On Friday 15 February 2002 12:44, Gerald Waugh wrote: > On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Jeffrey Madore wrote: > > I recently installed Mandrake 8.1 on my son's machine which consists of a > > 120Mhz processor and 84meg of ram. It now operates deadly slow. My > > understanding has been that one advantage of linux is that it runs fine > > on older equipment ; that it doesn't require the horsepower, so to speak, > > that other OS's like windows does. > > > > Prior to installing Linux on my son's machine he was running windows 95. > > That moved right along. He likes linux but it is dreadfully slow. > > > > I am running a celeron @ 700Mhz with 512 Meg of ram. The speed is much > > better but still slower than windows ME, which I migrated from. > > > > Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Since I began this journey, I > > can't seem to get away from my computer. Though the learning is slow, I > > am learning and enjoying experimenting. On the other hand I have 3 boys > > in school, 3 machines networked together, and I need a stable system with > > reasonable speed. > > > > Any comments would be helpful. Tnx > > It's probably the X app you are runing, you didn't say. > Thee have been threads concerning different desktops. > Which one are you running, and maybe someone on the list > can rate the different desktops, - Fastest to Slowest
Yes Linux can run on older slower equipment, but it depends how it is configured and what it has to do. Mandrake 8.1 running default with KDE is 'fully featured' and requires quite a lot of resources. You should compare it to Windows XP Pro rather than Windows 95. No one would be surprised if Windows XP failed to run on your son's computer, and similarly you cannot expect ML8.1+KDE to be blazingly fast on it. More memory would help, but the simplest way to improve the performance is 1/ Run a lightweight windows Manager ICEwm is very like Win95 and is very fast. XFCE is very fast, but very different to Windows or KDE in use. (I use that one) Other fast managers include Enlightenment, Blackbox,Fluxbox. They all have their fans. 2/ When running a lightweight window manager, use lightweight applications. Avoid ANY KDE application, since they require the KDE libraries, and will take an eternity to load. In general gtk applications are generally pretty fast. Examples of fast applications I use under XFCE are Abiword - loads like greased lightening, and is better than KWrite gtcd- loads much faster than kscd the KDE CD Player xmc - much faster than konqueror file manager galeon or opera - faster than konqueror and they are both better browsers anyway. Sylpheed - Mail client xmms - media player gqview - image viewer Of course these recommendations are just my opinion. Others will have their own favourites. derek
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
