Hello everyone,

I just installed Fedora 7 to replace Windows XP on my boss' system. The thing is, it is quite slow.

I got a notion that recompiling the kernel to suit this particular CPU could solve the problem; I'm not sure though.

My questions are:
1. Will recompiling and patching the kernel make this box run faster?
2. If so, how & what patches do I apply to the kernel? I've seen a couple of howto's on recompiling the kernel for FC 7; but I don't know what patches I'm supposed to apply or how to get those patches.


Here's some info about this box:

[root@md ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : CentaurHauls
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : VIA Samuel 2
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 796.146
cache size : 64 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow up
bogomips : 1593.70
clflush size : 32[/INDENT]
RAM size = 128MB (DDR)

Thanks in advance for the help.

I'm heading home now (from work); don't have home internet access yet, so I might not check this post till Monday.

Peace.

According to my own experience with a machine like that
and according to this:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags#C....28Via_EPIA.29
there is some, but not much, to be gained from recompiling the kernel especially for that processor architecture.
I'd do it anyway - compiling the kernel is not that a big deal.
I cannot comment on specific things with that task on Fedora though.
It usually is the same procedure everywhere...

Recompiling all packages yourself for that specific architecture would probably still barely noticable - and is a thing which is not easily done with Fedora. If you wanted to do this - this would beg for Gentoo instead.

Not likely - a meda-distro like Fedora on a (relatively) slow CPU, and only 128 Meg.
Kernel optimization ain't likely to help.

Pick a distro (especially DE) that fits the machine better - Xubuntu maybe.

I don't think that kernel re-compilation and patches will provide reasonable speed gains on that specific PC. I assume that WindowsXP is also not very fast on that hardware.

Your problem has more to do with all the software packages that have been installed along with Fedora 7. Try to disable all unneeded background services that you don't need, and remove packages that are not needed (if you don't know what a package does, then you probably don't need it anyway).

The KDE window manager will also not be happy on that PC, maybe not even Gnome - you could try installing XFCE and see if that is fast enough.

If possible, add some RAM. That will make most applications more responsive.

Linux Archive

1st. Support was just dropped for F7 so why install it in the first place?

2nd. IF you are going to use a gui do not even bother with less the 512. I have a 1ghz PIII that runs fine with 512 but crawls with 256. I also had a 3800 X2 that I ran on 256 (had a entire bad batch of 1gb sticks we had to send back) and even it crawled (runs fine with 2gb). You might limp by with 256 using XFC but I doubt it.

P III Coppermine with 192 MB RAM
Runs fine and only starts using swap after opening a few programs - I just built a system (Gentoo) for a friend and her old Thinkpad - it is now running xfce and every application an average user will ever need.
Because it seems to have not reached its limit I'll give Gnome a try because it is easier on one who only ever used windows before.

Recompiling the kernel will not make anything faster.

Basically you can trim down whatever distro you use or use a distro that is made for low-spec machines.
Depending on what it is used for install what you need (eg email,browser) and get rid of everything else and see how it works.

I'd go the puppy/dsl route or if you know what you are doing gentoo or debian.

Hi,

thanks for the contributions. I know I should use a distro that is low-spec hardware friendly, but I'm in a peculiar situation.

Our strategy at the office is to run our mission-critical apps on servers running Windows, then publish those apps to clients running Linux on low-end hardware. We've saved a bundle on Microshaft licensing fees this way.

I was actually running Puppy Linux on these clients and things worked fine. But I had to ditch that distro because it was not multi-user; I really need that feature in an environment where there's job rotation.

So I needed a distro with that meets the following criteria:
- MUST be rpm-based (our application publishing software requires this)
- multi-user
- runs fine on low-spec hardware

Slackware or any of its derivatives would have been ideal if not for the first criterion, ditto for any Debian-based distro. I chose Fedora 7 over 9 because I thought it would be much less resource-hungry.

I went for KDE because of smbk; I don't know if xfce has anything similar. The closest thing I've seen is FUSE and that is far from being intuitive to use for my colleagues (windows fans, all of them).

So, given the scenario above, can someone tell me what my options are?

Thanks.

Build a fedora live cd for low spec machines?

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...fedora-livecd/