Fresh Start, need advice

[Runescaper]

Hi i just finished installing Mandrake 9.1 in my old Dell Dimmension L866r machine. I was wondering what GUI and settings i could set for it to work fast and smooth.


P3 866mhz
64mb rab
4mb inboard video
10gb HD

[sharth]

I'd been running blackbox on a 550mhz comp for a long time. I'd suggest upgrading the ram though.

[DMR]

- Disable any services you don't need (HTTP/FTP servers, sendmail, etc.)

- Use a "lighweight" window manager (fluxbox, black box, ice wm, etc.) instead of a full-blown desktop environment (KDE, Gnome)

- Read up on the "hdparm" utility; it can tune your hard drive for optimal performance.

- Upgrade the RAM if possible; just getting it up to 128M will give you a noticeable boost.

[Runescaper]

ok im using icevm the only 1 u mentioned that installed and its working fine cept that i dont know how to change the background or acces my folder, ect..


Is there a way i could run KDE using low resources?

[serz]

I don't think so.. it will run slowly. GNOME is faster.

Anyway.. I'd suggest you to run nice Window Managers.. you have many options: IceWM, Window Maker, Blackbox (Fluxbox, Openbox), PekWM and others..

[DMR]

Originally posted by serz
GNOME is faster. Yes, I've found that to be the case as well.

Runescaper,

Actually, your CPU should be sufficient for either KDE or Gnome; I've run both environments on less powerful machines than that (one was a PII-400).

The bottleneck is going to be the 64M of RAM- bump that up a notch if at possible and you'll be fine. Not that you'll have a lightning-fast system or anything like that, but it will run acceptably.

[Runescaper]

ok so i should upgrade the ram.

Well i always heard linux was very customizable but its been kinda hard to change things in some GUIs and specially the login screen, i cant find where to change that. It also seems sort of slow when loading up, is there some place where i can change the start up files?