Dear Femme; You said it yourself. <SNIP> I myself am running the E-kernel on a dual Athlon server with 2 Gigs of ram and it's very nice, but not designed for multi-media stuff. Your system is screaming for a standard kernel or the SMP kernel.
SMP Kernel...wtf for??? I don't have a dual cpu setup...wish i did sometimes but it'd be useless for me.
As far as seeing only 800 Megs of your ram is concerned, that's because of two things - 1) Linux only needs 800 on your system, and 2) you don't have OVER a Gig. Normally, Linux takes all the available ram and manages it so that different applications can have what they need. Once you get up topwards a Gig however, you start heading into "server-country", and that's where the E-kernel kicks in. I think Linus designed it that way because he never conceived of a desktop user needing more than 6 or 7 hundred Megs of ram, and figured that anyone using more than that would probably be using it for a server.
OK that makes perfect sense... I can live with that.
Your hardware is obviously for a multi-media desktop PC, but since the installer sees a Gig of ram, it assumes that you have a server and installs the E-kernel, thinking it's doing you a favour. You can leave it there and try it out, but I think the only ploace you'll notice a difference is in stability. That's the good news. The bad news is that your motherboard will probably run your FSB bus at a slower rate with that much ram in it.
hm..funny you should mention that... I had to manually force my RAM to run @ 333 speeds instead of 266 which is what it ran at on the "AUTO" setting... don't know about my FSB. May have to force that too if i can run a test or 2 to find out what it IS running at.
Asus boards have a nasty habit of dropping the speed of your Front-Side Bus down a notch or two when you run that much ram, so by pulling out half, the FSB should go back up to the fastest speed that your CPU can handle. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that your system runs 10% faster afterwards. I haven't found out if this "quirk" is due to the chipset or just the nature of the beast, yet, but if I do, I'll let you know.
Thx I appreciate it...its a brand new board manufactured 6 months ago... so you'd think it'd be better than the older ones. Dunno if it is though yet. If/when I find out the FSB I will post for you.
Hope this helps (?). By the way, I meant what i said about you NOT being a dummy! I think that the term "dummies" is synonymous with "Microsoft Windows User", and is especially reserved for those that never take the time to read "End-User License Agreements" (EULA's), so that they can discover which of their privacy rights they are surrendering to MicroShaft. I don't think you'd qualify for that title, nor would anyone on this list, since they're already using or looking for a decent alternative!
heh... ya i know you meant it. thx. I'm sure we are all in similar straights: Looking for a better way to do things... and the dummies reference wasn't meant as anythign but a poke at myself & my bimbette nature sometimes. :)
Anyway, try a variety of kernels if you like. It won't harm your system, and after a few weeks you can decide if there's a difference or not, but kep in mind the idea of dropping your ram to 512Mb's.
Cheers!
(Nice flaming red hair by the way! That was a wig, right?)
Lanman
Wig he says...sheesh... no its really pink! Yes I do really dye it this colour every 3 months or so! heh going again this month or so... :) Last time was pink with purple roots ... likely i'll keep that this time around again. The purple was real too in teh hospital :)
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FemmeFatale, aka The Skirt
Good Decisions Your boss Made: "We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts."
- Source: Dilbert
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