I installed Instant Rails on a variety of WinXP systems. I find that running commands like "ruby script/generate model xyz" run *very* slowly...anywhere from 4 seconds to 20 seconds (intolerable). I'm not talking about running an app via apache or fastcgi or mongrel...I'm just trying to generate models and controllers, run rake, etc.
Some of the slower machines are around 2GHz and have only 512M of memory. I realize they won't be as fast as my machine with 3GHz and 2GB memory, but I wouldn't think they would be that slow!
For what it is worth, my faster machine also runs linux, and things seem to run much faster under linux that under WinXP.
Any ideas on making the WinXP stuff faster are appreciated.
I installed Instant Rails on a variety of WinXP systems. I find that
running commands like "ruby script/generate model xyz" run *very*
slowly...anywhere from 4 seconds to 20 seconds (intolerable). I'm not
talking about running an app via apache or fastcgi or mongrel...I'm just
trying to generate models and controllers, run rake, etc.
I have a 600 Mhz Dell notebook running Kubuntu, and a 2.5 Ghz Windows
XP workstation. The notebook routinely blows the workstation away, for
compiles, PovRay renderings, and anything to do with Ruby.
It's the nature of the beast. The fastest SMPs in the world are
routinely Linux installations. Linux out-performs Solaris on their own
Sun hardware.
I just VNC into the notebook to get any work done, and I run the XP
desktop for goodies like TV, MS Office, etc.
Any ideas on making the WinXP stuff faster are appreciated.
Best I can figure is that if enough folks quit buying it, they'll make it better. I made the mistake of letting an IE 'update' go through, thinking I'd get a patch. Next thing I know I've got IE 7. Takes like 5x to load, then the POS crashes every time I use it to do a browser check on my app. To add insult to injury, I have to respond to the *^%#$ 'send error report dialog'. UFB.
It shouldn't be that slow. I would suggest running rails without the
Instant Rails package. I haven't tried Instant Rails in a long time,
so I don't remember what versions of Ruby and Gems that it's got.
Just do this:
1. Get the latest Ruby One-Click Installer from RubyForge, i think
it's called 1.85 RC3. Install it with all the default options, takes
about 60 seconds.
2. Open a command prompt, type "gem install rails --include-
dependencies" (I'm assuming you're not behind a proxy that requires
authentication of some kind).
3. Install the latest MySQL "community server" edition - it's easily
available from the mysql.com downloads section. You can uncheck the
"modify security settings" when you get to that panel in the installer
so you can leave the root password blank.
You should be off an running. Try to generate models and rake, and
see how it compares. It should be a lot faster. If not, there's
something else going on with the machine.
I find the generators to be quite slow on my windows laptop too, but
that laptop is a skanky POS anyway, over 4 & 1/2 years old, and
wasn't even great when first purchased. But still I am in your ballpark.
I stopped using Instant Rails a long time ago. Its a nice idea, but
when it broke it broke bad. And I was 'forced' to install Rails properly,
which is what I should have been doing anyway.
I suspect that the hit is due to the loading of the Ruby interpreter
itself. I remember Java CLI tools having the same kind of issues
back in the early days.
The One-Click Ruby Installer and and Instant Rails are my two main open source projects, and I use the One-Click Ruby Installer as the Ruby the ships inside of Instant Rails. So, their should not be any diffeence between installing the pieces by hand or using Instant Rails.
When I create the Instant Rails package, I do the same thing that you would do by hand: 1) Install the One-Click Ruby Installer for Windows; 2) do a “gem install rails”.
Curt’s one-click-ruby actually flies on a dual core Intel or an AMD 64bit chip. Not sure why, cos I am running 32-bit Windows. My p4 and Xeon machines are dog slow though.
I totally agree - I just thought that maybe it would help him isolate
whatever problem he's got (and, I wasn't sure how often you update the
Instant Rails package... sorry about that.)
Sorry Curt, I don’t really understand why, but I found vast improvements in speed when I switched from Instant Rails to manually installed rails. From what you’re saying, it sounds like there should be no difference, but there is.
> I stopped using Instant Rails a long time ago. Its a nice idea, but
> when it broke it broke bad. And I was 'forced' to install Rails properly,
> which is what I should have been doing anyway.
I'd be interested to know what problems you had.
Sorry Curt, I didn't properly document them, but trying to remember it,
it was more at the MySql end where things broke. I can't remember
precisely, I wasn't as experienced then, but some forum members
got me an install based on 1-click, gem install rails, gem install mongrel
& gem install sqlite (after some DLL foolery) which got me up and running.
I have been running some variants of that since (changing DB mostly).
I am not ruling out the possibility that I messed up something big time,
or that some WinXP firewall setting change broke something that Instant Rails
needed.