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Linux REAAALLY SLOW

W

WaSaPeaS

Junior Member
I recently slapped on Redhat 7.2 on a spare box I had lying around to try to learn linux and maybe set up a router/firewall. Once I load up X (GNOME), it starts running painfully slow. It can take up to 30 seconds or more just to open a terminal window. Keep in mind that the hardware is fairly decent as well. Any ideas on what I should do? Recompile the kernel perhaps? I am VERY newbish with linux so far =). Are there any other distributions I should try? I'll probably pick up a few books to help me. Debian? Mandrake? Slackware?

400 mhz Pentium II
64 MB Ram
TNT2 8.4 GB IBM HD
 
I would definately uninstall Red Hat. I'm not sure your slowness has anything to do with that, but Red Hat some major security holes in it... ie five lines of code that can break into 99.99% of Red Hat boxes. Mandrake and others don't seem to have this problem.
 
If you want to use kde or gnome, I recommend at least 256 MB of RAM. Otherwise your machine will be swapping pages like mad. You can also remove some of the services loaded at boot time, this will help a little. I installed RH 7.2 on a machine with 128 MB RAM and KDE was unbearably slow until I added some memory. Still its not as responsive as windows, but its definately useable.
 
If you want speed you're best bet is to not use Gnome, something smaller like WindowMaker or BlackBox would run a lot better. I assume the HD is IDE, if so make sure DMA is enabled with hdparm, type 'hdparm /dev/hda' to see what it's at, then 'hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda' to enable DMA and see if that helps.

If you're going to run RedHat I'd check for updates, but I wouldn't switch to something like Mandrake especially for a non-desktop machine.

Debian (my preferance) or Slack would run the same if you install the same software, so it's really a null issue.
 
All distros can be made exactly the same. Use the one that has the best sounding name to you. As for the slowness its the services, if you haven't configured them there is going to be like 30 of them by default so get rid of the ones you don't wan't or need in there (be carefull some are important).
 


<< I would definately uninstall Red Hat. I'm not sure your slowness has anything to do with that, but Red Hat some major security holes in it... ie five lines of code that can break into 99.99% of Red Hat boxes. Mandrake and others don't seem to have this problem. >>



heh ... maybe you should alert redhat to this revelation ..
-neural
 
If fast a tight is what you are lookin for and all you are lookin for is a router... I use Freesco it is a linux distro that will fit on 3.5 floppy and does everything a router should be able to and more....Link here minimum requirements is a 386
Happy routing
 
There's definately something wrong with your configuration there. I have 7.2 running at work on a p2 266 w/256 (used to be 128) MB RAM and slow drives, and it runs fine with a pile of terms, and mozilla mail and web running.

Make sure you have all your hardware correctly configured (correct vid card, etc) that your number of services isn't insane and that your swap is large wnough. I would say at least 128 for your amount of ram. Also, if you had tripwire installed, it will thrash for a couple of minutes on first bootup while it does some database things.

Good luck. If you're just learning, stay away from the "hacker" distros (slack) till you got your feet good and soaked. Much of mandrake is the same as redhat, with some different configuration tools.
 
It's not necissarily a problem with his install. There are many reports that RH 7.2 has problems; irq if i remember correctly. I had the same problem on several boxes that i installed it on. Then on others, it worked fine. My suggestion would be to install 7.1 if you are a big RH fan. I actually prefer 7.1 to 7.2. You can check their errata page, but the last time i checked they didnt have an update for it.
 
What purpose does tripwire serve? I have noticed this thrashing the first time I start X each day. I will remove the package if it is not useful to me.
 
it's an intrusion detection system. basically, it takes a snapshot of a filesystem and notifies you when something has changed.
 
Most distro's install a boat load of crap you don't need, even if you unselect everything in the installation... Check out the following link:

http://users.netwit.net.au/~pursang/lofat.html

Personally, I download the Debian rescue.bin.. Make sure you go to a mirror ftp in whatever kernel version you want... Disks - 2.88 - IDEPCI .

Then you burn this to a cd (I use nero.. File > New > Close Wizard > Boot-Cd > Select File > 2.88 Emulation > nothing will show up in cd contents, hit burn > and it should boot... if you want more help, give me an IM: grumm3t and I can help you out.

 
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