I have just installed Red Hat 9 on an IBM Aptiva that has a 533mhz processor and 320Mb memory. I selected the desktop configuration option in the install process. I have tried the Gnome desktop and KDE desktop but they both run really slow and take ages to load any applications (such as Mozilla or Konqueror).
Should I consider another distribution (if there are any optimised to smaller machines) or are there other options available to get better performance.
For example, should I consider a different windows manager and if so, how do I install it?
The processor is at the limit for the motherboard and I can't really afford to replace the computer. I installed Linux hoping for a performance improvement (it was running Windows 98) and to see whether it is suitable for home use.
I am a linux newbie and use the pc for general desktop use and some php development.

Cheers,
Jerry.

your exactly right about the choice of using a different window manager ... KDE and
GNOME are "heavy" desktop environments, and my personal recommendation is for
you to try out fluxbox ... its very lightweight, and you should see a drastic improvement
in speed ... the link to it is below :
http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/

and you'll notice above the top of the page, that there is different links, which one of
them includes "Documentation" .. it'll tell you everything about getting it up and running
plus more .. but to give you a trimmed down version, all your basically going to have
to do is your basic installaion of "most" tarballs ...
untar it
cd into the extracted folder
./configure
make
su -
make install

and i don't know how you boot your system, but i personally boot to init 3 (text mode)
and then when i am good and ready i type startx to load up the graphical
environment .. so what i do is add "exec fluxbox" to my .xinitrc file in my home folder for
it knows to initiate flux upon issuing the startx command ..

Thanks DrOzz,
I will give it a try!