SuSE 9.1 Pro running exremely slow - continually accessing disk drive
 

Linux newbie question:

I've just done a clean install of SuSE 9.1 Pro and this thing runs slower than hell! I've got it on a dual boot on my laptop and don't have the same problem. Both computers only have 64M of memory installed, so I don't believe that's the problem.

SuSE seems to be accessing the disk drive way too much it seems. At times it locks out mouse movement and clicks as it's trying to find something or so it seems. For what it's worth, I'm running KDE on my desktop.

I'm wondering if I've got a swap file set too large or too small? I let SuSE do all the defaults on install, so I'm stumped.

Anybody have any idea what I should be looking at to solve this?

TIA!

64MB is not enough RAM for a modern distro like SUSE 9.1 in GUI mode be fast, but you can try to

- disablie unused services
- use a window manager with lower memory footprint (kde consumes lots of RAM)
- add some RAM ;-)

I agree with adding RAM bump it up to 512 and you will be sailing. Another thing you may want to check is something I just encountered on my SuSE 9.0 box is SuSE Watcher was causing problems, you may want to stop that service.

I'll check that thanks!

As far as memory, this is an old e-machines box that used to run Win ME but got converted. I believe I'm stuck at 128M on that box.

What I can't quite figure out is that I've got a Toshiba Laptop with 64M in it, and I don't have any problems there - even with it dual booting SuSE 9.1 and Win XP. Granted I did swap out the HD from a 6G to a 40G, so I guess it may be the HD speed that is making a difference, but I'm not sure.

Update: That made one HELL of a difference! Thanks!

That could be submount that accesses your disk too frequently. Try to disable it - change
to
maybe it's /dev/cdrom, not /dev/cdrecorder

and the same with floppy.


*EDIT*

oops, that's HD and not CD drive being accessed frequently! Somewhy I thought of the CD drive. :eek:

with 64MB you're surely low on memory and constantly swapping

the output of the "free" command shows more details - post it here if you need more infos

PopcornDave, what made the difference? sorry if I missed something in your post..

Turning off the SuSE Watcher has made a difference. More memory would obviously make a GREAT deal of difference, but I'm stuck with a max of 128M so I'm watching the ads for a new cheap box.

Update: Just installed 256M of RAM and the box is now cooking!