How old is "OLD"?

[ZenDJiNN]

I've installed Daryana on both my Laptop (Core 2 Duo - 2ghz) and also on my Main work machine, which is an Intel 2.8Ghz with 1 Gig ram and (AFAIK) Intel Graphics chip of some sort (915 perhaps?)

On the Lappie it doesn't really present any problems and runs well without any major problems, as one would expect. BUT.... on the main machine, the only way that i can get acceptable performance (Without too much App Lag etc) is to use Gnome + OpenBox (Rather than Metacity). This is OK, and acceptable, as i feel that Mint has a lot to offer that many other distros don't, but it got me thinking.....

I have only just recently switched to Mint from Xubuntu 7.10 (Which i hasten to add, i really love , and have used as my main OS all the way through from .... er, Rusty Camel or whatever it was back then..... around 2005) which has, on the whole, worked really well on this machine, possibly due to XFCE & being mainly GTK based rather than relying on GNOME deps etc. But as this is a "Fairly reasonable spec" machine, i thought i'd give the GNOME edition of Mint a try & it works.... Very well, but you can "see & feel" the difference between Daryna & Xubuntu.

So what i'd like some opinions on, is whether you think that the above spec (2.8Ghz CPU with 1 Gig Ram & 160gig SATA) is now considered "Old" for something like Daryna, or maybe "Just about acceptable" or what have you? I'm of the impression that, whilst not being exactly "Bleeding Edge" hardware, it's not "Old" either, & should run Daryna with both "Speed & Efficiency". Am i somewhat naive in thinking that this system, with it's current hardware, should do this?

BTW, one of the main reasons for giving Daryna a go was because i'm so fed up with the whole "Hit & Miss" affair in getting XFCE to access Netshares etc..... I can do it, but it's a real Kludge, and Nautilus just seems to do it without any fuss or bother.

Anyway, thanks for reading this far, and all replies & thoughts/opinions, whatever they may be, are much welcomed & appreciated.

[67GTA]

A little more RAM wouldn't hurt, but it should run alright. XFCE is perfect for this machine, Gnome will be ok, KDE will be sluggish.

[ZenDJiNN]

A little more RAM wouldn't hurt, but it should run alright. XFCE is perfect for this machine, Gnome will be ok, KDE will be sluggish.

Thanks for the reply. I found on the whole that when i was running Xubuntu (7.10) it ran pretty well, with the exception of the Composite settings which just caused it to be a lot slower, but then the graphics on this machine are built in & really basic.

But i am surprised that 1 Gb Ram is now considered kind of "minimal" as it were, when only a few years ago it was pretty good..... amazing how quickly it all changes eh? I'm thinking now about 1 of 2 choices on this machine. 1 is keeping Mint 4 on here but using OpenBox with Gnome, as that seems to really speed things up quite a bit (in fact it's made it a very fast but highly functional machine) and 2: putting the new XFCE Mint version on when it comes out. I've tried the beta & it's nice, & as you so rightly said, XFCE seems to work really well on this machine.

What gets me most is that my switch to Linux from the "WinWorld" was partly to get away from the "Behemothic" Monster and find something that's still as functional & powerful, but with hopefully a smaller footprint, which i thought that Linux (Using Gnome or KDE) would be..... but that doesn't seem to be the case. The Memory & CPU requirements seem to be pretty similar across the board.

Anyway, i'm just thinking out loud. Thanks ever so much for your reply, and i shall try various different things on this machine to see what works best, but as it stands at the moment, Gnome & OpenBox is pretty slick!!

Cheers.......

[kenetics]

1 GB of ram should be plenty. I have no trouble running any Mint version with 512 MB and a P4 1.6 GHz processor. I have even run OpenSuse, which is a rather top heavy distro.

[ZenDJiNN]

Actually, I'm currently developing a Linux Mint Edition called the MiniCD edition, which uses GNOME+Openbox and comes with all mintapps, codecs, and other helpful apps. However, it was built from the ground up and is super light weight and pretty fast.

You can give it a try soon.

That sounds great. I'll definitely give that a spin when it's ready. I'm currently using Daryna with Gnome + OpenBox (I love OpenBox & FluxBox) because it's just a lot slicker than using Metacity, which seems to run somewhat slow on this machine. So yep, count me in. Super Lightweight AND fast sounds pretty good to me.

[ZenDJiNN]

1 GB of ram should be plenty. I have no trouble running any Mint version with 512 MB and a P4 1.6 GHz processor. I have even run OpenSuse, which is a rather top heavy distro.

Hi kenetics. I have always thought that this was a "reasonable" machine for it's age etc, and should be capable of running most stuff, but the "Heavyweight" distros (ie: anything that makes much use of GNOME or KDE) seem to not fare well at all. They run, and they install OK, but they just seem to be "Lumpy & Slow" which is surprising. That's why i've always (until recently) used Xubuntu, because although not perfect in many ways, it's footprint makes it run a lot faster than anything using GNOME or KDE. It's a shame, because i like GNOME a lot.

Maybe there's something going on inside that i'm not aware of, like the UDMA settings on the SATA not set right or something, but i'm not aware that anything's wrong in that respect. (Not that i'd know what to look for anyway)

I'm looking forward to giving the Mint MiniCD a try when it's available, maybe that will run as i'd like. Until then, i'm very happy using Daryna with Gnome & OpenBox. That seems to work OK.

[todds]

Hello
i have a pentuim 4 3.0 hyperthreading processor,1gb pam,nvidia fx5900,it runs any of the current distro`s without any issues at all,very quick with kde as well.

I have tried in the last 2 months,fedora 8,open suse 10.3,Mandriva 2008,Vector standard rc3,Zenwalk,Dream Linux,Sabayon.

Running Mepis 7.0 rc2 at the moment and couldn`t see how it could be any quicker.

Sounds like there must be something wrong somewhere??

How exactly is it slow??

regards

Todds

[ZenDJiNN]

Hello
i have a pentuim 4 3.0 hyperthreading processor,1gb pam,nvidia fx5900,it runs any of the current distro`s without any issues at all,very quick with kde as well.

I have tried in the last 2 months,fedora 8,open suse 10.3,Mandriva 2008,Vector standard rc3,Zenwalk,Dream Linux,Sabayon.

Running Mepis 7.0 rc2 at the moment and couldn`t see how it could be any quicker.

Sounds like there must be something wrong somewhere??

How exactly is it slow??

regards

Todds

Hi Todds, thanks for the reply.

I've tried many distros on this machine, with varying degrees of success, but almost all of the "Heavier" distros, pay a premium in speed, IYKWIM?

The only distros that i put on this machine that run anywhere near what i would call "Fast(ish)" are the lighter ones like Zenwalk, Wolvix, antiX etc. Ubuntu (with Gnome) is just too "Sluggish" running on this machine. I was going to say it's not exactly slow, but..... well, it IS slow. Slower than i would expect it to be anyway. If i take all the Gnome parts out & run it with a different WM or DE then it really makes a difference and starts to pick up speed quite a bit.

For some strange reason, this only (Or mostly anyway) happens with Debian based distros. It doesn't happen with Slack based distros. Zenwalk flies on this machine, which is all well & good, but i'm a Debian fan, and not really fan of Slack at all.

I dislike bringing Windows into the mix, but XP was always "Snappy" on this machine, whereas i find it hard to get a Linux distro to perform with the same amount of Zest. Does that make sense? That's one of the reasons that i used Xubuntu for so long, because it was a Debian distro that had a reasonably light(ish) footprint and seemed to work at a reasonable pace.

Maybe i'm just expecting too much from hardware that's a few years old, but when i double click on a drive icon for instance, i pretty much expect it to appear within a second or so. Any longer than that & things start to feel sluggish.

Anyway, this is not a Major issue, but it's interesting to see how others systems are running & what hardware they're running on, so as to get some kind of comparison etc. I will keep trying different distros out on this machine to see if there's a Debian distro out there that will perform as i'd like it to. So far, Mint 4 has done pretty well, although i can't use Metacity as it just slows the machine down too much, but Gnome + Openbox seems to do the trick.

Cheers.......

[ZenDJiNN]

linux runs fine even on crappier hardwares, depends on how you define "slow".

I think that's the key here, the definition of "Slow". To me.... "Slow" is (In this context at least) anything that takes longer than a second or so, for a simple task such as opening a window, or firing up a terminal etc. I must say that Mint 4 with Openbox as the WM, runs very well on the whole, and i don't have too many issues. But at times (perhaps when it's under load, which Firefox seems to do at an alarming rate) it slows down to such a degree that i think the machine has crashed.

I guess it's just a matter of, the more you ask from your OS (ie: Compiz, large programs, multiple FF tabs etc) then the harder it has to work, which then has a direct impact on speed etc.

I was just curious as to what others thoughts were on this subject, and how their machines responded with the different OS's & progs they use.

To give you an example, i've just opened a Terminal..... which is not exactly a "Taxing task", and it's taken 4 seconds to open it. That, to me, is slow. I would expect that to happen within a second or two, not twice as long. As i said, it's not a Major issue in & off itself, but over time it's things like this that can be frustrating. The only other progs i have running at the moment are Firefox (Admittedly with about 12 tabs open) and Thunderbird. I'm using Openbox as the WM because Metacity makes it even slower, and that's sped things up quite a bit, but if i turn Compiz on, forget it..... it just gets slower.

I still think Mint is one of the BEST Debian distros out there, and i'm especially looking forward to the "MiniCD" release when it's available, which uses Openbox as the WM. trying out all the different distros is all part of the fun eh?

Thanks for the reply.