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BestusernameeverPosts: 46
- Joined: 16 Jan 2013
#1
Is there any way to make antix run faster because my computer I have it on is really old dell dimension 4600 with p4 and 512 mb ram. It works fast and good if I do one task but say I have my internet browser with 4 tabs and libreoffice open it really makes my computer slow. By the way will persistance help because I never set that up and I always wondered can that speed up my computer. Antix also only finds liek 480 mb of ram last time I checked so is that part of the cause.
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BitJamPosts: 1,308
- Joined: 31 Aug 2009
#2
It does sound like you are running out of RAM on that older machine. Persistence will use up RAM which would probably make your machine run slower, not faster.
When the machine slows down, you want to see if you are using swap. You should be able to see this in the Conky display on your desktop. You can also run"free -m" from a terminal window.
You need to either use less RAM or get more RAM.
Other people may have suggestions for trimming your memory use but I think you either need to use alternative programs to the big memory hogs you are using now (libreoffice and the browser) or you need to stop trying to keep so much open all at the same time.
HTH, I wish I had better news for you.
PS, you talk about persistence, are you running a LiveCD (or LiveUSB) or are you running a fully installed system? The LiveCD/USB uses up extra memory. That is how it is able to pretend you have a read-write filesystem on a CDROM that you can't write to. You will have more RAM available if you do a full (normal) install.
When the machine slows down, you want to see if you are using swap. You should be able to see this in the Conky display on your desktop. You can also run"free -m" from a terminal window.
In a terminal window you can run"dmesg | grep Memory". This will show you how much memory is reserved for the kernel and hence not available to user space. I can tell you right now that your kernel is using up that"missing" 32 Meg which is very reasonable. We've worked hard to try to keep that low without sacrificing performance or features. With some effort you might be able to trim a few more meg but that really wouldn't fix your problem. Even if you were able to get the kernel space down to zero (which is impossible), it would only increase the total memory available to user programs by 6%.Antix also only finds liek 480 mb of ram last time I checked so is that part of the cause.
You need to either use less RAM or get more RAM.
Other people may have suggestions for trimming your memory use but I think you either need to use alternative programs to the big memory hogs you are using now (libreoffice and the browser) or you need to stop trying to keep so much open all at the same time.
HTH, I wish I had better news for you.
PS, you talk about persistence, are you running a LiveCD (or LiveUSB) or are you running a fully installed system? The LiveCD/USB uses up extra memory. That is how it is able to pretend you have a read-write filesystem on a CDROM that you can't write to. You will have more RAM available if you do a full (normal) install.
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rokytnjiPosts: 4,164
- Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#3
Iceweasel/Firefox and LibreOffice/Open Office running with those hardware specs.
Both applications are ram hungry and you are trying to get a Moped to run like a full blown race bike.
You could try a frugal install set up with persistence but it is probably not going to improve speeds
all that much. I run a 700MB swap partition on my Amrel Laptop by the way.
Posting from a P3 IBM T23 right now with 1.2 gig of ram and just with Firefox (this is AntiX 8.5 also)
Don't be fooled by the ram readings in Conky. I am not doing anything in LibreOffice right now or anything else when I took that screenshot. Everything was pretty idle when that shot was taken.
Happy Trails, Rok
Owning a P4 512MB ram Amrel Toughbook myself. I can say that is expected behavior in any Linux distro withIt works fast and good if I do one task but say I have my internet browser with 4 tabs and libreoffice open it really makes my computer slow
Iceweasel/Firefox and LibreOffice/Open Office running with those hardware specs.
Both applications are ram hungry and you are trying to get a Moped to run like a full blown race bike.
You could try a frugal install set up with persistence but it is probably not going to improve speeds
all that much. I run a 700MB swap partition on my Amrel Laptop by the way.
Posting from a P3 IBM T23 right now with 1.2 gig of ram and just with Firefox (this is AntiX 8.5 also)
Code: Select all
harry@biker:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1008 525 483 0 61 202
-/+ buffers/cache: 260 747
Swap: 996 0 996
Code: Select all
$ dmesg | grep Memory
Memory: 1024944k/1048000k available (3479k kernel code, 22664k reserved, 1604k data, 372k init, 138696k highmem)
Code: Select all
$ inxi -z -F
System: Host: biker Kernel: 2.6.34-stevo i686 (32 bit)
Desktop: Fluxbox 1.3.2 Distro: antiX-M8.5 Marek Edelman 16 February 2010
Machine: Mobo: IBM model: 26474MU Bios: IBM version: 1AET64WW (1.20 ) date: 10/18/2006
CPU: Single core Mobile Intel Pentium III CPU - M (-UP-) cache: 512 KB flags: (pae sse) clocked at 798.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: S3 SuperSavage IX/C SDR X.Org: 1.11.4 driver: vesa Resolution: 1024x768@71.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on softpipe GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.5
Audio: Card: Intel 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller driver: Intel ICH Sound: ALSA ver: 1.0.22.1
Network: Card-1: Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI driver: rt61pci
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Card-2: Intel 82801CAM (ICH3) PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller driver: e100
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 80.0GB (18.9% used) 1: id: /dev/hda model: ST980815A size: 80.0GB
Partition: ID: / size: 6.8G used: 4.1G (63%) fs: ext3 ID: /home size: 11G used: 4.2G (43%) fs: ext3
ID: swap-1 size: 1.04GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0C mobo: 51.0C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info: Processes: 89 Uptime: 32 min Memory: 266.2/1008.7MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.8.34
Don't be fooled by the ram readings in Conky. I am not doing anything in LibreOffice right now or anything else when I took that screenshot. Everything was pretty idle when that shot was taken.
Happy Trails, Rok
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masinickPosts: 1,139
- Joined: 26 Apr 2008
#4
What Roky says is absolutely true. Modern software uses a lot of memory because, let's face it, you can get a LOT of memory (on the order of 4-8 GB) in the every day system you can buy in stores. Even systems like mine, which are between five and six years old, still come stock with 2 GB of RAM.
The system that I am using now is a Gateway 2000 Series PA6A 17" portable; it has 2 GB memory, a 160 GB disk drive, Intel Duo Core 1.733 GHz processor, and in 2007-2008, that was the current state of the art. It still runs fine, but I can see the hints of gradual slow down now. If I had disposable income, I'd be looking for a replacement. My Nexus 7 tablet that someone gave me as a gift, now outperforms this system, but it's still better for every day use, with more disk space, better viewing screen and better keyboard. But the fact of the matter is that 5-10 year old systems, while they will work fine with antiX, there will eventually be limitations, so as Roky says is true: the old systems will work with antiX; just don't expect sub-second responses when you open a Web browser; it isn't going to happen unless you are using a system with 8 or more GB of memory, quad core processors with close to 2 GHz capability per processor, and at least a fast disk with 500 GB or more of storage, possibly coupled with a solid state device (SSD). That's what developers are building most software to handle these days.
The system that I am using now is a Gateway 2000 Series PA6A 17" portable; it has 2 GB memory, a 160 GB disk drive, Intel Duo Core 1.733 GHz processor, and in 2007-2008, that was the current state of the art. It still runs fine, but I can see the hints of gradual slow down now. If I had disposable income, I'd be looking for a replacement. My Nexus 7 tablet that someone gave me as a gift, now outperforms this system, but it's still better for every day use, with more disk space, better viewing screen and better keyboard. But the fact of the matter is that 5-10 year old systems, while they will work fine with antiX, there will eventually be limitations, so as Roky says is true: the old systems will work with antiX; just don't expect sub-second responses when you open a Web browser; it isn't going to happen unless you are using a system with 8 or more GB of memory, quad core processors with close to 2 GHz capability per processor, and at least a fast disk with 500 GB or more of storage, possibly coupled with a solid state device (SSD). That's what developers are building most software to handle these days.
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DavePosts: 1,062
- Joined: 20 Jan 2010
#5
just adding another 512 to your current system makes a world of difference. I am currently running on a p4 with 1 gb of ram.
I have
4 iceweasel sessions running each holding about 6 tabs
copying 97 GB of data from 1 usb drive to another with thunar
xchat open
libreoffice open (writer)
epdfview open with a 68 page document
mplayer playing music
and a vinagre vnc session.
the system is still very responsive, not as much as my i3 with 6gb ram and a ssd, but as rokytnji and masinick say.
I have
4 iceweasel sessions running each holding about 6 tabs
copying 97 GB of data from 1 usb drive to another with thunar
xchat open
libreoffice open (writer)
epdfview open with a 68 page document
mplayer playing music
and a vinagre vnc session.
the system is still very responsive, not as much as my i3 with 6gb ram and a ssd, but as rokytnji and masinick say.
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BestusernameeverPosts: 46
- Joined: 16 Jan 2013
#6
Then one last thing what is a lighter browser or a way to optimize lxde.
PS don't tell me to put icewn on for some reason I just can't stand it.
PS don't tell me to put icewn on for some reason I just can't stand it.
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rokytnjiPosts: 4,164
- Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#7
Midori is one lighter browser you can try
Code: Select all
$ apt-cache policy midori
midori:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 0.4.3+dfsg-0.1
Version table:
0.4.3+dfsg-0.1 0
500 http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing/main i386 Packages
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BestusernameeverPosts: 46
- Joined: 16 Jan 2013
#8
one thing I forgot to mention I have a 500gb hard drive attached in case I can use that for a boost somehow. Note it is external. For me also Midori runs around the same as iceweasel or chrome i don't see much a difference lightweight wise.
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rokytnjiPosts: 4,164
- Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#9
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://lxlinux.com/"
linktext was:"http://lxlinux.com/"
====================================
Last 2 commands aren't needed. I'm just playing around in the shop to see if they work on this desktop.
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://i.imgur.com/hPMQJTP.jpg"
linktext was:"http://i.imgur.com/hPMQJTP.jpg"
====================================
This is fluxbox with LXPanels instead of a slit.
Might help, might not but here goesway to optimize lxde.
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://lxlinux.com/"
linktext was:"http://lxlinux.com/"
====================================
Did you make a swap partition during your install and make sure it was turned on/enabled? Gparted can handle that.one thing I forgot to mention I have a 500gb hard drive attached in case I can use that for a boost somehow. Note it is external
Code: Select all
biker@biker:~$ sux
Password:
bash: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Inappropriate ioctl for device
bash: no job control in this shell
root@biker:/home/biker# blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="dcf77290-bcc1-4d1d-98cd-74991d828f95" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda2: UUID="a5ab5255-75d6-4be9-b2c1-ab4e40b32aa5" TYPE="swap"
root@biker:/home/biker# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 230195384 115097692 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 230195385 234436544 2120580 82 Linux swap / Solaris
root@biker:/home/biker# blkid | grep"/dev/sd.*" | sed 's!\(.*\):.*TYPE="\(.*\)".*!\1: \2!'
/dev/sda1: ext3
/dev/sda2: swap
root@biker:/home/biker# blkid | sed 's!\(.*\):.*TYPE="\(.*\)".*!\1: \2!'
/dev/sda1: ext3
/dev/sda2: swap========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://i.imgur.com/hPMQJTP.jpg"
linktext was:"http://i.imgur.com/hPMQJTP.jpg"
====================================
This is fluxbox with LXPanels instead of a slit.
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dolphin_oraclePosts: 2,238
- Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#10
i've got a amd 900mhz duron with 512mb of ram. I've got to say that libreoffice running with 4 browser tabs would put a hurting on that system. I usually don't have more than music and a browser open.
we've got a P4 upstairs that my son uses for video games. Its a dell 8600 (same vintage as your 4600). I did put 1 gb of ram in it. It is still a very usefull machine, used everyday in fact.
LXDE is lighter than a lot of Desktop environments, but fluxbox and icewm really will make a difference in terms of"speed" feel. I've never liked icewm either, but me and fluxbox go back to the good old days when xfce quit running nice on that old duron I mentioned. Now I install flux on basically anything I'm using, even the dreaded ubuntu!
a full install will run faster than any frugal install, and way faster than a live session.
we've got a P4 upstairs that my son uses for video games. Its a dell 8600 (same vintage as your 4600). I did put 1 gb of ram in it. It is still a very usefull machine, used everyday in fact.
LXDE is lighter than a lot of Desktop environments, but fluxbox and icewm really will make a difference in terms of"speed" feel. I've never liked icewm either, but me and fluxbox go back to the good old days when xfce quit running nice on that old duron I mentioned. Now I install flux on basically anything I'm using, even the dreaded ubuntu!
a full install will run faster than any frugal install, and way faster than a live session.
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anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
- Site Admin
- Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#11
Basically any modern browser that does what a modern browser is expected to do will be heavy. There is no avoiding it. Midori is lighter, but it comes at a cost. Dillo is even lighter, but with more cost. Opera is claimed to be lighter and as feature rich as firefox/iceweasel.
Good points d.o except I would disagree with full being faster than a full install. It might be, but frugal does run fast, and is much faster than live either on a cd or a usb device in my experience.dolphin_oracle wrote:
a full install will run faster than any frugal install, and way faster than a live session.
Basically any modern browser that does what a modern browser is expected to do will be heavy. There is no avoiding it. Midori is lighter, but it comes at a cost. Dillo is even lighter, but with more cost. Opera is claimed to be lighter and as feature rich as firefox/iceweasel.
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EperbabPosts: 146
- Joined: 10 Dec 2012
#12
I have the same experience. Speed goes down to hell when It's running out of RAM. No wonder, my new HDD has 120 MB/s sequential read speed on overclocked IDE, while my 1 GB CL2.5 DDR400 (O.C.:476) memory is running around 1695 MB/s.
I used to run virtual machines on 512 MB, while keeping 512 MB for the system. At the moment I'm running Iceweasel 19.0 with 6 tabs, libreoffice calc, icedove, skype, transmission and conky. Memory usage is 491 MB.
Iceweasel 10.0 in testing repo uses much more memory (+35%) then 17.0 or newer. After the upgrade to 17.0 in experimental memory usage went down by 100 MB, while the same 3 tabs were open. Use iceweasel in sid or experimental. Use icedove in sid or a lighter email client.
With too much pages open, You may run into CPU limit. My Sempron 2800+ 1.6 GHz Socket 754 can handle Youtube videos at 360p, but 480p is unusable. After O.C. to 1909 MHz 480p runs propely at 100% CPU load, but fullscreen (720p) is unusable.
About opera: it seems to use less memory, but more CPU, and I have video playback problems with it (adobe flash plugin). Chrome seems to be slower than Opera, but plays videos.
By switching off unnecessary services, I managed to free up another 85 MB. Now my full blown Mate desktop loaded with applets uses ~120 MB idle. LXDE and fluxbox+rox are also nice, and lighter.
I used to run virtual machines on 512 MB, while keeping 512 MB for the system. At the moment I'm running Iceweasel 19.0 with 6 tabs, libreoffice calc, icedove, skype, transmission and conky. Memory usage is 491 MB.
Iceweasel 10.0 in testing repo uses much more memory (+35%) then 17.0 or newer. After the upgrade to 17.0 in experimental memory usage went down by 100 MB, while the same 3 tabs were open. Use iceweasel in sid or experimental. Use icedove in sid or a lighter email client.
With too much pages open, You may run into CPU limit. My Sempron 2800+ 1.6 GHz Socket 754 can handle Youtube videos at 360p, but 480p is unusable. After O.C. to 1909 MHz 480p runs propely at 100% CPU load, but fullscreen (720p) is unusable.
About opera: it seems to use less memory, but more CPU, and I have video playback problems with it (adobe flash plugin). Chrome seems to be slower than Opera, but plays videos.
By switching off unnecessary services, I managed to free up another 85 MB. Now my full blown Mate desktop loaded with applets uses ~120 MB idle. LXDE and fluxbox+rox are also nice, and lighter.
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rust collectorPosts: 765
- Joined: 27 Dec 2011
#13
Just curious.
When I have tried opera, it is great, but after some time, it seems to slow down a lot.
I have no idea why...
Have any of you had the same experience?
When I have tried opera, it is great, but after some time, it seems to slow down a lot.
I have no idea why...
Have any of you had the same experience?
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BitJamPosts: 1,308
- Joined: 31 Aug 2009
#14
With"toram" enabled, after the initial boot you are not touching the hard disk at all either reading or writing. One speed hit your take is decompressing the squashfs file from RAM on the fly. But we know (I think) that this decompression is faster than reading uncompressed files from disk. That's why the Linux kernel is always compressed. The extra CPU time needed to do the decompression wins out over the time needed to read a larger uncompressed file from disk. The only other speed hit is the aufs filesystem which needs to do bookkeeping to know whether a file is in tmpfs or the squashfs. It is hard for me to imagine that this is going to be slower than random disk accesses. Over the years CPU speeds have increased much faster than seek times have gone down. Seek times are still measured in milliseconds, not microseconds.
This is also why frugal even without"toram" is always faster than a full install. In addition, there are no disk writes when running frugal so you save even more. When root persistence is enabled, there is disk writing at shutdown that uses rsync but this is far more efficient than the random reads and writes that are performed while a fully installed system is running.
Full disclosure: I am possibly very biased because I've been working on the development of antiX Live and frugal for a number of years.
Assuming you're not using swap then a frugal install should be faster than a full install and any live install (or frugal) with"toram" should be faster still. It is only when you are memory bound that a frugal install should be slower than a full install. It is the classic size versus speed trade off. With frugal, and especially with Live and"toram", we are sacrificing size (we use more RAM) to gain speed. I grant you that without"toram" a LiveCD is slow (because CDROM access is so slow). That's one of the reasons we've been putting a lot of effort into frugal and our LiveUSB. The speed difference between a LiveUSB (without"toram") and a full install depends mostly on the read-only speed of the usb stick versus the read/write speed of the hard drive. If these are comparable then the LiveUSB wins.dolphin_oracle wrote:a full install will run faster than any frugal install, and way faster than a live session.
With"toram" enabled, after the initial boot you are not touching the hard disk at all either reading or writing. One speed hit your take is decompressing the squashfs file from RAM on the fly. But we know (I think) that this decompression is faster than reading uncompressed files from disk. That's why the Linux kernel is always compressed. The extra CPU time needed to do the decompression wins out over the time needed to read a larger uncompressed file from disk. The only other speed hit is the aufs filesystem which needs to do bookkeeping to know whether a file is in tmpfs or the squashfs. It is hard for me to imagine that this is going to be slower than random disk accesses. Over the years CPU speeds have increased much faster than seek times have gone down. Seek times are still measured in milliseconds, not microseconds.
This is also why frugal even without"toram" is always faster than a full install. In addition, there are no disk writes when running frugal so you save even more. When root persistence is enabled, there is disk writing at shutdown that uses rsync but this is far more efficient than the random reads and writes that are performed while a fully installed system is running.
Full disclosure: I am possibly very biased because I've been working on the development of antiX Live and frugal for a number of years.
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dolphin_oraclePosts: 2,238
- Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#15
well,consider me schooled on frugal installs __{{emoticon}}__ far be it from me to argue with bitjam and anti. no foul against them intended. maybe I'll revist them.