Question about linux speed...
 

First off, let me say this.. I love linux and everything about it... but...

I had always heard that linu was sooo much faster than Windows...And that it runs great on older hardware.. the latter I have proven several times.. But I have one question.. My notebook is a P4 2.4GHz processor with 512 MB DDR Ram.. and a 40 GB HD... It dual boots XP Pro and Debian Sarge... I have a side (project) computer.. with which I test out new distro's before installing them on anything of value... this side computer is a 466MHz Celeron... 5 GB HD, 256 SDRAM (MoBo is maxed out), and it's also running debian sarge... nearly the exact same set-up as far as programs, and configuration...

The old computer seems to run debian, not quite-but almost, as fast as my notebook does... the only thing obviously quite a bit slower is kernel bootup time... is this that debian runs very fast on older hardware.. but also runs about the same on new hardware.. or is it just that I need to recompile my kernel on my notebook or what? I realize i could never install XP on that old computer("technically" i could but it would run like a 1-legged dog named 'lil brudder) and even 2000 pro ran quite slow.. but why does it run so much slower than XP on my notebook? I have heard that kernel recompiles make it faster... but will it make that much of a difference?

Some examples are that.. Mozilla takes about 4 seconds to open on either... maybe i'm just spoiled.. but that seems like a long wait to open the web browser... Evolution takes about 6 or 7 seconds....

I don't mind this wait... because I've never had a kernel panic yet.. never any problems in linux that I didn't cause, I'm just curious... thanks...

The Mozilla Suite is quit slow, it's little brother Firefox is much faster. But besides that you have much more data bandwidth on the faster pc. It's not just the processor, but the DDR memory which makes it really faster. It is significantly faster than SDRAM.

Next to that is more memory on Linux never wasted, it's being used as cache, so programs started previously will start faster the second time.

Compiling a kernel isn't really necessary, just make sure you use a prebuilt kernel for your processor design. A k7-kernel will run much faster on an AMD than a standard install kernel for i386.

Thanks for the reply.

Actually, i was referring to firefox.. but that's okay... I may try to recompile the kernel for my processor.. I wanted to recompile to add ACPI and other stuff, as well as take out what I don't need... P4 is considered i686 correct?

to recompile, do i select the processor type within the source code configuration.. or what?

I haven't used Windows in over two years, so maybe I don't notice such things...lol

686 is for PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/PIV, a prebuilt kernel would be kernel-image-2.6.7-1-686 or choose Pentium IV in your menu- or xconfig before compiling.

ACPI can be built in or use the modules and add acpi=on in your bootline in /etc/boot/grub/menu.lst

Linux is really faster than any OS, has ever existed on Earth, especially when the whole software is compiled for your processor architecture (in your case i686, i guess). Recompiling the kernel is always a good idea but it won't make programs run a lot faster. Debian Sarge is really great and fast (I agree with you) but if you want to feel the outstanding speed of Linux, you should try Yoper (Debian-based). Hope that help

Well, I definitely know that, on my notebook graphical apps are much faster on XP than on linux.. I also know that background functions -- such as MySQL or PostgreSQL -- are much faster..

I also know that the previous poster has never used or read any documentation on FreeBSD which, on ANY given hardware, will outperform any other operating system; including linux... But it's also much more difficult to configure/use...

Again, I want to say I'm not complaining, because it works great.. I just never have gotten that outstanding performance I was expecting on high-end hardware... On the low-end hardware.. I always get much better than could ever be expected... I don't know... I'm not worried about it though...

Nautilus, OOo, and Mozilla are slow, as for the rest, it also depends what DE/wm you are using: KDE and Gnome are heavy and slower than IceWM, Fluxbox, WMaker, AfterStep, and XFCE4.

My box seems faster if i choose ReiserFS when partitioning.

PII 266 128 MB RAM IceWM/Fluxbox

i guess this goes back to the "percieved vs. actual" speed debate. users need an indication that a program is loading...and the rate at which a progress bar fills (even if it fills multiple times) is the only measure most people use to percieve speed.

however, i agree that windows starts firefox faster (perhaps the developers have put more effort into the windows version).

if you are really that concerned about speed, do not use GNOME. switch to fluxbox or icewm (or even kde...it's bloated, but faster).

to upgrade your kernel so that it is optimized for your P4 processor specifically, all you need to do is

reboot and select this new kernel from grub or lilo. you don't need to worry about compiling anything.

the default debian kernel is optimized and general enough to run on a 386 processor or anything better. by installing an optimized kernel for your processor, you will be unlocking it's potentential in a similar manner as windows (note that microsoft sets minimum specs so that they don't have to support say something as old as a 386 processor on winxp).

good luck.

edit: oh, and check out "hdparm" (apt-get install hdparm) to optimize hard drive performance.

edit 2: newer versions of windows also preemtively load commonly-used executables (something that debian doesn't do yet...i think fedora is the only distro that does it). the lack of this feature in debian could explain the percieved slowness vs. windoze.

I'm not "concerned" with the speed... I was just curious... I love Gnome.. and I dispise KDE (don't hate me, I just think it's too cartoonish [like Macs]).. I've run IceWM on a small box with Vector... I also have it on my debian... and yes, it's fast... though next-to-featurless...

I am going to upgrade to the 2.6.7 kernel... but i'm going to recompile.. because I want the experience in doing it... not necessarily because I think I'll get so much of a performance increase... thanks for all the posts... I just like seeing users inputs in this matter...

check out this post for some helpful notes on the compilation process.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=206992

go with 2.6.8 if you're going to compile (it's not available as an image yet).

coincidentally, i like GNOME also...even though it is slower. it's just intuitive and feels right i guess.

just to get a rough estimate of how much of a difference the DE (desktop environment) makes on firefox load time, i tried it under kde and gnome.

well, under kde, i barely counted to 2 before firefox was loaded.

under gnome, i completely counted to 5.

(900 MHz AMD Athlon system)

take from that what you will, but i think your original question should be changed to state "why are apps so much slower to load on gnome than other operating systems/desktop environments?"

again, i'm still using gnome as my primary DE, but i would really like to know the answer to this question too.

"I've run IceWM on a small box with Vector... I also have it on my debian... and yes, it's fast... though next-to-featurless..."

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ighlight=icewm

if it wraps, try this:

http://tinyurl.com/6ml7w

#apt-get install icewm icewm-themes iceme

IceWM is the most underrated wm IMHO. I made that mistake too, but under careful examination, due to the fact i was looking for something light and fast for my old box (PII 266), i discovered that indeed, it has everything you ever wanted in a wm.

To me, it has everything: a taskbar (which you can put in auto-hide or double the width), with virtual desktops (which you can add or substract), a main menu, the time in military time or not, the date, a cpu and net monitors. You can edit the Preferences ~/.icewm/preferences with mc (midnight commander) or your favorite editor. By default it comes with Alt+Tab for switching screens, Ctrl+Alt+t to call the xterm, Alt+F9 to minimize windows, Alt+F10 to maximize.

The main menu can be altered (substract or add apps) and icons put in the taskbar with iceme (icewm menu editor), which can be installed with apt-get, and keybindings (shortcuts) you can edit in your ~/.icewm/keys , which really made the icons on the taskbar obsolete (so i took them out), because of the sheer speed to execute the apps in question by typing the keys combinations.

I installed it on my wife's laptop (PII 300) amd she dropped XFCE4, it was faster to type ctrl+alt+w to get OOo, or ctrl+alt+l to get mozilla mail, than using the touchpad, you choose what key combinations and assign it to an app. I checked it with 'memstat', i was using 40 mb of ram for Opera, xterm, and xfe and flying, i put on the IceBlueCurve theme and it looked just like XFCE4.

I guess you get the idea...i'm an ice fan.

Here's another good article on kernel compiling.

/TLV

I've found this thread by specifically searching for the term "slow" ... so maybe that already explains my situation.

It's not that I dislike Linux or Debian or anything - it's just that it feels slow to me and actually is REAL slow at times, because for some reason I get some kind of hangups after a longer time of use.
First of all I'm using not "pure" Debian Unstable but a current version of SimplyMEPIS 2004 as well as Munjoy Linux - both come with their own kernels (2.6.7 and 2.6.4) but most other parts of the systems are simple debian unstable / testing.
Now I experience these hangups after all sorts of installs of MEPIS on my notebook - updated packages don't seem to do anything about it and I can't really reproduce it. It just happens during normal file management / copying larger files.
I'm using KDE on all my setups btw and won't change that (it's the reason I use Linux) and hope I can get nice performance without changing my WM.

Could Debian's use of i386 for all their packages be a performance problem? It always seemed to me that Debian was faster than say SuSE or Mandrake which are optimized fi 586 I think, so maybe that's not it.

Just to be sure I installed Yoper and I really have to say it _is_ faster - no matter what one might think of their "marketing" or the claims about speed. The real problem I have with it is that it's not Debian based and I can't really use all the Debian resources.

Is there a way I could get this kind of performance on a Debian system without re-compiling every single package on my system? Quite a few poeple say that Yoper is even faster than Gentoo, so architecture optimized compiling doesn't seem to be all that can be done.
Is some kind of preemptive load possible with Linux (Debian) as well? Maybe "prelinking" can do something - I read about it here and there and that it should enable e.g. KDE applications to launch faster and "not use kdeinit". Problems is it's still a bit of a mystery to me what "prelinking" actually means and what would be needed to be done. I read that you can set an environment variable for KDE (KDE_IS_PRELINKED or soemthing similar) but can't find more information.

Any tips for me that don't involve too much compiling? I'd rather compile a kernel for the learning experience than because I have too.

darklord,

my suggestion would be to ditch mepis and become a Debian vanilla monster mack. you'll want to get the debian-installer (http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/). it is quite straightforward, but there is a lot of reading involved (and do read because the prompts tell you important info). install sarge (the debian-installer default) with the 2.6 kernel during install (type "linux26" at the installer boot prompt). install your base packages (kde/gnome/etc) with "tasksel." when your system is up and running, upgrade to a processor-optimized kernel ("apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.7-1-686" on intel or "apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.7-1-k7" on amd). reboot into the new kernel, and use kde as your desktop environment (icewm if you want truely optimal performance, but minimalistic features).

this should get you performance near that of yoper.

as for standard packages; not too many if any are processor-specific optimized. so in that respect, you won't be able to achieve the same performance level as yoper. perhaps a feature request will convince the debian devs to update the package build system so that processor-specific packages are auto-built alongside the basic 386 packages, but for now, this doesn't exist. it would be very nice to see this in Etch (the next testing version).

if you want processor-specific optimized software out of your debian system now, you will have to compile the source yourself.

i'd say turn on the prelinking features in kde. here are the gory technical details about prelinking.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/prelink-howto.xml

edit: there is a debian package called "prelink." i have not yet tried it, but it may be interesting to see what effect installing it would have ("apt-get install prelink"). the gentoo doc above discusses prelink usage.