Greener than grass newbie.................
 

FC3 dual boot with XP and the FC3 seems to be slower than the XP. Is this normal? Dell 4600 w/ 3Ghz P4 with 1 Gig ram. Any pointers for a newbie would be greatly appreciated.

This is normally caused by unneeded services (like mail servers, etc) running by default. Turning off all the services you don't need should speed things up.

Here are a few that are next to useless on a desktop machine that can be safely turned off:

postfix
sendmail
apache
cups (if you don't have a printer)
smb (if you don't file share with windows machines)
sshd (again, if no local network or if you don't need remote access, shut her down).

Try this
 

You could see a significant speed increase if the kernel was tuned a bit . What I do even before turning off the unneeded services is to make a kernel specifically for my Pentium 4 proccessor. And since your machine is so fast it shouldn't take a lot of time! This is how I do it. All legal resposibility lies with you, of course. But it's not risky because you will always have the generic kernel to boot from if the new kernel doesn't work.

First, make sure you have the kernel development tools and kernel source installed, and upen up an X console as root user.

Second, as root user cd to your /usr/src/linux2.4 directory.

Third, vi the Makefile and take the hash mark (#) out of line 79.

Fouth, make a preliminary config file by issuing the command "make oldconfig".

Fifth, copy the hidden config file to another directory like so... cp .config /home

Sixth, clear out all the old files in the source like so... make mrproper

Seventh, copy the config file back like so.... cp /home/.config /usr/src/linux2.4

Eighth, start your X configuration program - I like it better than menuconfig..... make xconfig

Ninth, select Pentium 4 processor, and not much else, unless you want to gamble. Save & exit.

This is where the fun starts.... make dep

Next, make clean

Next, make the kernel like so... make bzImage

Next, make the kernel modules.... make modules

Next, install the modules.... make modules_install

Next, install the new kernel like so... make install


And voila! You will have both your old kernel and new one, as well as Windows XP to boot from when you restart your computer!
You can then see for yourself what only one change to the kernel can do. Compare and see.

And if it will do that for only one change, imagine how fast it would be if you made a kernel to match only the hardware you have!


Hope this helps,


Harry

Re: Try this
 

he is running FC3, your kernel guide is for a 2.4 kernel.. odds are he is running a 2.6 kernel. last FC3 does not come with the kernel source so it would need be downloaded and installed first.

Ooopps!
 

Thanks for pointing this out. I thought I downloaded Fedora 3 but guess it was only Fedora 1.

Can the same thing be accomplished by compiling your own kernel? Is that what your instructions are?

I think you should do both - turn off unneccessary processes and also recompile the kernel. But as pointed out the steps involved aren't the same for Fedora Core 3. Sorry for the confusion.

Harry

Same steps right? I found a tutorial on here for fedora compile. Anything short of the machine catching fire is reversible.

Same steps but no need for "make dep".

Well.....................i compiled me a new kernel and all I missed was my modem driver. Seems to open apps faster. No fires or smoke ......so it must be somewhat successful. Thanks for the advise.