Help with linux speed

JamesRJ

JamesRJ

JamesRJ

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I've got a little download/file server box which I used to run xp on, it was a via itx 600 with 384 meg ram. I have now upgraded to a M10000 1ghz board with 512 ddr ram and thought I would try Linux on it.
I have installed Linux Mint and while impressed with the ease of installation I'm very unimpressed with the speed it runs at. Its a total slug, it wont even play an mp3 and browse the Internet at the same time. Which the old 600mhz board on xp had no problem doing ?
The question is, have I done something wrong ? Does it need optimising in some way ?
I realise that the 1ghz is very slow compared to today's standards but I assumed that Linux was less of a resource hog than windows not more.
 
What media player/codecs does mint use?

Also, Firefox performance on Linux is bad, especially on weak chips, I don't know why. Try Chrome/Opera.
 
Try some other distributions. The problem is not that Linux sucks, it's more likely there's poor drivers for the hardware you are running. (likely to be sound or video).
 
No idea to be honest but its not just media playing its slow at, just plain web browsing using firefox is slow.
Everything is just very sluggish ?
 
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Try some other distributions.
Click to expand...

What would you suggest ? Factoring in I am a linux noob and want to use it mostly as a download box/file server for my popcorn hour, macbook & windows laptop to access. Also I need to be able to remote in to it as it wont have a monitor connected to it.
 
Base debian install. you want the debian net install.

My server runs debian wihtout a GUI and it rocks! have usenet, rapidshare and torrent downloading software all accessable via ssh.

I wouldnt run any gui for a headless server, its totally pointless! I have some cool startup scripts for usenet & rtorrent of u wanna use them should you go debian.
 
as said earlier - firefox is a dog on linux, try chromium it flies in comparison and is pretty fully-featured these days.

plus Mint is about the worst choice as it is a tarted up (read: slowed down) version of ubuntu which isnt the fastest to start with. Id try xubuntu as its still easy to use but is much lighter on the system requirements
 
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+ 1 Debian. With such old hardware you could use the current stable (lenny) rather than the testing (sqeeze).
 
I'lll go with the crowd, as Debian makes an excellent server and can be as light as you want if you go for a net install. As SoC says - ignore Sqeeze (testing) or Sid (unstable) and go for Lenny (stable).

If you need a Window Manager, ignore KDE/Gnome. You can use XFCE, but I would recommend Openbox instead - which is properly lightweight.
 
Another vote for Debian with XFCE, or Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE) if you want a slightly easier approach (not suggesting Debian is hard).
 
Having not much luck now, downloaded Arch, tried to install and got a grub error 18 when it booted, then tried Xubuntu and got same error 18.
Have tried changing LBA mode to normal ( googled error 18 ) but made no diference.
Anyone else come accross this ?

The drive was initally blank when I installed mint from cd
 
JamesRJ said:
Having not much luck now, downloaded Arch, tried to install and got a grub error 18 when it booted, then tried Xubuntu and got same error 18.
Have tried changing LBA mode to normal ( googled error 18 ) but made no diference.
Anyone else come accross this ?

The drive was initally blank when I installed mint from cd
Click to expand...

How did you partition the drive?

When I install Arch, I tend to have a very small bootable partition (about 24 - 30MB) which is partitioned as ext2, then I have a small / partition (usually somewhere between 10-20GB - however - as you're new to linux, I would go for 30-40GB, as you may decide to change distro at some point and a lot of distros don't like the very small /boot partition) and then another partition mounted on /home.

This should get round the LBA issue.

If you go back to Arch, when you boot the install CD, use fdisk from the command shell (or cfdisk - as it's a bit more visual and intuitive) to remove the existing partitions, then run through the install steps again (make sure you don't miss any out).

Also - remember with Arch, after the install, you're dropped into a shell and have to install your X server and window manager (gui) manually - so make sure you have the Arch wiki handy.

EDIT: By the way Arch Linux really doesn't hold your hand for configuration, you might be better with a Debian net install (look for netinst.iso), which will help you out with the config more.
 
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not sure on error 18 - suggest you remove all partitions from the drive and retry creating a single ext3 partition on os installation.
 
Have deleted all partitions and am curently installing arch.

Thanks for all the help so far, may need more later though ;)
 
Ok trying to install xfce
Have type in pacman -S xfce4
It then gives me the option to install whole content (Y/N) I put Y then it list loads of files with : Not Found then
Errors occoured, no packages were upgraded
 
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