Re: Minimum specs, "funky" defaults, and old machinery

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Sun, Mar 11, 2001 at 10:33:28AM -0500 or thereabouts, Liam Quin wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 11, 2001 at 10:21:57AM -0500, Alan Cox wrote:
> > 	'Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds'
> 
> It used to be, Unix is a trademark of AT&T.
> 
> But...

Fascinating as this is, I don't suppose anyone would like to answer the 
original questions about why we have cpu-munching stuff on by default 
(another I found was "keep menus in memory" in control-center being off 
by default) and what specs we think people are trying to run Gnome on? 

Just for reference: three takes: 

1: Eazel do indeed have a FAQ which includes minimum installation 
requirements and recommendations: 

   For a machine running Nautilus, we recommend an x86 (Intel or
   compatible) processor, 32MB RAM (64MB preferred), 60MB hard disk space
   (500MB during build), Red Hat 6.2, GNOME 1.2, Mozilla-4.0-M18-4. GNOME
   requires 300MB; Mozilla requires 30MB.

(Off http://support.linuxcare.com/knowledgebase/eazel?faq -- the
'real' url is one of those two-line impossible-to-paste ones :))

2: My RH 7.0 boxed set suggests a minimum of x68 with 32megs RAM and
half a gig of hard disk: for a full workstation (which is what
GNOME comes on), it thinks pentium-class or better with 64 megs RAM
and 1.2gigs hard drive. That's for GNOME plus all the other things
a workstation would need. So GNOME shouldn't be needing all of that.

3: We (Alan and I) put together a machine for my sister's birthday with a 
pentium (II?), 64 megs and lots of disk space and I'm now wondering whether 
she'll have to upgrade it almost immediately 1.4 is out. That machine was
specifically for learning Linux-with-Gnome on it. 

In addition, I do end up pointing to the "speeding Gnome up" section
of the FAQ quite a lot. People do have speed problems. And they're
not all because they are running pixmap themes with rippling window
decorations. 

So what are the minimum requirements people think 1.4 will need?
And have people any interest in making some of the defaults friendly
to low-end machines? 

Telsa