so i boot into red hat 9 with my custom built (myself) pc ( amd xp 1800 , 256MB ddr, soyo dragon MB, geforce2mx440 32MB graphics ) and redhat 9 by defualt is using 136 MB of my precious limited memory. sorry more mem is not an option for me right now. i can boot into xp and it's only using 89MB of mem.
how can i put redhat on a memory diet without sacrificing stability? linux is supposed to be totally configurable right? can i run rh9 w/out a gui? can i do somethin different and keep my nice blue curve desktop?
i tried to run quake 3 arena demo in rh9 and it barely got through the menus , on the lowest settings, then crashed on attempt to actually play.....it was like i was trying to run it on a pentium 1. i played quake3a on a pent2 333 with 128 ram in windows and it ran smooth as silk. now i have a decent machine and i cant play while in linux. i really want to like linux, bill is too rich already, but with issues like this , what ' s a geek to do?

The video drivers you got with redhat 9 are not the best for playing 3D games. Go to www.nvidia.com and download the lastest linux drivers. they are fairly easy to install. Just get out of X windows and execute the install script.

As for memory usage, I think linux sets up a bunch of ram disks when it boots up. Perhaps there is a way to limit the number used. But in fact I think that ram is just 'held' until needed by an application - then it is given over to the app.

Now quit yer whinin' and get to it!

YES SIR!!!!RIGHT AWAY SIR!!!!! i mean thanx man.....i'll giv it a whirl in the blender.