[R] optimal windows R machine

[Martyn Plummer]

On 18-Oct-2001 A.J. Rossini wrote:
>>>>>> "AL" == Andy Liaw <Liaw> writes:
> 
>     AL> We did try VMware on one of our Linux boxes (dual P3 866 Xeon
>     AL> with 2GB RDRAM).  It was unbearably slow!
> 
> 
> (and others have responded similarly).
> 
> I think it depends on what you need.  It was fine for me, using MS
> Word and MS Powerpoint, as well as for running (not developing) Java
> GUI-based applications (which have not tended to be that fast on
> Unix, unlike say non-GUI apps).

I use VMWare for three applications
- MS Office         (The only way to get 100% MS Office compatibility )
- WinBUGS           (Doesn't run on unix)
- Internet Explorer (Some sites won't work with other browsers)

I must say I'm quite satisfied with it for these purposes.  My impression
is that number crunching (i.e. running WinBUGS) is almost as fast as
under native windows; disk access is terribly slow (perhaps due to
running one file system on top of another), and the user interface can
often appear slow due to the lack of accelerated graphics.  I could
be deluding myself though, as I can't quote you numbers.

On the plus side, suspending the guest OS (NT in my case) to disk and
restoring it is much faster than rebooting.

Martyn
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