1. In reply to my original question on optimal hardware for Maxima, Stavros Macrakis has suggested that augmenting hardware is unlikely to lead to better results but suggests that a 50% improvement is possible with better hardware. I am planning to request the Indian government, I work in India, to assist me to set up a home workstation (for research purposes) with the following configuration:
1.AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor
2.ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe Motherboard
3.CORSAIR TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX: 2 units i.e. 8GB, in all 4 sticks of 2 GB RAM each.
4.Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
I would like your opinions on whether the new configuration would make some difference.
2. Stavros Macrakis has suggested that "it seems that the basic problem is that the solve/algsys algorithm is far from optimal". I am not a programmer but is there a place where i can report this?
3. Jaime Villate has suggested that i must compile Maxima from source code. I tried compiling Maxima from instructions available on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Maxima
But I could not make much headway. If Jaime Villate can send me the shell script that he mentions, i will definitely have a go at it.
4. As far as 64 bit is concerned, I was given to understand that 64 bit operating systems starts making a difference only when, one uses more than 4 GB RAM. In this light I installed the 32 bit linux server kernel provided in ubuntu 8.10 which recognises 3.8 GB of my 4 GB RAM. My ASUS M2A-VM motherboard has a problem running 8 GB of RAM so I am stuck with a 32 bit operating system unless it is the case that a 64 bit operating system is capable of outperforming a 32 bit one even when 4 GB RAM or less is used. In this case too, would'nt a hardware upgrade help matters?
c. saratchand