There are several things you should check.
1. Does Linux see all your memory? run "free" and make sure the total memory
reported is close to the physical memory in the system (it won't be exact).
BTW, how much memory do you have? You don't mention that.
2. Which RH profile did you install? What processes are running in the
background ("ps ax" will tell you) and are they taking up too much memory or
CPU time? This is an "apples-to-oranges" issue -- if Win95 runs less in the
background, it will have more memory for activities that you see, so run
"faster" for those activities. The way to improve performance in this case
is to disable background processes that you don't need.
3. Do you have a swap partition defined? Is it being used (again, "free"
will tell you)? To be fair here, Win95 does seem to use its version of swap
space better than Linux does ... based on informal observation, not careful
tests.
4. What X environment are you running? Some of them use more memory than
others, and (at least to my taste, though other have different preferences)
they mostly do it for show, not to perform useful activities. A leaner
window manager -- personally, I like blackbox -- will free resources for use
by foreground activities.
5. How big is your kernel? Default kernels are quite big -- kernels
customized to your equipment are often half the size of a distribution's
default. Linux isn't very good at auto-customizing itself to your equipment
(Win95 does seem to be better in this respect, and Win3.1 "solved" this
problem by starting out small and pretty much forcing users to do the work
of installing drivers and such).
As to your general observation ... my take is that memory size matters more
than processor speed for running X. I've run X on a 486/40 with 32 mB of
RAM, and it runs pretty well (with fvwm95 or, more recently, blackbox). A
486/66 with 16 mB RAM seemed pokey (under fvwm95)-- okay to run as an X
terminal -- that is, in a setup where the actual apps ran on a different
host -- but too slow when running any significant app on the same host. (My
test standard is running Netscape, a fairly demanding app -- I don't use
linuxconf, but I can't imagine it needing more CPU & memory than Netscape.)
If you want more focused feedback than that, you'll really have to tell us
more about your situation. For example, you wrote: "I wonder if anyone who
may have tried a similar configuration of equipment as above ...." Similar
to what? All you say "above" (in the Subject: header) is "X-Windows,
Linuxconfig and a 486". Pretty vague description of a configuration. Many of
my suggestions are in the form of questions about what equipment, what
window manager, what profile, etc., you are actually talking about. Details
matter here.
Similarly, you write: "When I start X-Windows I find that X-Windows is quite
a bit slower than Win95 on the same machine." Do you mean slower to start,
or does X do something slower than Win95 after they are running? If the
first, I wouldn't be surprised -- unless you've done a LOT of customizing of
X -- more than anyone usually bothers to do -- it needs to figure out a lot
when it starts, so that is slow. If the second ... well, once again, details
matter.
My take is also that Win95 also runs poorly on 486s -- when I did "upgrades"
a few years ago, I always found myself retreating back to Win3.1 on my 486s.
What apples-to-apples comparisons, beyond startup time, have you done
between Win95 and Linux/X to decide that Linux/X is "quite a bit slower"?
At 08:58 PM 1/13/00 -0500, Blais Klucznik wrote [in part]:
> I wonder if anyone who may have tried a similar configuration of
>equipment as above has experienced a result similar to that of which I
>will describe when attempting to run X-Windows and Linuxconf in a
>terminal window?
>
> I have RedHat v6 and when in the Command mode the OS executes as fast
>as DOS does when I boot up in DOS. When I start X-Windows I find that
>X-Windows is quite a bit slower than Win95 on the same machine. Then,
>while in X-Windows, I switch to a terminal and try Linuxconf, Linuxconf
>is simply unusable.
>
> To give you an idea: if I am in Linuxconf and click on PPP in order to
>configure PPP it takes about 5 minutes for the first screen on the right
>pane to materialize.
>
> It appears that one can barely run X-Windows on a 486 and simply
>shouldn't even consider running Linuxconf in a terminal window. Its
>speed is simply is not acceptable. This is what I have experienced.
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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