Guest CrypticalCat Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 I'm a new user to Linux. I've settled on Mandrake 9.1 because I like the look and feel and ease of installation. Besides I'm not too crazy about "phone home" software with Fisher-Price/PlaySkool interfaces, you know that XP thing. I managed to get things working for the most part but I'm not too sure about the speed at which things work. I have no reference point except for Windows 98. I thought Windows was slow, but Linux is an absolute turtle compared to Windows at least on my machine. I can live with the long startup, I usually grab a coffee at that time anyway. I find that applications in KDE take 20 to 30 seconds to open. Mozilla is really slow to load web pages taking up to 15 seconds to load what IE6 would do in about a couple of seconds. I was just wondering if I may not have something configured right. I suspect my NIC. Its a DFE-530TX PCI ethernet adapter. I used the default drivers that Mandrake 9.1 supplied. I'm also wondering what else I may need to do. My machine is an Aptiva IBM, AMD K6-2 500MHz cpu, 256MB RAM, with Sound Blaster Live and Voodoo 3 3000 cards and a couple of Maxtor hard drives, along with the usual CD and CD-RW drives. I use broadband cable to connect to the internet and it works real well with Windows 98. I am using a dual-boot setup (well at least until I can figure out that Wine thing or find audio technical applications to replace my Windows ones) I don't want to give up on Linux. It shows a lot of promise and I like it in spite of my problems, I guess I just need understand a few things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 does your internet work in mandrake? if mandrake is not getting an IP, startup will take an insane amount of time and the system will in general be slow. if you're internet doesn't work, we'll tackle that first. p.s.-welcome to the board, please reply to this thread. thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CrypticalCat Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 Yes my internet connection works, in fact program downloads from Linux sites are pretty zippy just like in Windows, I just find that using Mozilla for surfing really frustrating at times due to web pages taking a long time to load. Maybe thats just the way it works and if so I'll accept it for now. I like the ability to set Java permissions that don't allow web sites to control your browser and all the other security features that IE6 does not have. I found a C source file that has a driver for my NIC, only I haven't got a clue what to do with it or if it will actaully solve any problems. CrypticalCat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 with your cpu and mem apps shouldn't take that long to load, not even mozilla. Have you looked in the logs (/var/log/messages), the output in a terminal from dmesg and harddrake in mcc>Hardware to see if everything is found and configured? Have you used hdparm to see what your hd settings are at? The kernel has a bad, conservative habit of running hd settings/udma etc.... lower than the hd or hardware can do. Hdparm can sometimes double your speed, and almost always make some diff. ...and welcome to the board :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CrypticalCat Posted August 22, 2003 Report Share Posted August 22, 2003 I took your advice and started checking out logs one by one. I noticed a lot of USB hub errors. I had a usb hub connected to one of my usb ports. It seems Linux does not like usb hubs and my usb scanner and usb printer don't work off the hub in Linux. I also have a usb webcam. I only have two direct usb connections at the back of my machine so I guess I'll drop the webcam and lose the hub. I rebooted and noticed that konquerer (Home) works quickly now and other things have speeded up too. I noticed too that the USB hub was competing for IRQ space in the logs. One less thing to bog down the system I guess. I seem to also have a problem getting my CD-ROM to be recognized as a scsi device. I have a problem in K3B with this and the logs confirmed it. Another thing to figure out. I still haven't quite got the knack of those terminals. I'm not very familiar with the language and protocols to use one of those so I had to skip the hdparm part for now. I did check all my other hardware in MCC and it all seems OK except for the CD-ROM drive. Heck, I'm retired (just do the odd home theater setups and electronics repairs) and I got all the time in the world. Gives me something to do and learn. Thanks for the input so far. At least it got me started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted August 23, 2003 Report Share Posted August 23, 2003 A normal cd-rom should be recognized as an IDE device. A cd-writer will be recognized as a scsi device. Thats normal. Just make sure both devices are recognized in the k3b setup and you should be good to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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