suse running very slow
 

I just installed Suse 10 and the install was easy w/ no problems. Thing is, it runs soooo slowly. It is constantly using almost all my memory at all times! Even when I'm not doing anything! it averages like 90% even when the system is idle. And it's not my pc cause i used to run RH7 and it was much, much faster. It takes like 10 seconds to open firefox! Is this how Suse is, cause i heard it is a resource hog? Here is some info:

linux:/home/markus # free -l
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 515784 505236 10548 0 44704 181424
Low: 515784 505236 10548
High: 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 279108 236676
Swap: 72252 3080 69172

top - 15:55:22 up 1 day, 12:57, 2 users, load average: 0.58, 0.37, 0.21
Tasks: 98 total, 1 running, 88 sleeping, 0 stopped, 9 zombie
Cpu(s): 11.0% us, 1.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 87.7% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 515784k total, 506020k used, 9764k free, 44704k buffers
Swap: 72252k total, 3080k used, 69172k free, 181536k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
30370 markus 15 0 27480 14m 9872 S 10.0 2.8 0:07.46 gnome-terminal
5833 root 15 0 44480 36m 8504 S 1.7 7.1 16:13.66 X
6510 markus 15 0 19340 10m 7356 S 0.3 2.0 2:22.43 metacity
6621 markus 15 0 20388 10m 8392 S 0.3 2.1 0:09.45 multiload-apple
1 root 16 0 688 264 224 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.96 init
2 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
3 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.14 events/0
4 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.05 khelper
5 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthread
9 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid
327 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.14 kblockd/0
362 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 pdflush
363 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.61 pdflush
365 root 17 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0
364 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.27 kswapd0
955 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kseriod
1167 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.06 reiserfs/0
2148 root 12 -4 1864 944 628 S 0.0 0.2 0:01.92 udevd
2503 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kgameportd
2637 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd
3071 messageb 16 0 3524 1560 1320 S 0.0 0.3 0:01.60 dbus-daemon
3191 root 15 0 1888 912 716 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.81 syslog-ng
3196 root 16 0 1624 604 412 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.06 klogd
4080 root 15 0 2208 752 628 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.02 resmgrd
5562 mdnsd 16 0 1960 964 728 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.20 mdnsd


How can i fix this and improve system speed? Please keep in mind i am a linux rookie and more comfortable still in gnome than CLI. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ummm, it might still be your PC. What are the specs on your PC (processor speed, RAM, etc)? Comparing Suse 10 to Red Hat 7 is like comparing Windows XP to Windows 95. The Gnome desktop has become more bloated than in the days of Red Hat 7...

Maybe it's extra processes and modules. If you're feeling brave, you can compile a kernel designed to run only on your system; that would lighten things up.

What's the output of lsmod?

I see your post lists 9 'zombie' processes. Kill those in the system monitor (right click, kill process) and see if it makes a difference

Also, is DMA enabled for your hard drive?

hdparm -d /dev/hda

where /dev/hd* is the name of your hdd. It should read 'on'

Post back...