[TriLUG] My slow linux machine

[chris at bullocksbarn.com]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 01:52:05PM -0500, James McDermott wrote:

> When I start an application, it takes considerable time to load the 
> application. Mozilla(1.2.1) takes about 8 seconds, GIMP(1.2.5) takes 
> about 15 seconds, OpenOfficeWriter takes about 25 seconds. The system 
> monitor is showing that memory is using about 246MB out of 250MB and 
> swap is using 29MB out of 510MB.

I have a 667Mhz and I experience the same scenerio.  But one the
application loads I see no slowness.  All the above apps are procesor
hogs during the load process.  Generally, it takes about 30 seconds for
any application to load, any application, but after that the app goes
fnie. 



> I think that my problem is that I am a slow linux machine because I am 
> CPU bound?

Just because linux will run on a slow processor does not mean that it
will run efficiently.  For a machine that low end you should not be
running X at all.  It would be perfect as a firewall, router, dns, dhcp,
or something that you will need to do from the command line.


> 
> What is the recommended CPU speed to get decent performance? I would 
> like to see OpenOffice come up in less than about 5 seconds.

This will never happen, I have a dual-xeon SCSI at work and it still
takes over 30 seconds to fully load.
> 
> Thanks, Jim McDermott
> 
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