Linux very slow on a P4?
 

I've been using Linux for some time now on a 2002 P4 (1.7Ghz) desktop with 768MB RAM (266Mhz DDR). I used to have Windows XP on this computer and it was very responsive. When I switched to Linux, I found GNOME and (especially) KDE to be very slow. Although I heard that KDE 'should' run well on this system, I switched to lighter environments - XFCE and LXDE, in the hope that things would improve. They DID run faster than KDE/GNOME, but still much slower than XP, and the machine still feels unresponsive.

I recently installed a system resource app that can be constantly monitored. My memory usage is always very low, so that's not the problem. But my CPU usage becomes 100% even when performing basic tasks - moving big files, or even opening a new tab in a web browser. The CPU is NOT always 100% though... in idle state it's 0-2%.

Now, I know that my P4 is an old and obsolete processor... but should it be THIS bad? Does processor performance slowly deteriorate over time? Or do you folks think something else is to blame here? Thanks in advance.

P.S. It's the same with most Linux distribs... I've tried several, and almost all the major ones.

Hi

I have experienced many similar problems on systems using the Pentium IV 1.7 and 1.8 GHz processors. The Overall performance of many distributions was particularly poor. For example Ubuntu 8x was very slow to load, and application execution time was slow.

In my case I run a number of 1.8 GHz Pentium IV machines for various purposes and put up with the poor interactive response (a number of those machines are simple header-less servers, etc), or have replaced the 1.7 and 1.8 GHz processors with later 2.0+ GHz processors where possible.

Despite some significant time experimenting, I finally concluded in my case that it was preferable to replace systems of this class with faster (later generation) equipment as it was a a cheap and quick solution.


There are significant internal CPU architectural differences between the Pentium 1.7 - 1.8 era processors and the 2.0 GHz (and later) CPUs. Similarly the motherboard designs and features improve with the introduction of the 2.0 GHz and later era CPU technologies.

You might like to consider checking if your motherboard can handle a Pentium IV 2.0 GHz or higher processor and/or upgrade the motherboard. Note that a lot of the early Pentium motherboards may or may not support a 2.0 GHz processor. Some of the earlier boards are restricted to 1.7 and 1.8 GHz processors.


You are quite correct in your statement that they "seemed" to perform much better when running MS Windows. However, this isn't a really fair comparison since the two operating system designs are different and exploit CPU features with differing demands.


Hardware upgrade is recommended to avoid frustration.

Hope that assists

Chris

PS. If you are interested in the differences between the various Pentium IV processors (especially cache, etc) take a look at www.cpu-world.com which is readable and quite informative.

C.

What is your graphics card, and have you installed the correct drivers (if applicable)? Improper graphics support can make the system feel sluggish and unresponsive in my experience. Also try disabling the Compiz desktop effects (if you haven't already).

Personally I like to use non-Gnome/KDE distros like CrunchBang, SliTaz, or AntiX for older hardware. I've had good success with those three even on my Pentium 3. Puppy is also popular for older hardware (haven't used it much myself).

@cgtueno: That's interesting... in fact, it's the first ever confession I've heard from a Linux user about Linux running slower than Windows, on any hardware. ;) Jokes apart, thanks for the informative response. This is not my primary machine (that one's a Core 2 Duo), so I think I'll just let it be, and not take the trouble to upgrade. Do you think compiling a custom kernel and using something like Gentoo could help in a situation like this? I have neither the time nor the expertise to actually do this though.

@snowpine: I don't have a graphics card. I use the integrated graphics solution in the D845GLAD motherboard. The driver section in my xorg.conf file says 'intel', which I think is the correct driver. Do you think the 'vesa' driver could speed things up? And btw... I could never dream of using compiz... things are slow enough without it. And yes, I could keep transitioning to lighter and lighter distributions, but it's strange because most Linux people will say that a P4 should handle GNOME fine. And it's also strange that simply moving a file, or running a package update should make the CPU go to 100%. I'm using a really light distrib already - PeppermintOS, which is a VERY stripped-down version of Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop environment (which is very light).

vesa driver is worth a try; I have read some bad things about Intel 845 support in Ubuntu (do a search over on ubuntuforums.org)

Sorry I do not have more concrete suggestions but I have no personal experience with that chipset.

A Pentium 4 at that speed is slower than a Pentium III, but it is too late to tell you that. Also DDR single channel memory will not help the processor because it will just put another bottleneck for the Pentium 4. RAMBUS memory is better for bandwidth, but it has higher latency. The Pentium 4 requires both a high speed clock and high memory bandwidth to do well.

I suggest recompile all programs with the mtune=pentium4 CFLAG for the best performance. The easiest to do this is with either Gentoo or Arch. If it is still slow, the hard drive will be next device to cause a slow down. Since kernel 2.6.16, the IDE performance have taken a dive for the worst, so you will have poor performance. IDE using today's latest stable kernel will only get worst because it goes through a SCSI layer. Developers say this should not affect its performance, but it actually does. Anything that goes through layers will affect performance. If you want performance, I recommend Western Digital SE16 or Blue series or Hitachi. Stay away from Seagate.

I think you need latest RAM. Because Linux require more space.
Or you can also do one thing that you use advance processor.
Make P4 convert into advance processor. If it is possible.

i have a dell with a 2001 p4 2 ghz and 1 gig of ram and a geforce 2 mx 400 card
yes very very old
But Arch with gnome runs just fine
and so dose CentOS 5.5 and the last version of fedora i ran Fedora 11

now openSUSE was VERY slow ( it is just a bit over bloated - the kitchen sink , and your neighbors sink also .)

however 768 meg of ram is a bit low

if you do not mind a big learning curve ( very big)
install a min. Arch with xfce

if the box is for just net and office
CentOS and gnome or xfce will do .
just keep the install small and do not run to many start up/background services

Debian with lxde flies on my crappy old pc with a tiny VIA 1.4 cpu with 2gb ram and a nvidia 5200 pci card.

It even works OK on the kids OLPC XO running Debian on a 8gb sdhc, the XO only has a 400mhz cpu and 256mb ram.

I'm with you on kde. Let me explain the high cpu usage. Poor video rendering or hard disk access just eat cpu cycles. Example from my laptop: I had 320 fps in glxgears, with 99% cpu usage for glxgears, and 50% for X (Twin core). I found that the radeon driver was pointed at a radeonhd lib (!), fixed that and a few other things and got 375FPS with 10% usage for glxgears and basically zero for X. I'm not there yet, but on the way.

glxgears is the wrong way to show performance. Using glxgears is a better way to show that 3D is working. To this day people still think using glxgers is a good way of showing for performance and this is is just wrong. The only way to show 3D performance is to download a game demo and run a benchmark script.


The latest RAM? Using DDR3 is actually slower than DDR on terms of CAS. Linux does not need a lot of RAM. People have gotten by using 64 megabytes of RAM when they are using GUI. Do not need a lot of RAM to run Linux. Windows these days requires a lot of RAM close to 8 gigabytes to just be OK. Sure atriya could upgrade the processor, but Pentium 4 came in two sockets in those days. One is 478 and the other is 423. It is hard to find either of them these days. Finding one that is compatible will be hard. I recommend just do a complete system upgrade.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support...glad/doc_guide

QUOTE :
... AGP Graphics Cards 4X and 8X at 1.5 and 0.8 Volt supported

Suggest : Plug in any old nvidia graphics and get high speed.

The Linux 'intel' driver is slow. Not usable for games.
...

@ Electro: Agree fully - glxgears is a poor test. It was something I had done and had stats on to point the poster. There is also phoronix test suite.

Hmmm, my old IBM Netvista systems runs fairly fast for me. Of course i don't play the latest, fancy games but for basic stuff it runs good. I use the nouveau driver for the older nvidia onboard card. I'm currently using Mandriva with LXDE environment also. It have 512mb of memory and a 20gb drive.

"glxgears is a poor test" true but it is a good test to see if something is busted on your system
if the frame rate goes from 900's to 30 - there is something wrong

other than that not a good test