----- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor Warren" trevor.w@pvision.biz To: "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India" linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in Cc: "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India" linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 10:39 AM Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] RE: Why does Linux access the HDD so much?
Inspite of this all if you wanna crib we will be sorry that we tried helping you out in the first place. Dear Vijay...all of us here has learned the hard way. So try to give it time and do your homework well. Take positive criticism and work towards settings things right.
PN: My personal laptops and Desktops are running Gnu/Linux unformatted for years. My personal laptop is a PII, 128MB RAM, and runs Gnome 2.2 with Open Office and Mozilla too...;). It's upto you to make it work.
Please put an end to this thread here.Trevor
Dont put an end to this thread. While the messages were a little confused, there is an important fact in it.
Vijay is talking about a problem (whether actual or percieved) that GUI under Linux is slow / bulky /inefficient and that this is the reason why more people (specifically cyber cafes) are not moving to Linux as the OS. We need to help him understand this problem and make sure that the message goes accoss to other people also so that they can refute the point in future (even if they are not experts on Linux).
Perhaps someone can summarise the points you have made. They are very valid. a. Increase Swap b. Stop services that are not required c. Get More RAM (since lower ram = more swap file usage = slower / inefficient performance) d. Recomend use of less resource hungary software (galeon instead of mozilla) e. Do not fully shut off software that you are going to use again and again (eg, minimise mozilla instead of closing it when you finish looking at a webpage)
An additional point I guess we can also make here is that in MS Windows XP also, most software takes time to open. Outlook express takes more than 20 seconds (and massive HDD Access) to open and MSOffice XP is much worse. We can not compare a PC running Win98 to RedHat9. That comparison does not make sense.
On the other hand, many of the good software in Linux is also not as efficient as they are in MS Windows. A case in point is Mozilla its self. I use Mozilla extensively on MS Windows, it has an option / feature which allows me to set that will keep the software open in background (in system tray) so that when I use it again, it starts up in less than 5 seconds. In the meanwhile it is using less than 1.25mb of ram, which I can afford, and about 15mb of swap file (which I dont mind). I could not locate the same feature in the Linux version of Mozilla. Before using that feature, it took mozilla more than 30 seconds to open every time I started it.
I would still say, keep this thread alive, or may be change it to "How to Make Linux look more efficient" ?
(BTW, I havent checked the website to see if there is a note or a how-to on this. If so, my appologies)
regards Saswata