[kde-linux] how to speedup kde?

[James Richard Tyrer]

Dale wrote:
> James Richard Tyrer wrote:
>> cnhnln wrote:
>>   
>>> how to speedup kde?
>>>     
>> The #1 way is to add more memory; this will make the biggest difference 
>> if sluggishness is associated with the hard disk light being on.
>>
>> 0.5 GB is really the minimum and 1.0 GB is really what you need.
>>
>> Virtual memory swaps are the main reason that my system runs slow.
>>
>> You might think that a faster processor was #1 but it isn't.  If you 
>> only have 256 MB of memory, a faster processor won't make much 
>> difference if you have several large apps open -- a faster processor 
>> won't access the hard disk much faster.
>>   
> 
> It should run pretty well with 256M of ram.  If he had 128M then it
> would be a big issue.  I can start KDE and several apps on mine and it
> only use 130 to 140M of ram.  However, if he has something running, like
> apache or some database program, that uses extra memory and it starts to
> use swap space, then he needs more ram.  He really should run the "free"
> command to see what is being used.  He can also run "top" and tell it to
> sort by memory usage and see exactly what is using how much memory. 
> Mine does not use a lot of ram and I have a full blown KDE install.  KDE
> has gotten better I think.  They seem to have cleaned up their code a lot.

I guess that I run too much stuff since I tend to fill up my 7/16 GByte 
of RAM, but I think that I will get a new MotherBoard in a few months 
rather than buy more RAM for my old one.  IAC, if the disk lite is on 
while things are slow, check to see if your RAM is full.

>> Secondary things are:
>>
>> If you don't have 1.0 GB of memory, be careful not to run unnecessary 
>> things.  This doesn't help much -- if you have 1.0 GB of memory, you 
>> don't have to worry about such things.
>>
>> In theory having two fast disks will help.  You should have the code and 
>> swap on one disk and *all* data on the other.  Unfortunately, *NIX 
>> wasn't designed to work this way.  It is sufficient to have the system 
>> and swap on one of the disks with "/home & /var on the other.  

Also "/tmp" should be on the data disk.

> Some say 
>> that having more than one partition for your swap space will help (about 
>> 0.5 GB per partition is what I have read).
>>
>>   
> Actually, you can put your partitions about any way you want too.  I
> have mine partitioned this way:
> 
>> root at smoker / # fdisk -l /dev/hda
>>
>> Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
>> 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
>> Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
>>
>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>> /dev/hda1   *           1         291      146632+  83  Linux
>> /dev/hda2             292      158816    79896600    5  Extended
>> /dev/hda5             292        1260      488344+  83  Linux
>> /dev/hda6            1261       30324    14648224+  83  Linux
>> /dev/hda7           30325       49700     9765472+  83  Linux
>> /dev/hda8           49701       78764    14648224+  83  Linux
>> /dev/hda9           78765       88452     4882720+  83  Linux
>> /dev/hda10          88453      158816    35463424+  83  Linux
>> root at smoker / #  
> 
> #1 is /boot, #5 is swap, #6 is /, #7 is /home, #8 is /usr, #9 is
> /usr/portage, #10 is /mnt/data.  I have a second drive that I backup too
> from time to time.  As you can see, you can split up your system about
> any way you want too.  The only thing you shouldn't put on separate
> partitions is, /bin, /sbin, /etc, and /root. 
> 
> Putting swap as close to the inner portion of the drive is the fastest. 
> I'm not sure having it on separate drives will help much though.

I said, in theory so I don't know how much difference this makes on a 
modern system.  Sun still recommends two hard disks for their desktop 
systems last time I checked.  What happens when there isn't enough 
memory is that ('dirty') data is swapped out while the new application's 
code is loaded.  So if they are on the same disk, they fight each other, 
but on separate disks they can proceed at the same time.

-- 
JRT