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Is it an unreasonable to expect Red Hat 9 runnig GNOME 2 to run as smoothly as Windows XP? I shut down unnecessary services, I have the correct video driver ("nv" for geforce 4). I have a 1ghz athlon, 256 mb RAM. I'm dual booting, so its exactly the same hardware in both OSes. I set the GNOME theme to Simple (supposedly high perfermance), which doesn't help. I've turned off AA fonts, which doesn't help. I've turned off the wallpaper, etc. Simple operations like moving a window around or scrolling down in nautilus or mozilla or galeon are just not smooth. They leave trails behind, while in Windows XP they move smoothly. I tried 'renice -10 X.' I tried 2.6.0-test2 linux kernel with 'preemptive kernel' built-in.
What can I do to make it run more smoothly? Or is there nothing I can do?
GaMMa
08-06-2003, 06:58 PM
Try using a distro where everything is compiled from scratch and optimized for your system (AKA Gentoo). Red Hat ran VERY slow for me too even when I made my own kernel, disabled everything I could and optimized every config. SuSe is pretty fast, and someone told me Mandrake is too, but from personal experiences SuSe was the fastest for me.... Gentoo is faster...
Darkbolt
08-06-2003, 06:59 PM
You could do kernel recompile better suited for a desktop system, and get the latest nvidia driver from www.nvidia.com
it'll also support 3d :)
Originally posted by Darkbolt
. . . and get the latest nvidia driver from www.nvidia.com :) Trying that now :)
Originally posted by GaMMa
Gentoo is faster... No it's not. It is actually a good distribution, but compiling takes too long and I have noticed absolutely no speed improvements.
nextbillgates
08-07-2003, 01:09 PM
Originally posted by kam
No it's not. It is actually a good distribution, but compiling takes too long and I have noticed absolutely no speed improvements.
A properly optimized Gentoo system blows away Red Hat.
Gentoo is only as fast as you make it :)
sasKuatch
10-03-2003, 09:48 AM
Darkbolt, good call. Dragging windows around shouldn't leave trails even an a P200mhz.
And no, compiled distro's aren't noticably faster.
Mozilla and Xfree (and WMs) are noticeably faster on any system where they are compiled from scratch with proper processor optimizations. Anything other than X and Moz - you won't notice any difference - unless it is a large app with a lot of repeating code. there is no way you can tell me that a Debian -mcpu=i386 optimized binary for Mozilla is as fast as a -march=pentium4 binary. i've run both on my workstation and the speed difference is very noticeable.
BritishNemesis
10-10-2003, 11:52 PM
I can also confirm that I find GNOME a lot faster in SuSE. It also seems to boot much faster and uses around 100mb less RAM than GNOME did in Redhat.
Charred_Phoenix
10-11-2003, 12:15 AM
Well, I too find gnome is faster in SuSE, but I also have a question: Why are you using gnome in the first place? Most of the alternative wmanagers are much faster; I use wmaker and I've never had any sort of speed problem with it - I even find it more aesthetically pleasing.
JohnT
10-11-2003, 12:44 AM
Rather than pointing a finger at Gome or RH....why not investigate the possibilities that your XF86Config is not optimized for your set-up/card.
Trogdor
10-11-2003, 12:53 AM
My xbox, running Gentoo and XFCE, shows no visual "lag", or anything. It has 64mb of ram, and a 733mhz processor. Proof.
JusKickNit
10-11-2003, 01:28 AM
Please let's not get into another gentoo is fastest debate. The reason's he's probley using gnome is it's the default window manager for Redhat. RedHat lagged for me very badly. I've used alot of distro's and RedHat was the worst. The Nvidia driver's might help, a recompiled kernel will defanitly help. Or try a new distro. Mandrake or Suse would work fine. On the Gentoo note after my three day install I might save about 2-3 secs opening an app. God forbid if I ever had to reinstall. Kam, You said that you tried Gentoo and didn't notice a speed improvment. You should atleast experiance some even on GRP install. Tell us more about your hardware.
trilarian
10-21-2003, 01:24 AM
Just wanted to add a quick comment on the original topic. Using "nv" for the driver is for 2D only with software 3D support with mesa I believe. Get the nvidia driver as suggested by darkbolt. It has a gui now and compiles on its own. You will need to change "nv" to "nvidia". Here is the relevant part of my XF86Config-4 file:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "UseFBDev" "True"
Option "HWCursor" "On"
Option "NoLogo" "On"
Option "CursorShadow" "On"
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "50"
Option "RenderAccel" "On"
EndSection
JusKickNit
10-21-2003, 11:46 PM
trilarian
I noticed your fbdev is set to on. Why? I would really like to know why your doing this. It doesn't allow you to have an accelerated fb right? What are the benifit's.
Thanks Wesley
carbon-12
10-22-2003, 12:03 AM
"Is it an unreasonable to expect Red Hat 9 runnig GNOME 2 to run as smoothly as Windows XP?"
To be fair, winxp runs smoothly for about a 1/2hr then it slowwwwwwwwssss down. Atleast in RH, you have consistency. ;)
trilarian
10-22-2003, 12:20 AM
As far as I know (and my knowledge on FBDev is limited and may be incorrect) this just allows/disallows the use of frame buffers. What people have told me to do is try starting x with it on and off. If one way is faster or crashes then set accordinly. There is no mention of UseFBDev in the nvidia documentation saying to turn it on or off, so I just left it on. Hope it helps.
leonpmu
10-22-2003, 12:45 AM
I have come to the conclusion that Mandrake, as an ¨out the box¨ distro, is better as a desktop than RH, I have run both RH 9 and MDK 9.1 on my desktop, both at the office and @ home. and I have found that my Mandrake tends to run a little faster, why?? I don´t know.
Also, if you are having window lag, that is a display driver problem, 2 what about your hard disk Parameters, use hdparm -Tt /dev/hdx to see the performance, also turn off things in the bios, for example, APIC/APM, PnP OS etc.
Just athought.
L
JusKickNit
10-22-2003, 02:10 AM
Originally posted by trilarian
As far as I know (and my knowledge on FBDev is limited and may be incorrect) this just allows/disallows the use of frame buffers. What people have told me to do is try starting x with it on and off. If one way is faster or crashes then set accordinly. There is no mention of UseFBDev in the nvidia documentation saying to turn it on or off, so I just left it on. Hope it helps.
Thanks, I use frambuffer in the console, but not in X, I'll turn it on see if it helps.
tom56
10-30-2003, 09:40 AM
to be honest i don't think that any distro is faster than another, per se. it all depends on your system, for some rh will run faster, for some gentoo, for some suse, or drake, or whatever. it's really a case of what runs best for you.