How to optimize for speedy calcs?

["Brendel, Rob" <RJBrende@uop.com>]

Hi -

I've recently installed Debian 2.1 on my desktop machine (Pentium Pro 200,
64 MB RAM, 64 MB swap), dual-booting with WinNT.  I made the switch to use
Scilab under Linux for the easy linking to Fortran object files.  (Showing
my age...)

One problem:  My Scilab code runs about half as fast in Linux as it does in
WinNT.  This is for identical Scilab-only code (no linking) on the identical
machine.  How can I speed things up?  In both OS's I installed binaries for
Pentium machines, but compiling from source is an option for the Linux port
of Scilab.  Would that make any difference?

Scilab is an X11 application; I'm using fvwm2, which I understand is pretty
light.

Any tips or pointers to helpful info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob Brendel