Dear James,
Dear Mike,
Dear Cliff,
At first, I have not met a zip file in downloading.
Next, the Maxima logo in Maxima Primer (intro~1.html) looks
perfect in a white background. No problem for my Windows
Millennium Pentium computer at 850 MHz with (at least) 256 MB
memory, but I had some problems in displaying 3D plots (a rather
usual situation).
On the same machine I have experimented with start-up times
between Maxima 5.5 beta and Maxima 5.9.0 rc4 (under
exactly the same conditions) both original start and restart.
My conclusions are that Maxima 5.5 beta constantly requires
3 sec, but Maxima 5.9.0 rc4 requires 10 or 20 sec. This happens
both in start-up and in restart. For 5.9.0 rc4 I suspect that 20
sec appear mainly when other programs are in use and, in
a Maxima session itself when few commands have been already
computed (the usual case) and this is rather unfortunate, since I
frequently use the restart option when in some difficulty or in a
new problem. (With no commands or just a trivial command,
I tested 1+1, 10 sec generally at restart.)
I have also mentioned in my message yesterday that
> (iv) Finally, restarting Maxima from File -> Restart of XMaxima
> seems to require about 15 sec, more time than it required with
> 5.5 beta, but this is not important.
but now I have the above more concrete conclusions.
Therefore, I feel Cliff is right in his conclusions and in 5.9.1
better start and restart timings would be very welcome.
Mike's ratio (over 60 sec to 12 sec on a 300 MHz computer)
is for me (in a 866 MHz computer) either 10 or 20 sec to 3 sec
(better almost three seconds for 5.5 beta). Almost the same
conclusion, but sometimes, in the cases of 10 sec a smaller ratio
for me. (I do not understand why only about 10 sec or 20 sec,
but not 14, 15 or 16 sec.)
Naturally, as was already mentioned, this is not a so important
problem so that the release 5.9.0 can be further delayed, but it
could be taken into account in 5.9.1.
Naturally, Maxima 5.9.0 offers so many more files than 5.5 beta
that the executable had to increase and this is exactly what I wish
in my work (further interesting possibilities). Again I agree with
Cliff in such a comment before several months and I expect
additional possibilities (mainly in the share library) in 6.0 or earlier
if possible. I will proceed to suggestions soon.
Best regards from Patras,
Nikos
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Clarkson" <mike at python>
To: <smustudent1@yahoo.com>
Cc: <maxima@www.ma.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 8:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Maxima] Install on Windows
> From: C Y <smustudent1 at yahoo>
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] Install on Windows
> Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 20:03:04 -0800 (PST)
> Message-ID: <20030201040304.18018.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com>
>
> > > > 3) The startup time was extremely long, on the order of 30-40
> > > > seconds. I know this is a known problem but I'm almost postitive it
> > > > will be the number one bug report filed by people who try out 5.9.0
> > > > on Windows and will likely be a killer for some. I don't propose
> > > > holding up the release, which is after all a developer release, but
> > > > we should probably be ready for the reports this will generate. Has
> > > > anyone figured out what might be causing it? The most promising
> > > > thing I recall was a report that smaller hard disks didn't have as
> > > > long a wait, but 5.5beta doesn't seem to have that problem.
> > Anyway, thought I'd mention it.
> > >
> > > Again, I haven't seen this on any machine I've tried. Was this issue
> > > discussed on the list at some point? Do you have any idea what the
> > > problem could be?
> >
> > It was discussed, but I can't remember where the thread is. Anyone
> > remember it? I don't have any useful ideas as to what to do about it.
> > This one did occur on both Win 98 computers I tried it on.
>
> I'm noticing this too - I've even increased the timeout in xmaxima
> waiting for maxima to start. It's taking over 60 seconds on an AMD 300
> with 64M under Windows 98. 5.5 comes uup in 12 sec on the same machine.
>
> Has anyone compared the memory usage between maxima 5.5 and 5.9?
> maxima.exe executable has gone from 8M to 12M and the virtual memory
> (using wintop.exe) has gone from 12 to 17M. Has the virtual memory
> behaviour changed (data resident)?
>
> Mike.