Hi!

I just came out from the XP's shadow and installed the slackware 10.0
So far i think this could replace totally windows xp, but with a little tweaking, and that's where i need some help.

1) I've got a Intel Pentium IV 1.8GHz, 256MB of ddr ram, 80GB Hard disk (divided in various partitions, a linux swap of 1GB, a linux partition of 18GB, and some others...) but slackware is using all my memory!

Linux 2.4.26 (root@tree) (gcc 3.3.4) #6 1CPU [Ratamahatta.(none)]

Memory: Total Used Free Shared Buffers Cached
Mem: 256060 220696 35364 0 40464 95656
Swap: 975200 0 975200

Bootup: Mon Jun 28 09:47:46 2004 Load average: 0.01 0.08 0.12 2/58 1794

user : 0:03:07.12 7.0% page in : 96244 disk 1: 6693r 7830w
nice : 0:00:00.46 0.0% page out: 63320
system: 0:00:39.09 1.5% swap in : 1
idle : 0:40:35.93 91.5% swap out: 0
uptime: 0:44:22.59 context : 1079299

irq 0: 266260 timer irq 10: 3 ohci1394, usb-uhci
irq 1: 4807 keyboard irq 11: 50956 eth0
irq 2: 0 cascade [4] irq 12: 94461 PS/2 Mouse
irq 5: 637 ohci1394, EMU10K1, u irq 14: 14476 ide0
irq 6: 3 irq 15: 2 ide1
irq 8: 1 rtc

As you can see, linux is not using my swap partition and it goes pretty slow after sometime of use (in KDE), what can i do about that? (i've tried with mkswap and with swapon with no resulst, fstab recognize it as a swap partition)

2) In user mode i'm not able to view files in a NTFS partition that i use for installers, music, etc, but in root mode i can, what about that?

Well, i hope not to be annoying anyone with a msg this big, but i'm a newb willing to learn!

Thanks in advance from colombia!!!

You need to look at /etc/fstab and check what users are permitted to mount the relevant partitions. Plenty of stuff on the forum about fstab.

Linux controls ram differently. It uses all of your ram and as you open programs it tosses the disc buffers and cache. The disk buffers and cached are there to allow you to access recently used data MUCH faster...like...7 times for me(I think).

Also, the reason you can't write is because you don't have your permissions for mounting your NTFS drive set correctly

In your /etc/fstab change the line that mounts your NTFS drive to include umask=222 right after default(I assume it says default). That will allow you to write as a user. You can also remount with -o umask=222 at the end of the command line and it'll do it also.

I'm making the assumption that fat is the same as NTFS in the case of the options...

Thanks for the fast replies!!

I'm having a couple of extra problems....

1) how do i install my nvidia geforce 2 mx drivers? i mean, what drivers should i download? etc....I know there are some topics about this, but all of them mention the xf86config file wich i don't have, i have xorg.config (not sure about the name)...

2) Even knowing a little bit more about RAM usage, i'm still feeling KDE slow, what can i do to improve performance? or maybe my machine is not enough (more ram needed or something)?

3)And at last (for now) is there a good "X" that works well with a 800x600 resolution?

Thanks again!

I would get the most recent nvidia drivers from nvidia.com. You will no longer have an xf86config file as slackware has moved over to xorg desktop...at this time you can edit the xorgconfig or whatever it is called (in the same place...) in the same way.

Although I am not that familiar with the ram usage of KDE, your system should eb fine for it. If you want it to run faster try turning off some of the eye candy. Another popular option is fluxbox. Although the look will be quite differant from KDE or GNOME once you configure fluxbox to your liking it can be very productive and is very fast.

FYI right now my system is using less than 256MB ram running KDE, gaim, licq, firefox with a few tabs open, and eclipse. Including cache it is using more than 256mb though. My processor would be a bit slower than yours (p3 1000mhz).

Kaiowas wrote:
" 2) Even knowing a little bit more about RAM usage, i'm still feeling KDE slow, what can i do to improve performance? "

Click on the K menu button, then:
Settings > Control Center > Desktop > Window Behavior > Moving (tab) > Uncheck the boxes for animation and such.

Also you can try reducing the number of virtual desktops you use from four to say, two.

When browsing with Konqueror, if you're on slow dialup, turn off image animations and popups (under Settings > Configure Konqueror > Java and Behavior)

HTH,
Siri Amrit