Sur Sun, 03 Aug 2003, Anarky a �crit:

> right now I'm depressed/angry at linux .. and maybe somebody would be willin
> to cheer me up or somethig :( I've completelly given up windows ..  forcing
> myself to do everything in linux ... tweaking, configuring & learning .. .. 

Hopefully. I'd say that most on this list see linux as a much better environment
than windows (to put it lightly). Personally, linux enables me to do things
which are somewhat inconcieveable in Windows. The trade off is that it has taken
me a few years to get that familiar with the system. 

I made the "jump" a couple of years ago right before XP came down upon unwitting
windows users with its licensing sharades. I am blown away whenever I walk into
a comp store and look at the full fledged windows prices. Who would want to pay
that when the alternative is $0 upfront. Though the TCO (total cost of
operation) differential over windows for larger companies might not be $0.
That's a long discussion worth reading many pages of opinions on Slashdot.org.

> but I feel like it's moving in slow motion .. I'm going insane: 

ahh the plight of windows users... ;-)

> I'm using blackbox .. which should be a very fast wm, too 

One, if not the, fastest.


> .. btw .. I just rebooted to windows and 
> there on my same old junk 550Mhz Athlon apps started instantaneously
> here, in linux, there's like a 5 sec delay when I'm not even sure if say 

Netscape is slow. Opera is fast.

> Firebird or Mozilla Mail, is starting ..
> and when I try to edit with kwrite .. well. the whole screen flickers on 
> larger document

What do you have for a video card, what version of X are you running?

> the whole sensation is that I badly need a new computer .. but it 
> saddned me when I rebooted windows to see my own computer run so well :p 
> bet that's a first

Anything is bound to run poorly if the drivers are bad. Though, windows users
unfortunately have to deal with the windows kludge that builds up over time.
They often mistake it for "time to buy a new computer" phraseology. 

In one sentence: Microsoft foists its software upon its naive and not so naive
users.

Both definitions of foist (on m-w.com) work for Microsoft.

> I'm using XNC for file management .. and sometimes when I enter a foler 
> it takes a couple of seconds before it shows me the new folder .. way 
> too much

downloading xnc now. The screenshots look like it is based on Midnight
Commander. Which is mc if you type it into a terminal. (just for comparison)

> linux seems to have this liberal approach to things: it seems whenever I 
> start an app .. it doesn't squeeze the resource to quicly start it .. 
> but gives everybody equal .. and the new app starts in ages

There are some new exciting developments that are being finalized in the 2.6
series of kernels (not out yet AFAIK), that will enhance the percieved
responsiveness of linux. They seem to have been able to determine that some
processes (translated as programs) are users doing something on the system. The
new kernel then gives "priority" to these processes and less to the background
processes. Realize, though, that you can tell the kernel now which process you
want to run in background mode by the command "nice". This "nice" command has
been around for a long time. I would use it to fold proteins in virtual space
(foldingathome) in the background. Since my computer was always on, the folding
would then get full priority when I wasn't trying to do anything. 

This new user responsiveness is mastered in real time, while still maintaining
the "nice" functionality.

There are plenty of pages on the internet about this. Look up scheduler. I
should know some good sites, but can't remember them right now.

As a side note. I don't know if you know about the "man" functionality. If you
want help on a terminal program (even one like mutt) type "man mutt" in the
terminal. A informative screen will show giving you all the information you need
to know. If you want to find out about "nice" type "man nice". Not all programs
are that convienient (sp?) and you can try using the '-h' or '--help' flags.



Though what you seem to be describing is a different issue.

>... but especially because some people have said things like: I should be
>working in KDE, as it would have the libraries & stuff needed for KDE apps
>already loaded and thus my computer could perform better. Is this true? Is
>there a solution while still remaining in blackbox?  
 
The kde apps are willing to start the right "helper" programs when they're
started. For instance to the best of my knowledge, kwrite will start things like
kdeinit and others.

If you could put the output of "ps -A", tell us what distro and version, as well
as the X version and hardware you're running that would help. Also take a look
at "dmesg" and make sure that your ip address is not in the output.

There is also a file called /var/log/XFree86.0.log which might be of some use
eventually.

If you want to save the output of, say dmesg, you could do "dmesg > dmesg.txt"
and then attach or edit, copy and paste it into an email. For the ps output the
following will work: ps -A > psout.txt. If you want to see what process is
taking so much CPU time run top.

> thanks with anticipation.

no prob. hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this soon.


hth, or at least starts to,
tw

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