[Scribus] Re: Linux Journal Article Online

[Peter Linnell]

On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 13:14, James Hatridge wrote:
> HI Peter et al...
> 
> I read your article in the LJ a couple of weeks ago. It was very good. But you 
> left out only one thing. You should have told the mimual system needed to use 
> Scribus. I would love to use Scribus. In fact if I could run it, I could 
> shitcan W$, but my best system (I have 9 up and running) is only a PI/233mhz 
> with 288mb memory. To be honest, Scribus runs like a dog on it. It takes 
> minutes to refresh etc. If there is something I can do to get it running 
> better, please let us know. Right now I use W$ Publisher ( I bought it in 
> 1992) to layout my stamp bulletin. 

As always, space is a consideration. However, I must say the Linux
Journal folks have been nice to work with. 

Given the recent improvements in performance, you would be best served
by using Scribus 1.1.2. The new rendering engine and the beginnings of
code refactoring have made dramatic improvements in speed and redisplay.

The other issue is just pure hardware capabilities. I run Scribus daily
on Rh9 with a PII450 and PII400 without problems. However, I have 768Mb
of ram *and* a speedy ATA-100 7200 rpm disk and controller. The memory
and speedy disk do make up for the relatively slow processor. I
certainly would not want to run anything less capable. There are users
on the mailing list who have more modest hardware.

<snipped from the docs>


Scribus, for a graphics application program is rather efficient and is
not a monster consumer of resources, unlike some other graphics
programs. It will rarely need more than 16Mb of ram for itself on x86.
As images are linked, files are small and save quickly. I have been
running Scribus on a PII400 / 256MB, now 768Mb, with no real urge to
upgrade hardware. As the saying goes, you can never have enough money or
too much ram. For a modern Linux distro, serious DTP will probably need
a minimum of 256 MB or more of ram. If you are working with large image
files like Tiffs or full page EPS and converting to hi-res PDF, more ram
will definitely speed up PDF exporting. You should be running X at 24
bit color for good color fidelity.

<end snip>

It would be interesting to hear from other users on the list what they
think is a minimum for acceptable performance.

Here is my rough take on minimums:

for casual use:

PII-350 or AMD-K6-450 with 100mhz FSB
256 MB of ram
ATA-33 disk (with UDMA-2 set properly, the defaults in some distros are
conservative)
8MB video card with 64bit video ram

For heavy duty use including hi-res PDF's:

PIII-600 or Athlon 750+
512 MB or more of RAM
ATA-66 disk (with UDMA-2 set properly)
32 MB ram video card with 128bit video ram

One other consideration for DTP is a good monitor. I consider 17" a
minimum and 19" or more ideal. Dual monitors are nice, but bigger
screens are nice.

I would only note from my professional experience supporting DTP users
is DTP apps in general benefit from hardware upgrades more than other
apps.
> 
> BTW, I do thank you for what you are doing! <G>
> 
> JIM

We're having fun for sure.

Peter