I recently install Linux Gentoox on my X-Machine but every time I tried to run more than two aplications it gets so slow that can't handle it
any suggestion or Advice will be nice to hear
Thankx you all
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hmmmm Memento
why my Gentoox is too slow?
Are you running home or pro? If home, I would suggest dropping KDE in favor of a more resource-friendly 'Window Manager', instead of a full 'Desktop Environment'. Depending on your level of Gentoo or Gnu/Linux knowledge I would also suggest switching to pro to minimize the number of running processes. After that use Shallax's excellent Magic patcher to install Xfree, then emerge one of the *box's, like fluxbox or Waimea (my fav). I also found (no offence intended to Shallax - it works flawlessly) the default kernel to be a bloated, modular (bleecchh ) sluggard vanilla build. It contained no performance enhancing patches and, oddly, had support for tons hardware unavailable on an Xbox, such as firewire, ISA bus(!), and scsi support. Personally I prefer a lean, nearly monoithic kernel, so I built a tiny little nut and noticed some performance gains. All you need to have as modules in an Xbox kernel are the USB devices, as they are the only(?) hardware variable, everything else is Xbox constant. Heck, even Linus said the overhead accumulated from kernel-module interaction negates performance gained by minimizing (modularizing) the kernel. Well that was paraphrased, but basically that's what he said, heehe. Anyhow, that's an old, boring argument so I'll shut my trap about that. Furthermore, I've always found the pre-emptive kernel patch, low-latency patch, and gcc>3.1 optimization patch to make a huge difference for desktop application responsiveness in general. This is, for obvious reasons, more important on under-powered hardware (i.e. the Xbox-celeron, pII's, etc...) Admittedly it's a little ugly to monkey in pre-empt with the Xbox fatx patch (especially if you suck, like me ), but it's easy if you use a little trick. I was thinking about writing a 'Kernel Tweaking Howto' for Gentoox... Shallax do you welcome user submitted howto's? Oh ya, I forgot the obvious, in case you were born with a soldering iron in your hand, you could always add some RAM to your Xbox
Last edited by Scocou on Wed Aug 13, 2003 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
You sir, are a power user .... The default kernel is a modular hell because I know if I neglect to include something, SOMEONE out there will complain about it. SCSI modules can be used for USB cdwriting (unless im wrong). You could install legacy hardware through the lpc bus (so im lead to believe) such as serial ports and ps/2... so its all there just in case. If you think its bloated, fix it yourself --- the on thing i learned from Gentoox is that you cant please everyone, so you can only try to make it tolerable for everyone to use
Yes, KDE is slow as hell... but when I released Gentoox with no window manager, I got an influx of emails demanding I made KDE _the_ window manager of Gentoox, so i did despite warning that it would be hellishly slow... now look where that got me . If youre using the home edition, just run "magic wmaker" then let it reboot, and it should be a lot faster! You can always go back to KDE with "magic kde".
Oh and yes.. this software is open source, so the howto/ tutorial section also is! Any howtos are welcome so long as they are well written (spelling etc) and actually work first time, every time with no "ifs" or "maybes"
Yes, KDE is slow as hell... but when I released Gentoox with no window manager, I got an influx of emails demanding I made KDE _the_ window manager of Gentoox, so i did despite warning that it would be hellishly slow... now look where that got me . If youre using the home edition, just run "magic wmaker" then let it reboot, and it should be a lot faster! You can always go back to KDE with "magic kde".
Oh and yes.. this software is open source, so the howto/ tutorial section also is! Any howtos are welcome so long as they are well written (spelling etc) and actually work first time, every time with no "ifs" or "maybes"
Shallax I like the new forum, very professional. I'm glad to see by the number of smilies that you used that you didn't take me for a whiner I think Gentoox is the bee's knees, you do Gentoo-proper justice with your efforts and results.
X-guy I wanted to mention another little tweak for performance, but it's not much I'm afraid. I reduced the number of tty's in /etc/inittab by #'ing out the last three or four, it eases up on the very limited RAM a bit. This only leaves two, but if you're primarily an X user(?) it won't matter (you can hash out five in that case). You could also probably save a bit more by removing some unneeded(?) processes from /etc/runlevels. For example, I don't use NFS so I would then either reboot or
This will do ****-all really, but since you have ****-all RAM in an Xbox, well... Repeat for anything else you don't want, although I don't think you'll find many (be careful )
If you don't want to roll-your-own kernel you could simply drop whatever you don't want/need from /etc/modules.autoload to trim your kernel overhead some. Good luck, have fun, use Gentoo(x)!
Yes I think you made the right decisions, this way you can concentrate on important stuff like Magic, and not people saying "How come my *hardware* doesn't work?" Any distro worth it's salt has a large number of modules available in it's default kernel, for those that don't want to bother with compiling their own. I just love goading people about kernel modules, they're always so sensitive about it I wonder if Gentoo-proper would include a sys-kernel/xbox-sources ebuild for Portage, if one was submitted? They have some pretty weird kernels already, probably a good chance they would if it worked. I assume one could make the ebuild trivially, what with using their excellent addpatches script...The default kernel is a modular hell because I know if I neglect to include something, SOMEONE out there will complain about it.
Yes correct there, I was talking out my ass on that one, or not thinking 'outside my wallet'....SCSI modules can be used for USB cdwriting (unless im wrong)
Cool I never heard of that but hats off to ingenuity on that one, if anyone has pulled it off.install legacy hardware through the lpc bus
Heehe an excellent policy! I did trim it down myself, as I'm obsessively a kernel-tuning nerd, but not a coder at all. To reiterate, I found yours to work flawlessly, no complaints towards functionality. That said, I certainly would maintain that someone looking to, i.e. X-guy, could eek out some more performance from a tighter, patched kernel. Ahhh... the elusive 'crispiness'...If you think its bloated, fix it yourself
Good to hear, I'll write something up soon, as I have a lot of time on my handsthis software is open source, so the howto/ tutorial section also is!
X-guy I wanted to mention another little tweak for performance, but it's not much I'm afraid. I reduced the number of tty's in /etc/inittab by #'ing out the last three or four, it eases up on the very limited RAM a bit. This only leaves two, but if you're primarily an X user(?) it won't matter (you can hash out five in that case). You could also probably save a bit more by removing some unneeded(?) processes from /etc/runlevels. For example, I don't use NFS so I would
Code: Select all
rc-update del netmount
Code: Select all
runscript /etc/init.d/netmount stop
If you don't want to roll-your-own kernel you could simply drop whatever you don't want/need from /etc/modules.autoload to trim your kernel overhead some. Good luck, have fun, use Gentoo(x)!
Fyi
Dont forget the default! (at least, i think you need it! hehe)
I keep all constructive criticism in mind so it doesnt annoy me Im glad I have users like you because you actually know what youre doing and appreciate the effort put it ... and you help other users! Thanks!
Code: Select all
rc-update del netmount default
I keep all constructive criticism in mind so it doesnt annoy me Im glad I have users like you because you actually know what youre doing and appreciate the effort put it ... and you help other users! Thanks!
Umm, you actually don't need it, unless of course you had *whatever in more than one runlevel and only wanted to remove one of them. That excellent rc-update will dig through /etc/runlevels and remove *whatever script from all runlevels, if no runlevel is specified.Dont forget the default! (at least, i think you need it! hehe)
You may live to regret encouraging me, now you've acquired a resident verbally-diarrhetic windbag to flood your forums with wordy responses to simple questions! Be afraidand you help other users! Thanks!