Linux KDE/GNOME slower than XP
 

Hi,

I have recently switched to Linux, redhat 8.0, because XP was too slow on my computer. Now I find myself waiting up to 30 seconds to load the browser (Mozilla browser) when i have XMMS open. It's ok for it to take time but I just don't think it is supposed to be that long... Is there maybe anything i have missed during install or any boost settings i have to make (Though I doubt it would change anything) ? I would really appreciate answers, I DON'T want to switch back to Windows =(

Sebastian Andersson

Welcomce to LQ.

Mozilla does use a lot of memory. Firebird (uses pretty muchte same code as mozilla) should be a bit faster.

You could also look at what services you ahve running and disable any you don;t need such as web servers etc (if you aren't using them)

allright I'll check that! thanks, but could it also be the desktop environement that "eats" all the memory? If so, ar there any other good desktops out there?

What are your computer specs? Are you running KDE? I have an older pc that would not run xp very well either. I switched to Linux but I would bog down in KDE or Gnome. I switched to lighter weight managers and a faster browser which helped a lot.

Try xfce, windowmaker, afterstep....

If you want a really light desktop it is better to go with a window manager such as fluxbox.

I have a Pentium Celeron 433Mhz, with a 32MB TNT card, 128MB of Ram. Have benn told it is more than enough for Linux... How do you install a new desktop manager? can I do it from the GNOME (that I use more often) or KDE ?

and one even more important question, HOW do I install them tar files? or .src.rpm? I've never done it before, complete newbie... thx in advance

untar them and read the README and INSTALL files first. it can be different for every package...

generally with tarballs it goes something like

./configure
make
make install

but that's no guarantee ... so read those README files...

oh, and rpm's ... depending on your distro you may have a gui tool for it, otherwise you use the rpm command on the CLI. Read some more about that, I'm not really an rpm person...

(the same goes for the windowmanagers, and then on the CLI just type xwmconfig and select whichever you want to start when you enter startx)

thanks for your help all, going to try it first thing tomorrow!

Also you could edit your .xsession (or .xinit) file to start your window manager. If one doesn't exits in your home directory simply take an empty file and save it as .xsession in it put:

#!/bin/bash
name of any program (such as xterm) you want to start when the window manager starts... followed at the end of the line by a "&"
repeat above for any program as many times (will most likely eat memory) but make sure you include a & at the end of the line.
the name of your window manager (which is not followed by a &).

An example would be:
#!/bin/bash
xterm &
xmms &
fluxbox

Hope that helps.

Your distro should have several alternative desktop environments included with it. I am using Mandrake 9.1 and have kde, gnome, enlightment, window maker, and a few others even. Search your cd's for em ;)