Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
Dotan Cohen put forth on 4/6/2010 5:58 AM: >> Since the CPU is a SoC, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no DIMM slot. >> > > Thanks, I did not read the whole thread and missed that part. IIRC the OP never posted the board model. I ferreted it out with a little Googling based on the /proc/cpuinfo the OP pasted. I don't recall if I pasted a link to the info until after your post. Don't sweat it. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bbb15e9.2090...@hardwarefreak.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
> Since the CPU is a SoC, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no DIMM slot. > Thanks, I did not read the whole thread and missed that part. -- Dotan Cohen http://bido.com http://what-is-what.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/t2t880dece01004060358p93a645efpe977346dcae32...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
Ron Johnson put forth on 4/5/2010 8:55 PM: > On 2010-04-05 17:40, Dotan Cohen wrote: >>> Unfortunately there is no option to upgrade the memory on the system. >> >> If the problem is acquisition of the memory, then let me know exactly >> what you need and I will try to snail-mail it to you. My university >> has a computer-recycling corner and I can dig through there a bit. >> Memory shouldn't cost me too much to mail. >> > > Since the CPU is a SoC, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no DIMM slot. That's how it appears: http://www.vortex86.com/index2.html It has a fixed 128MB which is apparently not socketed but soldered to the board. I can't completely confirm this as there is no full board picture, or board diagram, but merely a functional block diagram showing a fixed 128MB. The board itself is aimed at set top box and other fixed system embedded applications, not desktop use, thus the explanation for the board's inflexibility. Running a full up desktop PC environment was never an engineering goal for this board. Quite the opposite. The engineers planned for a very limited GUI, such as what you'd find on your TIVO or cable box. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bbb0f19.6050...@hardwarefreak.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
Tech Geek put forth on 4/5/2010 11:36 AM: > Hi, > > So I did get a chance to add swap to my system and guess what it made a > significant difference. I had two instances of iceweasel, one instance of > gedit, 3 gnome-terminal window open and the system is still running pretty > decently. I know there is always the debate between how much Swap is > sufficient - for my purpose, first I added 256 MB of swap file on the > installation partition and then I reduced to 128 MB of swap and the system > was still responsive. I don't know how far low I can go but for now it looks > it will do the trick. I am so relieved that swap solution worked out pretty > fine. I did not want to move to another distro because I like Debian a lot! Glad to hear it's working better for you now. > I wonder if there is a way by which the swap dynamically grows in size as an > when required? Swap use is dynamic, exactly as you describe. What isn't dynamic is the on-disk structure in which the kernel stores the swapped pages. AFAIK, that must be statically defined in terms of size either for swap partitions or swap files. Disk space is so cheap, and swap space is such a small fraction of modern disks, that the coding effort is not anywhere near any payoff achieved with truly dynamic sized swap structures. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bbb0a45.4050...@hardwarefreak.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On 2010-04-05 17:40, Dotan Cohen wrote: Unfortunately there is no option to upgrade the memory on the system. If the problem is acquisition of the memory, then let me know exactly what you need and I will try to snail-mail it to you. My university has a computer-recycling corner and I can dig through there a bit. Memory shouldn't cost me too much to mail. Since the CPU is a SoC, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no DIMM slot. -- "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." Dwight Eisenhower -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bba948a.4000...@cox.net
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
> Unfortunately there is no option to upgrade the memory on the system. If the problem is acquisition of the memory, then let me know exactly what you need and I will try to snail-mail it to you. My university has a computer-recycling corner and I can dig through there a bit. Memory shouldn't cost me too much to mail. -- Dotan Cohen http://bido.com http://what-is-what.com Please CC me if you want to be sure that I read your message. I do not read all list mail. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/u2s880dece01004051540mc1e42058v1486fe126e540...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On 4/4/2010 10:33 PM, Tech Geek wrote: So I have a very low end system which has 128 MB of RAM and a 486 based x86 processor. After installing GNOME on Lenny, as soon as I launch firefox, opera or any other relatively intensive application the system comes to a crawl and becomes slow and sluggish. The system load increase up tp 5, the CPU usage also shoots up to 25% and things become painfully slow to operate i.e. become less responsive. Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are there any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap help? Right now my system does not have any swap partition. Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like this would be helpful. Thanks GNOME is not your friend, here. Try LXDE, which is a lightweight KDE, but uses GTK instead of Qt. You *must* have more memory. If you are hacking a smartphone or Kindle or other device, and there is no way of adding memory, then *do* add swap. Use alternatives, such as Chrome instead of Iceweasel/Firefox, use addons to block ads and scripts in whatever browser you use. Try text mode (console), learn to love startx. Use text mode programs like vi(m), nano, links, lynx, aptitude, etc., rather than gedit, Kate, Firefox, Synaptic, etc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bba53d7.20...@allums.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On 2010-04-05 11:36, Tech Geek wrote: Hi, So I did get a chance to add swap to my system and guess what it made a significant difference. I had two instances of iceweasel, one instance of gedit, 3 gnome-terminal window open and the system is still running pretty You'd save a good amount of RAM by using rxvt and vim-gtk, also by moving to XFce. Since the default rxvt font is so small, this is what I have in my panel launcher: urxvt -sl 1 -font -*-fixed-medium-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-r decently. I know there is always the debate between how much Swap is sufficient - for my purpose, first I added 256 MB of swap file on the installation partition and then I reduced to 128 MB of swap and the system was still responsive. I don't know how far low I can go but for now it looks it will do the trick. I am so relieved that swap solution worked out pretty fine. I did not want to move to another distro because I like Debian a lot! I wonder if there is a way by which the swap dynamically grows in size as an when required? Do you mean "size of the swap *file*", like what Windows does? No. Both swap partitions and swap files are fixed size; you can, though, at any time dynamically add more swap files. -- "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." Dwight Eisenhower -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bba1dbb.8010...@cox.net
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
Hi, So I did get a chance to add swap to my system and guess what it made a significant difference. I had two instances of iceweasel, one instance of gedit, 3 gnome-terminal window open and the system is still running pretty decently. I know there is always the debate between how much Swap is sufficient - for my purpose, first I added 256 MB of swap file on the installation partition and then I reduced to 128 MB of swap and the system was still responsive. I don't know how far low I can go but for now it looks it will do the trick. I am so relieved that swap solution worked out pretty fine. I did not want to move to another distro because I like Debian a lot! I wonder if there is a way by which the swap dynamically grows in size as an when required? Thanks for everybody's input!
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
> > On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 08:33:05PM -0700, Tech Geek wrote: > > Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like > > this would be helpful. > FWIW, here are my experiences running Lenny w/Gnome on a few old machines (all using IDE hdd that are really old): Machine #1:An old Mac G4 with 1 GB RAM but only a 400 MHz PPC processor. Also have 1 GB of swap space although it's basically never needed. This machine is painfully slow, maybe it's the PPC architecture version of Debian that is slower but I doubt it. Machine #2: An old Gateway x86 with 512 MB RAM and a 700 MHz P3 processor is noticeably faster than Machine #1, although definitely not snappy by any stretch of the imagination. Machine #3: An old HP x1100 Workstation with 768 MB RAM and P4 1.9 GHz processor. This machine is really fast with Lenny/Gnome. All machines are at least 7 years old. HTH. Mark
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 08:33:05PM -0700, Tech Geek wrote: > Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like > this would be helpful. Whilst not an direct answer to your question, try xfce. It's meant to be lightweight and, on my EEE it works great. You can install gnome and kde thingies (applets and stuff) if there are no xfce equivalents. If all that fails, drop the idea of a desktop manager and just go for a simpler setup. DMs tend to load a fair bit into RAM to do their funky things. -- "A search of his car uncovered pornography, a homemade sex aid, women's stockings and a Jack Russell terrier." - http://www.news.com.au/story/0%2C27574%2C24675808-421%2C00.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100405132449.ga2...@zip.com.au
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On 2010-04-04 23:28, Tech Geek wrote: [snip] Based on my specs (800 MHz CPU and 128 MB RAM) and [1], I still should be able to operate GNOME and some of the apps. However even opening gedit brings the system to crawl which is so surprising. I will add some swap and see if that makes a difference although I am not counting on it based on my past expereince. [1] http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.0/#performance Except that Gnome 2.0.2 is really, *really* old. Ubuntu 9.04 on a laptop with an 1800MHz CPU and 256MB RAM is dog slow. It's all about the RAM, really. -- "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." Dwight Eisenhower -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bb9e022.6070...@cox.net
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 08:33:05PM -0700, Tech Geek wrote: > So I have a very low end system which has 128 MB of RAM and a 486 based x86 > processor. After installing GNOME on Lenny, as soon as I launch firefox, > opera or any other relatively intensive application the system comes to a > crawl and becomes slow and sluggish. The system load increase up tp 5, the > CPU usage also shoots up to 25% and things become painfully slow to operate > i.e. become less responsive. > > Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are there > any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap help? Right > now my system does not have any swap partition. > > Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like > this would be helpful. > I've run GNOME on a P3 with 256 MB, and it was bearable. But these days when I set up a low-end system like that, I run Fluxbox or LXDE. They both give a great speed improvement over GNOME. Generally I use Fluxbox for myself, and recommend LXDE for others. The reason is that LXDE has some of the "right-click" functionality that most mainstream users have come to expect, while Fluxbox does not (but I like Fluxbox better for some more geeky reasons). Both of these systems use somewhere around 50MB of RAM before loading any apps. The window managers that others have mentioned in this thread are good as well. But I think LXDE will be easier for most people. It also comes with a lot of lightweight apps by default, so you don't have to go searching for suggestions on the internet. -Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100405125138.ga11...@aurora.owens.net
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 08:33:05PM -0700, Tech Geek wrote: > So I have a very low end system which has 128 MB of RAM and a 486 based x86 > processor. After installing GNOME on Lenny, as soon as I launch firefox, > opera or any other relatively intensive application the system comes to a > crawl and becomes slow and sluggish. The system load increase up tp 5, the > CPU usage also shoots up to 25% and things become painfully slow to operate > i.e. become less responsive. > > Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are there > any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap help? Right > now my system does not have any swap partition. > > Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like > this would be helpful. > If the idea is to see what is possible, OK. But if this is to be a functional computer doing some work, I would suggest booting into the console. Screen will give your multiple work areas, elinks is a great browser, pdmenu reassembles the debian menu items that will work in cli, mutt is the best email client anyway, wicd-curses is great, snownews, mplayer-no-gui, cdcd, mc, iptraff, saidar, ethstatus, terminus fonts, . . . The Debian console is a pretty nice place. There are some programs for framebuffer graphics too. Then you can put your system up against the wall from the console when you feel like it. :-) -- Kind Regards, Freeman http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100405064303.ga7...@europa.office
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On 4/4/2010 11:17 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote: You can try adding swap but I doubt it will help much as the disk is so old and slow. Adding another 128MB or 256MB of memory would probably help the most with that system, but given that it has a sub 200MHz 486 class processor, you really need a more modern system if you want decent GUI performance with modern GUI apps like FireFox, ThunderBird, Opera, etc. I haven't tried running a full Linux GUI desktop on really old x86 hardware, but my gut instinct tells me you'd really need at _minimum_ a 200-300Mhz P6 class machine (anything Pentium Pro or later but no cacheless Celerons) with at least 256MB RAM, preferably 384MB or more. A 200MHz Pentium Pro has about 4 times the integer throughput and 6 times the floating point throughput of a 133MHz 486 clone such as the AMD, Cyrix, or TI chips. And a 200MHz PPro isn't going to be super responsive with a modern Linux GUI desktop either, though it wouldn't be as frustrating as your 486 class system. If you can, get a newer system. If that's not a possibility, try to get more memory for this one. Oh, and with only 128MB and no swap, I'd definitely add some swap, at least 256MB, just to stave off the OOM killer. You can find P3 boxes really, really cheap (basically what it costs to ship) these days; and the RAM for those isn't an arm+leg yet. Depending on the board, you may still find ISA slots (if that's something you must have). --Joseph Lenox -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bb980fa.8040...@gmail.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On Mon, 5 Apr 2010 01:00:01 -0500 francis southern shared this with us all: >You could also try Tiny Core Linux. http://www.tinycorelinux.com/ >I haven't used it much myself, but I've heard it described as "the >next Damn Small Linux". I use lenny with fluxbox on a Toshiba 32MB RAM 10 GB hard drive celeron 650 CPU and it is slow, good for only very simple low resource tasks with 250MB swap Hope that helps. Charlie -- Registered Linux User:- 329524 . Men are born to succeed, not to fail. .Henry David Thoreau . Debian GNU/Linux - just the best way to create magic -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100405162610.34101...@tao
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
You could also try Tiny Core Linux. http://www.tinycorelinux.com/ I haven't used it much myself, but I've heard it described as "the next Damn Small Linux". On 5 April 2010 00:20, Greg Madden wrote: > On Sunday 04 April 2010 08:28:53 pm Tech Geek wrote: >> >You can try adding swap but I doubt it will help much as the disk is so >> > old >> >> and slow >> The hard drive is quite recent and supports up to UDMA2 speeds although I >> too think that adding swap space won't make a difference. >> >> >Adding another 128MB or 256MB of memory would probably help the most with >> >> that system >> Unfortunately there is no option to upgrade the memory on the system. Also >> I forgot to mention that it is a 800 MHz system: >> debian:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo >> processor : 0 >> vendor_id : Vortex86 SoC >> cpu family : 5 >> model : 2 >> model name : 05/02 >> stepping : 2 >> cpu MHz : 800.041 >> fdiv_bug : no >> hlt_bug : no >> f00f_bug : no >> coma_bug : no >> fpu : yes >> fpu_exception : yes >> cpuid level : 1 >> wp : yes >> flags : fpu tsc cx8 >> bogomips : 1600.08 >> clflush size : 32 >> cache_alignment : 32 >> address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual >> power management: >> >> Based on my specs (800 MHz CPU and 128 MB RAM) and [1], I still should be >> able to operate GNOME and some of the apps. However even opening gedit >> brings the system to crawl which is so surprising. I will add some swap and >> see if that makes a difference although I am not counting on it based on my >> past expereince. >> >> [1] http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.0/#performance > > XFCE, Fluxbox, et. al. are a better way to do a gui system with specs like > that > Don't install anything with 'Gnome' in the package name, or "K/KDE'. Apps > that > use GTK libraries without the Gnome stuff maybe. > > 'Damn Small Linux' does minimal installs., which are hard to duplicate with > more > mainstream distro's. > -- > Peace > > Greg Madden > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201004042120.07318.gomadtr...@acsalaska.net > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/u2p77f417a21004042300o93d692cx184e90021a91e...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On Sunday 04 April 2010 08:28:53 pm Tech Geek wrote: > >You can try adding swap but I doubt it will help much as the disk is so > > old > > and slow > The hard drive is quite recent and supports up to UDMA2 speeds although I > too think that adding swap space won't make a difference. > > >Adding another 128MB or 256MB of memory would probably help the most with > > that system > Unfortunately there is no option to upgrade the memory on the system. Also > I forgot to mention that it is a 800 MHz system: > debian:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo > processor : 0 > vendor_id : Vortex86 SoC > cpu family : 5 > model : 2 > model name : 05/02 > stepping: 2 > cpu MHz : 800.041 > fdiv_bug: no > hlt_bug : no > f00f_bug: no > coma_bug: no > fpu : yes > fpu_exception : yes > cpuid level : 1 > wp : yes > flags : fpu tsc cx8 > bogomips: 1600.08 > clflush size: 32 > cache_alignment : 32 > address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual > power management: > > Based on my specs (800 MHz CPU and 128 MB RAM) and [1], I still should be > able to operate GNOME and some of the apps. However even opening gedit > brings the system to crawl which is so surprising. I will add some swap and > see if that makes a difference although I am not counting on it based on my > past expereince. > > [1] http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.0/#performance XFCE, Fluxbox, et. al. are a better way to do a gui system with specs like that Don't install anything with 'Gnome' in the package name, or "K/KDE'. Apps that use GTK libraries without the Gnome stuff maybe. 'Damn Small Linux' does minimal installs., which are hard to duplicate with more mainstream distro's. -- Peace Greg Madden -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201004042120.07318.gomadtr...@acsalaska.net
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
>You can try adding swap but I doubt it will help much as the disk is so old and slow The hard drive is quite recent and supports up to UDMA2 speeds although I too think that adding swap space won't make a difference. >Adding another 128MB or 256MB of memory would probably help the most with that system Unfortunately there is no option to upgrade the memory on the system. Also I forgot to mention that it is a 800 MHz system: debian:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : Vortex86 SoC cpu family : 5 model : 2 model name : 05/02 stepping: 2 cpu MHz : 800.041 fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu tsc cx8 bogomips: 1600.08 clflush size: 32 cache_alignment : 32 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: Based on my specs (800 MHz CPU and 128 MB RAM) and [1], I still should be able to operate GNOME and some of the apps. However even opening gedit brings the system to crawl which is so surprising. I will add some swap and see if that makes a difference although I am not counting on it based on my past expereince. [1] http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.0/#performance
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
Tech Geek put forth on 4/4/2010 10:33 PM: > So I have a very low end system which has 128 MB of RAM and a 486 based x86 > processor. After installing GNOME on Lenny, as soon as I launch firefox, > opera or any other relatively intensive application the system comes to a > crawl and becomes slow and sluggish. The system load increase up tp 5, the > CPU usage also shoots up to 25% and things become painfully slow to operate > i.e. become less responsive. > > Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are there > any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap help? Right > now my system does not have any swap partition. > > Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like > this would be helpful. You can try adding swap but I doubt it will help much as the disk is so old and slow. Adding another 128MB or 256MB of memory would probably help the most with that system, but given that it has a sub 200MHz 486 class processor, you really need a more modern system if you want decent GUI performance with modern GUI apps like FireFox, ThunderBird, Opera, etc. I haven't tried running a full Linux GUI desktop on really old x86 hardware, but my gut instinct tells me you'd really need at _minimum_ a 200-300Mhz P6 class machine (anything Pentium Pro or later but no cacheless Celerons) with at least 256MB RAM, preferably 384MB or more. A 200MHz Pentium Pro has about 4 times the integer throughput and 6 times the floating point throughput of a 133MHz 486 clone such as the AMD, Cyrix, or TI chips. And a 200MHz PPro isn't going to be super responsive with a modern Linux GUI desktop either, though it wouldn't be as frustrating as your 486 class system. If you can, get a newer system. If that's not a possibility, try to get more memory for this one. Oh, and with only 128MB and no swap, I'd definitely add some swap, at least 256MB, just to stave off the OOM killer. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bb9646c.9040...@hardwarefreak.com
Re: Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 04:33, Tech Geek wrote: > Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are there > any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap help? Right > now my system does not have any swap partition. There usually are minimum system requirements, gnome's are easily found[1] if you had used a search engine. That said, despite what might be the official minimum, gnome, like kde, are hogs. If it requires, at least, 128MB, you're gonna need more to run apps, so if you want a decent desktop experience i'd go for 512BM at the very least. For the hardware you described i'd use a lightweight window manager - there are many: xfce, fluxbox and windowmaker are a few examples. Heck even for highend i don't use big desktop environments, but that's me. > Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like > this would be helpful. I don't normally use "low end and "gnome" in the same sentence, sorry. However, you could just install gnome-base or gnome-core or whatever the base packages are, abd build up from there, only installing what you really need. Last time i installed gnome (the virtual package), it took 1GB of hard disk space. Plus it's a nuissance to uninstall. Consider lightweight apps, firefox is growing every day and you can already find alternatives and forks. And yes, for a 128MB desktop a swap partition is always welcome and even if you upgrade your RAM you still have the CPU bottlenecking the system. HTH [1] http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.0/#systemrequirements -- () ascii-rubanda kampajno - kontraŭ html-a retpoŝto /\ ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/m2w6b1504c41004042046u375737du499195ff868d0...@mail.gmail.com
Running GNOME with 128 MB RAM - Painfully slow?
So I have a very low end system which has 128 MB of RAM and a 486 based x86 processor. After installing GNOME on Lenny, as soon as I launch firefox, opera or any other relatively intensive application the system comes to a crawl and becomes slow and sluggish. The system load increase up tp 5, the CPU usage also shoots up to 25% and things become painfully slow to operate i.e. become less responsive. Is there some kind of min. system requirements for running GNOME? Are there any tricks to make the system more responsive? Would adding swap help? Right now my system does not have any swap partition. Anybody's input who has expereince running GNOME on a low end system like this would be helpful. Thanks
Re: Does NVIDIA 128 MB RAM (Pine) AGP Card support 1280x1024 and play mpeg videos in X windows?
> You really need to tell us a little more about your system, I assume you have > a SIS chipset and what to know if you can switch graphics cards to get a > higher resolution. > > A lot of that depends on the monitor, lcd, or display you are using. Some > displays cannot support that resolution. Search with google, for your > display and see it if supports that resolution. I have a Samsung SyncMaster 753DF 17" monitor and it does support 1280x1024 but the mpeg movies don't play at that resolution. > Does your motherboard support an AGP slot, some intergrated video motherboards > do not support, or have a AGP slot. It would be kind of silly to buy a card > that can not be used on your board. Yes. AGP support exists. The current card is an AGP card. Regards -- Rishi
Re: Does NVIDIA 128 MB RAM (Pine) AGP Card support 1280x1024 and play mpeg videos in X windows?
>Rishi > But I'm unable to play mpeg videos in 1280x1027 resolution. >So therefore I wanted to know if I buy this video card: Pine, 128 MB >NVIDIA AGP Card, FX model, that it would work on my Debian Sarge >system - meaning get high resolution and play mpeg videos? You really need to tell us a little more about your system, I assume you have a SIS chipset and what to know if you can switch graphics cards to get a higher resolution. A lot of that depends on the monitor, lcd, or display you are using. Some displays cannot support that resolution. Search with google, for your display and see it if supports that resolution. Does your motherboard support an AGP slot, some intergrated video motherboards do not support, or have a AGP slot. It would be kind of silly to buy a card that can not be used on your board. If your talking about playing higher resolutions such as HD content in 1080i or 1080p playback, you might not have the cpu power to do that. It's also a good chance if you have a vga monitor that it will not support the higher resolutions that HD will demand. I would suggest you post your system spec's and then we can get a better idea of what is required. Gnu_Raiz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Does NVIDIA 128 MB RAM (Pine) AGP Card support 1280x1024 and play mpeg videos in X windows?
Hi I have a VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 86C326 5598/6326 (rev 0b) (prog-if 00 [VGA]) But I'm unable to play mpeg videos in 1280x1027 resolution. I need to change to 1024x768 resolution and then I am able to play videos I posted a message on the SiS forum here to get some help. http://www.winischhofer.at/sisforum/viewtopic.php?t=175 However, I'm assuming that it may not be possible. So therefore I wanted to know if I buy this video card: Pine, 128 MB NVIDIA AGP Card, FX model, that it would work on my Debian Sarge system - meaning get high resolution and play mpeg videos? Thanks Regards -- Rishi
Re: 128 MB RAM
On Mon, Nov 30, 1998 at 04:47:14PM -0600, Dana G Haugli wrote: > Hi! > > I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. > I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the > HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? > You need to rerun the command "lilo" for changes to take effect. -Michele
Re: 128 MB RAM
Yep, it's resolved. I put the line append="mem=128M" at the beginning of lilo.conf and then ran lilo. After that, lilo recognized all the memory. Thanks for all the help! Dana
Re: 128 MB RAM
IIRC you have to type the full line 'append "mem=128M"' including the 'append' part. HTH, G.S. - ---"Michael B. Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 07:48:15AM +0100, Daniel Elenius wrote: > > Dana G Haugli writes: > > >Hi! > > > > > >I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. > > >I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the > > >HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? -snip- _ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: 128 MB RAM
On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 07:48:15AM +0100, Daniel Elenius wrote: > Dana G Haugli writes: > >Hi! > > > >I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. > >I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the > >HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? > > There's a patch that fixes that. You can find it...somewhere.:-)..where > you usually find your patches (dont remember). Or, you can try the > newest development kernels, they fix it too. > The newest stable kernel (2.0.36) also recognizes >64 meg without help. Mike
Re: 128 MB RAM
Dana G Haugli writes: >Hi! > >I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. >I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the >HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? There's a patch that fixes that. You can find it...somewhere.:-)..where you usually find your patches (dont remember). Or, you can try the newest development kernels, they fix it too.
RE: 128 MB RAM
On 30-Nov-98 Dana G Haugli wrote: > Hi! > > I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. > I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the > HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? > > Thanks > > Dana Haugli > > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < > /dev/null > Did you put «append» before "mem=128M"? 1. You also need to put append like that: append="mem=128M" 2. After that you also need to run at the shell prompt: /sbin/lilo 3. Then reboot... Message envoyé le 30-Nov-98 à 18:40:00 Par Mario Bertrand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: 128 MB RAM
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Dana G Haugli wrote: > I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. > I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the > HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? Try: append="mem=128M" Best regards, Nuno Carvalho ?? Nuno Emanuel F. Carvalho Dep. Informatics Engineering University of Coimbra PGP key available at finger ??
Re: 128 MB RAM
Dana G Haugli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: | I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. | I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the | HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? You added a line like: append="mem=128M" to your /etc/lilo.conf and then ran lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf rebooted and you still didn't see all 128MB? I suspect you either didn't rerun lilo before rebooting or added the line improperly. Gary
128 MB RAM
Hi! I have 128 MB of RAM on my computer, but Linux only recognizes up to 64 MB. I have tried adding "mem=128M" to my lilo config file as recommended in the HARDWARE HOWTO, but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? Thanks Dana Haugli
