[ltp] Slow Linux

[Tod Harter]

On Saturday 19 October 2002 08:12 pm, surferjeff@excite.com wrote:
> *** List MOVED use linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org for future postings
> ***

I've never done a loopback install, so I cannot say how much of a performance 
hit there is, but its safe to say that it has SOME impact... 

One thing to do is check /var/log/messages and /var/log/kernel/* for messages 
relating to the hard drive.

I'd also have to know how much RAM there is in the machine and what you're 
trying to run. Are you starting lots of services? Are you starting KDE or 
Gnome? Some of these things can suck resources and if you have a machine with 
limited RAM it can be pretty brutal. 

The other question is SWAP...... If you ARE running low on RAM then you will 
be swapping, which slows things down a lot, but maybe if swap has to go 
through loopback then things are really getting killed right there. Ideally 
you don't swap at all, but on smaller machines sometimes its just a way of 
life.

My advice for limited resource machines is to run the ICE window manager. 
Mandrake provides it as their main alternative to KDE/Gnome and it will save 
you dozens of megabytes.

As an example I did an install on an old NEC VERSA 6000 that has 64 megs of 
RAM. It works fine with ICE, as long as I run only run say Mozilla and 1 or 2 
other apps at a time. I CAN run KDE on that machine, but with 1 konsole and 1 
konqueror window open the thing has no free memory left, so its marginally 
useable that way.

Also, I'd really recommend updating to MDK 9.0, its WAY WAY WAY better than 
8.1, and fixes a lot of laptop related issues.

>
>
>
> I have a Thinkpad 600 (no E or X.)  I just installed Mandrake 8.1, and for
> some reason, it's running really slow, like not-really-usable slow.
>
> Linux is famous for being fast.  I'm confused.
>
> The bottleneck seems to be the hard drive, but this is just a wild guess
> based on me observing the little hard disk light.  Where as on MS Windows
> it bumps and grinds in what is effectively white noise, on Linux, the disk
> sounds like a clock ticking: it only reads or writes for a fraction of a
> second at a time.  I installed Linux as a loopback file, not on a separate
> partition.  Is this what's causing it to run so slow?  If so, how do I
> uninstall Linux and re-install it on a separate partition?
>
> Also, now back in MS Windows, I can no longer put my computer into standby
> mode.
>
> Finally, where do those nasty lm_sensors and i2c files live, so I can rm
> them straight away?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jeffrey Glen Rennie
>
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