Arch Linux

aardwolf

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2005-07-23

Posts: 310

Making things faster on old computer

Hi,

I got an old and a new computer, both with Arch on it. With the new computer, there are no problems, but with the old there are.

Hardware:

-Athlon XP 1700+
-256 MB RAM (it used to have 512 MB, but half of it became corrupt)
-NVidia GeForce 3 Ti500 card

Software:

-Archlinux
-Last full system upgrade last week, and now I stop upgrading after I saw the message about Xorg not supporting nvidia-71xx drivers anymore
-KDE 3.5 (kdemod3) as desktop

The problem is, this computer is too slow to browse the internet. The following websites are sites that I use, but that are too slow on this computer, due to heavy usage of javascript or flash (the internet connection isn't the problem, simply the displaying of the sites):

-gmail (unless I turn on basic html)
-facebook
-southparkstudios.com: it's hardly possible to watch a south park movie there, it always takes ages to load all the flash widgets one by one, and moving the mouse over the website while a movie plays can be fatal

I mean, this computer can play Unreal 1 in Wine without problems, with all its complex 3D graphics, but viewing a 2D website is too slow!

Do you have any tips for making displaying websites like the ones mentioned above, faster, with Archlinux?

arch0r

Member

From: From the Chron-o-John

Registered: 2008-05-13

Posts: 597

Re: Making things faster on old computer

you could try to use another desktop enviroment or to kill all useless processes to save some ram. but it's not a secret that flash and java are a heavy load on ram. upgrading ram isn't that problem, it's quite cheap at the moment and another 256mb memory thingy wouldn't run you into debt

shazeal

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2007-06-05

Posts: 341

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Even another 128mb of ram will be loads if you dont plan on doing too much at once. My friend has an old duron 900 with 384mb sdram on a full blown gnome install. Once smooth scrolling in firefox was turned off it runs great. Alot faster than his old laptop (p4 1.8ghz with 256mb ram).

andre.ramaciotti

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2007-04-06

Posts: 649

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Yeah, I have an older processor (a PIII) with a little more RAM (320MB) though.

I can run the newest gmail without problems, even with themes. And websites loaded with lots of flash do get slow here, but I installed flashblock in my firefox, so it's loaded only when I need. The advantage of flashblock is that, in youtube, for example, I can start only the movie, I don't need to load any other flash thing that may appear.

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(lambda ())

ijanos

Member

From: Budapest, Hungary

Registered: 2008-03-30

Posts: 443

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Free up as many memory as you can. Dropping kde is probably a good idea, but still 256mb is not too much. Flashblock for firefox is a recommended extension, also try adblockplus and if you dont use websites with java, then disable the java plugin entirly.
oh and try running this:

export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 && firefox

Maybe an alternative way is to try the latest opera, it uses less memory in my experience.

Last edited by ijanos (2008-12-06 12:30:46)

elmer_42

Member

From: /na/usa/ca

Registered: 2008-10-11

Posts: 427

Re: Making things faster on old computer

export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 && firefox

You can add this to your .bashrc, too. Would running that keep that option set permanently, or would you have to set it each time?

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[ lamy + pilot ] [ arch64 | wmii ] [ ati + amd ]

mentallaxative

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 134

Website

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Ah, a good old-fashioned "how to make my computer faster" thread....

You haven't said what browser you are using. If you are using Firefox... try not using it. It's just too bloated compared to the alternatives. Opera is less bloated and it being QT may look better in your KDE environment (I may be mistaken, please correct me if I am). I believe it even has a rudimentary Flashblock plugin to deal with those pesky ads.

ijanos

Member

From: Budapest, Hungary

Registered: 2008-03-30

Posts: 443

Re: Making things faster on old computer

yes indeed Opera has a flashblock userjavascript, try google after it. But opera has nothing to do with KDE,  qt is used internally yes, but the whole interface is skinnable.
You can try webkit based browsers for speed increase (epiphany-webkit, arora, midori) but currently webkit lacks support for flash and java.

and yes, you can put export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1 in your bashrc (or your othershellrc)

Last edited by ijanos (2008-12-06 15:27:20)

Hrod beraht

Member

Registered: 2008-09-30

Posts: 186

Re: Making things faster on old computer

-Athlon XP 1700+
-256 MB RAM (it used to have 512 MB, but half of it became corrupt)
-NVidia GeForce 3 Ti500 card

Odd, since I have only a 900 MHz Athlon that I use as my main desktop (typing on it now) and it is anything but slow. I've also got an 800 MHz Pentium III with 256 MB RAM that runs Gnome more than adequately. The Pentium III has really low-powered built-in graphics and the Athlon only has an 8 MB NVidia TNT card.

I've had many distros on the Athlon, including Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and of course Arch, and they all ran just fine. They all ran Firefox - with at least a dozen tabs always open with no problem. They also were all Gnome desktop, so I would wonder if a slow KDE wasn't a possibility. But maybe not. The 900 MHz Athlon runs the less-resource-intensive Openbox and LXDE really fast too, but they're really not night and day difference faster than when I was running Gnome.

Have you done a RAM test? Maybe the other half is corrupted as well.

Bob

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: Making things faster on old computer

my own solution to a similar problem was:

lxde.
firefox-spookyet + vimperator, adblock, noscript.
alpine + imap for gmail.

dsr

Member

Registered: 2008-05-31

Posts: 187

Re: Making things faster on old computer

As others have suggested, try changing your window manager and browser. Also, in a thread about making your browser run faster, it helps to tell us what browser you use. Try replacing kdemod with a tiling window manager like ratpoison, stumpwm, or dwm. If you prefer the mouse, at least try a wm that's somewhat lightweight like openbox. If you don't see a noticeable improvement in performance, the RAM problem most likely lies in your browser. If you're using Firefox, I guess you could try Opera, but I personally can't live without Vimperator (vimperopera is no substitute). Since you're not a keyboard-only user, Opera should be fine for you. The best solution, though, would be to buy more RAM as others have suggested.

Nezmer

Member

Registered: 2008-10-24

Posts: 559

Website

Re: Making things faster on old computer

I installed Arch yesterday on a laptop that used to run Mepis+KDE3 . 'htop' told me that the Mepis setup started to use swap after filling the 192MB of ram available . A browser wasn't even open . It was just KDE .

Today with Arch+LXDE the laptop is only using around 55MB/192MB with wicd running . If you need a screenshot just tell me.

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English is not my native language .

cdwillis

Member

From: /home/usa

Registered: 2008-11-20

Posts: 294

Re: Making things faster on old computer

I'd recommend just using a WM like Openbox. I'm using an older laptop with a 1.8 gig Pentium M and 256 MB of ram and I tried the newest KDE and it ran sluggishly. I came back to openbox and my computer is quick like a bunny. I still use Firefox, but if you wanted something lighter you could use Kazehakase.

aardwolf

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2005-07-23

Posts: 310

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions.

The browser I use is SeaMonkey, with the Adblock plugin (but haven't tried Flashblock yet, but certainly will!).

I'll try to see if Opera is faster. I can't give up KDE 3.5 though, I tried Xfce 4 once but it wasn't that much faster.

Also, the RAM does do a lot, before I had to remove the other 256 MB (so that it had 512 MB) it was a lot faster, but with that corrupt RAM in it, it'd randomly freeze at least a few times a day.

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Making things faster on old computer

If you want to use KDE then try using only qt based applications (like using opera rather than firefox for example) -- that should result in reduced memory usage.

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,577

Re: Making things faster on old computer

_Definitely_ kill KDE. Xfce is better, LXDE even more so. I would recommend setting up your own environment using a lightweight window manager like one of the *boxes.

And try swfdec/Gnash instead of Flash, you may have better luck.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: Making things faster on old computer

I wouldn't bother with swfdec or Gnash. Swfdec is a CPU hog, Gnash gives poor image quality, and both only work about half the time.

Daenyth

Forum Fellow

From: Boston, MA

Registered: 2008-02-24

Posts: 1,244

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Depending what type of browsing you do, a text one like w3m or links-g may be handy.

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[git] | [AURpkgs] | [arch-games]

muaythaimaster74

Member

Registered: 2008-07-01

Posts: 10

Website

Re: Making things faster on old computer

I just installed arch with lxde on a p2 450 mhz box with 256 megs of ram for my niece.. and performance is more than adequate.

You can check my blog here and look for the arch linux sections
http://muaythaimaster74.blogspot.com/

For reference I used the following software.
lxde -> DE
pcmanfm -> File manager
Slim -> graphical login manager
Yaourt -> Access additional unsupported repositories using pacman-like commands
Firefox -> Web Browser
Flashplugin -> view flash in web browser
jre -> view java in web browser
mplayerplugin -> view embedded video in web browser
Sylpheed -> lightweight Email Client
Mplayer-nogui-svn-> Movie viewer
SMPlayer-svn -> Slick gui for mplayer
Quodlibet> music collection manager
Gtkpod -> Sync ipod
Abiword -> Word processor
Abiword-plugins -> Common plugins
Transmission-svn -> Bittorrent client with gtk gui
Xpdf - > pdf viewer
Frostwire - > gnutella/bittorrent client
Pidgin - > Chat software
Shaman - > Easy program manager

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,577

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Suggested changes to the above for maybe more speed/power:

Pidgin > Carrier (aka Funpidgin, it includes features that Pidgin devs believe users are too stupid to manage correctly)
Pidgin > centerim (Text-mode IM, takes a lot of getting used to but is very full-featured, supports a bazillion IM protocols)
Pidgin > BitlBee ('Plugin' for all IRC clients to allow IM inside IRC, extremely handy)

Transmission > rtorrent (Text-mod, EXTREMELY light on resources, fast, takes a _lot_ of getting used to. Supports some features in only a few clients, such as file-monitoring, but lacks others - no editing of trackers in-client, for example)

Xpdf > epdfview (Similar footprint and speed, better PDF support - uses the poppler library, which is the center of open-source PDF viewing development now, GTK (mostly a good thing))

Firefox > Firefox 3.1 (HUGE improvment on speed and footprint, still in beta)

Firefox > Opera (debateably lighter - see for yourself, closed-source (grrr))

Froswire > MLDonkey (difficult to learn how to use, but very fast and light-weight - supports OVER NINE THOUSAND protocols

LXDE > Standalone WM (Openbox, Fluxbox, PekWM, JWM, Awesome, dwm, Stumpwm, ratpoison, Xmonad, etc. etc. etc.) (this won't be a huge difference)

dsr

Member

Registered: 2008-05-31

Posts: 187

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Pidgin > Carrier (aka Funpidgin, it includes features that Pidgin devs believe users are too stupid to manage correctly)
Pidgin > centerim (Text-mode IM, takes a lot of getting used to but is very full-featured, supports a bazillion IM protocols)
Pidgin > BitlBee ('Plugin' for all IRC clients to allow IM inside IRC, extremely handy)

I strongly agree with the BitlBee recommendation. It let's you run a local IRC server that maps various IM protocols to a channel, allowing you to use the same program for IM and IRC. I use it in conjunction with irssi, a truly great command-line IRC client.

Transmission > rtorrent (Text-mod, EXTREMELY light on resources, fast, takes a _lot_ of getting used to. Supports some features in only a few clients, such as file-monitoring, but lacks others - no editing of trackers in-client, for example)

Even more lightweight than rtorrent is aria2, which is much easier to use because there's no ncurses interface to get used to. Just put `alias bt="aria2c --listen-port=49164 --bt-require-crypto=true -T"' in your shell's startup file, and you're all set to download torrents by running `bt FILE.torrent'.

LXDE > Standalone WM (Openbox, Fluxbox, PekWM, JWM, Awesome, dwm, Stumpwm, ratpoison, Xmonad, etc. etc. etc.) (this won't be a huge difference)

StumpWM and ratpoison are great. dwm, awesome, and Xmonad are supposed to be good, too.

dav7

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 674

Re: Making things faster on old computer

I recommend splitting various tasks up onto more than one PC if possible (eg, run IRC client on another PC and ssh to it, or if you use irssi run /scrollback clear regularly in all open windows to keep RAM usage down), and keeping a system monitor like htop open so you can see what's going on wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Restart Firefox and X frequently, if you can (I can't, my driver is broken and X will sometimes not work until reboot). X is gigantic, and many of its bugs are memory leaks.

Use minimalistic software, but don't go beyond your comfort zone. I use Openbox and tint2; memory usage is fairly okay.

Have a bit of swapspace available. Yes, it will kill your disk and drive you insane, but your kernel will likely not panic because of no RAM.

If you have the time/patience/skill to do so, hack the websites you use frequently up so they work better for you. For example:
- On the video site, figure out how the flash player identifies the raw video file, and download that and play it in mplayer or VLC via scripting.
- Use an email client instead of GMail's web interface, or rewrite your browser user agent so GMail thinks you're using an unsupported browser and hands you the basic HTML view. Or use m.gmail.com, which would likely be laughable for a computer screen but highly usable.
- If you just keep gmail open to scan for new emails regularly, use GMail's RSS service and scripting to notify you when new messages arrive.

Remember, Linux gives your computer's power back to you, the user, so it can serve YOU, not the other way around.

-dav7

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Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

nunobaba

Member

From: paris, france

Registered: 2009-03-11

Posts: 17

Re: Making things faster on old computer

XMonad ranks high in terms of great and lightweight window managers. Some people said DMW (written in C) is easier to use, personally, I prefer XMonad (written in Haskel). If you are a bit used to hack Xorg config or configure softwares through their config file, installing one of them should not be that difficult. Hope it helps.

tjwoosta

Member

Registered: 2008-12-18

Posts: 453

Re: Making things faster on old computer

you should definatly try lighter weight Desktop

i use fluxbox and with no apps open it uses only about 100MB ram  (out of 1GB)

with web browser, file manager, bittorrent client, terminal, and music player open at the same time it still only uses 256mb ram or less

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,577

Re: Making things faster on old computer

Also try firefox-pgo, and firefox-pgo-beta with TraceMonkey enabled (when you install the package it tells you how).