SUSE is sloooooow

[minthaka]

I have a simple question: why is SuSe so terribly slow ?
I have a 64-bit Intel-D 2,66 GHz processor with 2x256MB of RAM on Intel motherboard. Still, it works like Pentium 3 on WinXP for example. It takes eternity to invoke a program.
Is this because of RPMs (I mean I should have installed everything from sopurces instead?), or something in the kernel is unreally overwhelmed by default ?
minthaka

[eraker]

I found SuSE to be really slow until I disabled a bunch of processes that I don't use. The number one offender was Beagle, which I never used. In addition, I disabled all of the ZMD-rug stuff, but that was because I switched to use smart as an updater.

[minthaka]

Please, tell me what should I switch off, and how to do it, in order to get an acceptable system ! I'm using SUSE for more than 6 moths hoping some day my PC-donkey should become a mustang.
minthaka

[scrarfussi]

Yeah Mine Too Is Really Slow Terrible Slow But I've Got Used To It Some Days It Decides To Speed Up And I'm Happy Lol

[moriarty]

Here are a few tips I pick up from user "broch" in Suse forum :-

Increase number of concurenlty running processes in the udev session:
yast -> system -> /etc/sysconfig editor
expand system -> udev
and increase the numbers (at some point you will not see any difference - then stop)
expand system -> kernel
change:
SCHED_MINTIMESLICE 1000
SCHED_MAXTIMESLICE 40000

expand system ->
change:
expand File System -> mdadm
disable
MDADM_SCAN
set "0" for
MDADM_DELAY

MDADM is for RAID, so don't touch it if you have RAID setup

K menu -> Personal Settings -> KDE Components -> Service Manager

only keep:
KDED Favicon Module
Konqueror preloader (if using Konqueror)
Kwallet Daemon Module can be disabled if you are not using Kwallet

also leave
KDED Media Manager
and Media Notifier Daemon

the rest can be disabled

based on the errors in
/var/log/XFree86.0.log
disable unnecessary font paths and resolutions in /etc/X11/xorg.conf (keep backup file!)

also take look at
/var/log/boot.msg

edit
/etc/inittab
and scroll down to
# getty-programs for the normal runlevels
# <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
# The "id" field MUST be the same as the last
# characters of the device (after "tty").
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6


chande to
# getty-programs for the normal runlevels
# <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
# The "id" field MUST be the same as the last
# characters of the device (after "tty").
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
#3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
#4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
#5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
#6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

this will save memory (also this may be considered as security option)

To speed up internet transfer times disable IPV6 , as most web servers will still be using IPV4 .

open terminal
and run as root:
echo "alias net-pf-10 off" >> /etc/modprobe.conf
echo "alias ipv6 off" >> /etc/modprobe.conf
You can also turn off IPV6 in KDE

finally you may try to re-kompile kernel not for the faint hearted)
turn preempt on, disable all unused stuff, use optimization flags during kernel compilation.


to see if any of this help:
1)
boot computer before any change and check memory usage
free -m

to see if boot time improved install bootchart. It will show which component during boot
process is taking too much time, so you can adjust boot parameters.

Services to Disable
nfs depends on portmapper. Disable portmapper too.

below settings are for beginners, but you should learn what these are for:
aaeventd if you don't want and don't know how to use apparmor disable this (also switch to expert mode and disable boot.apparmor)
acpid leave
alsasound leave
atd disable
auditd disable
autofs disable
autoyast disable
cron leave
cups (if you have printer leave othervise disable)
cupsrenice (see above)
dbus leave
earlykbd leave!!! keaboard
earlykdm leave
earlysyslog leve
esound disable
fam disable
fbset disable
gpm disable
gssd disable
haldaemon leave
idmapd disable
joystick disable (unless you are using it)
kbd leave keyboard
ksysguardd disable
lirc disable
lm_sencors disable
mdadmd disable
mdnsd disable
mircocode (if you are using AMD CPU disable, leave for intel)
network leave
nfs disable (first disable portmap)
nfsboot disable
nfsserver disable
nmb disable
novell-zmd (well this is famous suse updater, if you are using other PM disable, otherwise leave, but this piece of c**p crashes frequently)
nscd disable
ntp disable
openct disable
pscsd disable
portmap disable
postfix disable
powerd disable
pwersaved (leave for suspend, othervise disable)
random leave
raw disable
resmgr leave
rpasswdd disable
rsyncd
running-kernel disable
saslauthd disable
smb disable
smbfs disable
smpppd disable
spamd disable
splash leave (or not - this is splash screen during boot process)
splash_early leave
SuSEfirewall2_setup leave
svcgssd disable
syslog leave
xdm leave
xfs disable
xinetd disable
ybind disable


the above settings are for simple workstation you should also disable sshd not listed by you. for some services there is not really value e.g. running-kernel (this is not kernel, but info about), moreover this sevice will start after each kernel upgrade, so each time you will have to stop it.
I suggest to learn about apparmor, nfs, and samba/nfs, xinetd at least and when you know and need these, start services and configure them.
If you disable earlysyslog/syslog you will not be able to use network. cron is needed for several services so you should leave running these.

hope this will help

[eraker]

The following looks like it disables all virtual terminals between F3 and F6:

change to
# getty-programs for the normal runlevels
# <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
# The "id" field MUST be the same as the last
# characters of the device (after "tty").
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
#3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
#4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
#5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
#6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

Personally, I like to keep those running. Is this what this does?

[eraker]

Actually, moriarty's post is great. There was some stuff in there I didn't know about. I tried a few things and my boot time improved noticeably.

Thanks!

[minthaka]

Thanks for great advices. I've downloaded xfce desktop from packman.links2linux website (8.1 MB) and ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/opensuse...24-12.i586.rpm
and found it very useful. It seems to me to be a single app desktop. It can help playing multimedia files on weaker PC's. For example the memory consumption is only 1/3 of KDE, and thats a big deal!
I wonder if it was possibile to switch of some options in KDE to get more light desktop ? Like in WinXP: a desktop optimized for a better performance, with no shadows beneath icons an so on.
I don't know why do we have always to develop more consuming things!
minthaka