I really like Mandrake, however, I have been somewhat disappointed in the performance on my high-end AMD machines. I've read much on the subject, and would like to ask about the following:

1. Would it be a good idea to apply the kernel preemption patch to the standard 8.2 2.4.18-6mdk kernel, and/or the -21-mdk kernel? What about the 9.0 kernel version? I understand the patch has been merged into kernel 2.5, so what about trying a kernel upgrade? This has been highly recommended (the patch, that is) on another forum, and all I've been reading seems to indicate it might work wonders (of course, I expect that's an exaggeration). What kind of increases in performance could one expect from this procedure, and what are the downsides (if any)?

2. In general, is it be a good idea to recompile things like xfree86, kde, gnome, etc., in fact, most everything, from the src.rpms, using the athlon/athlon XP optimizations in gcc 3.2? In other words, I'm contemplating doing a minimal 9.0 install when it's released, and then adding most everything via recompiled and optimized src.rpms on my AthlonXP 1700 rig. Is the increased performance potential worth the trouble, or is it relatively pointless?

3. Since 9.0 will have gcc 3.2, is Mandrake going to offer optimized versions for Athlon/AthlonXP/socket A systems? Many of us AMD users would really appreciate that. Seems like it would be relatively easy to do another optimized compile for AMD systems, and offer downloads and retail cd packs. The Mandrake i586 versions have become problematic with newer hardware, and offering AMD optimized versions of 9.0 will certainly prevent many Mandrake users from defecting to Gentoo, once they learn about the better performance. Especially if the new Gentoo 1.4 install procedure is simplified, which I understand it will be.

How about it Mandrake? Provide Athlon/socket A users an optimized version of 9.0! We will be extremely disappointed if 9.0 is still only available as i586. Of course, this also applies to other rpm based distros.

Hi, I would expect it to make a significant enought to notice increase anyway, making it worth my time. Not the upgrade on the kernel, but recompiling with gcc3.2. The kernel would make miniscule amounts of improvement for you, since currently not a whole lot is optimized for AMD. I would bet that Mandrake is going to have an AMD optimized version available, as this would be very appealing to MANY people. And as for speed, a different WM will definitely help out, it feels like your computer is on 10 shots of espresso when you switch from one of the 2 major ones to something slimmer *box or XFCE or anything that is smaller.

Cool

Compiling from source will make things slightly faster - no wonders will happen.
But some apps might work better.I got gentoo and debian on the same box.With debian I can usually go and make some coffee until mozilla or galeon load a linuxquestions webpage - something is not ok there with debian.Moz on gentoo loads at normal speed.
Konqueror as filemanager is crashing on me and doing strange things. With debian some apps (like the nt-downloadbasket) just eat 100% CPU when they on.
Don't have any of those issues with gentoo.But compiling stuff like xfree or KDE from source and dropping it into a rpm-based distro can be a bitch, too.
If you want to see the difference just install gentoo on a machine to have a look - it's not a big deal to get it going.