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Thread: Cacarulo: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

  1. #14
    Parker
    Guest

    Parker: Gentoo

    > The problem is that I'm not happy with my
    > actual distro so I think a will go with
    > Gentoo.

    Assuming that you do, please let me know how the installation goes. I spent most of a weekend screwing around with it before giving up in frustration. Of course, that was a couple of versions ago.

  2. #15
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

    > There's really no reason that this should be
    > true and switching distributions (even to
    > Gentoo optimized for your CPU) will probably
    > not result in a noticable improvement in
    > speed. I'm guessing your main problem is too
    > little RAM for the applications you're
    > running. What things appear to be runninig
    > slowly? You may notice a nice improvement if
    > you upgrade to 512M or RAM. You may also
    > want to investigate whether you're using the
    > best video driver for your video card. Also
    > make sure you're not running any server
    > programs you don't need (Apache web server,
    > email server, databases, etc). Although
    > these processes should be swapped out of RAM
    > if they aren't being used and shouldn't be
    > using up your much of your RAM (you do have
    > a swap partition, don't you?).

    I have been using Linux for a long time since their first versions (RedHat 1.0, Slackware 1.0, etc.). What I've noticed is that the latest versions are consuming too much memory. At home I have a PII 266Mhz 64M RAM w/RH 7.3 and works pretty good.
    Even RH 8.0 worked fine with my PIII but when I installed RH 9.0 everything became extremely slow.
    Besides, I installed each version from scratch (I hate upgrades). Fedora (Core 2) is a little bit better but not by that much.
    Of course, I do have a swap partition which size is twice the RAM.
    Certainly, upgrading the RAM can solve the problem but I firmly believe that my system can be optimized for a better use of the actual resources.

    > I don't know for sure, but P3 may have more
    > optimizations for your specific CPU as i686
    > covers P2's as well. Don't trust my answer
    > though.

    I see.

    Thanks for your answer.

    Sincerely,
    Cac

  3. #16
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

    > Your problem is the lack of RAM. You need at
    > least 256 MB, and 512 or a gig is even
    > better. I'll bet your hard drive is going
    > almost constantly. Switching to Gentoo will
    > not help this problem.

    I'm not that sure.

    > If you're running the
    > KDE or Gnome destop, switching to a
    > lightweight desktop such as Fluxbox or XFce
    > would help.

    But I didn't have this problem with previous versions. The problem is with RH 9.0 mainly.

    > Just open a terminal window and type
    > "free" (without the quotes) and
    > you will see how much memory you have
    > available. I'm betting little or none.

    Yes, very little and of course too much swapping.

    > None, really. Intel got annoyed when they
    > were making the 486 processor and other
    > companies (AMD, etc) were also making CPU's
    > and calling them 486's. It seems that you
    > cannot trademark a number. So, when they
    > came out with the 586 class CPU, they called
    > it a Pentium, which they could trademark.
    > Pentium II and above are 686 class CPU's.

    I understand.

    > Go ahead and take a shot at installing
    > Gentoo (I can tell you're really, really
    > itching to try it :-))

    Yes, how do you know I'm itching to try it?

    > but don't expect any
    > noticeable improvement in performance until
    > you get some more RAM.

    Will see

    Sincerely,
    Cac

  4. #17
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: More distro dialog

    > SuSE and Mandrake are also RPM based - I
    > have successfully installed many Redhat
    > RPM's on my SuSE systems. Also, Debian has
    > more applications then anybody (over 2500),
    > along with an excellent package management
    > system.

    Interesting.

    > I haven't tried Fedora Core II yet, but Core
    > I's update system was seriously screwed up.
    > Considering it's Redhat heritage, I found
    > Fedora Core I to be surprisingly rough
    > around the edges.

    Yes, there are some problems with the update.

    > All of the major distros (Fedora, Redhat,
    > SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, Xandros,
    > Lindows and probably a couple more that I'm
    > forgetting) have active development
    > communities behind them - that's how they
    > got to be major!.

    > I think switching to Gentoo is sort of like
    > becoming a full time professional card
    > counter. When you're ready for it, you won't
    > be asking if you should do it on an open
    > message board. :-)

    Good analogy!

    Sincerely,
    Cac

  5. #18
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Gentoo

    > Assuming that you do, please let me know how
    > the installation goes. I spent most of a
    > weekend screwing around with it before
    > giving up in frustration. Of course, that
    > was a couple of versions ago.

    Will do but if you take a look to www.gentoo.org you'll find that there are some new installation alternatives that don't need a full compilation.

    Cac

  6. #19
    paranoid android
    Guest

    paranoid android: Re: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

    > I have been using Linux for a long time
    > since their first versions (RedHat 1.0,
    > Slackware 1.0, etc.). What I've noticed is
    > that the latest versions are consuming too
    > much memory.

    As the GUIs have become more mature and added more features, in general, they begin requiring more and more RAM. That's likely why earlier versions ran better on your system. Parker's advice to try Fluxbox or Xfce is sound. Both require radically less RAM than either Gnome or KDE. Switching distributions only because your current system is too slow is like buying a new car because you got a flat tire. Try to find out which applications are using up your RAM and try to find alternatives (it is likely the GUI - which desktop are you using?). You can run "top", then press capital 'M' to sort the list of running processes in order of percentage of memory used. That might be enlightening.

    By just installing a new distribution, it is very likely you will be running the same software which will require the same amount of RAM and not solve your problem at all. Regards.

  7. #20
    Parker
    Guest

    Parker: Re: Gentoo

    > Will do but if you take a look to
    > www.gentoo.org you'll find that there are
    > some new installation alternatives that
    > don't need a full compilation.

    True. But the main reason for choosing Gentoo in the first place is so that you can build an OS customized for your particular system by compiling everything from source. If you're going to use the precompiled binaries, then it becomes just like any other system.

  8. #21
    Parker
    Guest

    Parker: Re: Redhat 9.0

    > I have been using Linux for a long time
    > since their first versions (RedHat 1.0,
    > Slackware 1.0, etc.).

    My first Linux box was a 486 DX66 with 16 MB RAM running Slackware 96. Back then just getting a working X server and configuring PPP so you could actually dial up and connect to the Internet were major accomplishments. I switched to Redhat at around version 4.2.

    > What I've noticed is
    > that the latest versions are consuming too
    > much memory. At home I have a PII 266Mhz 64M
    > RAM w/RH 7.3 and works pretty good.
    > Even RH 8.0 worked fine with my PIII but
    > when I installed RH 9.0 everything became
    > extremely slow.

    Interesting that you mention that. I also found RH 9.0 to be sluggish, bloated, and sort of (dare I say it?) "Redmond-ish." I tried several distros at that time and ended up switching to SuSE.

    > Besides, I installed each version from
    > scratch (I hate upgrades).

    I used to feel that way. I would just backup my /home partition and do a clean install. However, with the last couple of SuSE upgrades (9.0 and 9.1) I have done an automatic upgrade using YAST (Yet Another Setup Tool - SuSE's setup/configuration utility) and have been both surprised and pleased with the results. I just popped in the CD (or DVD for 9.1), opened YAST and selected "upgrade system." It was almost entirely automatic.

    > Fedora (Core 2)
    > is a little bit better but not by that much.
    > Of course, I do have a swap partition which
    > size is twice the RAM.

    As I'm sure you're already aware, using swap space instead of RAM is much, much slower.


  9. #22
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Redhat 9.0

    > I used to feel that way. I would just backup
    > my /home partition and do a clean install.
    > However, with the last couple of SuSE
    > upgrades (9.0 and 9.1) I have done an
    > automatic upgrade using YAST (Yet Another
    > Setup Tool - SuSE's setup/configuration
    > utility) and have been both surprised and
    > pleased with the results. I just popped in
    > the CD (or DVD for 9.1), opened YAST and
    > selected "upgrade system." It was
    > almost entirely automatic.

    SuSE will be my next challenge.

    > As I'm sure you're already aware, using swap
    > space instead of RAM is much, much slower.

    Yes.

    Cac

  10. #23
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Gentoo

    > True. But the main reason for choosing
    > Gentoo in the first place is so that you can
    > build an OS customized for your particular
    > system by compiling everything from source.
    > If you're going to use the precompiled
    > binaries, then it becomes just like any
    > other system.

    Yes, but if you choose the packages that correspond to your processor will be "almost" the same as doing all the compilation. The difference is that in stage1/2 you'll have to set the compiler' parameters yourself. If you accept the default parameters then there shouldn't be any differences.

    Cac

  11. #24
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

    > As the GUIs have become more mature and
    > added more features, in general, they begin
    > requiring more and more RAM. That's likely
    > why earlier versions ran better on your
    > system. Parker's advice to try Fluxbox or
    > Xfce is sound. Both require radically less
    > RAM than either Gnome or KDE. Switching
    > distributions only because your current
    > system is too slow is like buying a new car
    > because you got a flat tire. Try to find out
    > which applications are using up your RAM and
    > try to find alternatives (it is likely the
    > GUI - which desktop are you using?). You can
    > run "top", then press capital 'M'
    > to sort the list of running processes in
    > order of percentage of memory used. That
    > might be enlightening.

    Yes, there is one application that is using a lot of memory (around 30%): Mozilla. I have no problems with my Gnome desktop.
    I use Mozilla as a mail client and as a browser. If I wanted to use OpenOffice then I must close Mozilla first which is something that bothers me a lot. I hope to overcome this problem with Gentoo. Also I would like to try SuSE.

    > By just installing a new distribution, it is
    > very likely you will be running the same
    > software which will require the same amount
    > of RAM and not solve your problem at all.
    > Regards.

    You are probably right but now I got very curious

    Cac

  12. #25
    paranoid android
    Guest

    paranoid android: Re: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

    > Yes, there is one application that is using
    > a lot of memory (around 30%): Mozilla.

    I recommend you try Mozilla-Firefox. It uses the same rendering engine but uses way less RAM than Mozilla since it contains only the browser instead of the billions of other things that Mozilla contains. I find the interface better than Mozilla as well. Try Mozilla-Thunderbird for your email client for the same reasons.

    OpenOffice is also a huge memory hog. I believe it (unnesessarily) uses it's own GUI toolkit instead of GTK/Gnome or QT/KDE which accounts for the bloat (since if you're running Gnome you already have the GTK libs in RAM anyway). You may want to investigate other office programs if you are running on a low RAM machine. Gnumeric is as good or better than the OpenOffice spreadsheet in most respects and uses much less resources. Abiword might be worth a try to replace the OpenOffice word processing program too.

    > I have no problems with my Gnome desktop.

    While Gnome itself may seem to run smoothly, it is taking up significant RAM. Switching to Fluxbox or Xfce will free up some RAM for those programs that are visibly running slowly.

    > I hope to
    > overcome this problem with Gentoo. Also I
    > would like to try SuSE.

    I believe the optimizations you make by compiling your own programs with Gentoo will mainly be of optimizing for your CPU. They will still use the same amounts of RAM as they are currently using on your system if you run the same programs. The couple of nano seconds the CPU gives you because of the optimizations won't be significant compared to all the disk swapping your machine will still be doing. However, since you mentioned you don't like upgrading, installing Gentoo may be a good time to replace OpenOffice and Mozilla with the programs I mentioned above.

    Let us know what you think of Gentoo when you try it out. I might give it a try myself eventually. Note: your small amount of RAM is going to make it extremely slow and painful to compile a complete Gentoo system if that is the path you choose.

  13. #26
    Cacarulo
    Guest

    Cacarulo: Re: Which is the best Linux distro and why?

    > I recommend you try Mozilla-Firefox. It uses
    > the same rendering engine but uses way less
    > RAM than Mozilla since it contains only the
    > browser instead of the billions of other
    > things that Mozilla contains. I find the
    > interface better than Mozilla as well. Try
    > Mozilla-Thunderbird for your email client
    > for the same reasons.

    > OpenOffice is also a huge memory hog. I
    > believe it (unnesessarily) uses it's own GUI
    > toolkit instead of GTK/Gnome or QT/KDE which
    > accounts for the bloat (since if you're
    > running Gnome you already have the GTK libs
    > in RAM anyway). You may want to investigate
    > other office programs if you are running on
    > a low RAM machine. Gnumeric is as good or
    > better than the OpenOffice spreadsheet in
    > most respects and uses much less resources.
    > Abiword might be worth a try to replace the
    > OpenOffice word processing program too.

    > While Gnome itself may seem to run smoothly,
    > it is taking up significant RAM. Switching
    > to Fluxbox or Xfce will free up some RAM for
    > those programs that are visibly running
    > slowly.

    > I believe the optimizations you make by
    > compiling your own programs with Gentoo will
    > mainly be of optimizing for your CPU. They
    > will still use the same amounts of RAM as
    > they are currently using on your system if
    > you run the same programs. The couple of
    > nano seconds the CPU gives you because of
    > the optimizations won't be significant
    > compared to all the disk swapping your
    > machine will still be doing. However, since
    > you mentioned you don't like upgrading,
    > installing Gentoo may be a good time to
    > replace OpenOffice and Mozilla with the
    > programs I mentioned above.

    > Let us know what you think of Gentoo when
    > you try it out. I might give it a try myself
    > eventually. Note: your small amount of RAM
    > is going to make it extremely slow and
    > painful to compile a complete Gentoo system
    > if that is the path you choose.

    Appreciate your advice and will try what you're suggesting. Also I will let you know about Gentoo which is already giving me some headaches

    Sincerely,
    Cac

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