From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 11 11:28:43 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 810C516A4CF for ; Sat, 11 Sep 2004 11:28:43 +0000 (GMT) Received: from eastgate.starhub.net.sg (eastgate.starhub.net.sg [203.116.1.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40F0B43D54 for ; Sat, 11 Sep 2004 11:28:42 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from pryan@singnet.com.sg) Received: from DellDual (cm124.sigma234.maxonline.com.sg [218.212.234.124]) i8BBSYR7025569; Sat, 11 Sep 2004 19:28:39 +0800 (SST) Message-Id: <200409111128.i8BBSYR7025569@eastgate.starhub.net.sg> From: "Peter Ryan" To: "'Bill Schmitt (SW)'" Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 19:27:33 +0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 Thread-Index: AcSX47VmcBb5lccFR2GmgQwE+SoeHwACuVeA In-Reply-To: <4142C74C.8010701@schmittnet.com> cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Need advice X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: pryan@singnet.com.sg List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 11:28:43 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > Bill Schmitt (SW) > Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 17:37 > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Need advice > > Considering all of that, my questions are: > - Am I being unrealistic in choosing a machine with a 300MHz > processor? > - If I add another 128MB of memory, should I expect to see a > dramatic improvement? > - Could the graphics adapter itself be the bottleneck? > - If I picked up a newer graphics adapter that was supported > by xorg, would a switch to 5.x and/or xorg be expected to > pick up the speed a bit? > > Thanks to anyone who might help fill in the blanks. > > Bill I am an ultra newbie to everything *nix, so bear that in mind when considering what I write. I would watch out for your swap space setting. One of my 'play' machines has only 64MB memory. When i set swap too big (512MB on one occasion), the KDE desktop ran like a dead dog. Switching back to a more reasonable swap fixed that problem. I had been installing from the 4.10R CD, included KDE selected as a desktop. This installed a KDE package from the CD. This caused me no end of problems when I tried to install some other packages wanting more recent versions of things KDE used. I may have chosen poorly when selecting what to do about that, but I have now settled on an install procedure which seems to avoid most of the problems I have encountered - so far :) I install from the 4.10CD, and only select cvsup from the package collection. I dont install a desktop from the list offered during the sysinstall. I then rebuild the ports completely using cvsup. I then install /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade. I then run portsdb -Uu Then I upgrade the few packages that are already there (primarily XFree86) with portupgrade -a. This procedure has served me well so far. It is based on the OnLamp article and much assistance from Matthew Seaman and others on this list. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/08/07/FreeBSD_Basics.html http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/4111 and the patch suggested by Matthew for a portsdb problem,which worked. http://archive.pilgerer.org/mharc/html/freebsd-questions/2004-09/msg00563.ht ml Once that is done i go on with whatever packages I want to try, including the desktop. I found the best place to look through the questions mailing list is http://archive.pilgerer.org/mharc/html/freebsd-questions/ The layout of threads is excellent Hope something here helps Peter