How to improve performance? (starter)

[Tony Dietrich]

On Thursday 13 Jan 2005 21:38, Alexandre Vernille wrote:
> I would like to adopt Fedora2 / 3 as my preffered OS at home. However I
> need first to improve its performance on my machine (an AMD K6_2 with 128
> MB RAM).
>
> Mozilla is taking 20 sec to load, OpenOffice applications even longer. On
> the System Monitor, it looks like the RAM is too busy...
>

You hit the nail on the head.  Linux is memory-hungry.  Minimum memory for a 
Fedora installation with a graphical User Interface is 192mB RAM.  Only 
solution is to add memory to your machine.  I'd advise at least 512mB.

An AMD K6_2 isn't really fast enough for FC2 either.  Downgrade to RH9.  Or 
get a faster basic system.

RH9 will cope with the smaller memory , just about.

Distributions suitable for smaller memory machines do exist, but support can 
be patchy.  The freshly released mainstream distros all need large amounts of 
RAM, especially if you install all the GUI stuff.
> Any hints or sites where I could find the basics on improving performance?
> Should I try another Linux?

No, try a different system.  FC is fine, if you give it the machine it 
deserves.  Trouble is, people are USED to Windows running slow ( because the 
programmers have learnt to use tricks to make it appear faster visually than 
it really is ... MicroSoft's dictats on Good GUI Programming have seen to 
this ), but expect Linux for some reason to be faster.
Windows programs normally cheat.  They load the visual window first, then 
complete loading of the dll's.  They move the code for the GUI into the 
executable, then load whatever libraries the program needs.  That way the 
user gets a quick sight of the program, and thinks it is running.  Meantime, 
its still busy churning away at the disk.

Linux does run faster, but Linux programmers haven't had to resort to this 
level of cheating so far.

So comparing the times taken for similar apps on windows and linux - on 
identical systems - just by watching the screen isn't a valid comparison.  
Windows looks quite good even on computers with smaller amounts of memory
It relies heavily on swapping, whereas Linux, which because of its filing 
system has a slightly higher disk access penalty, tries to do more in RAM.  
(At least thats the way it appears to a me, as a self-taught programmer of 20 
years exp.  Mebbe the rationale is totally wrong.  Quote it at your own 
risk.)

When Win 95 came out, a generation of computer users had to upgrade their 
hardware.  Ditto the next release etc etc.

As we the users demand more and more from Linux, it is inevitable that the 
demands on the hardware are increasing.  Linux is a totally different way of 
thinking.  But at least we CAN use smaller sytems with the same OS, albeit by 
shedding applications.  Even if you shed all your applications on WinXP, you 
still wouldn't get it onto a 286.

At least all the 'bloat' in a modern linux distro is in the applications in 
each distro, rather than programmed into the kernel.  You could never install 
WinXP in an early generation 286.

Shave all the extras off a Linux Kernel, and it'll run, just.
>
> TKS, A
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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> Yahoo! agora.

-- 
Tony Dietrich
-------------
"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are
perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust."
-- Lawrence Dalzell