Im on my way to fix the video problems..... as for the hardware checkup, I did a full memtest on the RAM, no errors... I will try the HDD checkup as well and post the results back.

lpallard,

do not uninstall anything from your Slackware installation. Just disable file indexing in the KDE system settings. It is the file indexing that takes a lot of system resources. To see which process eats your system, use "top".

With the Slackbuilds of the proprietary nvidia driver you actually install the same driver. It is just more convenient to install/uninstall/upgrade the driver using the slackbuilds.

Martin

I would agree with this on most things, but not the NVIDIA proprietary driver. The installer does a very nice job of uninstalling the old driver and reinstalling the new driver when it's time to upgrade, and uninstalling is just as easy. Also the installer now detects if you are running the nouveau driver and will even blacklist it for you.

I'm on my way to fix (hopefully) my video problems, and then I'll attack the slackware/KDE slowness problems...

I just tried to install 185.18.36 and of course i am having new problems... now this thing says that:

Error: unable to determine the version of the kernel sources located in /lib/modules/2.6.33.4-smp/sources. Please make sure you have installed the kernel sources files.........

What do I need to do? I use the stock 2.6.33.4-smp kernel from Slackware 13.1

256.53 can build and install without problems...

As far as I know: /lib/modules/2.6.33.4-smp/sources is a simlink to /usr/src/2.6.33.4/ (or something like that) and that seems to be the normal non-smp kernel sources, so I understand why the nvidia script complains about the sources not matching the running kernel. How can I get the sources of this kernel??

Make sure you have the package kernel-source-2.6.33.4_smp-noarch-1.tgz installed. To see what packages you have installed on your system, issue:

There were changes in the kernel several months ago. Some of the headers were relocated and this was common in -current at the time. A newer driver or symlinks for the relocated kernel headers were the answer. The newer driver is probably the better option.

Re KDE4 slowness - I'm using slackware 13.1 on an intel atom powered eee pc and driving an external 19" monitor too and KDE4 is just fine. So, I'd certainly think it's possible for you to get reasonable performance on your hardware.

One thing that gobbled memory, cpu cycles and HD space/bandwidth was nepomuk/strigi - once I turned that off my experience was much smoother.

I just uninstalled strigi and basically cooked KDE.... nothing works now... How can you guys remove akonadi and strigi & nepomuk and get everything else still running fine????? Its not the first time that I try that and last time I ended up reinstalling slack alltogether

damgar, I cant use a newer driver as apparently (from my post on nvnews.net) the version 185.XX is the LAST driver that worked on the XPSM1730 under linux... Thats why I am "trying" to install the 185.36 right now and it does not work.

I did install ( and already had) the kernel-source-2.6.33.4_smp-noarch-1.tgz package from the slack dvd and problem persist. Right now I have:

/lib/modules/2.6.33.4-smp/sources that is a symlink to /usr/src/linux-2.6.33.4/ so NO smp in there... are the sources for -smp exactly the same as the normal kernel??? If not, then there is a glitch in the packages hence why it does not work.

Could nvidia related problems be due to nouveau driver, maybe X is using that by default? Nouveau should be blacklisted for nvidia drivers to install properly. In current, maybe in 13.1 too, there's a 'xf86-video-nouveau-blacklist' package that handles this.

As far as i know akonadi/nepomuk/strigi is required for kde4, for example kontact or kmail won't run with akonadi uninstalled. Still, strigi and nepomuk can be switched off from kde systemsettings.

Edit: Oh, i didn't notice that. Must be something else then.

I added nouveau to modprobe.d/blacklist.conf.

I also tried something based on my research over this community and the Nvidia forums... its to patch an older driver... some threads on nvnews.net pointed out that since 185.XX series, the SLI has not been working properly on the Dell XPS M1730 with more recent drivers (190.XX to 260.XX)... SO I downloaded driver 190.53 and patched it successfully then installed it.

Some of my comments:

-Better overall performance (window dragging, moving, scrolling, pictures, etc)
-Seems to have improved responsiveness
-Still no SLI!! I suppose I am using 190.53 and thats > 185.XX so as I explained before, it wouldnt work... anybody know where I could get the patch for 185.18.36? As far as I remember, in slack 12.2 this was the driver that worked for SLI... that kinda fits what I read on nvnews.net...

Hopefully with 185.XX the SLI will work...

Ooops - I did say turn turn it off! There's an option to do so under system settings (advanced tab I think). Akonadi doesn't have an off switch afaik and uninstalling it can cause issues, but it isn't anywhere near the resource hoggery of strigi/nepomuk so I just leave it be.

Yes thats correct, I reinstalled strigi and everything is back to normal... I disabled them (nepomuk & strigi) and I am back to before.. I am working hard to get the older driver 185.XX from nvidia running on my machine. All that is getting really confusing for me... since I moved to linux on a permanent basis, these days have been the most challenging so far! So many issues interrelated and no simple solutions!

I guess thats how we learn!

I guess I am thinking about bad hard drives as well... I just lost myu server's HDD and that triggered the idea that some bad sectors in my laptop's HDD's could be the root cause of my problems. I will perform some kind of complete backup and then I will do a surface check to see if there is any physical damage...

I will post back.

Just to close this thread, I reinstalled slackware 64 13.1 on this laptop and this fixed most of my problems. Probably corrupted install media or anything like that. RAM was tested and was OK, HDD #1 (I have 2 HDD"s in this laptop) is slowly dying (some bad sectors)...

I will close the thread since so far I assume the problems to be solved by a reinstall and finding the hardware problems.

Thanks to all for the previous help!