Linux Kernel Network Subsystem Patching

[Walter Dnes]

On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 06:59:12PM -0500, Aruna Hewapathirane wrote
> >" lighter and faster"  that means go with the "GCC screen saver"
> linux distribution or as its also known by the name  gentoo.   >:)
> 
> Let me clarify and explain the need 'why' I want it 'lighter and
> faster' .  I have a ancient D915 motherboard ( Please don't laugh )
> with 2GB Ram and on board integrated video with a Intel(R) Pentium(R)
> 4 CPU runni9ng at 3.06GHz.
> 
> Recently I noticed top showing me a lot more than the usual load
> average and I thought let me hyperthread, enabled in BIOS but
> strangely some applications actually took longer to load and some
> were slow than before ?

  "Hyperthreading" isn't all it's cracked up to be.  In theory it's
supposed to help a lot, in practice it can actually slow down a machine,
as you've seen.

> While compiling the kernel it took for ever, and if I render something in
> Blender I can go get groceries from No-Frills drop in at cafe time to say
> hello to my crack head buddies and have a ciggy then walk home only to see
> it's still not done. Takes a long time so these are a few reasons I want to
> comiple and tweak a kernel that matches my hardware and hopefully will have
> a responsive system again instead of this sluggish beast that is a pain to
> work on at times :-)

  [...deletia...]
 
> I will checkout gentoo thank's ted.

  As a gentoo user myself, I would *NOT* recommend gentoo as the cure for
your problem...

1) Gentoo is source-based, you will be compiling kernels and everything
else you update.  If you dislike doing an occasional kernel rebuild,
forget gentoo.  There's recompiling of various applications and
libraries each update (say approx every 2 weeks).

2) A gentoo-optimized machine will be somewhat faster, but your machine
has no business running blender.  I had an Intel Core 2 with onboard
Intel GPU, and it had problems keeping up with NHL Gamecentre Live on
the slowest stream.  Sorry, you need a newer more powerful machine...
period... end of story.

> Oh, the desktop ( am running gnome classic ) sudeenly totally freezes
> and the only way out is to CTRL+F1 and drop into a shell then sudo
> shutdown -r now which I am getting weary of now...

1) gnome (even the classic version) is a resource hog.  Can you switch
to a "mere" window manager like ICEWM?  Doing that should provide a bit
of a performance boost.

2) When you get to a shell, can you run top?  The PID (process ID) is
the first column on the left.  At the top of the display you may see a
process taking a ridiculous "%CPU" or "%RAM".  If it's not X or a system
proc, you may be able to kill it, and return to your desktop.  Issue a

kill -3 <PID>

If that doesn't kill it, try

kill -9 <PID>

or if that fails, try

kill -15 <PID>

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
--
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