Re: Why is Linux so slow?
From: Abdullah Ramazanoglu (abdullah_at_ramazanoglu.tr)
Date: 08/14/04
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Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 09:05:33 +0300
Bill Roberts <billr@klaritykonnect.com> dedi ki:
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:05:47 -0700, Moo Shu wrote:
--8<--
> I have the same complaint about SUSE 9.1. I did have Mandrake 9.0, and
> was quite happy with it. I upgraded to Mandrake 9.2, and it wouldn't
> install correctly. I finally returned it to Mandrake, but they have never
> given me a refund, and have not responded to any of my coorespondance. So
> I will never buy another Mandrake product. The, because I wanted to
> upgrade to the 2.6 kernal and other more improved products, I installed
> SUSE 9.1. The main problem is that it is so slow on anything that
> involves the screen. Any programs I have for both Windows and Linux
> take longer to load under Linux than for Windows (98). And once
> loaded then run more slowly. I run Mozilla and Star Office. I am quite
> leary about trying to put Codeweavers Cross Over on under fear of how long
> it would take it to work with Quicken (the only Windows program for which
> I have not found an acceptable Linux substitute, and I have tried
> MoneyDance, Kapital, and GnuCash). Suse Linux and not make fun of
> Windoze. It is not even close in the race, speedwise. Since I am running
> an AMD K6-II at 500 MHz with 512 Meg of memory, I should be getting
> adaquate performance of the programs mentioned above.
>
> Instead of following up to the original post with charges of "troll," it
> would be more useful to supply information on what to do about a very real
> problem. The replies I have seen confirm the worst discriptions of Linux
> usersw as blind to any problems in Linux. If I didn't already know
> about the advantages in Linux, I would probably go back to Windows myself.
They replied so, because the resident advocates here used to know the
omni-morphous resident trolls by their every other details, like a cat
knows its kittens. (^_^) And even for a casual reader it was an obviously
awkward troll, tarted up clumsily with some popular controversies to make
it look like something. Childish. Anyway, you could ask, should a troll be
treated so, or even be treated at all? No /me thinks. 1-1. Double
childish, but at least fair.
Nevertheless the issues are there, and you have your points.
Firstly I would suggest you resolve your problems with Mandrake and don't
take it personally, as they wouldn't want to be cheating you, would they?
Perhaps red-tape, perhaps a sloppy employee, but surely not ill-will. It
is not worth reducing your leeway, for Mandrake 10.0 is about the best
distro for a casual user. Both in terms of speed and ease of use. I don't
use SuSE 9.1 though, so I can't make a first hand comparison.
Second, it is a bit unfair to compare speed of Windows98 against a modern
Linux workstation. Compare Linux (as a desktop) against XP. Because any
and all software uses resources (CPU and RAM) for its task, and there is a
direct relation between how sophisticated a job a software does, and how
much resources it consumes. Just like you wouldn't performance-wise
compare any of Windows 3.1, 95, ME, and XP against each other, or compare
WordPad against Word, you also shouldn't compare Windows98 against a
modern Linux desktop. It's a toy-box vs. tool-box comparison.
Third, performance of a graphical environment much depends on the driver's
capability of utilizing the VGA chip to its limits. Such drivers are
called to be "accelerated". VGA manufacturers provide Windows drivers
tuned for maximum VGA acceleration. But except a few manufacturers, all
VGA drivers are provided by Linux (XFree86) itself, and most but not all
VGA chips have fully accelerated drivers written for them. Any graphical
operation that is not unloded by the driver to the VGA chip, will be
performed by CPU itself, heavily taxing the CPU. In short, you must pay
attention to which VGA card/chip you buy, and must choose a fully
accelerated VGA. There's a page (www.xfree86.org/sos/resources.html -->
Release Documentation) at xfree86.org which lists all VGA chips and how
accelerated their drivers are. A similar doc should also be included in
your distro. In Mandrake 10.0 it is /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/Status
Given the right VGA chip (most of them are so), Mandrake 10.0
automatically detects it and sets up the driver for maximum acceleration
applicable to the chip. I guess it should be the same with SuSE 9.1 too.
Also, there are certain minor tunings you might want to do on an older
machine: Don't choose a fancy desktop theme (I change Mandrake default
"Galaxy" to B3/KDE). Abstain from advanced GUI features (fancy gimmicks)
such as translucency, slow-motion, dynamic background/wallpaper,
shadowing, etc. Don't crowd your system tray, keep only the absolutely
needed items: The icons there, are applets: running programs. Don't run
too many programs (windows) concurrently, and choose your favorite apps
based on, to a certain extent, how much resources they consume. E.g. if
you are in KDE, use Konqueror instead of Mozilla (so that file manager and
web browser would share the same base).
My home machine is a Celeron 333 (overclocked to 375) with 128M RAM, and
it does fairly well with Mandrake 10.0. The bonus I have (so to speak) is
that my VGA card is a S3-Virge (8M) which has a fully accelerated driver.
Some card! :)
HTH
-- Abdullah | aramazan@ | Ramazanoglu | myrealbox | ________________| D-O-T cöm |
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