Re: Advice needed to speed up very slow machine
Don Jackson <don1103@azark.com> said on Sat, 25 Sep 2004 21:45:10 -0500:
> I have installed sarge with kernel 2.4.26 on it -- no problem. Actually,
> everything works fine on it, with KDE and Kmail and Mozilla-Firefox as my
> choices (since that's what I'm using myself). The problem is that with only
> a 166 MHz processor speed and the limited 96MB of RAM, the machine is
> agonizingly sloooooow! (I'm spoiled by my own new 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB RAM)
> For example, it takes about 4-1/2 minutes for cold boot up to the KDE
> desktop. I almost fall asleep every time I wait for Kmail to come up, and
> the same for the address book. Once Kmail is up and running, it's response
> is satisfactory.
As long as she starts Linux on a window manager, she'll be fine - just
don't change window managers on her.
Now, try to avoid kde and k* applications, as well as gnome and gnome
applications (gtk, etc).
Expect the first kde program (or gnome) you start to take at least
15MB of ram, because it pulls in all these seemingly useless libraries
(I mean, why does xwrits need so god damn many libraries just to
display a dialog after x minutes of typing?)
So, stick with the lighter window managers (I use fvwm, but I don't
recommend it to anyone but advanced users -- if only it came with a
nice default), and try to avoid programs starting with the letter k,
and from there, I don't really know where to go :)
> Anyone have any suggestions of what I could do to improve speed within the
> constraints I have mentioned? (Yes, I know that command line email program
> would do wonders, but she needs the GUI.) I don't really need all the fancy
> stuff that the KDE desktop provides. I might mention that Win98se with
> Outlook Express is quite fast (relative to sarge/kde/kmail) on this same
> machine.
I'm not surprised. KDE and kde widgets are rediculously slow even on
modern hardware, IMNSHO.
Try running them over ADSL and suffer. :)
--
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
-o)
/\\ The penguins are coming...
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