I’m getting drop outs with my old box and Linux while streaming.
2.0GHz Barton core CPU
Matrox G550 Marvel video adapter
And I was wondering if what I’m seeing is motherboard related, too slow? Any ideas?
BTW, I am seeing slow screen redraws, too, and figured that I am going to have to accept this as a condition of old age of the configuration.
Update: dmidecode says 166MHz external bus but I’m not too educated between the differences of this reading and the FSB designation, which I had seen as 66MHz. Just don’t know enough about it.
Also, the kernel-desktop has been installed and I’m flexing the system with this one now.
As far as it goes, I know people are not too interested in older, slower hardware but that’s what I find most intriguing with Linux is its ability to run on these slower boxes and perform well. Just as an aside: I don’t mind not getting answers to my queries here but if anyone ever feels inclined to banter about these older machines, I’m your huckleberry. FYI.
Matrox video is a pain you sure you have a good driver installed? If you have not then you are probably using the vesa driver and that may not have the chops to do what you want. Actually not all that sure about the Matrox driver
Usually no answer means people don’t know or have an answer.
It’s the mga driver, I’m pretty sure. Don’t know enough about Linux to be sure just yet but from what I can make out. It should be accelerated and more capable than the VESA driver.
Yeah, I know. Just was pleading my case. 
Thanks!
It may be better but not that much trouble is Marvel has never in any way cooperated to make a good driver so not even a propritary one for Linux Also they have such a small market share it just is not worth it to try and reverse engineer their stuff. If you want decant video find a different chip set. NVIDIA/ATI/even Intel
I’ve got what I’ve got and have another 2nd older box coming online after I finish with this one. Once that is done (may need a vid adapter for it) then I will consider possibly purchasing another adapter but until then I’m coin limited. Thanks for what I know is the situation right now, but I can’t spend the $$ at this time. So, I’m on the hunt for solutions that will wring the best performance from the hardware that I have. I will say that I do believe the kernel-desktop change has had an impact, however so slight. Plus, the stream to which I was listening is fraught with niggles that have yet to be fully worked out. Example: Youtube plays virtually flawlessly on this same box but I don’t want to say that too loudly because doing so may have a detrimental impact.