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Old 09-24-2003, 10:18 PM   #1
TheTruthHurts
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 6

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Thumbs down Mandrake 9.1 KDE runs slow with games and browsers


Ok im pretty new to linux, so bare with me.

Mandrake 9.1 is running so slow. It takes like 1-2full minutes to boot up mozilla, then like another min for it to goto google, or really any webpage. I guess this is all because of kde, and all the crap i installed that i dont really need. I just wanted to try out everything so I can see what suites me best. Anyways the most annoying part is that some of the games run like i was playing on a PI or something.

Heres my specs:

Asus A7N8x with Barton 2500+ slightly overclocked
onboard sound and nic (nvidia2-s chipset)
TNT2 Model 64 (32 mb)
WD 15Gb HDD
Verbatem 52x24x52 CD-R/RW

Anyone know anything that would help? I saw the topic on how to speed it up by like recompiling the kernel, but i would rather not get that far into the code for fear of screwing it all up. Although I could always reformat, I really just dont feel like going through all that.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 12:12 AM   #2
carlywarly
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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Sunny Southport, again.
Distribution: PCLinuxOS 0.93 and 0.92, Vector sometimes
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Have you downloaded the official nVidia drivers for your card? If not, do so. You also need to read the readme.txt file on their Linux page - it tells you how to install the drivers, and how to edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file, which you will need to do.

Additionally, make sure UDMA is enabled on your hard drive and CD. Go into the Mandrkae Control Centre, Software, Add Software - search for hdparm and install it. Then go into /etc/sysconfig/ and look for the file harddisks. I have edited mine to this -

# These options are used to tune the hard drives -
# read the hdparm man page for more information

# Set this to 1 to enable DMA. This might cause some
# data corruption on certain chipset / hard drive
# combinations. This is used with the "-d" option

USE_DMA=1

# Multiple sector I/O. a feature of most modern IDE hard drives,
# permitting the transfer of multiple sectors per I/O interrupt,
# rather than the usual one sector per interrupt. When this feature
# is enabled, it typically reduces operating system overhead for disk
# I/O by 30-50%. On many systems, it also provides increased data
# throughput of anywhere from 5% to 50%. Some drives, however (most
# notably the WD Caviar series), seem to run slower with multiple mode
# enabled. Under rare circumstances, such failures can result in
# massive filesystem corruption. USE WITH CAUTION AND BACKUP.
# This is the sector count for multiple sector I/O - the "-m" option
#
MULTIPLE_IO=16

# (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support (to interface card)
#
EIDE_32BIT=3

# Enable drive read-lookahead
#
LOOKAHEAD=1

# Add extra parameters here if wanted
# On reasonably new hardware, you may want to try -X66, -X67 or -X68
# Other flags you might want to experiment with are -u1, -a and -m
# See the hdparm manpage (man hdparm) for details and more options.
#
EXTRA_PARAMS=-X70

So, this file sorts out the hard drive, but if you have your cdr/w on hdc (secondary master) you need another file, too. Create a new text file and call it harddiskhdc - here's mine -

# These options are used to tune the hard drives -
# read the hdparm man page for more information

# Set this to 1 to enable DMA. This might cause some
# data corruption on certain chipset / hard drive
# combinations. This is used with the "-d" option

USE_DMA=1

# Multiple sector I/O. a feature of most modern IDE hard drives,
# permitting the transfer of multiple sectors per I/O interrupt,
# rather than the usual one sector per interrupt. When this feature
# is enabled, it typically reduces operating system overhead for disk
# I/O by 30-50%. On many systems, it also provides increased data
# throughput of anywhere from 5% to 50%. Some drives, however (most
# notably the WD Caviar series), seem to run slower with multiple mode
# enabled. Under rare circumstances, such failures can result in
# massive filesystem corruption. USE WITH CAUTION AND BACKUP.
# This is the sector count for multiple sector I/O - the "-m" option
#
MULTIPLE_IO=16

# (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support (to interface card)
#
EIDE_32BIT=3

# Enable drive read-lookahead
#
# LOOKAHEAD=1

# Add extra parameters here if wanted
# On reasonably new hardware, you may want to try -X66, -X67 or -X68
# Other flags you might want to experiment with are -u1, -a and -m
# See the hdparm manpage (man hdparm) for details and more options.
#
EXTRA_PARAMS=


Hope some of that helps.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 02:10 AM   #3
Kovacs
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Registered: Jul 2003
Distribution: FreeBSD 8.2 RELEASE
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Try turning off all the services off that you don't need as well.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 02:54 AM   #4
carstenbjensen
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Denmark, Europe, Earth
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 65

Rep: Reputation: 15
Hi,

You could also run hdparm from the command line (as root):
To enable DMA use (where hdx is your disk):
hdparm -d1 /dev/hdx

To enable DMA and other safe performance-enhancing options:
hdparm -d1 -A1 -m16 -u1 -a64 /dev/hdx

This is reset at reboot/shutdown, but put it in your rc.local script, and it gets run at boot.

Peace!
Carsten B. Jensen
 
Old 09-25-2003, 03:12 AM   #5
yapp
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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Netherlands
Distribution: SuSE (before: Gentoo, Slackware)
Posts: 613

Rep: Reputation: 30
Re: Mandrake 9.1 KDE runs slow with games and browsers

* How much ram does your system have? KDE could be compared with Windows XP in terms of ram-usage. (somewhat like 128 MB). You could choose to run another desktop environment.
* How high is your system load? (type "uptime", or "w" for this)
* What processes are running? (type "ps auxf"). Preferably, type this in the console; when the KDE is not running. (use Ctrl+Alt+F1..6, and (Ctrl+)Alt+F7 to get back)
* what network services are listening? (type "netstat -anpA inet")
* what process is most CPU expensive (type "top", and "q" to get out)
* Are there a lot of kernel modules loaded? (type "lsmod", or "/sbin/lsmod" if you're a normal user)
* If there anything your kernel tries to tell you? (type "dmesg | less", and "less /var/log/....")

btw, mozilla is a monster, but a great one. imho it takes too much time to load, but surfing should go very fast. Some people prefer MozillaFirebird; a stripped-down version of mozilla.

Quote:
Originally posted by TheTruthHurts
I saw the topic on how to speed it up by like recompiling the kernel, but i would rather not get that far into the code for fear of screwing it all up. Although I could always reformat, I really just dont feel like going through all that.
You're absolutely right. A new kernel makes your system a bit faster, but it won't solve the problems you suffer.
Rather focus on useless background processes.

Last edited by yapp; 09-25-2003 at 03:16 AM.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 04:56 AM   #6
codec
Member
 
Registered: Sep 2003
Location: mad.es.eu
Distribution: ubuntu 5.04 knoppix Slack91/10 freebsd51 vector4 redhat9
Posts: 304

Rep: Reputation: 30
load ksim and watch the CPU and memory stats. Probably some stupid things is running in the background.

I also suggest load manually saved session only.

Even with my A850+256MB ram, the browser would load in a few seconds. I use mozilla firebird.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 07:00 AM   #7
wuck
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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: barneveld.nl
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 170

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Quote:
Originally posted by carlywarly
Have you downloaded the official nVidia drivers for your card? If not, do so. You also need to read the readme.txt file on their Linux page - it tells you how to install the drivers, and how to edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file, which you will need to do.
Right. If your X server is slow, everything is - using a faster WM, like IceWM, wouldn't help you either.

I recommend you try IceWM if you like speed and will just use Mozilla for browsing - and don't use alot of KDE applications. (especially if you think they're the crap that you don't really need)

Finally, you could even remove KDE completely if you'd like to save some precious disk space. It doesn't look that good, but IceWM is bloody fast.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 08:35 PM   #8
TheTruthHurts
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 6

Original Poster
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ok thanks for all the help ill have to try those suggestions out.

BTW i have 512mb DDR400 ram

Yes I have downloaded, except for vidio card, ill have todo that.
No i didn't edit the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file. Ill have to do that

I installed so much crap at first, and now I am hating myself for it. Unfortunately I wasn't really sure what I could get by with, and i wanted to try everything out.
Maybe you guys could help me pick the essentials. Like the best browser, file manager, text editor and such. Maybe also stuff like picture veiwers. I think i know some, but not sure what is really the best/fastest.

Thanks in advance
 
Old 09-25-2003, 08:40 PM   #9
linksocc
Member
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: US
Distribution: Mandrake 9.0 1st/9.1 2nd/Gentoo 1.4 now
Posts: 313

Rep: Reputation: 30
If you want speed and something that works and loks good use xfce4, its desktop enviroment but much fster than kde or gnome
 
Old 09-25-2003, 10:11 PM   #10
dimitri12
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Sep 2003
Distribution: Mandrake 9.1
Posts: 6

Rep: Reputation: 0
Here's an even crazier Idea....Re-Install Mandrake. It's not like you have much on your KDE if you just started. i think it's a good idea.
 
Old 09-26-2003, 05:06 AM   #11
yapp
Member
 
Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Netherlands
Distribution: SuSE (before: Gentoo, Slackware)
Posts: 613

Rep: Reputation: 30
Quote:
Originally posted by TheTruthHurts
I installed so much crap at first, and now I am hating myself for it. Unfortunately I wasn't really sure what I could get by with, and i wanted to try everything out.
Maybe you guys could help me pick the essentials. Like the best browser, file manager, text editor and such. Maybe also stuff like picture veiwers. I think i know some, but not sure what is really the best/fastest.
ow. I think we forgot to mention... installing a lot doesn't slow down your system. There are just more files This ain't the Microsoft Windows world with a registry system.

Your system could slow down because heavy processes are running, too much programs are running, bad hardware / drivers, etc..
 
  


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