on Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 07:27:57PM -0800, Francesco Bochicchio (fbochicchio@galactica.it) wrote: > On Sat, Nov 11, 2000 at 02:18:27PM -0800, kmself@ix.netcom.com wrote: > > > > This isn't a crash, it's a system slowdown. > > The 'VM' messages seem to hint to Virtual Memory problems, however. > I've read that the latest 2.2.x kernels have some VM problems. > > > Almost certainly resulting > > from insufficient free memory. Netscape is a memory pig, and 32 MB RAM > > is almost certainly insufficient given the clients you're running -- > > GNOME is also fairly intensive. > > > > Get more memory, get a better box, or ditch GNOME and/or Netscape. 96 - > > 128 MB is recommended for a typical current-generation workstation. > > > When I had only 16 MB on my laptop, I was able to run gnome and Netscape. > Gnome (or KDE) took 2 minutes to start and Netscape took 1 minute, > but I could (barely) use them. I found out that the combo > WindowMaker+Netscape produced a workable setup. > (I did upgraded it to 80 MB, though). I prefer WindowMaker myself, and find that even on my (relatively) speedy workstation at the office (450 MHz, 128 MB, SCSI), there's a distinct performance difference between it and either KDE or GNOME. Frankly, the "full-featured" desktops don't appeal to me at all. > The real memory pig is X itself (on my laptop, it took about 8 MB of RSS). > I found out that using only 16 bits per pixel (that is 65535 colors) > helped a bit. Reducing color and/or resolution will help markedly. If you can't upgrade your entire system, the single largest perforance (and/or functionality) benefits may come from a high-end video card. I tend to weight my systems toward video, memory, disk and processor performance, in that order. Processor generally isn't a bottleneck, and very frequently carries a high price penalty for a marginal performance improvement. If you can stand it, monochrome X has its appeals. Actually looks pretty good on most systems, and very sharp. > I also proceeded to reduce the number of running daemons, including > the number of getty, removing any unneeded services ( and on a Laptop this > means almost all ). This will also help, particularly minimizing daemon usage. > Anyway my desktop with 'only' 64 MB has no problems (I run Gnome, > netscape/mozilla, postgreSQL, apache, ... ). "No problems" vs. "runs like a top" are rather different measures. I not that my once speedy PII-180/96MB system no seems a bit the laggard.... -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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