Speed up KDE?

[Vadatajs]

I have gotten out of the swing with linux recently, but I just acquired a new box to play with. I installed mandrake 8.1 and I'm wondering if there are any tweaks for KDE to make it run faster.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Add ram.

 

[Damascus]

I'm not sure what version of KDE is included with Mandrake 8.1, but KDE
versions 2.2.x are a lot faster than versions 2.1.x and earlier so update if you
got an old one.

 

[Sunner]

Reduce the eye candy.
You can do this manually, or simply run "kpersonalizer" and set the Speed/Eyecandy bar to more speed and less candy.

Also like Damascus said, 2.2.x versions have been much faster for me.

 

[BlackOmen]

KDE 2.2.x is definitely the fastest KDE yet. The way that I found to speed up KDE the most is to use a kernel with the preemptible patch - it makes a world of a difference. Of course you have to be comfortible compiling a new kernel. If you are, definitely worth considering.

 

[Vadatajs]

Thanks to all but n0cmonkey (duh, I know KDE is ram intensive, I was asking for ways to make it less processor intensive). I'll give it a try. I have 256 megs of ram and I can up it to 320 at any time.

 

[Sunner]

Just curious, if you can add RAM "at any time", why dont you?

Heck I know if I had an extra 256 MB just wasting space sometime, I'd pop it in in a second.

 

[AMDPwred]

<< Just curious, if you can add RAM "at any time", why dont you?

Heck I know if I had an extra 256 MB just wasting space sometime, I'd pop it in in a second. >>



Damn straight.

 

[xyyz]

<< Add ram. >>



I dunno about this...

I have 1gig of ram on my FreeBSD box AND i've turned off all the bells and whistles... but my KDE runs at crawl speeds....

which forces me to the conclusion....


the SiS630 chipset SUCKS.

 

[xyyz]

<< KDE 2.2.x is definitely the fastest KDE yet. The way that I found to speed up KDE the most is to use a kernel with the preemptible patch - it makes a world of a difference. Of course you have to be comfortible compiling a new kernel. If you are, definitely worth considering. >>



hmmm... more information please.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<<

<< KDE 2.2.x is definitely the fastest KDE yet. The way that I found to speed up KDE the most is to use a kernel with the preemptible patch - it makes a world of a difference. Of course you have to be comfortible compiling a new kernel. If you are, definitely worth considering. >>



hmmm... more information please. >>



Link. Just saw it today. Ill be trying it out when I get a chance.



<< Thanks to all but n0cmonkey (duh, I know KDE is ram intensive, I was asking for ways to make it less processor intensive). I'll give it a try. I have 256 megs of ram and I can up it to 320 at any time. >>



I atleast bumped it for you. But eff you too

 

[xyyz]

linux kernel patches?

hmmm... how do I do this with freebsd now?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< linux kernel patches?

hmmm... how do I do this with freebsd now? >>



You dont. I thought that is what you were asking about. Sorry.

 

[Platypus]

My KDE is lightning fast, so I don't know what to tell you, maybe its your computer?

 

[Vadatajs]

<< Just curious, if you can add RAM "at any time", why dont you?

Heck I know if I had an extra 256 MB just wasting space sometime, I'd pop it in in a second. >>



Because it's really old, low quality and I think it has gone bad. I really don't feel like turing off my computer to find out. I also have an 8x cd burner to install, but I don't feel like it for the same reason. I'm only going to be home for a couple more days, and I have to leave this computer here (I don't have adequate materials to pack it and take it back to michigan on the plane with me) so it just isn't worth it to me to put a lot of effort into it. As for n0cmonkey, I forgot to put the little winking icon in the parentesis to indicate the facetious nature of that comment. The only other thing I may do to this computer is update the kernel, and at that point I'll plug in the cd burner (I have to remove ALL of the cables to get at the dimm slots).

as a side note, It is really annoying trying to post a message here using mozilla.

EDIT: oh, I'm using the 256, the old/possibly bad one is only 64. And thank you for the link n0cmonkey.

 

[MGMorden]

<< KDE 2.2.x is definitely the fastest KDE yet. The way that I found to speed up KDE the most is to use a kernel with the preemptible patch - it makes a world of a difference. Of course you have to be comfortible compiling a new kernel. If you are, definitely worth considering. >>



Hmmm. This sounds interesting. I'm always looking for a speed tweak (I love KDE but it is dog slow). Any links to the patch and/or info about performance increases? (I won't be able to use it right now anyways b/c my Linux machine is still in my dorm, but I can be prepared for my return. heck KDE 3.0 might be back before I get back).

 

[BlackOmen]

>>Any links to the patch and/or info about performance increases?

>>hmmm... more information please

I don't have any numbers, but I can definitely say that KDE, and the rest of the system runs significantly faster.

What the patch does is assigns priorities to system tasks, and allows the kernel to halt a task, process a higher priority task, and then return to the previous task. What this does then is make the system more responsive, but in return cuts throughput. What that translates into is: don't use the preemptive patch on a server or other system where throughput is desired. On a desktop it works great.

A preemptive kernel uses locking semantics similar to an SMP system, and as such you need to use SMP safe drivers (such as the Nvidia SMP drivers as opposed to the 'regular' drivers).

Like I said, I don't have any numbers, but I have seen an increase in responsiveness, and a lot of others on the kernel mailing list have as well.

If you think this is for you, check out Preemptible Patches for 2.4

Save the patch to /usr/src/linux or wherever you keep your kernel source, and type 'patch -p1 < patchname', where patchname is the filename of the patch you downloaded. You can find the option under 'Processor type and features', just enable 'Preemptible Kernel'. Used it with 2.4.16, and now with 2.4.17, and it works great.