Hi all. I've got an old machine that used to have Linux Red Hat 7.1 on it as a stand-alone machine. I had to return to the World of Windows for work purposes, but have finally lost patience with it after IE6 crashed 6 times in 1.5hrs while trying to redesign a web site. I have since reinstalled both Red Hat 7.1 and Mandrake 8, but both of these are so painfully slow I have had to reinstall Windows to get some productivity back. The big stats are:
The machine: Model: HP Vectra 400VE Processor: Intel Pentium 200MHz MMX RAM: 128MB HDD: 2GB (with such a small HDD I've been forced to completely wipe the drive and have only the one OS on there at a time, which i can live with) The History: - Originally ran Win NT 4.0 for work purposes - Installed Red Hat 7.1 stand alone -worked fine - Installed Win98SE - Installed 3Com 3C905B PCA 10/100NIC and SB ISA soundcard -worked fine - Reinstalled Red Hat 7.1 -poor performance - Installed Mandrake 8.0 - poor performance - Reinstalled Win98SE -works as well as it can (good performance but terrible stability) The problems: - Booting takes approx. 3-5mins from power on to login screen, then about 2mins to desktop - Menu performance slow -approx 10-20sec response time - Applications slow to open: 45-60sec for browser, 20-30sec for Home directory, to log off took about 1min etc - Network detections doesn't work: 15sec timeout from Drakconf under Mandrake - Internet connection OK, but loading time slow: approx 30sec for Google to load after finding site - Sound doesn't work, but that's no big problem, I can live without sound. When I ran Red Hat as a stand-alone, none of these problems were apparent: booting was about 1min from power on to desktop, menus and applications appeared fine, and I didn't have a SOHO network or I'net connection, so the other two were not an issue. I can guess the cause is the new NIC and sound card, but how do I increase performance: - Is there a way to limit the processes that need to load but still have an OK machine? - Will physically removing the sound card help? I want to still use the I'net so removing the NIC is not an option - I have a choise of distro to install: RH6.2, 7.1 and 8, as well as Mandrake 7.2, 8 and 9. Will installing one of these help with performance? - Is there something else that could help that I haven't thought of? And before anyone else suggests it, yes I am going to get a better machine, I'm just getting the money together! Look forward to your answers. ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
