6.2 vs. 7.3

[Tim Writer]

Howard Gibson <hgibson-MwcKTmeKVNQ at public.gmane.org> writes:

> On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 21:47:32 -0400
> Chris Aitken <aitken-BwLjziHGQLusTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
> > I have an acer p166 (64 MB RAM, awe32 sound card, trio s3 virge video
> > card) which my daughter has been using for WordPerfect 8, MSN (gaim),
> > music CDs and Internet. It had RH 7.3 and ran a little slow. I upgraded
> > it to 8.0 to see just how slow it would run - and, ya, it was *too*
> > slow. I think the hardware is better suited to  RH 6.2. That went on
> > easily and everything seems a little faster. However, I can see I'll
> > have to a lot of mucking around - no gaim, so I'll have to find
> > something else that will run MSN, it liked my sound card but then
> > announced that I'll have to compile sound support into the kernel,
> > printing already gave me a little trouble. Problem is is that this is
> > not a test/learning machine - this is my daughter's machine. I don't
> > want to tell her she has to be off it for days and days while I learn
> > about makefile, compiling the kernel (for the first time), etc. So, my
> > question is: Is Rh 6.2 going to so much faster on this machine that's
> > it's going to be worth my daughter being without a computer for a month
> > while I try to get it to do what 7.3 will do right out of the box?
> > 
> > Please, spare the other hundreds of people on the list, the "Gee, Chris,
> > I know the answer to your problem - it's called Windows - embrace the
> > Beaast."  comments - or at least send it offline - thanks.
> > 
> > Chris
> 
> Chris,
> 
>     I have just upgraded my P233 laptop to Red Hat 8.  I have 64MB of RAM,
>     and it too is running slowly.  Definitely, I am into swap, so my second
>     strategy for speeding things up is more RAM.

More RAM will definitely help.

>     My first strategy for speeding things up is to run FVWM2 instead of
>     Gnome or KDE.  There are a couple of other small window managers out
>     there, but I have a long history with FVWM.  There are a couple of
>     other FVWM freaks in this user group, so you can get help.
>
>     There was some talk about running an FVWM demo at one of the user
>     meetings.  Is there any more interest in this?

Consider xfce4 instead.  It's a lightweight, functional desktop, reminiscent
of CDE. RAM hungry apps like OpenOffice or Mozilla will still be unwieldy
(without a RAM upgrade) but you can run a decent desktop on this machine if
you choose your components carefully.  Debian is arguably a better choice for
a low power machine as you have far more ready made packages to choose from;
thus, you can better experiment with tradoffs between footprint and
functionality.  Be prepared, however, to spend a good bit of time customizing
it to your liking.

-- 
tim writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>                                  starnix inc.
tollfree: 1-87-pro-linux                        thornhill, ontario, canada
http://www.starnix.com              professional linux services & products
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