why is linux so slow?!
 

i have debian with kde running on my system.. and it's very sluggish. if i'm downloading, my computer lags quite a lot (i can't even type without "hello" becoming "heellloo").. i can't even watch a movie without it getting all choppy!!

my specs are:

P4 3.0 GHz
1 GB RAM
ATI AIW Radeon 9800

I can't even take a guess on why it would run so slowly.. could it be because i'm using my spare 20 gig-er for linux? even still, it shouldn't be that slow.. it's quite standard actually made by Maxtor.. 7200 RPM.. connected to ATA-100.

any suggestions?

feature bloat is taking over kde and gnome. you can strip out stuff, or even run an old version of kde or gnome, compiling them yourself. i'm still running kde 1.3, for the the stuff i want drop and drap for. and that's on top of the blackbox window manager. 2.2 ghz athlon xp and 1 gig of ram.

is it really the bloated kde? i mean even if it's bloated, i can't imagine it slowing down my system so that i can't even type normally.

Re: why is linux so slow?!
 

Look at the output of top
check hdparm -tT /dev/hda



Cheers,
Tink

maybe dma is disabled.
hdparm /dev/hda
hdparm /dev/hdb
hdparm /dev/hdc
hdparm /dev/hdd
will show you stuff.

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 2588 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1294.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 12 MB in 3.29 seconds = 3.65 MB/sec

is that normal or what.. ? xP

/dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq = 0 (off)
using_dma = 0 (off)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 39813/16/63, sectors = 40132503, start = 0

it seems dma is off? how do i enable this.. i'm using kernel 2.4.26, i'm guessing i have to recompile?

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda

i tried that using root.. and this is what i got

/dev/hda:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
using_dma = 0 (off)

i have hda partitioned to hda1 (/boot) hda2 (swap) and hda3 (/ ).. so i tried just enabling to one partition:

/dev/hda3:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Invalid argument
using_dma = 0 (off)


:(

you can't set dma on one partition. it's for a whole drive.
are you using a kernel you made yourself? anyway, that's what the speed problem is probably.

this is closer to normal
/# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.00 seconds =127.36 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.37 seconds = 46.61 MB/sec
/#

eh.. i did compile the kernel myself.. how do i go about fixing this?

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda will enable dma on hda. Likewise for other drives.
hdparm -X 69 /dev/hda will enable UDMA 100 for hda.

Or use 68 for udma 66.

This can speed thing up. But to benefit from udma, you must have 80pin flat cables connecting ide devices.

ohh cummon, thait aint KDE bloat !
my pentium 2 233mzh 128meg ram ATI Rape128 runs KDE 3.2.2 just fine.

open KDE's system guard...
maybe you have a crashed program, or somthing running an infinite loop thats taking up 99.99% of your system resources.

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda gives me an error.. and 80 pin flat cables.. isn't that the normal ide hd cable? i'm not talking about the thicker cdrom cables.. it's the same but just thinner

oh and my cpu is idling at 1%.. xP

I've got the same typing problem. While I'm trying to learn Python I'll go to type 'print' and get prinnnnnnnnnnnnnn and such.

Hangs constantly, sluggish, long load times for apps. I would love to speed it up. I'm not familiar with Linux and it's processes yet so I don't know what's safe to shut down or even how to do it.

I'm running Suse 9.1 with KDE 3.2 on a p4 2.6 laptop with 333 FSB, 512 ddr sdram and 32 meg g-force 420 card.

I know KDE is a bit of a resource hog but damn, this is rediculous. Even my screensaver jumps and it's not even a complex one.


Holy sh*t. I just check KDE system guard and I'm using 507K of my 512k of ram. I only have mozilla and xmms running.

i've recently installed mandrake 10 on my laptop using the default compiled SMP kernel (laptop is a p4 3.2ghz, 512 meg ram, 5400rpm hdd) and my linux runs totally fine

also for the above test i get

/dev/hdc5:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1532 MB in 2.01 seconds = 763.44 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.01 seconds = 21.24 MB/sec


i know this isnt much of a help to you guys but just thought id mention my experience as a comparisson