You make some really good points. The benchmarks I've seen of the atom put it faster than a PIII tualatin and now I see you put it in the league of an 800 mHz PIII which should probably be coppermine or before.
Let me check into a mini itx system. Can you suggest a model# for a P55 based Core i5/i7 quad core CPU in a mini-itx form factor? How about a vendor? I have been able to buy eeePC900's for well under $200 bux. But as you point out these are pretty limited. On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 05:46:55PM -0700, Gustin Johnson wrote: > It should be noted that I have since sold most of my Atom based > systems (there may be one or two collecting dust, but nothing in > service). They were too slow to be really useful. The screens on the > netbooks were too small and limited for my liking. > > On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Gustin Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 7:54 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> I have set up multi-boot and virtual machines before and I'm looking to do > >> this again. I'm most interested in minimal hardware... as in can this be > >> done from a low end netbook like say an ASUS eeePC. > > > > Possibly, though I am not a fan of the Atom processors. > >> > >> > >> There is some choice with regard to processors and I see the atom > >> porcessors seem to not support the virtualized instructions Intel offers > >> on some more expensive and faster and obvioulsy more capable CPUs. > >> > > Correct. You could install VMWare ESXi 3.5 on this. > >> > >> Can we still successfully run a virtual machine - say with VMWare or > >> Virtual Box or perhaps something OSS? If we can what do we lose? > >> > >> > > I have not tried to do this on hardware that did not have the > > virtualization support. ESXi 3.5 is the only exception to this, but > > it takes over the whole machine, meaning that you would not be able to > > use it as a workstation as well. > > > >> What do we gain with a more capable CPU? > > > > A lot. The Atom sucks. It is not energy efficient enough due to the > > crappy chipset it is paired to be worth the performance hit. A ULV > > Core2 is a better bet. > > > > Also, while the Atoms are 64 bit capable, they have been throttled to > > only support 2 GiB of RAM. So if you want more than 2 GiB of RAM you > > need to use a different CPU. > > > > You can also get a more capable chipset, the Atom is currently paired > > with a crappy chipset that draws more energy than the Atom CPU itself. > > If you were looking for a small form factor but capable machine you > > can get a P55 based Core i5/i7 quad core CPU in a mini-itx form > > factor. uATX is pretty much the standard for P55s.> > >> > >> last time I did this was in the last century and on a 233 mHz pentium (I > >> or II - I dont recall) I was able to run Linux w/ Oracle and and NT in a > >> VM. It worked fine. > >> > > Not really an Apples to Apples comparison. > > > >> Now I see something like an Atom 1.6 GHz should run about as fast as a 2+ > >> GHs Pentium 4 so I would think even such a low power system should be a > >> candidate for a very decent testbed... I'm not looking for gaming... but I > >> probably will want compilers. > >> > > Nope, the architecture of the Atom is very simple, so you can't really > > compare it to a P4. IMO you are better off with an 800 Mhz PIII than > > a 1.6 Ghz Atom. > > > >> > >> I'm also interested in OSX and I see apparently the ASUS 900 series is > >> pretty compatible... but I know next to nothing about this. > >> > > Apple keeps screwing with their updates to break compatibility with > > non-apple hardware. I would not use any modern OS if I was not > > confidant in it's ability to keep up to date. Despite what Apple > > zealots say, they need regular security patching as well. > > > > I can't see a good reason to use OSX unless it came with the hardware. > >> > >> OS's I want to run include NT, possibly newer winders but not necessarily. > >> I'm not a winders fan anyways. > > > > Again, with no updates to NT I would stay away. > > > > OSX and maybe even an old DOS machine so I can run some old software > > and not bother with a port! The old software includes a serial I/F > > for a calcomp plotter. It would be nice to use it again. Of course I > > can port this > > > > Dosbox. Runs on Linux and Windows. Emulates a DOS computer. Pretty > > awesome actually (it is how I play Master of Orion I and II on modern > > OSs). > > > >> to Linux if I really want. But that old Calcomp code is about as ugly as > >> it gets! > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
