28 Dec
2013
28 Dec
'13
9:40 p.m.
In preparation for the R14.0.0 release, we would like
to establish
minimum system requirements for installing and running Trinity.
Please refrain from "by gosh, by gum" guessing. :-) Please only
share real-world experiences using Trinity with older hardware and
distros as well as limited environments, such as the Raspberry Pi
or ARM.
We don't want to create absurd minimum requirements as has
popular.
We want to establish realistic minimum requirements.
Thank you!
Tim has been fine-tuning Trinity code based upon his own testing of
a Raspberry Pi and me with a PI and PII. We've been conducting
these tests for about two weeks.
My test specs:
PI: 400 MHz K6-III+, 256 MB RAM (the maximum possible), ATA hard
drive, 66 MHz FSB, Diamond Stealth 3000 3D video card (4 MB RAM).
This was my primary system at the turn of the century. :)
PII: 350 MHz Deschutes CPU, 448 MB RAM (expandable only to 768 MB),
ATA hard drive, 100 MHz FSB, Creative Banshee AGP (16 MB RAM).
Direct rendering actually works on this first generation AGP card.
:)
Precise scientific testing method: stopwatch and eyeballs. :)
In my original tests with the PI and PII, the original Trinity
startup time was about 1:45. Tests as of today are down to about
1:05. All of the recent testing and patching is, very much, a
success. Other tests were performed but that one result indicates
the improvements. Bottom line is Trinity is usable on the PI and
PII. For sure I would not want to use these systems all day, yet at
least Trinity is palatable on these clunkers. :)
As noted previously in this list, the PI and PII are not energy
efficient. Much of the time they sit powered off under my desk, but
they both serve handily as good hardware to test various aspects of
Trinity and corner cases.
With this testing we now have a good idea how Trinity performs at
the bottom of the hardware barrel. Considering that KDE4 and GNOME
are unlikely to run on such systems, that leaves Trinity, Xfce,
LXDE/Razor-qt, and E17 as the remaining desktop candidates for
REALLY old hardware. That said, window managers likely are optimal
at the PI/PII level (not to mention that tasks such as online video
and audio streaming will really test a person's patience).
Although arguably we showed that a PI or PII could suffice as
minimum system requirements, real-world observations indicate such
claims should be as a sidenote.
If anybody has a P3 available and some time, testing would be
welcomed as to whether we can establish a P3 as an reasonable real-
world minimum for system requirements.
My testing was as simple as this:
Trinity startup time.
Starting preloaded konqueror.
Starting konsole.
Alt+F2 dialog.
Starting kate.
Starting kcontrol.
Alt+F1 menu.
Darrell