Having 768M of RAM, a 1.5GHz and a 120GHz for running Linux sounds pretty optimal. Unless you are a real power-user (read gamer/ heavy graphics/video/sound editoring I'd be suprised you are hitting hard limits. More memory will generally improve things, but it will only be of marginal benefit if you still of plenty of if you currently have lots of available buffers and/or cache. If your CPU is regularly 100% busy in system/user space you may simply need a faster CPU.
I would suggest running vmstat (install package procps if not there) while you are doing things when you think the machine is slow. You could even run say "vmstat 1 60" and paste the results back to the list. (This dumps vmstat statistics at 1 second intervals for 60 seconds). This will help show if you are running out of memory, if swap is being hit hard, how much disk i/o are using, and how busy the cpu is (including if is waiting on i/o a lot). A good idea is to run vmstat, watch it for 5 seconds (to get a baseline), then do what ever it is you are concerned about, and then let the machine idle again. If you can run this in a window (using always on top) you can see how your system is performing in real-time. Regards, Martin [email protected] On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 1:37 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > I have a laptop,a Fujistu S Series Lifebook running Hardy Heron. > > I've been told that it would run faster if I added to the memory and/or > changed the hard disc. > > I'm happy to do so, but I'm seeking advice to avoid mistakes, or, > since it's my case, large mistakes. > > I ran lshw and append the result. > > Can anyone advise on the best way to make my laptop go faster, please? > > Regards, > > Bill Bennett. > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
