Hello folks, I''ve got a laptop (PII 366 64MB) with Debian unstable installed. I use it as my desktop system; web browsing, emailing, programming, everything. Thing is... it''s kinda slow. Sometimes makes me sad how slow it is... i mean, Windows wasn''t that slow on the same laptop. And i don''t even use "heavy" desktop enviroments such as Gnome/KDE - i use Fluxbox. Well, fluxbox runs really nice... but the applications (especially the GTK ones, which are my favourites)... those are so slow. So, does anybody have experiences using Linux on old hardware? Got any tips to speed up the system? Sometimes i hear people say "Linux is better because it''s fast etc"... that''s a big big lie, in my opinion. Forgot to mention: i use kernel 2.4 with Con Koliva''s patches. Thanks, Victor.

linux is faster, that''s right, only people don''t know what linux this refers to... self made linux.

1) compile an LFS system for your laptops, using for all the system and the apps the same machine specific optimizations (distros are ALL blended compiled => slow).
2) use lightweight WM like XFCE4 (fluxbox is nice too, nearly the same). use plain X11 apps if possible, GTK+ is well too.
3) make sure that your swap is around 1-2 times your RAM. especially if RAM is low this helps
4) don''t run servers at boot time you scarcly need. debian installs a lot of garbage you won''t need.
5) don''t use a journaling file system like ext3 on a latop, it will access hd a lot which is slow and noisy on latop systems.
6) use kernel 2.6.x, it''s way better

and if this all doesn''t help google for some howto''s for latop linux and speeding them up. good luck

Upgrading your kernel will probably make a noticable difference. Especially one of the latest -mm kernels with the new I/O schedulers.

Check that your harddrives have DMA turned on. Some installers don''t enable DMA by default, which slows the system down dramatically.

check out hdparm to benchmark and configure your drives.

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Original post by RPTD
1) compile an LFS system for your laptops, using for all the system and the apps the same machine specific optimizations (distros are ALL blended compiled => slow).

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You're kidding, right? I have lots of other things to do, you know.

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2) use lightweight WM like XFCE4 (fluxbox is nice too, nearly the same). use plain X11 apps if possible, GTK+ is well too.

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That's what i try to do... one thing i haven't found, though, is a light web browser. Firefox is a little heavy on my system... anybody knows of a lighter browser?

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3) make sure that your swap is around 1-2 times your RAM. especially if RAM is low this helps

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It is bigger than 2 times my RAM...

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4) don't run servers at boot time you scarcly need. debian installs a lot of garbage you won't need.

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Ok... but i don't think Debian installs lots of garbage i don't need.

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5) don't use a journaling file system like ext3 on a latop, it will access hd a lot which is slow and noisy on latop systems.

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I use reiserfs... is that a problem? Maybe i should try ext2?

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6) use kernel 2.6.x, it's way better

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Oh... please, search for the message i've posted on this forum about my experience with 2.6... in a few words: i've tried and didn't feel a single difference. :/

I've tried many 2.6's; i've installed it as binary (from apt); i've compiled my own; i've compiled it with Kolivas patch... felt no difference.

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Upgrading your kernel will probably make a noticable difference. Especially one of the latest -mm kernels with the new I/O schedulers.

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Same thing i said above... anyway, i think Kolivas patches for 2.4 have the -mm thing, no? I'm using 2.4(.22, if i remeber correctly) with Kolivas patches.

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Check that your harddrives have DMA turned on. Some installers don't enable DMA by default, which slows the system down dramatically.

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Yep, DMA is enabled

Victor.

[edited by - -vic- on March 31, 2004 1:23:18 PM]

hehe... ok... i should have then proposed GenToo... like LFS only automated.

about reiserfs i''m not sure if it is journaling but i thought not.

about the browser i only have two browsers aside firefox: Dillo and Links (normal or ui mode). Dillo is damn small and fast but doesn''t support JS or CSS in the current version but this is to come. Links is still nice but is nice and in gui mode can do pretty well for a console browser. otherwise there''s not much i could think off beeing quicker.

wow... kinda hard system you''ve got there. i guess you have chosen the best kernel config you can so i guess there''s not much to speed up.

i''m really astonished that linux should be slower there but who knows... perhaps a driver for your hd or your cpu is not so happy. linux can sometimes get creepy at certain hardware, unfortunatly.

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Original post by -vic-
I use reiserfs... is that a problem? Maybe i should try ext2?

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ReiserFS is a bit hard on the CPU compared to many file systems. Whether it''s significant is another matter entirely. The CPU time spend is obviously a trade off for better performance elsewhere; if you care at all, find some recent benchmarks.

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Original post by RPTD
about reiserfs i''m not sure if it is journaling but i thought not.

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ReiserFS 3 and 4 are journaling file systems (I know nothing about pre-3 versions).

There are only a couple common pieces of software the benefit from specially optimized compilation (anything used a lot or anything using low level code: the kernel, glibc, gmp, ssl, et cetera). Outside of those, it''s largely a waste of time, especially when the compilation must be done on a slow machine for whatever reason.

To get GTK+ to run faster: find a way to disable text anti-aliasing (I think it can be done by putting "GDK_USE_XFT=0" in /etc/environment; you''ll have to log out and back in before it takes effect for everything; if it''s not working, just make sure it did get set). Xft2 uses XRender to anti-alias the text in many cases. XRender, when it''s not hardware accelerated, uses a bit of CPU time. You can also try to disable double buffering of widgets if it''s possible.

XFree86''s backing store implementation is buggy, or I''d recommend you try backing store. XDirectFB has a working implementation of a scheme very similar to the backing store, I''ve read it''s very nice when your hardware is supported.

Ignore the crap about compiling. Gentoo''ers always think this does something special, but it won''t help.

for web browsing, dillo is an extreme. that thing runs snappy on my 486. But, with 366 mhz and 64mb, you''ll want something with better html support.

I don''t know what, atm, maybe I''ll look into it later. Wonder if somebody makes a brwoser using gecko, but without a lot of the extra crap....

btw, What X server are you using, and with what driver?

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Original post by C-Junkie
Ignore the crap about compiling. Gentoo''ers always think this does something special, but it won''t help.

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It can. I''m a Gentoo user. I never lent much credence to the more fanatic Gentoo users'' cries of vast speed increases, but OpenOffice.org sort of opened my eyes; when I compiled it after previously having run a binary package of the same version, I experienced very significantly reduced loading times (by visual inspection perhaps on the order of 20%-30%) and generally more responsive behaviour. I don''t expect benefits anywhere close to this in the general case (and I''ve no idea why OpenOffice.org in particular ran so much faster), but it can certainly provide substantial benefits in some cases. (In the average case I would expect a custom compiled program to run faster, but probably insignificantly and unnoticeably so, barring an inferior compiler or poorly chosen compiler options on the client system.)

Of course, I have an Athlon XP, and if we assume that precompiled binaries are aimed at the lowest common denominator, then we may assume that a simpler CPU such as the Pentium II, being closer to the base x86 platform, has fewer additional instructions to potentially benefit from in custom compilation. Make of that what you will.

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Original post by -vic-
Hello folks,

I''ve got a laptop (PII 366 64MB) with Debian unstable installed. I use it as my desktop system; web browsing, emailing, programming, everything.

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This might sound a bit stupid, but if you use this computer for everything, don''t you think upgrading would drastically improve your computing experiences? It might cost you money, but having to take routes like compiling packages from scratch and micromanaging your kernal configuration costs you time too. I''m quite careful with my money, but seeing as I use my computer all the time, it''s a good way to spend it. How much better would it be if you could just use the applications you wanted to use?