I have done something to raise a point Re: Stripping. to show points in opposition.
A post can be stripped to:
Linux is not magic Leo. It won't make a 200mhz Pentium Pro perform like anything manufactured in the last year, no matter how much you strip out.
Or I can go on at length if it's covering points of information.
All the above was what made me think over how to explain a bit more rationally both side's reasons for being. From comparisons.As what to a point may indeed be quite true for "application BLANK".-Is NOT so for another application or task. With the string of intentional qualifiers to show the logic hole in making either hardware extreme become what it is not. Let me make it a simple balance listing of sorts.
You can make a tiny,fast distro -the Linux doppelganger of Win95- running in RAM . It will do browsing limited only by the connect speed-and the hardware metrics become of little value to ramp up any more past a certain point. Sort of akin to diminishing returns being hit early on. Which is valuable if you have a zero budget and are using donated everything. And yeah- this level of things may not play 3D shooters with "Blood Splatter Physics Rendering"
Or you can make a lavishly extravagant distro- Linux Vista?- that will test the limits of our most extreme hardware. Even when that hardware is maxed out in every metric. The sky's the limit for bloat&hardware $$ as expense etc is of no concern. And yeah- THIS level of stuff might even rival gaming dedicated gear. If you really have a need for hearing an Orc's head bounce behind you in Dolby 5.1 as the blood fountain realistically parts for your sword's return stroke.
But coming back to a boringly routine Webmail log in-answer a question-log out- session? I hold that in the majority of browser based tasks- The utility of my under $300 IBM T42 will be comparable to the $6,892.90 Falcon Gaming custom rig. Google will NOT load faster over the same 56k dial up on one machine over the other. That explains the literal incomparable situations we have between extreme user desires. Or is there a zone of exception?
Both extremes have an overlapping truth zone. The set of tasks where from oh- let's use Google's dead stock search page- Type kclug into both search bars. Press Enter on the two machines and see which has the KCLUG site. measurably faster.
All other factors being equal the result explains why Linux+old hardware Vs Vista or Linux on new hardware do-or not- what they do.