Using Debian sarge.

1) How can I optimize my system performance for faster applications launch?
Applications now take about 8 seconds to first launch, although my machine is new and fast (when using WinXP).

2) Have a 1GB of ram, but my swap size is 500MB. Though this probably isn't the cause for the above problem, I want to give more size for swap. Can the netinst CD be used for partition resizing?

Thanks.

You don't need anymore swap, so don't worry about that. With 1GB of RAM I would serioulsy doubt that your system has ever used its swap at all.

That being said, if you are experiencing slowness, it is most likely due to (a) particular software, (b) slow processor, (c) your computer isn't taking advantage of its potential,(d) you are trying to run 30 applicaitons at the same time, (e) some background process is eating memory or cpu cycles (ps aux to find out), or (f) something that I haven't thought of.

So, have you tried a lightweight window manager like Fluxbox or XFCE?
What are you system specs?
Have you enabled 3d support?
Have you made sure that your computer is using the RAM?
Does the slowness happen all the time, or only with certain applications?


Try running gkrellm and see if anything gets your attention like 99% processor usage, less RAM than you thought, etc...

(a) Using no special software.
(b) CPU 2.8 GHz, HD 7200 rpm, 1GB RAM.
(c) How do I know that?
(d) No.
(e) Don't know. Will try ps aux (When I get to my machine at home).

How do I make sure my computer is using RAM?

Once applications are loaded, everything is fine. The problem is the time they take to launch.

Thanks.