Instructions to unsubscribe from this list at the end of the message - --------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm continuously hearing folks saying "Why is Linux slower than windows even with the latest hardware?" and some of them will even get discouraged from using Linux because of this sluggishness. The fact is that current file managers (KDE/GNOME) which come with modern distros literally eat a hell lot of memory. You can try to turn off unneeded services which load up automatically upon startup... or you may even try to recompile your own kernel with only the necessary modules. You may even try to use linux on level 3 (i.e. text based).
I confess that i really like using text based only linux, and i even managed to do that for an entire month - internet browsing, listening to mp3's, sending emails, office applications, etc... - all in a text based version. The box was really fast. On the other hand, text-based-only linuces deprive the users from other useful applications such as graphic design, flash, 3D gaming, and the like.. So that's why X-Windows play their important role. Back to the question... How can we speed up Linux, yet, still enjoying a nice GUI? The answer is to use Window Managers other than KDE/GNOME. KDE and GNOME are really cool, but are considered as heavyweight managers, and therefore require quite a powerful workstation to run smoothly. On the other hand, there exist "less cool, in terms of eye candy" window managers which run very smoothly even on slow computers. There are many around, but the ones I've tried are Fluxbox, Sawfish, Blackbox, Enlightenment, Ice, and XFCe. Imagine them as Desktop Environments which require less CPU/memory. Once properly installed and configured, at the boot-up you can get an added session option, eg. Default, KDE, GNOME, Blackbox, Failsafe. - - assuming Blackbox was installed. You can install more than one, thus widening your choice. The package is not large (smaller than 2MB) and you can get the same results of their heavy weight counterparts.. For the guys who are still not convinced about the idea that with a bit of tweaking, one can make a very fast box and at the same time a good-looking desktop, here's one of my screenshots which i took a couple of minutes ago: http://www.boomspeed.com/linuxer1/snapshot.jpg I'm quite sure that the GUI guys out there can do something thousand times better than this, but I'll leave that for you. PS: Take a look at the monitoring application at the right hand side of the snapshot - with these opened applications: ICQ client, IRC client, mp3 player, 6 browser windows, 2 terminals, a high resolution desktop, gimp, and some other background processes which amount to a total of 62 processes, the CPU PEAK load barely reached the 10%, which is around 180MHz (Note that this is just the PEAK value - the value will then diminish according to caching) ... ;) Removing unneeded daemons, as stated above (but I have no time to expand on it now), will also improve the performance (in terms of speed) of your linux box. James (madvip) - --------------------------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the linux mailing list. If you do not wish to continue receiving this mailing list, please send a mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing only the text "unsubscribe linux" ------------------------------
