New Linux (Xandros) User: any advice on these subjects?

From: HeadHunter (Head_at_hunter.com)
Date: 09/29/04 

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:26:47 -0400

Just installed Xandros Desktop 2 OCD. First time linux user

The Specs:

P3 512KB cache
655 MB Ram.
Ati All in wonder 128 AGP with 16 MB memory.
HP 4x4x24 CDRW (manf. by sony)
3 HD's all ATA 33 I believe.
Linux partition is 10 GB
WinXP Pro is the other OS on this system and is on a separate disc. drives
are a mix of NTFS/FAT32 (cept the linux of course)
DSL 3 MB/s service thru a D-Link 704P router/print server. 10/100 MB
Ethernet card is a 10 MB card
Other System on network is a Dell optiplex p4 1.8 Ghz using WinXP
Pro

I have been a desktop computer user since the mid 80's using Mac then
switching to Win95 to present. My only expierence with unix was Uniyses
unix in High School and trying to use a bubble sort to Rank college
basketball teams. in other words All i know is graphical OSes

Firstly Xandros installed quite nicely and easily and gave me the option to
add the bootloader on a floppy, the c:\ drive or the primary partition.
Nice selection: Install time was slower than it was for XP Pro BUT very few
updates to add afterwards UNLIKE XP. I love the customisation of the
Xandros Networks Center where I can pick and choose any of the available
updates. Very nice. I also love the File manager and it correctly
identified all my discs and partitions and file systems that were setup in
windows for shares on BOTH machines. That was smooth.

I find Xandros is slower than XP on this P3. I was very disappointed that
file transfers from my other machine's fat32 partitions are only about 1
mb/sec as opposed to the 7-8 mb/sec i got on the windows network. I wanted
to keep all my music and multimedia on the Dell's 30 GB fat32 disc/share but
realise I might not be able to do that if all I can get is 800 KB/sec
transfer to the linux box. Xandros has correctly identified the ethernet
card in my P3 but could poor file sharing be because of the router
relationship to linux?

Websurfing is slower on Xandros too. I tried to use Opera and Mozilla but
it takes longer to process applets and display jpegs after they are
downloaded. Once again related to router or is a Temp or Swap file issue
generally?

I also read alot of newsgroups. It takes longer to download headers but
the processing and sorting of headers once downloaded is faster than Xnews
or Outlook Express on Windows. Alot faster. My Question is can I save my
header and subscription information incase i switch to another linux distro
this autumn? How is this done?

Xandros Desktop as a friendly feel to it and it's launch button is better
designed than mac or XP but it seems to lag when I try to start an
Application. is there some memory management tricks Ican use to get Xandros
to use more RAM? Are there tricks to get Xandros' Desktop to work faster?

Also would not recognise my Vibra16 ISA sound Card. the only piece of
Hardware not recognised. How do I inside linux install drivers?

Any pointers or Xandros user forums to get possible answers to my questions?

thanks and apologies for poor spelling and grammar. I have 2 broken
meta-carpal bones in my hand :( and spell checker is only so good......

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