[PLUG] Linux-friendly notebook

[Rich Shepard]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003, AthlonRob wrote:

> My understanding of the Transmeta processors is they are essentially non
> x86 CPUs emulating x86 instruction sets.  That's where the performance
> drain comes from.

  I looked up Transmeta on Tom's hardware guide. The Crusoe chips have a
small, hardware core surrounded by a software layer. I believe that's where
the performance drains away.

> Although I don't think you'll be able to achieve the performance level
> you'll get with a nice Intel or AMD chip.  If you want the laptop to last,
> I'd maybe see if I could find one of the Athlon64-based models that are
> just now entering the market.  If you went with one of those, new software
> will start to run faster on it than on a 32-bit chip instead of newer
> software running slower than older software... as things get ported to
> x86-64.

  Probably too many dollars for that and the price will undoubtably plumet
in the next few months. I like to be back from the bleeding edge because it
hurts too much to see how quickly the price drops after I've made a
purchase. :-)

Rich

Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

                       Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
            2404 SW 22nd Street | Troutdale, OR 97060-1247 | U.S.A.
 + 1 503-667-4517 (voice) | + 1 503-667-8863 (fax) | rshepard@appl-ecosys.com
                         http://www.appl-ecosys.com/