EMC and Linux versions RedHat vs Mandrake

> "Tim Goldstein" <timg@...> wrote:
>
> > OH, I almost forgot to ask my question. I hear you people talk
> > about Linux
> > and EMC. I hear of Red Hat, Yellow Dog, and now I see a Linux
> > Mandrake 7.0 at
> > CompUSA. Are these all different OS's and does EMC run on all?
>
> All of these are variations of Linux.
>
> EMC is pretty well customized for only the RedHat flavor of Linux.

I am a fan of Mandrake, especially Mandrake 7.0 It is very close
to RedHat, and so it may work. As you know Linux is a 32 bit OS,
and so works on a 386 on up. However, most distributions still compile
for a 386, even though compiling for a 486 or Pentium, or PentiumPro/
Celeron/PIII would yield faster code (because of the optimization for
using some faster instructions in the more advanced processors).

Mandrake is compiled from the ground up for Pentium optimization.
Not only the kernel (which gets recompiled anyway), but also everything
else on the system, including the utilities, the libraries, and X11. Normally
recompiling EVERYTHING is too much work, but Mandrake has it done
for you. For number crunching I find it from 5% to 20% faster than stock
RedHat.

If EMC is not I/O bound writing to the parallel port register, I expect to see
an equivalent speed up in running EMC under Mandrake. I'll be trying
it soon and will report back to the group.

Doug Fortune