LinuxQuestions.org
Visit Jeremy's Blog.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Non-*NIX Forums > General
User Name
Password
General This forum is for non-technical general discussion which can include both Linux and non-Linux topics. Have fun!

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 05-28-2005, 11:09 PM   #1
Ciproxr
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Help, Linux is running kind of slow for me


for about 2 years now, ive been trying different Linux distributions and i have been unhappy with every single one so far......

Im not a newbie when it comes to computers and i have a certificate in computer programming and webpage design........

I have tried mepis, knoppix, mandrake and redhat.......I was unhappy with all of them.....

Im not sure if linux is just too slow or if its KDE........

Ive been wanting to switch to linux for a while, one of the reasons is KDE, I LOVE the way its taskbar looks and i dont want microsoft having any control over me, i like alot of things about linux but i also hate alot of things about it......

Mandrake is the easiest distribution to learn and honestly it still seemed pretty hard to learn......I dont understand why you have to deppend on the shell so much, i mean its 2005 , a desktop should have a GUI for everything.....

I just recently got a new computer and i figured i'd try linux again , and once again it has disapointed me, its too slow.....I can do the same things on windows twice as fast literly, everything from the launching the filemanager to launching firefox.........It also took me 7 whole minutes to install VLC (videolan). On windows i take 30 seconds.........

I tried to install gentoo but had no idea what the hell i was doing, couldnt get it to work......

I hear people say how linux is alot faster , but i dont see it......It could be my filemanager, but if i cant use KDE or gnome with linux then i dont even see the point of swithing.....ive seen the other filemanagers and honestly i think their a joke.....

Other things i dont like about linux , are that there is no "program files" folder, how am i suppose to know whats installed ? I asked someone once why linux dosent have a program files folder , he said cause u can install software anyway.......How am i suppose to know what files are my opperating systems and which are for software that i dont need ?

Where is the software unstaller gui ?

How can i check to see which software launchs when i boot linux ?

How am i gonna be able to play wmv files and license protected ones ?

can i run age of empires on linux ? its the only game i really play.


I dont know, i want to switch and i support linux but the way it is it makes it almost impossible for me, and im an advanced user , imagine someone whos just starting with computers..........


Does anyone know how i can make KDE faster and which distribution is good for beginners but is also fast.......I need firefox to launch right away when i click it like with windows.....


I custom built my pc , its a:

Monitor - Neso Pixo Flat panel 17"

CASE ANTEC| MID SLK2650-BQE RET

CPU AMD 64 |3200+ ATHLON 939P

MB|MSI RS480M2-IL XPRESS200 RT

Video Card | RADEON® XPRESS 200

TWINMOS 512MB DDR PC-3200

Western Digital 80GB

FDD 1.44MB NEC|FD1231H-302 OEM BLK

DVD+/-RW 16x|NEC ND-3520A BK W/O SW

p.s is there a service guide like with windows where i can check which services i dont need ?
 
Old 05-28-2005, 11:16 PM   #2
Ciproxr
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
forgot to mention that in knoppix when 100% of my cpu is being used the mouse starts to skip like it freezes, its a big problem for me,
 
Old 05-28-2005, 11:20 PM   #3
floppywhopper
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Western Australia
Distribution: Mageia , Centos
Posts: 643
Blog Entries: 2

Rep: Reputation: 136Reputation: 136
If they had a gui for everything you'd need a 56" plasma screen for a monitor to fit it all on LOL

With most distros and certainly with Mandrake / Mandriva you can install fluxbox or Icewm which are stripped-down-for-racing guis - and quite a few people here swear by them, so give them a try.

You may also have more services running by default than you need.

hope this helps
floppy
 
Old 05-28-2005, 11:30 PM   #4
Ciproxr
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Ive seen fluxbox and Icewm and common man , windows 95 looked more appealing and useful lol i need KDE or Gnome, fluxbox and Icewm dont even look like a real desktop to me........I really would like to make KDE faster, but no matter what i do its just too slow.....im kinda hoping im doing something wrong and that linux isnt really that slow.
 
Old 05-28-2005, 11:33 PM   #5
alunduil
Member
 
Registered: Feb 2005
Location: San Antonio, TX
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 684

Rep: Reputation: 62
First thing I would do is open the terminal and run top when it's at about 100%, and see which process is taking it all up. Then you can try to get it under control.

Your other points I shall only give my opinions on a few of them.

Before I start I'd like to mention that I'm not trying to start a flame war. I'm just putting one Slacker's opinions out there for you.

"...there should be a GUI for everything..."
Personally I love the CLI, I actually have a really hard time with GUI interfaces. To me it is easier to be able to use the appropriate commands to find out everything. (man, apropos, and google.com/linux are my best friends :P).

As for the "What's installed," it depends on which distro you are using. I'll stick with slack since that is the distro I use. Patrick has pkgtool in slack, which will keep track of which packages you have installed, and allow you to easily remove them. It's a GUI (sorta, do you think curses interfaces are a GUI?) for removing your installed packages, but if you install something from source you just have to keep track of what you have installed yourself. In Slackware there is a package called checkinstall that will allow you to make a package from source by just replacing the last line of the common three part install (make install) with checkinstall. I have never lost track of my system using these good practices.

As for startup scripts, in Slackware they are all in /etc/rc.d, but in most of the other distros (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) it's in /etc/init.d. With Slackware, yeah I'm really playing this Slackware emphasis up, sorry if it bothers you, you just change the permissions on the startup scripts to control them.

I don't know about the media files, as I'm not a big media buff, but for the small amount of media I do listen to/watch I use mplayer. It has a GUI if you download it, but for the most part I go back to my command line roots with this program. It plays almost everything out of the box, and I've not had a problem with it.

As for playing windows games, there are ways. I have used wine in the past, but never had the best of luck with it. Did get starcraft running pretty good, and I don't think AOE would be any different.

These are just a few answers for you, and I hope you stick with Linux. I've enjoyed it for a good 7 months now, and the first rule is be prepared to learn and change your habits a little bit. It is quite different from windows, but that is what gives us users the appeal to use it.

Regards,

Alunduil
 
Old 05-28-2005, 11:46 PM   #6
DaWallace
Member
 
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Southern Maine, United States
Distribution: Slackware Ubuntu Debian FreeBSD
Posts: 418

Rep: Reputation: 31
Re: Help, Linux is running kind of slow for me

Quote:
Originally posted by Ciproxr
a desktop should have a GUI for everything.....
ooh.. with that attitude you may have to give up. very simply, command line tools are easier to write and maintain and faster to use once you know them fairly well. and a system designed under that ideal would be almost as bad as windows. I say 'almost as bad' because windows doesn't have a gui for everything, and fell into several other traps that microsoft quietly and inadvertantly set for itself. I think there are some OSes that gave it a shot, they aren't the most popular things on the planet, macos before osx being by far the most popular, and you know osx is infinitely better, muchly because of the command line.

Quote:
Originally posted by Ciproxr
Other things i dont like about linux , are that there is no "program files" folder, how am i suppose to know whats installed ? I asked someone once why linux dosent have a program files folder , he said cause u can install software anyway.......How am i suppose to know what files are my opperating systems and which are for software that i dont need ?
there's a document for the linux filesystem hierarchy if you feel like reading it. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/

things are fairly well organized. look in /bin and /usr/bin and things like that. browse through /usr in general, you'll probably get it after not too long. it doesn't place all of a program's files in the same places though. that's why we have packages, to keep track of a program's files

it makes more sense than program files, although the naming sometimes escapes me, executables in /bin, libs in /lib, configuration in /etc.

less vital programs usually go in /usr, although some of them are fairly important.
no programs really belong to the OS though there are some that it is worthless without like init and the coreutils. it basically comes down to the programs you use and everything those programs depend on.
you're going to have to learn to rely on your package management system, whatever it may be.

this is rather odd.. you obviously have two posts on this page and yet your post count reads zero.

Last edited by DaWallace; 05-28-2005 at 11:49 PM.
 
Old 05-29-2005, 04:14 AM   #7
netsurf
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2004
Location: UK
Distribution: ubuntu 10.04+ distro hopping
Posts: 181

Rep: Reputation: 31
not sure if this is any use but do you have a swap partition to use it may be useful if they are running slow
 
Old 05-29-2005, 04:27 AM   #8
jonaskoelker
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2004
Location: Denmark
Distribution: Ubuntu, Debian
Posts: 1,524

Rep: Reputation: 47
Hi.

I'm sorry that your experiences with GNU/Linux were less than you have hoped for.

Also, I truly don't get what you're saying.

1) Regarding program startup: firefox (for instance) starts up in < 0.5 secs on my box (2.6 GHz, 512 MB). I use gnome, you use kde, but I don't know how much that affects program startup time.

2) Package management: I fire up synaptic (gui frontend to apt). It tells me which packages I have installed, which files each package have installed and where. It's also has an iq requirement close to 0 for installing, uninstalling and upgrading packages.

It may be that apt/synaptic just knocks the socks off of every other package manager out there, or yours at least, or it may be that you could have used yours in a better way. I hope it's the last, because otherwise there's a *lot* of people missing out on something great.

3) gui vs cli: I don't think there's a single function I need that can't be performed with a gui program. But then again, I'd much rather write 'for i in $(seq 0 99 | xargs printf "%02d "); do wget http://not.an.url/item$i.ext; done' than point-and-click to get the same effect. Also, I'd rather use emacs than gedit and \LaTeX rather than abiword or OpenOffice (then again, nothing will ever look as gorgeous as \LaTeX output).

---

Regarding `Program Files': GNU/Linux is different from w32. Those differences are *the reason* I use GNU/Linux. It meant I had to relearn some stuff (though not very much), but that's a cost I'm very willing to pay--since it buys me so much. I hope that you'll see how much is won and lost, respectively, for *you* by switching to GNU/Linux--but please, don't give up without at least trying to learn the differences and quirks.

Regarding `Program Files': look at the filesystem hierachy standard (sp?); look at /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, /usr/X11R6/bin, ~/bin and $(find / -name 'bin')

hth --Jonas
 
Old 05-29-2005, 06:24 AM   #9
SciYro
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: hopefully not here
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 2,038

Rep: Reputation: 51
just keep windows, you might be considered a advanced user there, but to be considered anywhere near advanced in any UNIX-like environment, you have to have patience, and know how to learn, you seem to assume gnome/kde are windows, true there file manager falls under the "windows like" class. This does not mean GNU or Linux are windows like, GNU sent out to be a UNIX clone, true it has its own additions, Linux is now just a kernel (POSIX (the UNIX standard you can see it as) compatible), and a small set of programs key to using Linux (thats not in the standard GNU programs)

keep in mind now, UNIX was made for terminal style computers before a GUI came to it, so CLI was important them, and its important to this day. read up on UNIX and its philosophy ..... its not for point and klick, or suffer a ulcer people.

and you can install anything anywhere, just as long as the program knows where (most (almost all, every few are around without it that could use it) use a configure scrip, so running it will configure the source codes to be installed in a special manor), but in order to use them in a shell (CLI), it must know where the program is (look at the PATH environment variable, its essentially a list saying every directory to search for a program), so you can create your own "Program Files" place, tho i wouldn't recommend it. Normally essentially programs (needed to prepare the OS for mounting) are in /bin, the rest is in /usr/bin, a lot of distros split up games into /usr/games/bin and /usr/local/bin is used for self installed programs (programs that go behind the distros back)

Tho, i would suggest gnome, kde is a memory hog (its on a linspire computer the rest of my family uses ....... I'm surprised they use it, kde is ssoooooooo slow, and you cant use the installer ...) ..... gnome gets in my way, so i use fvwm, but gnome is windows-ish (but looks better), and thats what it seews you want (so i would recommend you use windows, if you are unwilling to relearn, the OS's are near 100% different, with only kde/gnome/xfce/ (what the windowsXP-copycat DE?) being similar in appearance ....

as for file managers, the only one i found that was acceptable (in any OS) was emelfm2 , fast, light, and it only manage files, not make me coffee (then get stuck trying to open a directory with a measly 1200 files)
 
Old 05-29-2005, 07:38 AM   #10
alred
Member
 
Registered: Mar 2005
Location: singapore
Distribution: puppy and Ubuntu and ... erh ... redhat(sort of) :( ... + the venerable bsd and solaris ^_^
Posts: 658
Blog Entries: 8

Rep: Reputation: 31
CLI is important ,
if you understand or thinking like a CLI then you won't have trouble understanding the everyday ERROR messages like :
" line 29 : error: syntax error before 'so' token "

you won't hate using CLI , you will be numbed by CLI , the next day when you hear people saying why this and that are so hard , you will be proud of yourself and feel some pitty on them and you will ended up like posters in this thread trying to set things straight and persuade them to learn more about thinking like a CLI ......

Last edited by alred; 05-29-2005 at 07:55 AM.
 
Old 05-29-2005, 09:17 AM   #11
naimslim89
Member
 
Registered: Mar 2005
Location: London, United Kingdom
Distribution: Fedora Core 5
Posts: 83

Rep: Reputation: 15
Quote:
Originally posted by alred
CLI is important ,
if you understand or thinking like a CLI then you won't have trouble understanding the everyday ERROR messages like :
" line 29 : error: syntax error before 'so' token "

you won't hate using CLI , you will be numbed by CLI , the next day when you hear people saying why this and that are so hard , you will be proud of yourself and feel some pitty on them and you will ended up like posters in this thread trying to set things straight and persuade them to learn more about thinking like a CLI ......
I don't know about you, but when giving people instructions, isn't it much easier to say:

$ cp *.mp3 ~/music

rather than:

"Open up Nautilus/Konqueror/<insert your favourite file manager here>, navigate to your folder, hold down control while you select every single MP3 file out of the 1000 files jumbled in that home directory, and drag them all into the music folder" ??

Last edited by naimslim89; 05-29-2005 at 09:19 AM.
 
Old 05-29-2005, 10:09 AM   #12
alred
Member
 
Registered: Mar 2005
Location: singapore
Distribution: puppy and Ubuntu and ... erh ... redhat(sort of) :( ... + the venerable bsd and solaris ^_^
Posts: 658
Blog Entries: 8

Rep: Reputation: 31
hmm .... good features request , thanks naimslim89
 
Old 05-29-2005, 10:49 AM   #13
DaWallace
Member
 
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Southern Maine, United States
Distribution: Slackware Ubuntu Debian FreeBSD
Posts: 418

Rep: Reputation: 31
you'll have a hard time with anything but command line once you start using regular expressions with it.
 
Old 05-29-2005, 05:38 PM   #14
franznietzsche
Member
 
Registered: Jan 2005
Distribution: Slackware 10.1
Posts: 44

Rep: Reputation: 15
Re: Help, Linux is running kind of slow for me

Sorry, I try to be nice here, but this is just a bit much.

Quote:
Originally posted by Ciproxr
for about 2 years now, ive been trying different Linux distributions and i have been unhappy with every single one so far......

Im not a newbie when it comes to computers and i have a certificate in computer programming and webpage design........
People who start posts claiming why they are competent generally are not. People who are usually not concerned with what others judge of their competence, because its irrelevant.

Quote:
I have tried mepis, knoppix, mandrake and redhat.......I was unhappy with all of them.....
Does anyone actually use knoppix as a full time distro? I use it to recover from my own sysadmin mistakes (which i still make plenty of, i'm just learning) but thats about all.

Quote:
Im not sure if linux is just too slow or if its KDE........
I have no speed problems in KDE. I use fluxbox because even faster though. But both have always been faster than windows on the same machine.

Quote:
Ive been wanting to switch to linux for a while, one of the reasons is KDE, I LOVE the way its taskbar looks and i dont want microsoft having any control over me, i like alot of things about linux but i also hate alot of things about it......

Mandrake is the easiest distribution to learn and honestly it still seemed pretty hard to learn......I dont understand why you have to deppend on the shell so much, i mean its 2005 , a desktop should have a GUI for everything.....
No it shouldn't. And stop using linux right now if you really believe this. The shell is faster and easier for at least 75% of tasks. There is no reason to have a GUI for everything. It is uneccesary complexity that simply overcomplicates things and adds more room for error and mistakes in the system's code, something we definitely don't want. Then again, I'm a slackware die hard. I haven't used a GUI to configure anything in a while. If you need to rely on the GUI, that is a failure on your part. Especially when you claim to be 'certified' in computer programming. You have no excuse.

Quote:
I just recently got a new computer and i figured i'd try linux again , and once again it has disapointed me, its too slow.....I can do the same things on windows twice as fast literly, everything from the launching the filemanager to launching firefox.........It also took me 7 whole minutes to install VLC (videolan). On windows i take 30 seconds.........
Then you're doing something horribly wrong. If you're using mandrake, its somewhat bloated, but not that bad.

Quote:
I tried to install gentoo but had no idea what the hell i was doing
Again, if you are so qualified and 'certified' in computer programming (whatever that means) you have no excuse. Someone who has never written code or compiled programs has inexpierence as a perfectly valid excuse. If you're not lying to us in your opening, you don't.


Quote:
, couldnt get it to work......

I hear people say how linux is alot faster , but i dont see it......It could be my filemanager, but if i cant use KDE or gnome with linux then i dont even see the point of swithing.....ive seen the other filemanagers and honestly i think their a joke.....
I use ROX-Filer. Its great. small, and efficient. Gives me interchangeable sets of desktop icons, each tailored to a certain group of tasks. One set for work, one for games, one for general use, and an empty set as well.

Quote:
Other things i dont like about linux , are that there is no "program files" folder, how am i suppose to know whats installed ? I asked someone once why linux dosent have a program files folder , he said cause u can install software anyway.......How am i suppose to know what files are my opperating systems and which are for software that i dont need ?
its called package management. Or make uninstall, if you keep sources around, which if you compile from source you should. Piece of cake. You seem to be expecting us to follow a windows standard. We never have, we never will. If you don't like it, too bad.

Quote:
Where is the software unstaller gui ?
Shoved up your....

Quote:
How can i check to see which software launchs when i boot linux ?
ps axu

Quote:
How am i gonna be able to play wmv files and license protected ones ?
You expect us to inter-operate with closed source technologies owned by MS who tried their damnedest at every turn to keep us from doing so? Use windows. Leave us alone.

Quote:
can i run age of empires on linux ? its the only game i really play.
I can. I run WoW, And Half-life 2, and counter-strike:source. Morrowind. Its fun.


Quote:
I dont know, i want to switch and i support linux but the way it is it makes it almost impossible for me, and im an advanced user , imagine someone whos just starting with computers..........
You're not an advanced user. Not by any means. IN fact, you've shown general incompetence. Certainly advanced by the standards of windows users, but you're at about the bottom of the competency level when it comes to linux.

And again, anyone claiming their competence generally isn't.

Quote:
Does anyone know how i can make KDE faster and which distribution is good for beginners but is also fast.......I need firefox to launch right away when i click it like with windows.....
Windows would be good for you. Stay there and leave us alone.

Quote:
I custom built my pc , its a
A waste of perfectly good hardware.

Quote:
p.s is there a service guide like with windows where i can check which services i dont need ?
Hahaha. You really are a piece of work, flatfish.


To real memebers of this forum: Normally i would be much more polite and civil here, or at least try to be, but this post follows the exact formula of a well known USENET troll. I'd rather he leave these forums alone.
 
Old 05-29-2005, 05:43 PM   #15
Ciproxr
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
And the award for best troll goes to...........
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Got KDE 3.1 running (well kind of...) j_man56 Debian 1 04-08-2004 02:46 PM
ext modem works - kind of - loses connection - slow gervin Linux - Newbie 0 03-11-2004 09:11 PM
Linux running slow troycus Linux - Newbie 2 09-12-2003 04:43 PM
Linux Running Slow frkstein Linux - General 10 08-06-2002 09:58 AM
Linux Running Very Slow... DeadPuddle Linux - General 2 04-26-2002 08:17 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Non-*NIX Forums > General

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:34 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration