slow computer, sugggestions for speeding it up

liberalgeek · 04-15-2005, 08:07 PM

he whole computer runs exceptionally slow, about as slow as a dog with the
1958 flu, and the bubonic plague.

are there anythings that i can do to speed it up.

i am a windows geek but a complete linux newb.
proc 400mhz amd
320 mb ram

ksgill · 04-15-2005, 08:38 PM

which distro do you use? go for lighter x windoes system such as fluxbox.. that should speed it up. Also, the specs on that machine are also not that great

masonm · 04-15-2005, 10:16 PM

Shut down all running processes that you don't need. A lot of distros load up everything under the sun causing the system to slow to a crawl.

What distro are you running? What window manager? details please?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

cs-cam · 04-15-2005, 10:26 PM

I'd suggest using a small distro such as Damn Small Linux or a base distro like Arch, Debian or Slackware. Gentoo falls nicely into that list but with those specs, commpiling everything would take way too long. With the second part of my list, you will need to learn a bit as you go, those distros don't lay anything out for you at all, gotta know what you're doing but it's definitely the way to go if you want to work out how to get around

foo_bar_foo · 04-16-2005, 02:06 AM

some distributions specialize in that slow as a dog with dementia thing

one of the best things to learn to do for faster throughput is to recompile your kernel

config you kernel to support only your hardware exactly and nothing else
then when you compile it go into the Makefile and set the gcc optimization whats best for your processor and turn off the silent kernel compile so you can see if it's working properly