Performance Issues

[Silver_Sonic]

Ok first of all, I have 128mb RAM and unknown processor. Whenever I run a program it takes anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes before the program actually starts. My question is, if I open up KSysGard, what do I need to keep running to be able to just use Firefox, KWrite, and The GIMP? Or, if anyone knows anything I could do to speed things up, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[fingal]

Hi

You probably just need more memory. If you're using a low spec machine with - let's say - KDE then it needs plenty of system resources. You could use a less resource hungry desktop environment like fluxbox ... There are other environments, but I have little or no experience with them, and I'll let other people jump in there. I quite like Windowmaker though.

You may have heard that 'Linux uses less resources than Windows'. This is only partially true, and it depends on setting it up correctly. If you have unwanted software running in the background it would help to disable it. Examples might be Apache webserver, mysql etc ... It's a long list.

-fingal

[Silver_Sonic]

Thank you.

[Kojak]

RAM eating desktops/windowmanagers in descending order:

KDE
Gnome
XFCE
Enlightenment
Windowmaker
Fluxbox
IceWM

If you have only a limited amount of RAM it is useful to check in the MCC the services that you have running. Some, like ssh, bluetooth and NFS can be disabled quite often. The less services you run, the less RAM will be used.