openSuSE 11.1 - KDE 4 - Crawls on P4, why?

[landis]

I have installed openSuSE 11.1 on 3 systems with kde 4 and all 3 are different.
I have one ThinkPad (1.13GHz) with 10.3 and kde 3 on it and well it smokes!
My problem:
the thinkpad and 2 generic AMD (1 1700+ and one 2400+) systems rock with 11.1 and kde4, but.....
I have a NetVista (IBM) with a 1.5GHz P4 processor and a 32MB nVidia card (old stuff i know, but that's what Was nice about Linux.. it worked) and 128MB 133 RAM...
It (the NetVista) is So SLOW!!!!
Everytime i move the mouse it's hitting the HDD (hard disk drive) and i have to wait and wait and wait.. Switching desktops takes forever etc.. It's Always on the HDD.. Forget using FireFox. The system info says it's running (the processor) at 1,43xx.xx something MHz (just under 1.5GHz) Why is it so SLOW?
I wont even go into KDE4... It SUCKS! I can't edit Anything.. I don't want every app in the taskbar from every desktop.. What the **** good are multiple desktops if your taskbar is ****ing full of apps????
told you i shouldn't go into KDE... It Sucks. enough said.
KDE 4 trying to out do MSucks? Giving us very little control. So i feel.

Anyways, whys is the P4 so **** slow????

Any ideas? ps, the HDD is a small 30Gig 27.xxGB and an 800+/- MB swap...

LandisReed.com

[caf4926]

Sysreqs - openSUSE

[landis]

caf4926, you truely think that it's crawling because of 128MB of RAM? i've neaver had problems on .... well, 256MB, before.. Mmmmm
OK

Thanks,
LandisReed.

[caf4926]

Stands to reason.
You could install Xfce, try that
or Lxde is quick and light: search at webpin
Webpin

[landis]

Thank you.

LandisReed.

p.s., what is Xfce and Lxde? guess i could look them up : )

[caf4926]

They are Desktop environments that use less recources than kde4 or Gnome

> p.s., what is Xfce and Lxde? guess i could look them up : )

caf always gives good advice...and, you _may_ find happiness with
openSUSE and one of those low resource using desktop environments he
mentioned..

if not, which SO little RAM (both main _and_ video) you may need to go
to some other distro....but, even with them you may need to pump up
both RAM sets...here is my usual response to folks who wanna run
machines with museum piece RAM levels:

i've not actually run any of these more than a few minutes, but i hear
they might do what you need:

- [try first!] Puppy Linux. <http://www.puppylinux.org/> Needs 64MB
RAM for versions before 1.0.2. More recent versions need 128MB RAM and
166MHZ CPU

- Elive <http://www.elivecd.org/> (has Enlightenment window manager).
Needs 100MHz CPU and 64MB of RAM for one of the older versions. More
recent version needs a faster CPU and more RAM

- DSL (D**N Small Linux).<http://www.****smalllinux.org/> needs 16MB
RAM on a fast 486 CPU. But that will be slow!! Better off with 64 MB
RAM and a Pentium with 200MHZ CPU

- Vector Linux. <http://vectorlinux.com/> Needs 32MB RAM and 166MHZ
CPU. I suspect much more RAM is desirable.

- AntiX 8.2 <http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page> will run in
128MB. It's based on MEPIS/Debian.

-SliTaz <http://www.slitaz.org/> When it runs, the 25 MB compressed CD
image expands to about 80 MB, so any computer with 128 MB of RAM will
be able to load it fully into memory, ensuring blazing fast program
execution.

--
palladium

[cjcox]

landis wrote:
> I have installed openSuSE 11.1 on 3 systems with kde 4 and all 3 are
> different.
> I have one ThinkPad (1.13GHz) with 10.3 and kde 3 on it and well it
> smokes!
> My problem:
> the thinkpad and 2 generic AMD (1 1700+ and one 2400+) systems rock
> with 11.1 and kde4, but.....
> I have a NetVista (IBM) with a 1.5GHz P4 processor and a 32MB nVidia
> card (old stuff i know, but that's what Was nice about Linux.. it
> worked) and 128MB 133 RAM...
> It (the NetVista) is So SLOW!!!!

You do understand that a 1.5Ghz P4 is about the same as a 800Mhz or
so PIII right? That's a very low end processor.

However, the main problem is likely the 128MB. I'm afraid KDE4, possibly
even KDE3, might not be a good solution anymore... at least not with
11.x.

I don't have a good answer except to possibly get more memory and realize
you're actually using a machine that's slower than even the slowest
netbooks out there.

Sad, but true...

[microchip8]

128MB is.... just...too....little

There are Linux distros which will be more than happy with it, but not openSUSE + KDE4

[landis]

caf4926, palladium, cjcox and the rest of you,
Thank you all for your input.

I've been running Linux since 1992,3 something.
I've Always thought of Linux as small, light and fast.
Guess Everything has gotten Bigger with xml...
You all gave me good advice, but i think it would be best if i stuck with SuSE (been using since 4 or 5) and 9, Novell having aquired it, as a former CNE, Love Novell, what ever. I like SuSE (openSuSE).
Anyway, memory is less expensive than icecream these days. I have a bunch of memory, but none will work in the IBM.. nothing new there. I would think pc133 is p133... again, not with ibm..

p.s., cjcox, No i did not know it was less than PIII 800.
I have my old workstation, an HP setting here with dual PIII-800's.. would that work???? is the 1GB ?Rambus MEM? ok with SuSE?
and as far as you'r saying faster than notebooks, that's one of the things i was wondering about and thought something was wrong. i have a thinkpad t23 and it's a 1.13GHz and goes along just fine.. Thanks.

Again, thanks to all.

LandisReed.