Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?

[Mark Allums <mark@allums.com>]

On 4/4/2010 10:33 PM, Tech Geek wrote:
> So I have a very low end system which has 128 MB of RAM and a 486 based
> x86 processor. After installing GNOME on Lenny, as soon as I launch
> firefox, opera or any other relatively intensive application the system
> comes to a crawl and becomes slow and sluggish. The system load increase
> up tp 5, the CPU usage also shoots up to 25% and things become painfully
> slow to operate i.e. become less responsive.
> Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are
> there any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap
> help? Right now my system does not have any swap partition.
> Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system
> like this would be helpful.
> Thanks

GNOME is not your friend, here.  Try LXDE, which is a lightweight KDE, 
but uses GTK instead of Qt.

You *must* have more memory.  If you are hacking a smartphone or Kindle 
or other device, and there is no way of adding memory, then *do* add swap.

Use alternatives, such as Chrome instead of Iceweasel/Firefox, use 
addons to block ads and scripts in whatever browser you use.

Try text mode (console), learn to love startx.  Use text mode programs 
like vi(m), nano, links, lynx, aptitude, etc., rather than gedit, Kate, 
Firefox, Synaptic, etc.