Why is my linux desktop so slow?

By theh0g
in Linux

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theh0g

Posted
Posted

Hey,

I'm new at linux (ok I know some server related stuff and some basics I need as web developer), especially when it comes to desktops. I installed Mandrake 9 and tried 9.1B, but it's always so slow, no matter what I run: KDE or GNOME. Well, everything looks like Windows 2000 on a low-end pentium machine, when you move windows it moves like something I've done in Pascal, ... I have a 1800 machine, RivaTNT card (it's a PC in office)..did I forget to configure something or set something or is this really so slow? (and don't attack me, I love the idea of linux and all ) :)

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https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/62917-why-is-my-linux-desktop-so-slow/
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Grand Master

Xahid

Posted
Posted

Check that, how many stuff you installed (packages)

you need to uninstall the unnecessary packages.

check system services, that how many services are running at startup.

I am running RedHat8 at 900 Mhz Celeron & 128MB Ram

and its running smooth as a Web Server, Samba Server, SQL Server, Wine. etc

Just using it for testing purpose.

Grand Master

neowin_hipster

Posted
Posted

Do you have 2-d acceleration enabled???

It may mention your graphics card name in some cofig somewhere but you need specific modules in order to get it.

And about load speeds, try using a prelinker ;) Windows essentially loads all the .dll's up during boot. Linux doesn't. Using a prelinker will speed things up a lot. Mozilla is bloated. Even on windows its slow. Phoenix is faster.

Windows is much slower than linux. A lot slower. Perhaps you are using binaries for 586 or 386. Compile everything with the proper flags. like -march athlon-xp ... etc. I've noticed redhat to be the slowest distro i've used. Also, using a file system like reiserfs or xfs rather than ext3 will speed things up a lot.

Grand Master

Dysphoria

Posted
Posted

Ok you need to give us some info on your PC.

CPU, Mem, HD Space ... etc

When you installed linux, how did you configure your swap file, it should be at least 2xRAM, it depends on how much ram you have.

You said you have a Riva TNT card, so you can try and install the Detonator drivers for Linux that you can get from the Nvidia website. They should work with Riva TNT.

also check your startup services and remove the ones you dont really use, that way you'll freeup some resources.

You can find some help here on how to setup your graphic card drivers.

Grand Master

Prasanth

Posted
Posted
  Goalie_CA said:
Windows is much slower than linux. A lot slower. Perhaps you are using binaries for 586 or 386. Compile everything with the proper flags. like -march athlon-xp ... etc. I've noticed redhat to be the slowest distro i've used. Also, using a file system like reiserfs or xfs rather than ext3 will speed things up a lot.

Compiling everything will take a lot of time.

And linux is slow. X server + Gnome or KDE = pure bloat.

Proficient

Zombie9920

Posted
Posted
  Panorama said:
For me Mozilla seems to load up at the same speed as it would in Windows. Anyway, in my case, RedHat 8 runs smoothly for me. I'm not saying that the distro you use is bad, but like wickedlester said, it's a beta and there are bugs.

It is Linux we are talking about man. It will always be Beta with bugs(even the stable releases). Linux distros have more bugs than Windows could ever dream of having(open source programmers squash old bugs and create new bugs in the process), they just aren't publicized like the Windows bugs are because Linux's user base doesn't make a pimple on the ass of MS Windows' user base(number of users) and of course Linux is Open Source. As with any other Open Source program.....Tons O' Bugs are to be expected but are accepted by Open Source advocates.

The sad thing is these Open Source advocates bash MS for bugs despite the fact that thier preferred software is plauged with bugs. Talk about hypocrititcy at its finest.

Grand Master

BroChaos Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
  Zombie9920 said:
It is Linux we are talking about man. It will always be Beta with bugs(even the stable releases). Linux distros have more bugs than Windows could ever dream of having(open source programmers squash old bugs and create new bugs in the process), they just aren't publicized like the Windows bugs are because Linux's user base doesn't make a pimple on the ass of MS Windows' user base(number of users) and of course Linux is Open Source. As with any other Open Source program.....Tons O' Bugs are to be expected but are accepted by Open Source advocates.

The sad thing is these Open Source advocates bash MS for bugs despite the fact that thier preferred software is plauged with bugs. Talk about hypocrititcy at its finest.

what in the hell are you talking about? honestly...

Grand Master

BroChaos Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted (edited)

your logic makes absolutely no sense. care to elaborate on why linux is more stable? what happens when you get bsod? have you ever even used linux?

you need to use linux first(no offense intended)

i'll elaborate a little: number of updates is in no way related to stability or bugs. for critical applications and webservers that need 99.999....% uptime, what is the OS of choice? nothing made by MS.

Edited by BroChaos
Grand Master

BroChaos Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

you are far from ready for using linux as a desktop. it's not linux's fault. for millions of people, linux is extremely stable. you fail to look at the situation as a whole, and instead focus on your lack of linux experience. no one is forcing you to update everyday. applications are stable even without the updates. if you can't make linux look good, then i don't know what to tell you. linux is infinitley more customizable then any MS OS will ever be.

Grand Master

Prasanth

Posted
Posted

They update it regularly, that dosen't mean its buggy. The stable branch is always stable because it is.

  Quote
I know the last time I used it the kernel was at 2.4.19. I just visited kernel.org and it is already up to 2.5.59.
2.4.x is the stable kernel and 2.5.x is a delelopment release.
  Quote
Honestly, how can people be happy with constantly recompiling thier kernel and finding drivers for b@stard hardware that will work with the new kernel.

They are not forcing you to update to a newer kernel every time when its released. If you think its very difficult to update the kernel just use the kernel that bundled with your distro.

I think you have never used linux.

Grand Master

Prasanth

Posted
Posted
  Zombie9920 said:
(EDIT)HAHAHAHA! The irony of this pointless debate is you guys are telling me how the trash called the modern Linux is so great in a thread where someone is having issues with Linux(he had a stable release too). :shifty:

He said its slow. Agreed that the GUI is a bit slow. You said its buggy. Its not.

Collaborator

theh0g

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  Euphoria said:
Ok you need to give us some info on your PC.

CPU, Mem, HD Space ... etc

When you installed linux, how did you configure your swap file, it should be at least 2xRAM, it depends on how much ram you have.

You said you have a Riva TNT card, so you can try and install the Detonator drivers for Linux that you can get from the Nvidia website. They should work with Riva TNT.

also check your startup services and remove the ones you dont really use, that way you'll freeup some resources.

You can find some help here on how to setup your graphic card drivers.

I have Athlon XP 1600+, 256MB ram, Riva TNT.

I know about swap, I made it 500MB, I selected NVIDIA GEFORCE from card list (should be the latest driver included, right?).

I'll check for the services...

Grand Master

Fotix

Posted
Posted
  theh0g said:
  Euphoria said:
Ok you need to give us some info on your PC.

CPU, Mem, HD Space ... etc

When you installed linux, how did you configure your swap file, it should be at least 2xRAM, it depends on how much ram you have.

You said you have a Riva TNT card, so you can try and install the Detonator drivers for Linux that you can get from the Nvidia website. They should work with Riva TNT.

also check your startup services and remove the ones you dont really use, that way you'll freeup some resources.

You can find some help here on how to setup your graphic card drivers.

I have Athlon XP 1600+, 256MB ram, Riva TNT.

I know about swap, I made it 500MB, I selected NVIDIA GEFORCE from card list (should be the latest driver included, right?).

I'll check for the services...

The open-source NVIDIA driver that comes with Mandrake isn't complete; an official driver from NVIDIA is not included due to licensing issues. The linux driver on NVIDIA's website will give you 3D acceleration and other 2D acceleration functions that the driver included with Mandrake does not include.

I highly recommend getting and installing it. :yes: ;)

Apprentice

warr

Posted
Posted

Linux GUI is indeed slower than Windows. because Windows is just good at that. :woot: :woot:

but your problem can't always count on this.

you are using a TNT with how many onboard gfx memory? what resolution you use?

you can calculate how many gfx memory you need of your gfx card using your resolution.

and about the driver, it is reported that the latest 41.91 driver from NVidiot makes slower 2D, faster 3D. so you can change back to earlier 3xxx driver. ( i myself don't notice any slowdown in 2D).

Apprentice

warr

Posted
Posted

Linux X Window system use a Client/Server architecture.

your window clients: twm, kde, gnome are the clients. and the x server underlying is the one that handles with the drivers.

Windows: i don't know. because MS keeps everything to its own. :laugh: :laugh:

each has advantage. Windows GUI is fast. advantage as some of u pointed out.

LInux? you may not know. Because it is client/server architecture, linux has the remote window access for long long time already. u only need a simple pc with very small ram without hdd, and you can access linux/UNix. you are running the client, and and you are using it to access the server running elsewhere.

Windows? remote access? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: since WinXPee rite? :laugh:

Grand Master

NeoMayhem

Posted
Posted
  Prasanth said:
Compiling everything will take a lot of time.

And linux is slow. X server + Gnome or KDE = pure bloat.

KDE and Gnome are pretty bloted (KDE is worse), and I really hope they make it better in future versions :p

Linux is much faster then windows though, if you run Apache/PHP/MySQL, on windows and on linux, it is almost 2 times faster on linux while being more stable :p

Enthusiast

BarryJ

Posted
Posted

Using prebuilt distros linux always seemed to run slow for me as well. Now I'm on Gentoo (a distro that is source based, so it's compiled directly on your machine - adding the right compiler options helps to optomize it for your exact system) and everything is faster than windows. Gentoo is considerably more difficult to install, though. And yes, it does take a long time to compile everything - a full system (kernel, XFree, KDE, etc...) rebuild for me took about a day, but the speed can't be beat.

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