New Thread - system speedups for client boxes

[James Wilkinson]

Rickey Moore wrote:
> I would propose a new thread for system speedups for
> client boxes...
> apps to install/remove, services to start/disable. I'm
> using my box as a pure client, yahoo mail, personal
> applications, some development, but no server
> services. 
> 
> Yes! I am finally on my Fedora Core4 machine, finally!
> Got PPPoe working to a router, as suggested (THANX!)
> to the DSL modem. I'm afraid to reboot for fear it'll
> go away. <chuckles> So, I'm looking for the most speed
> I can get out of this aging PIII, both hardware and
> software. My ole 486/DXII with 16 megs of memory
> seemed to run faster, back when. Of course, that was
> pre- KDE / Gnome /ALSA. So, any bits of info will be
> highly welcome. Ric

Linux isn't Windows. Specifically (thank heavens) it's not the old
Windows-on-top-of-DOS where you had to tune real memory, high memory,
tune this, turn off that. There's not that much to tune.

What you might find is that more memory helps: you'll page to disk less,
and more data will be cached. Getting more physical memory is likely to
be worthwhile (for a PIII). (How much do you have?)

Otherwise, try turning off unneeded services. Is this likely to be the
only computer on your network? Are you ever likely to want to do local
file sharing? If not, make sure you haven't got samba or NFS running.

The command line
ps aux | sort -nrk6 | head
will show you the programs using the most memory. You might want to
investigate them.

I'd recommend, too, that you go through the running services and work
out what each of them do. Work out whether they make sense for you. That
way you'll learn a lot about your new system.

Oh yes -- welcome to Fedora!

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | The "Power Switch" on ATX supplies, like traffic lights
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | in Paris, really is just a polite suggestion.
                      |     -- Mike Andrews