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looking for a new distro

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Stryker:
I'm looking for a new distro. I'm no newbie to linux or anything, but the speed that I'm getting with all of the distros I have is driving me insane. So I need one that is well known for being fast. In distros I have, like redhat, dragging windows gives me a major graphics lag, right clicking takes a bit too long. and i know it's not any settings i have as i can hear the computer think ever so hard trying to make it work. I'm at a bit of a loss considering 1GHz, 512MB, 16MB video memory, and 7,200 RPM harddrive. If there is a way to speed up redhat that'd be great too. As for a new distroy... I have plenty of time and I'm pretty good at figuring this stuff out. Thanks.

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Stryker ]

voidmain:
Wow, 72,000 RPM hard drive. Where can I get one of those? I think you meant 7,200 RPM. At any rate, I don't believe changing distros will likely solve your problem. All Linux distros use the same Linux kernel (not the same version and not the same patches mind you). They also all use XFree86. What you need to do is some performance analysis with hdparm, top, iostat, etc.

But from the little amount  of info I have to go on I suspect that this is a video card issue. What video card do you have and is the video memory shared or is it on a physical video card? I have found very good results with a GeForce2 (or better) with 32MB of video memory or better. I have another machine with onboard video and shared video RAM and the machine is slow as molasses.

If you have a lot of disk activity than you may have a thrashing condition depending on how you have your swap configured. That is unlikely with that much RAM if you are not doing any heavy duty work. It could also be another piece of hardware in your I/O chain that isn't fully compatible and the driver/module used doesn't perform well. You might list the make/model/type of each piece of equipment involved (motherboard, RAM, disk, video card, etc).

Stryker:

quote:Originally posted by void main:
Wow, 72,000 RPM hard drive. Where can I get one of those? I think you meant 7,200 RPM. At any rate, I don't believe changing distros will likely solve your problem. All Linux distros use the same Linux kernel (not the same version and not the same patches mind you). They also all use XFree86. What you need to do is some performance analysis with hdparm, top, iostat, etc.

But from the little amount  of info I have to go on I suspect that this is a video card issue. What video card do you have and is the video memory shared or is it on a physical video card? I have found very good results with a GeForce2 (or better) with 32MB of video memory or better. I have another machine with onboard video and shared video RAM and the machine is slow as molasses.

If you have a lot of disk activity than you may have a thrashing condition depending on how you have your swap configured. That is unlikely with that much RAM if you are not doing any heavy duty work. It could also be another piece of hardware in your I/O chain that isn't fully compatible and the driver/module used doesn't perform well. You might list the make/model/type of each piece of equipment involved (motherboard, RAM, disk, video card, etc).
--- End quote ---


13.3

voidmain:
Ahhh, I had no idea you were referring to a notebook computer. This severly limits your options on video. I'll look the equipment over after I get a bite to eat and see if I can find any performance issues for you. As far as hdparm what is the output from this command:

# /sbin/hdparm -t /dev/hda

Run the command a few times with as little system activity as possible and post your results.

Stryker:

quote:Originally posted by void main:
Ahhh, I had no idea you were referring to a notebook computer. This severly limits your options on video. I'll look the equipment over after I get a bite to eat and see if I can find any performance issues for you. As far as hdparm what is the output from this command:

# /sbin/hdparm -t /dev/hda

Run the command a few times with as little system activity as possible and post your results.
--- End quote ---


That told me that 60mb were transferred at 20.51mb/s

That isn't the exact quote, but the numbers are right. i did it earlier and just happened to remember. i don't think my video problem is the problem though. i get great video, in both linux and windows. 16mb is plenty i think. there is always hard drive activity while i'm in linux. there are times it stops for about 2 or 3 minutes but then it starts up again. I'm not sure how to check the hdparm -t in windows... anyone know of a way to do the same test?

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