fluxbox good. KDE bad.

Suse8.0 is also much slower than windows especially loading web pages which takes at least twice as long ,using konquerrer and netscape 6.
tried tinkster command hdparm but bash doesnt now the command hdparm at all ????


Where can i find this command ?

Like to try slackware but what is the easiest way to get it as it does not seem to be available in uk as a product like rh and suse ?

I only have dial up .

thanks ..

you have to be root to run that command, providing they included it in your distribution, which I would assume they have unless suse wrote a replacement for it.

Earlier, I made a comment about comparing Windows to Linux in a multi-user environment. I understood the original post was about a comparison of Windows versus Slackware as a workstation OS...but the point I was making is that the traditional distinctions between server computers and workstations can (and maybe should) disappear when running Linux.

And so, in my mind, any comparison of the performance of Windows 9.x-->ME, or NT-->XP, to something like Slackware 9.0, should take into account the over-all capabilities of each operating system. Provided that one can find the necessary applications (which, for my purposes, Linux provides adequately), the additional capabilities of Linux, particularly in a networked environment, outweigh any potential performance advantage any version of Windows might offer when used for a single, limited, purpose.

And while some of the lastet versions of Windows may (or may not) be "snappier" than Linux as a workstation OS when compared side by side on the latest hardware, the latest versions of Slackware will still run reliably (albeit slowly) on Windows 95 era hardware as a workstation -- and the X Windowing System's network transparency permits these old boxes to run productivity apps on 486 and P1 hardware as X terminals at P IV speeds if the XDM server is a PIV.

But probably the single most important issue is that you don't need to compare Slackware to Windows ON THE SAME HARDWARE...And why is that?

Because you can download Slackware for free and install it on as many machines as you like. The savings in OS license cost and the reduced hardware requirements gives you a choice between staying within the same budget figure and buying a faster processor, more RAM and faster disks -- or staying with the same hardware and pocketing the savings.

If you choose the former approach, and go for upgraded hardware, any potential performance advantage for Windows is nullified -- and you get superior reliability and capabilities.

If you choose the latter approach, and run Linux on the same hardware (or even on less powerful hardware that won't let you install the latest version of Windows), you might take a performance hit, but you'll save so much money you can then make a large investment in beer -- and that will cause you to quit caring about workstation performance.

yes thanks jtshaw you solved my original problem but now i have to add all my links to root login as i left it all empty ..while i continue to learn linux ,but hey that is part of the fun aint it??? What i camnnot seem to manage is how to set the background permanent in root it defaults to bombs every boot ..its just a minor irritation but still annoyoing ,refresh desktop does not work..

Ive been running slack9 since it was available after trying a bunch I settled on fluxbox as my WM, very fast. for movies i use mplayer but I run it without the gui. it's much more stable and I find the commandline output helpful. My machine is not that powerful but when it comes to video I can smoke a comparable win box. Just a matter of slimming down.

I have been running slack9 for a couple of weeks now with no complaints. Everything is fast and stable with consistent data rates. Searching windows directories is extremely fast compared to when windows does it. However, most of the software I need to use for work--PSPICE, LabVIEW, MS OFFICE (for the equation editor and to be compatible with the rest of the company)--only runs on windows, which is annoying. Until I can do everything I need to do in Linux (i.e. run those specific programs without any problems) I have to dual boot (VMWare is too resource intensive to run windows and linux with considerable speed).

Yep. Fluxbox is on the extras part of the slackware ftp tree. It's even a slackware package, easy installation.

i am a newbie... how would i exactly get fluxbox? what do u mean by extra? is it on the cd or do i have to download it from the internet?... if anybody can give me the url for the fluxbox for slackware 9 and give me some easy installation instructions i would really appreciate it =).. thnx

If you're looking for any free software you can just type it in google and itll be the first thing up there. Fluxbox is the same thing. http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/ for fluxbox....they have easy installation.

another point worth making in the Linux v. Win discussion as it pertains to video, is that with mplayer and all the available codecs, you play just about anything with one player. People are always coming to me with some file they can't play. But my slack box always can.
nice

anybody have any more suggestions in speeding up my linux?

i just downloaded the tar.bz2 for the fluxbox.. and did the ./configure make and make install in gnome... and then restarrded the computer and checked the xwmconfig for fluxbox.... but there was no.. how would i get fluxbox running? did i download the right file? it was the 0.1.14 source tarball.

ok i figured out how to get my fluxbox running... when i try to install a new theme.. it says go to my fluxbox directory... i untarred the file in /usr/local... where are the files that make and make install put into?... did it put it into the same directory i untarred it in? how would i look for my fluxbox directory?

my view on the speed issue is that as a human i am going to be the critical path or bottle neck here, any computer operating system is going to beat me and the time it takes me think of something is going to be what slows me down!