Hey,
I'm a total newbie who just installed Knoppix on an old Compaq Presario (a 1690 I believe). The thing is, I don't think it's recognizing a 256 MB RAM chip I snagged and installed into the open slot. The RAM is the right spec and was recognized under Windows 98, but Knoppix is so slow it's unusable. Also I can hear the HD spinning as it swaps back and forth. Is there something I can/should do to get it to recognize the RAM? Thanks in advance for all your help.

Best,
oliver

When you say you installed Knoppix, do you mean on your HD or is it running off the CD? If so that is probably half your problem. Your CD-ROM drive is not going to be nearly as fast as your HD...

The memory if recognized by your bios not Knoppix, however, you can check installed ram. Open a "terminal" type:
su <enter>
cat /proc/meminfo <enter>

You can speed up knoppix by installing it on your HD or copying the CD image to your HD. Either one will greatly improve performance.

Good Luck

KC

Thanks for your reply. As for your question, it's installed to the hard drive.

Is this close to the specs of your LapTop?
Compaq Presario 1690
14.1 - CD-ROM - CPU: K6-2 - 400 MHz - HDD: 6.4 GB - 64 MB or 256 you said you installed.

Although the K6-2 is not lightning fast it should be adiquate to run knoppix/KDE reasonably. Your problem may be a combination of CPU/Memory/Video-card/SWAP size problem. If it is recognizing your 256 ram then check your swap size and that you have the correct display driver.

Also try running a lighter WM (window manager) like FluxBox... see if that speeds up things a little.

KC

KC—
That's the one. It has 64 onboard and one user-accessible slot. I dropped a 256 in there but I don't think it's recognized. I'll try the meminfo command next time I get back to that computer.

With 320 RAM I'm sure it'd run fine but as it stands now it seems to be seriously choking. It reminds me of when the 256 chip in my old PowerBook running OS X died, leaving me with 64 megs. Anyhow thanks for your continued help...