Linux 9.2 runs very slow on 233MHz PC
 

Have recently installed Suse Linux 9.2 professional on a 233 MHZ Pentium PC with 4.3 GB HD and 198MB RAM, which was previously running with WIN95. It now runs only with Linux. The installation went well and all the programs run (including all the drives, the internet, etc). However, the computer is now incredibly slow. It takes 8.5 minutes to boot. Starting any program takes very long time. Most surprisingly, even browsing the web is painstakingly slow (I have a cable connection with 100 Mbps and browse with other XP computers quite fast). Is there anything I am doing wrong. Is 233MHz to slow for Linux 9.2?


Kachaturian

What desktop are you using? Try installing a lighter desktop that will use less resources.

233 MHz is too slow for 9.2, you might be ok with an earlier version, but 9.2 needs a bit more horsepower to run well. It would be like wanting Windows XP to run well on a dual-3.0 GHz machine with 2 GB of RAM - it just needs more to run fast.

I have 9.1 running on my 500MHz spare box with 512 MB RAM and it runs nicely. The machine I'm on now is an Athlon 2500+ w/ 1GB RAM and it's screaming fast.

Unless you do without a gui entirely and stay in console, a 233 mhz pc will be to underpowered to do anything. Did you actually expect it to be fast? I guarentee xp won't run well or at all on the same machine.

yeah that is way underpowered, try slackware its more forgiving.

mmm, 233MHz is too slow for 9.2

you might try slack or yoper (i have yoper running on an old 1.5ghz machine and it screams). but do yourself a favor...

install ONLY what you need!

try manually selecting what to install. for instance, if you want it to be a web surfing station, install a light desktop, networking tools, and a browser. hope this is not over simplified, but it may be tolerable on the 266.

wish i had it here to mess with :D. might be cheaper to spend $50.00 and get an AMD 1.5ghz/mobo combination and move the rest of your hardware over :D

Thanks for all the comments. I am currently running the K desktop Environment KDE 3.3.0. To evaluate the program on a faster machine I will now try installing Suse 9.2 - Dual boot with XP- in my Sony VAIO 2.4 GHz and 1GB RAM. Is the process completely reversible? i.e., after partitioning the HD and formating it for Linux, if I were to decide to return to the current XP-only configuration, would I have any problems?

I dont know how it is @Xp, but I have a winME and SuSE and i can always
1. move the bootloader (GRUB) to floppy,
2. run windows startdisk
3. fdisk /mbr

... and I have a clean windows boot, still being able to boot linux from floppy...

than i can get the GRUB back to MBR with the help of YaST...

For Xp things are different, but i know a good place with instructions: http://www.novell.com/documentation/...l/ch07s05.html


not bad either i guess... but before that move your GRUB to floppy, IF you want still to be able to boot linux.

To reverse it you would have to format the linux partition and pop in the windows xp cd, and run the command line program and type FIXMBR or FIXPART or something like this. Thats to erase grum or lilo boot loaders and return xp's boot loader. There may be a cleaner more elegant way of reverting back to windows that I'm unaware of, this is the way I did it in the past

boot from knoppix and delete the linux partitions. (the ones without ntfs file systems).
to do this open a console and type
su root
fdisk
help
instructions are pretty clear as to what commands to use from here.

insert xp cd into comp and reboot
select recover
xp should promt "replace master boot record (MBR)
select ok
reboot in SAFEMODE. to do this go to :
start
run
msconfig
select boot.ini
check box for safemode
click apply and close.
reboot

start
run
type "diskpart.exe" without the quotes.
"list volume" (displays existing volumes)
"select volume 1"(or whatever volume you need to extend)
"extend"
"exit"

note that diskpart will only EXTEND A VOLUME it is not a full partitioner. but it will allow windows to "see" the previously deleted partition.

reboot

go back to msconfig and remove check from safeboot

reboot again
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=325590
for more info on diskpart.exe
this worked for me on my laptop a few weeks ago

when you install linux, you might try making a small partition (100mb should be sufficient, i boot several OS's and only use about 25mb) at the beginning or end of your hd for the /boot partition.

then you can use grub as your boot loader regardless of what OS you are using (most distro's identify windows partitions during install, and place an entry in Grub, so you can boot that OS directly from your Grub boot menu.

as you make changes to different OS's, you can continue using grub as your boot loader. note that you may have to reinstall grub after any windows installs. windows thinks it is the only OS that exists ;-) (or wishes it was so) .

good luck

Hard Drive Partition problems
 

I have now tried installing the Suse Linux 9.2 on a PCV-RX860 Sony vaio with 2.4GHz Pentium 4, 1.5GB DDR RAM and 80GB HD (NTFS format) and with Windows XP. It is working partially, and what works runs well and fast. Here is my first problem:
Originally I had a C: (30 GB) and D: (45 GB) windows partitions and in addition I had a USB Storix HD with 27.9 (FAT). (When disconnecting the FAT HD, the installation would hang and not run, when connecting the FAT USB HD, the installation program run successfully). I did not understand why but that did not stop me. The suggested partition for Linux was: Windows C; drive (30 GB) untouched, Windows D: drive partition as follows: 20.1 GB NTFS; 24.1GB Linux Reiser and 1 GB Linux Swap. This was reasonable to me. My current Windows load on D: was 9 GB. Following the instructions, I deactivated the Virtual memory (0 MB allocation), defragmented both the C: and D: partitions, run the Suse installation and accepted the suggested partition (as above).
Presently, within Linux I can access the C: Windows partition and the Linux partition. I cannot access neither the 20.1 NTFS from D: or the 27.9 FAT from the USB HD. When running Windows XP, I can access the C: NTFS partition and the USB FAT HD, but the D: partition is not available. Selecting properties shows that the disk is full. Double clicking on the disks results in a prompt for re-initializing the disk.
Would you please let me know what went wrong and how can I regain access to these?

I realize there is a large volume of info in this and other sites regarding the mounting of windows partitions. I have follow them and do not work. I got a message dueing boot up that says ' mount point ntfs does not exist. Is there a way to save the booting file. I would like to share it with whomever would like to help. Also, when mounting the drives manually, using mount -a, I receive the same message for each of the drives: " mount point ntfs does not exist"; "mount point vfat does not exist".
My main concern, off curse, is that I no longer see the D partition in Windows. I did not find anyone else reporting this problem. Is there somethin I should do for windows to recognize the 20.1 GB ntfs that should be still available in D: (originally a 45.2 GB HD)?

I assume you mean the boot log. Yeah, it's still around after you boot. It's located at /var/log/boot.msg . The easiest way to get it for many is to open YaST and go the "Misc" section. You can also look in the system log at /var/log/messages for problems.

I take it that you told YaST to set up the partitions to mount at ntfs and vfat? It sounds as if it never actually made the directories that you are asking it to mount to. Check out your /etc/fstab to double check exactly where the drives are to be mounted. If the directories are missing, you can create them with the "mkdir" command. If you are still having trouble, you may want to post your /etc/fstab file.

The usb is usually treated as a scsi interface. The device is probably called /dev/sda1 (for first partition).


Yeah, I'd be concerned too. Microsoft has not released the full NTFS specification, which means that other programmers not using Windows need to guess at how it works. That is why it is generally not recommended to write to an ntfs partition using linux. I have heard of many people having great success in splitting a partition during linux installs. You may have simply been unfortunate.

I'd find a way to run chkdsk for it in Windows. I don't have a high opinion of MS-chkdsk, but they are the ones who know NTFS. You should probably start by going to the control panel-> administrative tools-> computer management-> disk management. See what it has to say about your partition. Does it identify it as healthy? Does it even recognize it as NTFS? If you can right click on the square and hit properties it may let you run chkdsk from there (in tools). Disk management is also where you go to manage drive letters.

If all else fails (I hate to say it), you may wind up formating the partition.

The fstab file looks like this (I am typing it since I do not have the means of either saving it in Linux and retrieving it in Windows, or accesing the web via linux. ....I know, things do not look so good!!!! )

/dev/hda7 / reiserfs ac1,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sda1 /windows/D vfat rw,users,gid=users,umask=0002,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda5 /windows/E ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda6 swap swap pri=42 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
/dev/sdb4 /media/zip auto noauto,user 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom subfs
fs=cdfss,ro,procuid,nusuid,nodev,exec,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy subfs fs=floppyfss,procuid,nodev,nosuid,sync 0 0
/dev/hda1/mnt/win_c ntfs users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0
/dev/sda1/mnt/win_s vfat users,owner,rw,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hda5/mnt/win_d ntfs users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0


*******************************************
The last three lines are my additions following instructions from the web. Obviously, i have created the directories win_c, win_s and win-d in the mount directory.

*************************************************
The boot log is quite large to transcribe it. However, the following messages are relevant to the problem:

linux kernel: NTFS-fs-error (device hda5):read_ntfs_boot_sector(): primary boot sector is invalid
linux kernel: NTFS-fs-error (device hda5):read_ntfs_boot_sector(): mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover
linux kernel: NTFS-fs-error (device hda5):ntfs_fill_super():Not and NTFS volume
linux kernel: NTFS-fs-error (device hda5):read_ntfs_boot_sector. primary boot sector is invalid

*******************************************************

I see I have a problem with hda5, though i do not know what it is.
I do not see any messages regarding problems with sda1 (a vfat); however, i cannot mount it either manually or via the fstab file ("mount: mount point vfat does not exist") ????????????????In the old computer (see the beguining of the thread) this disk (a removable 30GB USB HD works well and I can access it via linux)?????????????????????

*****************************************************
In addition, (i) The wireless system ( Lynksys wireless USB network adapter connecting into a router) does not work, and (ii) there is no sound when playing music via CD or DVD. There is sound when playing games. I have not yer tried MP3 files because i can not access them. However, my main concern so far has been the mounting of the disks and the probelsm with the NTFS that may have been corrupted during the partition 9Windows does not recognizes it).

Hmm. for starters, I recommend removing those last few lines. Those partitions are already referred to on the first lines. If you want to change the mount points, then you should edit those lines.

The fstab has a number of things on each line. The first column is the device name. These will almost always start with /dev/ . Your primary master hard drive is /dev/hda . The number tacked onto the end is the partition (hda5 and up are logical volumes inside the extended partition). /dev/sda is the first scsi device in your system. USB hard drives are usually treated as scsi.

The second column is where you want to mount it. In your file you didn't put a space or tab between the two. The reason that it is telling you that the mount point doesn't exist, is because it sees "vfat" as the second column. The partition type should be the third column.

Personally, I would just use the /Windows/C (etc.) that are provided. If you want to use /mnt/win_c instead, then you need to edit those first few lines. I'm still assuming that that ntfs partition got ruined, but it may not have been. What does the disk manager say (in windows, as per my previous post)?

Oh, by the way: The forth colum is a list of options. If I were you, I'd add "sync" to the list for your removable drive (the /dev/sda1 line). When a program tells the OS to write to a drive and the system is busy with other things, it will sometimes pretend like it has. You can write to a file, read it back, and notice that the changes have been made while the file has never acctually hit the disk yet. I think the kernel is supposed to be smart enough to not do that on removeable media, but I wouldn't trust it to. Adding sync to the options list will tell the kernel that it can't do that. (typeing "sync" at the command line will tell linux to "syncronize" the disks with the cache in memory)

In Windows, double clicking on D; generates a prompt ""Disk drive D is not formatted. Do you want to formatt it now?'. selcting properties shows: File System: RAW, Capacity 0 bytes. Check or Defragment do not run on it.

Have found a thread with the name "Windows no longer boots folllowing the installation of SUSE LINUX 9.1 (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...suse+linux+9.1), and a solution that requires downloading a patch from the Suse site. It suggests that this problem happens because YaST wrote and incorrect partition table and thus "BIOS and Linux see different disk geometries and the windows partition is larger than about 8GB"
I suppose that SUSE LINUX 9.2 would have this problem resolved. However, I am willing to try since it may be the last resort.

I found out that the instructions posted for SUSE LINUX 9.1 do not work for SUSE LINUX 9.2. However 9.2 has a repair utility that verifies and attempts the repair of a number of problems. The diagnostic was that the partition hda5 is there but unaccessible because of an unknown format (RAW according to Windows). The suggestion was to removed (and loose all my data!). I think the disk is tosted (I am toasted). Anyhow, I will take the computer to the experts tomorrow to see if they can savage my data. Then I will start again. Thanks for all the help.

Different "professionals" have different methods of billing customers. Talk to them first. Unless they have dealt with resized NTFS partitions in the past, or have some expensive NTFS diagnosing program, I would not comit to paying them anything. If they are willing to have a look for free or for cheap, then maybe.

Just make sure they know exactly what happened.

"Linux 9.2 runs very slow on 233MHz PC"

No, really? I can't imagine why...

On a side note, you think maybe WinXP might run just as slow seeing as the requirements want a 300Mhz Minimum? And that was only the first version of XP...

How long ago did that come out, and how many versions of Suse have come out since...

A final note for anyone following this thread.
Thanks gd2shoe for all your help. I appreciated.
I took the computer to a shop to recover my data (it took 2 days and $70). However, after data recovery, I still had the problem of a corrupt windows partition. I deleted Linux but did not restore the MBR prior to doing it. Thus, for a while I could not start the computer past GRUB. It took me about two weeks to find information on various issues: (i) learn how to log-in using GRUB commands (chainloader (hd0,0)+1; boot) , extend the windows partition to incorporate the previously Linux formatted partition and be able to re-formatt as a NTFS windows partition, (iii) rebuild the MBR, and (iv) finally be back to where I was prior to loading SUSE 9.2.
I have no complaints. I actually learnt quite a bit, and realized that my initial ignorance compounded the problems. I also found out that several Newbies had similar problems and following these threads I resolve them.
Rebuilding the MBR turned out to be the simplest problem to fix. However, it took me the longest. I tried booting using the original Windows XP CD, it required an administrator password, but did not accepted the one I had set up as an administrator password (?). I also tried using an old Windows 98 CD, but did not realize I was using the disk supplied with a pre-installed system. Obviously it did not work. When I finally got an old but original Windows 98 disk, it took me two minutes (using fdisk /mbr) to be up and running.

I had now added a separate hard drive in the computer, to physically separate Windows from Linux. I partitioned the new disk with Partition Magic, to separate the required space for Linux (40 GB ), and kept the remaining of the disk as windows FAT –32, to be able to share data between systems. Running YAST I specified the installation to be mounted in the pre-defined partition (previously I let YAST decide how to partition my hard disk – this obviously did not work well for me).

I am up and running now. All partitions are available from Linux (NTFS partitions are read only, FAT-32 partitions are read and write).

I have a couple of hiccups with network settings (cannot make the wireless Linksys port work) and the CD player has no sound, but these will be subjects of a separate thread.

Thanks again gd2shoe for following up.

And thank you for posting your results. There aren't enough people here that do that. Some people have a problem and get a few replies. Then, they completely vanish. A few of them just realize that their original question was dumb. Most of them either never get the problem under control, or aren't polite enough to help everyone else learn and grow.

Always post your solutions (when you have them). Thank you. I'll see you around!

For your 233Mhz PC you may want to try Damn Small Linux. Although it is a live CD it can be installed on your hard drive..