Hey all

My Desktop feels really sluggish when running Slackware 10

My system specs:

Athlon XP 3200+
512MB DDR 3500
Abit NF7-S nForce2 mobo
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro
200GB 8mb Wdigi

I'm running Slackware 10, which all in all has been great for me, I can get everything working, no stupid clutter like Fedora etc, I just love it, BUT.....

My desktop environment generally feels slow. If I restore a browser window (Mozilla, Firefox, Galeon and any others i've tried), I can see it scroll onto the screen as its drawn. If I flick between photos with kuickshow, its not instant, you can see the picture draw onto the screen quite blatently when the next image is bigger.

I am pretty sure it didn't do it with the 2.4.26 kernel, but it does it with 2.6.7's, even if I use .config's configured by people who have used linux a lot longer than me, as well as my own kernel compiles. I've only been using it for a few months, and love it apart from this one thing.

My first kernel compile was a 2.6.7, so the 2.4.26 looked really simple after, heh

I compiled a 2.6.8.1 the other day, but that did the same, so I went back to my 2.6.7

This problem appears to effect all window managers, the desktop just feels generally sluggish. fglrx scores are lower than before too.

Might just go back to my 2.4.26....

Any help appreciated

No idea what it could be really since it hasn't happened to me under Linux. Comparing to Windows though, it sounds like a graphics card driver issue to me, might try installing it again.

ATI video card...
problem found.

What driver are you using for it?

Just to eliminate the bleading obvious...

But do you have ide-dma mode enabled in your kernel config for your specific chipset?

try a quick:

hdparm -d1 /dev/hdx

(x being your HDD obviously)

TK.

Also, if you run 2.6 kernel, did you enable preemptive feature in config ?

grep PREEMPT /usr/src/linux/.config

WMD: I am using the ATi fglrx driver

Tyrekicker: using_dma = 1 (on)

Cedrik: CONFIG_PREEMPT=y


I wish it was one of those, at least it would be fixed by now
Does anyone have any more suggestions? Any help would be really appreciated

Thanks all!

Is your RAM usage really high? If so, you may not have reformatted your swap partition for 2.6?

Clutching at straws here - sorry! :(

But to be honest, there really isn't much wrong with 2.4 - I only use 2.6 because it makes life simpler with regards to winbond sensor chips ;) - otherwise, no harm in downgrading if it gives you a better performance :)

Steve

Search the forum for ATI 9700. Never used it myself, but seem to remember that there were some people with issues. Sounds like a graphics problem to me.

My RAM usage is normal, and I am using 2MB of my swap partition. I use a lot more then I am running Azureus, so that proves that it is working.

Time to start looking at graphics then is it?

Bump