Hi all,

This install of slackware has been on the pc for about 3 weeks now, things seem to be running smoothly except every now and then KDE will just freeze. Its running on an all-in-one type pc called a Acer Veriton FP2, PIII 800mhz, 128mb ram, onboard I815 graphics (tried upgrading some hardware but it dont want to work). Im new to linux so not too sure where to get logs that may be able to shed some light on whats wrong, besides the crashing when i log out of KDE i always get a few error messages there like "SMSdie timeout" and "badwindow".

Sorry its vague

Anyone got any ideas on this and/or where to look for logs i can post here (i'll try to understand them first)

Dave

ya, your kinda short on RAM.........the recommended minimum for KDE is 256mb...........maybe you can make your swap a little bigger??!!??

the swap is 400mb, think i shoulda left it at 800mb like in the very 1st slackware install :/

Do you think this problem is not enough ram then?

I would recommend you to try another window manager, if it's lighter better, (I'm not going to name them because i don't want to start a wm fight ) and see if the hangup happens with it too.
Your swap is fine, but your RAM is kind low for current software if you're using too many "nice looking" features.

Ok im checking out the other window managers, they do seem to be running a bit more effortlessly than KDE One thing tho (dunno if this makes much difference at all), I remember when KDE ran for the 1st time there was a slider to pick amount of effects etc depending on your hardware and i put it nearly all the way up, had a look in control panel but cant find it, can someone tell me where it is please?

Thank you for the replys

Start > Settings > Desktop Settings Wizard. Won't make a scrap of difference if you're not running KDE, tho'.......

You're welcome

Edit: Lim45 was faster

This is interesting.
I'm not disputing what you're saying about minimum system requirements for KDE, but, I'm running Slackware 10.1 with KDE 3.3 on a Pll 266 with 128 MB RAM and it runs just fine, it never goes into swap, it is using 38 MB of RAM on start-up to run x windows. No problems that I can see. Granted it isn't as fast as my Plll 667, but, it works just fine.
Slackware is my distro of choice for low-end hardware

38 MB RAM?!? How did you do that? I would really like to know. How you configured stuff, what services are you running, what effects you have on (opaque window moving) etc?

I have only 256MB of ram.. on a 400mhz. I also go into swap a day or two after first booting up/logging in. As far as I can remember, it's 80MB first boot, console, 90-100MB after KDE starts.

Dang it! I think you're correct! I had a closer look at my memory usage and I've mis-read my usage. I was looking at my memory buffer usage and not total physical memory used (bad eyesight). I think I've got that right now.
However, as you can see I'm not in swap using 128 MB RAM on KDE 3.3.
I haven't modified anything, just a stock 10.1 install. My apologies for the memory statement error.

http://www.citytel.net/~gnielsen/snapshot5.jpg

I'm running Slack-current on an old 200MHz Pentium with 64MB RAM and a 177MB swap and haven't experienced any problems at all. I'd run the desktop Wizard and turn down all of those extra effects and see if it doesn't solve the problem. You may just be swamping your RAM or processor with all of those extra effects.

*cough* fluxbox *cough*

Wasn't gonna go there but *cough* I agree *cough*

Ha-ha-ha-ha, I know, but, I like the full features of KDE Strangely enough I can run all apps except OO without it going into swap.
And yeah I've run all of the minimalist DEs, XFce is one of my favourites as it has more features than Flux or Black box. When 10.2 comes out in the next week or two I'll probably go back to XFce as it is more snappy than KDE...........sigh I'll miss the bouncing mozilla icon though.