at Arch at some point, but didn't really have the time to get to grips with the pic-and-mix installation procedure. In October 2008 I bought myself an Eee PC 901 and was looking for a lightweight distro that would fit comfortably on the Eee PC's small 4GB SSD. Mandriva was the first distro fo fully support the Eee PC models so I installed it and used it for a couple of months but it was a little slow and bugs with the wifi and touchpad took too long to get fixed so I was on the search for a distro again. Then I remembered Arch, and this time took the time to go through the installation procedure. I installed KDEmod as that allowed me to only install the KDE bits I needed - essential when you only have a 4G OS drive. Two days later I had Arch running on my desktop too, and I haven't looked back since. It's very fast, contains no bloat, it has great support (both forum and wiki), an excellent package manager (on par with APT) and makes no assumptions as to what the user wants/needs. Users can contribute packages directly to Arch via the AUR and if a package receives enough votes, it will get adopted and maintained by the Arch developers. And one of the things I love most about it is the rolling release model: no more major breakages due to a version upgrade (I'm looking at you, Kubuntu!) no waiting for newer packages to appear in a backports repository. You just run your daily updates, and you've got the latest Arch. Another hearty recommendation for Arch Linux here. After years of Kubuntu I grew tired of the ugly stepchild treatment it got from Canonical, and the fact that each new release seemed to introduce more problems rather than less, I discovered Arch Linux.

During all those years on Kubuntu, I had done a great deal of distro hopping – mostly on my laptop but occasionally on my main PC if I liked a distro enough to try it out on a daily basis. Having ‘grown up’ on Debian, I found myself returning to Kubuntu time and time again. The main reason for switching back was APT, and the fact that Kubuntu is the closed thing to an up-to-date (and supported) Debian.

I did look at Arch at some point, but didn’t really have the time to get to grips with the pic-and-mix installation procedure.

In October 2008 I bought myself an Eee PC 901 and was looking for a lightweight distro that would fit comfortably on the Eee PC’s small 4GB SSD. Mandriva was the first distro fo fully support the Eee PC models so I installed it and used it for a couple of months but it was a little slow and bugs with the wifi and touchpad took too long to get fixed so I was on the search for a distro again. Then I remembered Arch, and this time took the time to go through the installation procedure. I installed KDEmod as that allowed me to only install the KDE bits I needed – essential when you only have a 4G OS drive.

Two days later I had Arch running on my desktop too, and I haven’t looked back since.

It’s very fast, contains no bloat, it has great support (both forum and wiki), an excellent package manager (on par with APT) and makes no assumptions as to what the user wants/needs.
Users can contribute packages directly to Arch via the AUR and if a package receives enough votes, it will get adopted and maintained by the Arch developers. And one of the things I love most about it is the rolling release model: no more major breakages due to a version upgrade (I’m looking at you, Kubuntu!) no waiting for newer packages to appear in a backports repository. You just run your daily updates, and you’ve got the latest Arch.

]]> By: A http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-423 A Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:58:12 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-423 BTW I use it with ext4 on sidux AMD64 with a cheap centrino/vpro laptop. Like it very much. I ran Kubuntu AMD64 before and it was also great. I have not tried another filesystem with the SSD. BTW I use it with ext4 on sidux AMD64 with a cheap centrino/vpro laptop. Like it very much. I ran Kubuntu AMD64 before and it was also great. I have not tried another filesystem with the SSD.

]]> By: A http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-422 A Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:53:18 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-422 I'm lazy and I haven't read the other comments, but... My experience with a 60GB SSD (Vertex from OCZ) in my laptop is that it's very snappy - software loads very quickly. It's reassuring that you won't ruin your data when you drop the PC. You could even install your distro while jogging :) Advice from my personal POV: *Get the SSD *Buy a nice huge thumb drive/SD card for big media files if you use those *Enjoy the biggest noticable speed boost you can give your laptop (for reasonable money) I’m lazy and I haven’t read the other comments, but…

My experience with a 60GB SSD (Vertex from OCZ) in my laptop is that it’s very snappy – software loads very quickly. It’s reassuring that you won’t ruin your data when you drop the PC. You could even install your distro while jogging :)

Advice from my personal POV:
*Get the SSD
*Buy a nice huge thumb drive/SD card for big media files if you use those
*Enjoy the biggest noticable speed boost you can give your laptop (for reasonable money)

]]> By: Kevin Kofler http://www.asinen.org/2010/02/ssd-or-hdd-and-good-kde-distros/comment-page-1/#comment-421 Kevin Kofler Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:19:40 +0000 http://www.asinen.org/?p=342#comment-421 FYI, AFAIK Kubuntu is actually using KPackageKit as its default package manager these days (which is what we're using in Fedora KDE as well). Of course, they use it with the apt backend whereas we use the yum one, so there are some differences in the details. FYI, AFAIK Kubuntu is actually using KPackageKit as its default package manager these days (which is what we’re using in Fedora KDE as well). Of course, they use it with the apt backend whereas we use the yum one, so there are some differences in the details.

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