EDIT: I'm editing this post because I don't wish to bump it back up. I reinstalled slackware 13 and the only changes I made was using ext4 and the HDD partition scheme below. It's not freezing anymore and website isn't breaking. I'm not sure what's going on but everything seems to be working now.

To be honest, the constant freezing was something normal for me because I had it since I first downloaded slackware 13, doing a normal full install. I always knew that linux was a little behind with things like hardwares so I thought this was normal because I'm running on a modern computer and I learned to deal with computer freezing for 1 to 3 seconds every 30 seconds or so. I been told in my last thread (about slow boot issue) that it was the hardware issue but it turns out that it wasn't the problem.

About the website breaking, it doesn't seem like firefox loads anything properly. For example on this site, you can see whether the person is online or not by the small tux icon. Instead of the tux icon, I get a text saying "Offline" instead of the tux icon. This goes for any site that has bunch of images on it, it seems like they don't load unless I refresh it over 10 times. I think this is a firefox bug or maybe something is conflicting it.

I haven't really booted into my desktop anymore because I tried to solve this on my own and I ended up with a broken system over and over trying to optimize/fix it and finally gave up. I reinstalled it so many times that I already lost count. Two days ago, I installed another distribution (I won't mention the certain distribution because I don't like my thread possibly turning into distribution war like I frequently see on other threads) on my desktop and it boots up in about 10 seconds without touching anything or customizing a kernel (I'm still a newbie so I don't know how to do these things yet). Firefox can load everything perfectly now and my computer no longer freezes on and off anymore. It's incredibly fast and didn't thought linux was capable of something like this. It seemed perfect but that isn't really the case because this distribution has tons of horror story about updates and it would possibly break after doing a simple update. I also don't wish to hop to another distribution because it'll be running away from the problem instead of trying to solve it. I'm trying to figure out what's causing the problem on slackware. Both are Linux so I think it just needs some sort of tweaking on slackware to make it work better on my computer.

Maybe it's the way I did the partition on slackware (I changed it to reiserFS for /home, /, /boot. I searched and read on this section and turns out most people prefer reiserFS so I think I'm on the right track for this).

I also think there's something to do with i486 and x86_64. A friend told me that distribution like debian or slackware isn't really a true x86_64 system. Packages are compiled for a 32bit system and wrapped around to make it usable on a 64bit system so I'm actually just using a i486 optimized distribution. I think I read somewhere else that slackware was a true 64bit system, all packages and slackbuilds (for x86_64) are compiled and optimized for a 64bit system but I can't seem to locate that site anymore so I can't confirm it. I don't think i486 matters for my computer since that's only for a 32bit system and I only need to look for x86_64 optimized distribution, which I believe slackware is.

EDIT:
From Eric's blog (Alien BOB)
I took advices from my other thread but it doesn't change these problems I'm still experiencing.

I'm not sure where your friend got his information but he's not right. Slackware64 is a true 64bit Operating system. I've never used it but I imagine Debian 64, (or whatever the 64bit version of Debian is called), is as well.

First, we need a bit more info, can you post the output of '/sbin/lspci -vv'.

I also request that you do post what distribution works. I guarantee you that no flame war will start. And if it does start, I'll argue with the mods and maybe jeremy to ban whoever started it. Nobody should fear a flame war here just for posting what distribution they use. Either way, I'm more interested in the kernel version of that distribution.

Also, I notice the laptop has a "ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 3650 " , what drivers are you using for this ?

I see, thanks for clearing it up.

Hi. I currently do not have slackware installed to do the '/sbin/lspci -vv'. I'll reinstall it first thing in the morning tomorrow (it's very late here) and post back here. I didn't mention about installing it on the laptop although I did mention that in the other thread but I installed another distribution on my main desktop. I still post from my laptop right now which has windows vista on it. I first tried OpenBSD but it couldn't detect my hardwares so I tried arch linux instead. Kernel is 2.6.31 (not customized). Although it's the fastest OS I ever used, I don't plan on making it my main distribution for various reasons (too afraid to update and I have this strange attachment to slackware so I can't abandon it for some odd reason).

This is confusing because both distribution is optimized for x86_64 system and I still don't understand how a distribution that's similar (KISS philosophy and BSD-style init scripts) would be so different in performance. I can also do a minimal install of slackware if needed but I don't think that'll stop the freezing and what not.

I used to have a ATI card on my main desktop but since I won't be gaming anymore (I also hear many horror story about ATI card on Linux), I sold it and bought a NVIDIA GTS 250 and installed this driver. I was thinking maybe I had to remove some lib before installing this or something might be conflicting with each other. I'm not sure if slackware has libgl but if I recall correctly, that'll conflict with nvidia drivers. Maybe ATI changed and it might be better to use ATI card instead? I knew ATI was not a good idea with linux but that was several years ago when I last heard about that. I still have ATI HD4850 and 4550 somewhere in my closet.

I been told before that linux can't work well with my modern computer but arch linux proved that wrong. I'm sure I can do tweaking with slackware so it can perform well too. I been reading/learning about kernel and trying to see if slackware's default kernel is the one causing all the freezing and slow performance on my computer but as someone who has only been using Linux/Unix for 2 months or so, this might take me a long time.

My computer spec is (I have tons of computer components here but I currently have these on my main desktop):
Processor: intel i7 950 bloomfield
RAM: 12GB DDR3
GPU: Nvidia GTS 250
HDD: western digital 10,000 rpm velociraptor 300GB

Linux should work just fine with newer hardware, but older kernel versions may not. Slackware 13.0 uses kernel version 2.6.29.6, and Arch uses 2.6.31. So, maybe if you upgrade to this version of the kernel or newer, the problems will go away.

So, you can't run '/sbin/lspci' on Arch ? It should give you the same info.

Also, I recommend staying with nvidia, I was asking about the ATI drivers, because they are quite buggy and can cause stuff like this. So, no, if you have an nvidia card installed, leave it there for now. The only conflicting package is mesa, but if you install nvidia drivers AFTER mesa, there should be no problem.

This is a possible solution. Compile a newer kernel.

Sure you can, only it's /usr/sbin/lspci

This is a good advice. Nvidia works. No reason to go for ATI. It doesn't work in most cases.

Hi,

The first thing that comes to mind is 'install media' or ISO image corruption. You did do a 'md5sum' check for the downloaded ISO and then confirm that the burnt media is correct? Do a search here on LQ as 'I' know this subject has been covered many times...

BTW, I've noticed this has been happening a lot lately with bad media on the forum for newbies. Cheap media? Or just mis-match?

The next thing as 'H' mentioned is the video. I've been wrestling with 'ATI' for a laptop with a '200M'. It's working, sorta. I've worked with the '2.6.29' (KSM) but never really successful. Then tried to get '2.6.32' & 'KSM' working for the radeon but that too falls short. Right now I'm on the Laptop and there are some issues that need attention. BUT, I'm letting it settle for now. Yes, I too have some frustrations. Mostly this dam rain that just keeps coming down. I'll get the computer issue completed when the mind resolves what I already have. That's what Lab Notes are for! Memory refresh.

I agree with the forum members about the potential flame wars. I'll stand beside you along with the rest of the sane members.

Everything is just a tool of some sort!

I downloaded slackware 13 x86_64 from a torrent on the official website. It had no error whatsoever and I also burned the CD using the lowest burning speed, which is 4x. I always do this with every iso so there should be no problem.

I'll compile a new kernel and see how it'll work out. I'll also replace LILO to grub and partition my HDD using:
ext4 for /home, /
ext2 for /boot
251MB swap
reiserFS for /var

I did this on arch on my 300 gb HDD and it was able to boot up in 10 seconds with no customization. I'm not sure if partition scheme makes a difference but I'll try experiment with it on slackware.

My parition on slackware before was one swap and the rest of the partition as reiserFS.

The JMicron controller does not look good. I've had problems with these. Either way, try a new kernel. Another thing to check is the BIOS and the SATA controller settings.

I never compiled a kernel before and I googled and I followed this guide but I seem to be making many mistakes towards the end.

This is the partition scheme.

HDD1
/dev/sda1, /boot, ext2
/dev/sda2, /, ext4
/dev/sda3 swap
/dev/sda4, /home ext 4

HDD2
/dev/sdb1, /var ext4

/var is on HDD2 because I'm just checking how stable it is before I pop the Intel SSD in. I'm going to use another motherboard as well with the SSD.


In the guide, it lists:
I tried to do it according to my partition scheme but I end up being unable to successfully compile the kernel.

I will update my guide, it was not really a guide but more of a blog thing putting down the way I did it for my 32bit Slackware. There is not much changes between slack64 kernel and 32, just you need to modify the kernel config. Easiest way is not to use my config since I have removed a few filesystem supports and a few stuffs that I don't use to make it more faster for my system, use your own config or copy the 2.6.29.6-smp kernel config from your /usr/src/linux as I have stated at the beginning and then follow the instruction and in the end copy the bzImage from arch/x86/boot/bzImage
I will always recommend Eric's guide over any one else's since it's so well described , me I just typed what I did. :P

BTW, if your /boot is ext2 then why are you doing
mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.31-pdg -m ext4 -f ext4 -r /dev/hda4

??
Please refer to /boot/README.initrd file for details!

Thank you for the link.

Also, I mentioned above that "I tried to do it according to my partition scheme but I end up being unable to successfully compile the kernel." I didn't actually type those, just something like -f ext2 /dev/sda1 and so on. That's what I meant when I said according to my partition. I'll go ahead and read the eric's tutorial now, once again thank you for the link.

Hi,

You made the effort to check the download!

I never make assumptions about a burn. Test it, just one less thing to worry about. Plus it doesn't take that long to check the burnt image media.