RAM problems

[swizard]

hi.
there is a problem about my RAM (PentiumI,16M RAM PC). RH 7 GNOME is really slow. its writing the swap all the time on hard disk.
how can i free more ram to speed up the system?
thanks in advance.
swizard

[XxMaCaBrExX]

16M of ram is a very small amount to be running gnome on. I'd say the only way to fix your problem is to get a serious RAM upgrade. ;)

[swizard]

but can't i turn off some unneeded stuff that starts on booting?

[XxMaCaBrExX]

That probably isn't going to do squat for make your desktop performance any better w/ GNOME. Gnome is a RAM eater. I suggest using Sawfish as you window-manager under GNOME. I believe RH7 uses Enlightenment by default, and it will kill all of your RAM quick. Also, the Icewm desktop is pretty easy on the memory. Not quite as kewl of an interface, but faster nonetheless. ;) :D

[Derango]

At the moment on my linux box, the only things running are X, Gnome, tkseti and Mozilla. I've got 148 MB of my 256 used.

Subtracting the memory total for mozilla (memory hog), as well as removing the cache from the used memory, I come up with around 42 MB used. Still way more than 16MB (and this is on debian, the non bloat distro :) )

In short, You realy need at least 64 MB of ram to run gnome and X at a tolerable level of speed at the least. you might be able to get by with 32MB if you used blackbox or Icewm.

[Lorithar]

*nods*


on 16 Mb you don't want to be running GNOME. X with either twm or blackbox is really the only option (been there and done that) and even then it's not a performance maven.

At 16Mb ... even turning off all uneeded services wont help a lot with gnome .. it wants a minimum of 32Mb to run in...