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Thread: 'Speeding Up' Linux

  1. #1
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    Default 'Speeding Up' Linux

    Ok, I must admit. I'm not using my Linux machine right now because the monitor went. But here is what I have going on.

    I first installed SuSE 8.0 on this machine (a 1.4GHZ Athlon w/256MB of Ram...40Gig HD, etc.) I loved it. I had a dual partition. But I decided I wanted a Linux only box.

    So I pulled out a 333MHz Celeron w/64MB of Ram. Not new...but not necessarily ancient. At first I had some configuration issues (serial mouse and onboard sound wouldn't quite work until after some fiddling). Linux said that my 4.3GB hard drive has a bad boot sector (believable...it was pulled from a computer that was going to be trashed after the original hard drive totally crashed). But all in all, it ran Windows 2000 quite well. But now that Linux is on it, KDE 3.0 seems to be running awfully slow.

    I don't expect the same performance as I got on the first machine...but I expected it to outperform Windows! It takes forever to open up programs (especially Star Office) and the menus on the GUI are sluggish. I have about 3 memory slots open, and I'll upgrade the hard drive. But I really don't know what else to do?

    Suggestions? :-[

    Keep in mind I'm a newbie...so take it easy on me! ;D

  2. #2
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    Default Re:'Speeding Up' Linux

    Hello MissNiceness , welcome, i am glad you are interested in using linux [and that you use the version i do suse 8.x]
    key :
    # == root
    > == uid>0
    The Drive :-
    First off i would recommend that you ditch the old drive if it is bad you will have tons of problems in the longrun [maybe even the shortrun , care to gamble ;-) ]. If replacing the drive is not an option check that dma is on :
    #hdparm -d /dev/hda
    if it is on then that is ok if not then set it on with
    #hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

    The Kernel :-
    # cd /usr/src/$my_kernel_sources then do a make menuconfig , under "Processor type and features" select the "Processor Family" you need [I recommend getting the latest kernel from ftp.kernel.org or check if suse has an update] also enable MTRR support if you have an AGP card. Then recompile with these options. [this part is somewhat technical so approach with caution or skip all together]

    Memory :
    64MB of ram is not that much and most [real] 32bit OS's will not do very well , depending on the task you wish the OS to do.
    It is best to use the Nx2 rule for allocating swap space , that is for every 1MB of physical RAM you must have have twice that amount of swap.
    Create a new swap-partition using fdisk then mkswap /dev/$new_swap_ptn or if you have free disk space but no free partition space, make a swap file :
    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/myswapfile bs=1024 count=16384
    # mkswap /myswapfile
    #swapon /myswapfile [put a swapoff /path/to/myswapfile in /etc/init.d/halt]


    The initscripts :
    Use Yast2 to unselect services like nfs ,portmap,pcmcia [since this is a desktop] and unnecssary services.

    DE vs. WM
    Use WindowMaker or IceWM and not KDE or GNOME , they are lighter [less resources needed and less startup time].

    If you have staroffice and not openoffice and it takes a long time to start it is probably have staroffice 5.2 , so try to upgrade to 6.x of staroffice or openoffice 1.0.x

  3. #3
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    Default Re:'Speeding Up' Linux

    Try vector linux. It's designed to utilize slower hardware.
    http://www.vectorlinux.com
    http://jalug.orgsearch?SearchableText=vector
    I'm using it on a 266mhz, 32MB ram laptop.

    Warning... it's slackware based so not as simple to install, but you'll manange and learn alot in the process.

  4. #4
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    Default Re:'Speeding Up' Linux

    I usually find that having a decent amount of ram >=64Megs works wonders for a linux machine. The newer kernels, are not happy with small ram. You can however recompile your kernel to suit your machine. This will give you a VERY good performance boost. The idea is to remove all the features you do not need or are redundant. This not only makes the kernel smaller, but lighter during bootup and process time.
    Turninig on DMA trasferers for your hard drive is a good thing but... you must be careful. Some hard drives simple do not like having DMA enabled and you can possilbly corrupt your data. Which brings to mind making frequent backups of /etc and /home/user
    Another thing you should do to speed up your system, but you may not like it is to use GNOME. GNOME was built with sheer speed in mind. Bear in mind as well a lot of GNOME apps crash more frequently than KDE. The second option is to use Windowmaker. I use it so it must be good .
    IceWM sucks and is ugly. However it is EXTREMLY fast and very reliable and functional. The problem with the last two options is that you may have to remember the names of your favourite KDE/GNOME applications and MANUALLY edit your menus to include them. There are desktop icons in Windowmaker or IceWM.
    Application integration is also not a nice state of affairs.
    The reason for all of this is simple. KDE is honking huge and will devour your free RAM when you run it. KDE is comprised of SEVERAL small applications that give you a nicely integrated environment similar to Windows/MAC. The thing is... GNOME is als similarly built and you may have more success with speed there. The key difference with KDE and GNOME is this.

    KDE is built using C++ and everyone knows that GCC (the standard compiler for linux) absolutely sucks at compiling C++ code. Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are far better. On the flip side however GNOME is built with plain old C. C compilation on linux is in a topnotch class by itself. Anything built with C on linux is ridiculously speed capable. Which brings one more suggestion.

    USE GTK BUILT APPLICATIONS. GTK applications. They usually are clearly flagged by being called G something; for instance a GTK type text editor is usually called something like GEDIT.

    Next thing you can do is to stop all the services that you don't use from running at boot up. For example, if your not running a webserver, then don't allow apache to start at boot up. Apache usually comes with most distributions. Don't start postfix, sendmail or qmail. Dont' start SQUID. Don't start proftpd. Dont start anything you don't need.

    This just came to mind... rather than using ext 2 filesystems use ext3 or rieserfs. If you can. These are called journalised filesystems and they provide alot more performance speedwise than ext2. Even with older drives. They are alos more reliable and if you have a powerfail when the computer is on... they recovery more quickly on the next boot.

    A next boost you can get is to not allow your computer to boot into GUI mode. Instead boot into text mode, login and type startx. The Display manger screens that come up when you boot into GUI mode are usually memory intensive.

    I could tell you a whole heap more things to do... but mi tiad. So let me know if you need more assists.

    --regards
    Simon

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