On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:12:20 +0000, Tony Dietrich <td@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > 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 > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > Yahoo! Acesso Grátis - Internet rápida e grátis. Instale o discador do > > Yahoo! agora. > > -- > Tony Dietrich > ------------- [snip] Linux apps and window managers are adding more eye-candy / feature creep and becoming just as bloated as Windows apps. That is why things run slower and take more RAM. Much like Microsoft we'll soon get to the point that where only systems manufactured less than 3 years ago will work. With current development trends only embedded Linux and Debian will support 32-bit and less processors. The bleeding edge will have abandoned 32-bit and moved on to 64-bit processors and 4GB+ memory. A lot of Linux development was contributed by folks who wanted to make use of older hardware so I'm not sure that is a good thing.
