Slackware more responsive ??

rubend · 2008-07-10 09:05:43

Hey all,

I tried slackware 12.1 last week (3 months vacation so distroswapping is the only way to stay busy) and well it was more responsive than my minimal arch install (same laptop)!!
Now I'm looking for an explanation. So you guys now what i'm comparing:
Slackware full install (all the kde and xfce just the full 4.8 gigs)
arch linux ratpoison,cli apps, and some other (and 7-8 bkgrounded daemons) quite minimal but hal, dbus ,..

Obviously arch booted much faster than slackware but once it was booted, slack was much more responsive (when opening apps like firefox , not cli apps). This is not logical because the difference in installed software is so huge but of course it's the apps and stuff that are clogging up the memory that really matter.
My first thought was all the daemons I was running the background on my arch install. Can it be this or is there another explanation?

thanks in advance ;-)

Last edited by rubend (2008-08-29 20:38:41)

catwell · 2008-07-10 11:03:54

This is normal. You have a lot of libraries preloaded at boot on your Slackware system which don't need to be loaded afterwards. Install exactly the same software on Arch to compare...

Gullible Jones · 2008-07-10 11:33:59

Are you using RAM/swap for your tempfs? IIRC Slack does that by default, and Arch doesn't.

rubend · 2008-07-10 12:32:53

to catwell:
so once the libraries are loaded the responsiveness should be the same. Ok that seems logical

to Gullible Jones:
well I'm just using the basic setup of both slackware and arch using a swap partition of the same size as my ram.
Would using RAM/swap for your tempfs help responsiveness? If yes is there a guide to try it on arch?

thx guys ;-)

Oh and another program that takes alot more time to start on arch is rtcw ( the game). I can't get a serverlist on both but startup takes much longer on arch than on slack.

Last edited by rubend (2008-07-10 12:38:30)

freakcode · 2008-07-10 17:38:44

rubend wrote:

Hey all,
I tried slackware 12.1 last week (3 months vacation so distroswapping is the only way to stay busy) and well it was more responsive than my minimal arch install (same laptop)!!
Now I'm looking for an explanation. So you guys now what i'm comparing:
Slackware full install (all the kde and xfce just the full 4.8 gigs)
arch linux ratpoison,cli apps, and some other (and 7-8 bkgrounded daemons) quite minimal but hal, dbus ,..
Obviously arch booted much faster than slackware but once it was booted, slack was much more responsive (when opening apps like firefox , not cli apps). This is not logical because the difference in installed software is so huge but of course it's the apps and stuff that are clogging up the memory that really matter.
My first thought was all the daemons I was running the background on my arch install. Can it be this or is there another explanation?
thanks in advance ;-)

The less things you load at boot, the slower will be to load and run applications. Doing a "minimal install" won't take you anywere faster if you won't use "only" the minimal. That's why your Slackware feels snappier after boot.

The hardisk is much slower than RAM. So doesn't matter how much stuff you have on your disk, if you have a lot of RAM unused, instead of preloading stuff there, you're in fact REDUCING performance.

Last edited by freakcode (2008-07-10 17:39:29)

Gullible Jones · 2008-07-10 22:30:10

rubend wrote:

to Gullible Jones:
well I'm just using the basic setup of both slackware and arch using a swap partition of the same size as my ram.
Would using RAM/swap for your tempfs help responsiveness? If yes is there a guide to try it on arch?

If something uses temp files, then yes, using RAM for /tmp helps its responsiveness. Add

tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0

to /etc/fstab... And make sure you have a lot of swap, so that you can handle large temp files.

Bapman · 2008-07-10 22:55:12

Gullible Jones wrote:

rubend wrote:
to Gullible Jones:
well I'm just using the basic setup of both slackware and arch using a swap partition of the same size as my ram.
Would using RAM/swap for your tempfs help responsiveness? If yes is there a guide to try it on arch?
If something uses temp files, then yes, using RAM for /tmp helps its responsiveness. Add
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
to /etc/fstab... And make sure you have a lot of swap, so that you can handle large temp files.

Interesting... but what if /tmp becomes bigger than the amount of ram available ? I have 2go RAM, is it likely to happen ?

czar · 2008-07-10 23:16:55

Then it will start to fill up your swap.

Bapman · 2008-07-10 23:55:40

Oh yeah, that was a stupid question sorry ! I guess that with 4go for my swap I will be ok !

andre.ramaciotti · 2008-07-11 01:58:37

I don't know if mounting /tmp as a tmpfs does a big a difference in overal responsiveness. From what rubend said, it appears that Slack is more responsive in general, and not in only tasks that use /tmp a lot. I mean, my /tmp has only 12KB used now (yes, Kbytes), so I don't think that's the reason.

sam · 2008-07-11 02:39:24

Its not necessarily that slack loads more libraries but that KDE loads more libraries than ratpoison. I noticed a difference between kde and gnome on my 256 mb system. Gnome works slower, even though it uses 'bout 50% ram, whereas kde uses 95% of the ram and works faster. I felt this when I used to use Fedora. If you want to verify this, try installing kde in arch and see what happens. From my understanding, there is no reason that slackware should be faster. Slackware uses unmodified (for the most part) programs, and it is compiled for i386. Arch uses more patches in their packages and its compiled for i686. Lets also not forget that arch only installs the packages you need to do a task. So if anything, it should be the other way around.

Last edited by sam (2008-07-11 02:40:53)

rubend · 2008-07-11 09:45:00

to sam:
yeah that looks like an explanation. This must mean that when I start programs that use alot of memory like photo/video editing there isn't much space left in ram and it will start to slow down. (more than a minimal desktop)But when starting apps that just need a couple of libraries (and they are already loaded) will start faster.
It's kinda like starting openoffice without anything preloaded vs using the fast start app (that starts when you log in).

Oh and will try the tempfs thingy and installing kde on arch.

Thx guys

Arch Linux

#1 2008-07-10 09:05:43

Slackware more responsive ??

#2 2008-07-10 11:03:54

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#3 2008-07-10 11:33:59

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#4 2008-07-10 12:32:53

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#5 2008-07-10 17:38:44

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#6 2008-07-10 22:30:10

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#7 2008-07-10 22:55:12

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#8 2008-07-10 23:16:55

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#9 2008-07-10 23:55:40

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#10 2008-07-11 01:58:37

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#11 2008-07-11 02:39:24

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

#12 2008-07-11 09:45:00

Re: Slackware more responsive ??

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