I decided to install a fresh Slackware 10 on my desktop. The whole thing
took me less than 1 hour to install and set up the software (to get the
essential configurations working). Networking and audio were no problem
at all, everything was detected automatically and alsaconf got ALSA
working for my sound card. Considering all the hoops I had to jump
through to get my hardware working on Windows 2000, I would honestly say
that Slackware was less trouble to install.

X.org was also working beautifully. There was a default X configuration
that looked very decent. All I really updated were the monitor refresh
frequency ranges to get the best appearance on my LCD monitor.

I was happy to see the reiserfs choice during installation. In case
others are wondering about the differences between ext2, ext3, reiser:

* speed-wise: [fastest] reiser > ext2 > ext3 [slowest]
* space efficiency: [efficient] reiser > ext2 > ext3 [least efficient]
* journaling: ext3 and reiserfs but not ext2
* stability: [time tested] ext2 > ext3/reiser
BUT there are no ext3 or reiser problems on latest 2.4.x kernels.

Other than what was on the two Slackware install CDs, the only other
software I installed (essential) was:

* Mozilla Firefox [ http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ ]
* OpenOffice.org [ http://www.openoffice.org/ ]
* TightVNC/vncserver/vncviewer [ http://www.tightvnc.org/ ]

I have enjoyed Slackware (running GNOME) on my desktop for some time now
and have listed it on my web site among the software I personally
endorse. Note that I am a long time Windows software developer
http://www.pc-tools.net/recommend.shtml

The only problem I have encountered relates to X.org performance.
Although I specified the radeon driver for my display, I'm still noticing
unfortunately high CPU usage by X when doing things like outputing long
scrolling displays. I would have thought that using the radeon driver
(for my Radeon 7500) would have resulted in much higher performance. Am I
wrong? Could DRI not be working properly? How can I check?

--
Jem Berkes
http://www.sysdesign.ca/

On 2004-07-23, Jem Berkes <jb@users.pc9.org> wrote:

> endorse. Note that I am a long time Windows software developer

Slackware. The black hole of OS enlightenment!

nb

notbob wrote:

> On 2004-07-23, Jem Berkes <jb@users.pc9.org> wrote:
>
>
>>endorse. Note that I am a long time Windows software developer
>
>
> Slackware. The black hole of OS enlightenment!
>
> nb
The black hole --- Prof. Stephen Hawking has issued all previous his
discovery goes wrong by a new theory about Black Holedeveloped by himself

Jem Berkes wrote:
> I decided to install a fresh Slackware 10 on my desktop. The whole thing
> took me less than 1 hour to install and set up the software (to get the
> essential configurations working). Networking and audio were no problem
> at all, everything was detected automatically and alsaconf got ALSA
> working for my sound card. Considering all the hoops I had to jump
> through to get my hardware working on Windows 2000, I would honestly say
> that Slackware was less trouble to install.

Good for you. For me audio was(/is) a pain to install(/use) (and artsd
crashing constantly.. seems to be a KDE problem though). I'd also like
to say Slackware was easier to install than Windows but I can't, 'cause
it isn't, not for me. But don't get me wrong, I like Slack better than
windows or any other linux distro I've tried, that's why I use it =).

> X.org was also working beautifully. There was a default X configuration
> that looked very decent. All I really updated were the monitor refresh
> frequency ranges to get the best appearance on my LCD monitor.

The xorg -configure worked for me sort of. On one machine it resulted in
Xorg not starting at all and on another I had to type in all frequencies
afterwards to get it right (in addition to the usual options like
mousewheel, keyboard mapping etc.)

> The only problem I have encountered relates to X.org performance.
> Although I specified the radeon driver for my display, I'm still noticing
> unfortunately high CPU usage by X when doing things like outputing long
> scrolling displays. I would have thought that using the radeon driver
> (for my Radeon 7500) would have resulted in much higher performance. Am I
> wrong? Could DRI not be working properly? How can I check?

Same here. My nVidia GF2 MX400 (gee, a top-of-the-line card... i know,
but anyway) with newest nVidia drivers does the same. Sluggish
performance in KDE. Seems GNOME and KDE really are the kind of resource
hogs someone told me they are =). Don't really know if the problem has
to do with actual Xorg.

Jem Berkes wrote:

> The only problem I have encountered relates to X.org performance.
> Although I specified the radeon driver for my display, I'm still noticing
> unfortunately high CPU usage by X when doing things like outputing long
> scrolling displays. I would have thought that using the radeon driver
> (for my Radeon 7500) would have resulted in much higher performance. Am I
> wrong? Could DRI not be working properly? How can I check?

You can check if DRI is working by examining the output of the "glxinfo"
command.

I'm not sure how the performance compares, but I have had seemingly good
results using the "ati" driver rather than the "radeon" driver for my
wife's Radeon 7000, and loading the radeon *kernel* module prior to
starting X.

Jeffrey

> Good for you. For me audio was(/is) a pain to install(/use) (and artsd
> crashing constantly.. seems to be a KDE problem though). I'd also like
> to say Slackware was easier to install than Windows but I can't,
> 'cause it isn't, not for me. But don't get me wrong, I like Slack
> better than windows or any other linux distro I've tried, that's why I
> use it =).

KDE has always been a pain for me, that's why I don't use it... its
subsystems keep crashing for me. I don't know why KDE is as popular as it
is. Have you tried GNOME? It's really _not_ more of a resource hog.

> The xorg -configure worked for me sort of. On one machine it resulted
> in Xorg not starting at all and on another I had to type in all
> frequencies afterwards to get it right (in addition to the usual
> options like mousewheel, keyboard mapping etc.)

I'm surprised that there isn't an interface for querying modern analog
monitors for their frequency ranges! This has always been a difficult point
for X.

>> The only problem I have encountered relates to X.org performance.
>> Although I specified the radeon driver for my display, I'm still
>> noticing unfortunately high CPU usage by X when doing things like
>> outputing long scrolling displays.

> Same here. My nVidia GF2 MX400 (gee, a top-of-the-line card... i know,
> but anyway) with newest nVidia drivers does the same. Sluggish
> performance in KDE. Seems GNOME and KDE really are the kind of
> resource hogs someone told me they are =). Don't really know if the
> problem has to do with actual Xorg.

I don't think it's KDE and GNOME that are causing the sluggish scrolling in
windows. I'm pretty sure it's a problem in X itself (fork of XFree86 btw)
and it's always kind of been like that. But I had a nimbler display in my
last install, possibly due to DRI or GLX or something. I also suspect that
the radeon driver is not in effect in my new Xorg install.

--
Jem Berkes
http://www.sysdesign.ca/

Jem Berkes wrote:

> KDE has always been a pain for me, that's why I don't use it... its
> subsystems keep crashing for me. I don't know why KDE is as popular as it
> is.

maybe because for others kde doesn't crash that often, and the fact that kde
provides things gnome lacks [ease of managing a large amount of kde setups,
cups integration, etc].

Am Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:15:29 -0400
"Dominik L.. Borkowski" <dom@vbi.vt.edu> schrieb:

> Jem Berkes wrote:
>
> > KDE has always been a pain for me, that's why I don't use it... its
> > subsystems keep crashing for me. I don't know why KDE is as popular
> > as it is.
>
> maybe because for others kde doesn't crash that often, and the fact
> that kde provides things gnome lacks [ease of managing a large amount
> of kde setups, cups integration, etc].
>
>

in kde there are different things wrong. konquerer need time to load,
crappy look, bloat software

gEnTi wrote:


> in kde there are different things wrong. konquerer need time to load,
> crappy look, bloat software

look is a matter of taste. bloat? get over the dumb slogan. konqueror needs
time to load? gee whiz, any software needs time to load. any more fud?

Am Sat, 24 Jul 2004 01:06:39 -0400
"Dominik L.. Borkowski" <dom@vbi.vt.edu> schrieb:

> gEnTi wrote:
>
>
> > in kde there are different things wrong. konquerer need time to
> > load, crappy look, bloat software
>
> look is a matter of taste. bloat? get over the dumb slogan. konqueror
> needs time to load? gee whiz, any software needs time to load. any
> more fud?

If I open a folder in nautilus then it opens that on my machine much
faster. I got an old pIII 800 mhz.