This time I loaded the config file from /cdroma/kernels/bare.i/.config and
played with that one.... after backing up and including the original bits
in lilo.

The processor is up to K6-II and the framebuffer support is now in, I get a
penguin. Agpgart still reports no supported devices found (?) but I can
still mount the cdroms.

Any ideas...

Anyway the latest is saved as K6SIS so I'll go through it again and
gradually strip stuff out until it stops working and then go back one step.

Sounds horrendous doesn't it?

make bzImage took 3Hrs and make modules took about the same!!!!

KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.

Ah Well..

DNA

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:02:07 GMT, Genome <ilike_spam@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>Any ideas...
For what?

>Sounds horrendous doesn't it?
That it does.

>make bzImage took 3Hrs and make modules took about the same!!!!
Something's not right, build kernels from the CLI rather than
the gooey dragon drool UI.
>
>KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.
Try IceWM or XFCE?

Grant.
--
This removes the dependency from vmlinux to install, thus avoiding the
current situation where "make install" has a nasty tendency to leave
root-turds in the working directory.

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:02:07 +0000, Genome wrote:

> Agpgart still reports no supported devices found (?) but I can
> still mount the cdroms.

What does agpgart have to do with cdrom drives?

Do you have a PCI video card or an AGP video card?

With a K6 motherboard do you even have an AGP slot?

Why are you reconfiguring the kernel with such old hardware?
What was not working that made you go through all this?

> KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.

It would be with that CPU and low ram.

People would never try to run XP on such hardware, but they seem to expect
X and KDE to run like greased lightning. I don't get it.

Genome wrote:

> Sounds horrendous doesn't it?
>
> make bzImage took 3Hrs and make modules took about the same!!!!

You know that there are actually S & M clubs out there, where you can
eventually volunteer for the "M" part? I bet this will be more fun.

Cheers,

Niki Kovacs

Franklin wrote:

> With a K6 motherboard do you even have an AGP slot?

My former music workstation, a K6-2/400 system had an AGP graphics
controller. (still does, in fact, though that system is presently out
of commission)

> Why are you reconfiguring the kernel with such old hardware?

The question makes no sense. The more strained the hardware is, the
more the user needs to cusomize the kernel in order to get the most from
the system. I would instead ask why he is compiling the kernel from
within KDE on such old hardware.

> What was not working that made you go through all this?

I believe the OP may be just trying to learn, and I wholeheartedly
encourage it.

>> KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.
> It would be with that CPU and low ram.

I can agree that low RAM (I don't recall how much the OP stated is in
this system) will slow down KDE to the point of uselessness, but I've
tested KDE on systems with 200MHz processors and although it obviously
is more responsive on faster systems, as long as there is enough memory
that it needn't swap (or swap constantly) the CPU speed is probably not
what is causing the performance that the OP is reporting.

I've tested KDE (Knoppix, in fact) on as underpowered a system as a
laptop with a 200MHz CPU and 32MB RAM. Don't try this at home. Current
versions of Knoppix won't even get fully booted on that system. More
RAM would be required, though, not more CPU (though more CPU would
obviously be highly recommended). Older versions of Knoppix boot and
can be used if you're desperate enough to wait a *lot*. I've also tried
the KDE that Slackware-10.0 shipped with on that same system, and
obviously didn't use it long enough to try compiling a kernel that way.

Genome, I believe it was Grant who suggested compiling your kernel in
text-only mode. If the system is so underpowered that KDE is as slow as
you described it, you'll find that the kernel compilation is much faster
if you follow that advice. However, don't expect that KDE will ever be
"blazing" on that system, given your description above. Rather, expect
that a more lightweight window manager will prove to be much more
satisfactory.

I use Fvwm2, which is very lightweight, and would happily recommend it,
but you'll find that it's basically not a very popular choice. There are
other window managers that seem to have more high-demand features yet
remain lightweight; you probably want to try a few of those, and pick
the one that you find is most comfortable to configure to your liking.

The hardware you're using obviously has limitations, and so long as you
don't expect that anything will magically overcome those limitations,
you should be fine.

> People would never try to run XP on such hardware, but they seem to
> expect X and KDE to run like greased lightning. I don't get it.

Linux users (myself included) have told them that Linux runs just fine
on old hardware that is tossed as "old junk" by Windows users. It's
also true, within the limitations that the hardware has.

My grandparents' computer, for example, is an old 200MHz system, with 48MB
RAM. It runs Linux/KDE (Slackware-10.0), not like "greased lightning",
but not like "a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane" either.
No one in their right minds would consider running any current version of
Windows on this system (I would argue, of course, that no one in their
right minds would run any version of Windows on any system, but that's
flamebait for another thread).

They're aware of the limitations of the system (and they're aware that
they have to wait, just to start most applications), and certainly would
upgrade it, given a suitably low-priced available improvement (I do intend
to set them up with a replacement when I roll down my own systems), but
as it is, for the purposes they have of their computer, it's certainly
reasonably usable. More memory would definitely help more than a faster
CPU would.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Systems and Network analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nexa wanna uttr da:

> This time I loaded the config file from /cdroma/kernels/bare.i/.config and
> played with that one.... after backing up and including the original bits
> in lilo.
>
> The processor is up to K6-II and the framebuffer support is now in, I get a
> penguin. Agpgart still reports no supported devices found (?) but I can
> still mount the cdroms.
>
> Any ideas...
>
> Anyway the latest is saved as K6SIS so I'll go through it again and
> gradually strip stuff out until it stops working and then go back one step.
>
> Sounds horrendous doesn't it?
>
> make bzImage took 3Hrs and make modules took about the same!!!!
>
> KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.

That's a good metaphor, though I'd reckon it implies something in
your installation is not quite right...

As a fine -- and hence relative -- rule of auricular, just have this
lookup upon your grave: if/when it runs/ran Win95/8 what was the
actual pace? If under KDE you're not twice as fast then you're in
for checking where/what/when/how you shot the foot in yourself.
(mind you, without KDE it could be insanely faster, but I know
what it is, one of my family decks are still using it)

Or it'd be your video card/chip memory is specially dying for the
occasion?

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:07:13 +0000, Sylvain Robitaille wrote:

> Franklin wrote:
>
>> With a K6 motherboard do you even have an AGP slot?
>
> My former music workstation, a K6-2/400 system had an AGP graphics
> controller. (still does, in fact, though that system is presently out
> of commission)

An honest question as I could not remember if my last K6 had an AGP slot.

>
>> Why are you reconfiguring the kernel with such old hardware?
>
> The question makes no sense. The more strained the hardware is, the
> more the user needs to cusomize the kernel in order to get the most from
> the system.

Poorly phrased I admit. My point was not that configuring was without
merit, but that older hardware is "usually" supported with the
vanilla kernel without jumping through hoops. It's the new hardware that
generally causes fits.

>
>> What was not working that made you go through all this?
>
> I believe the OP may be just trying to learn, and I wholeheartedly
> encourage it.

Absolutely, learning is good. The question relates to the previous one.
What hardware was failing that caused the OP to want to reconfigure in
the first place. My assumption was/is that an newbie to any distro would
not dive right into a kernal compile unless hardware was not being
recognized. Again an assumtion, but that's how my mind works.

>
>>> KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.
>> It would be with that CPU and low ram.
>
> I can agree that low RAM (I don't recall how much the OP stated is in
> this system) will slow down KDE to the point of uselessness, but I've
> tested KDE on systems with 200MHz processors and although it obviously
> is more responsive on faster systems, as long as there is enough memory
> that it needn't swap (or swap constantly) the CPU speed is probably not
> what is causing the performance that the OP is reporting.

Yes and no. "Slow" is relative. I have no idea what the OP really means
by "slow" so I am left to my own imagination.

>
> I've tested KDE (Knoppix, in fact) on as underpowered a system as a
> laptop with a 200MHz CPU and 32MB RAM. Don't try this at home. Current
> versions of Knoppix won't even get fully booted on that system. More
> RAM would be required, though, not more CPU (though more CPU would
> obviously be highly recommended). Older versions of Knoppix boot and
> can be used if you're desperate enough to wait a *lot*. I've also tried
> the KDE that Slackware-10.0 shipped with on that same system, and
> obviously didn't use it long enough to try compiling a kernel that way.

I admit that ram will make more of an impact than CPU -
particularly on a laptop with a slow harddrive being forced to swap. I
was not specific enough with that statement. I might go out on a limb
here though and state that CPU speed "will" have an impact on kernel
compile time.


> The hardware you're using obviously has limitations, and so long as you
> don't expect that anything will magically overcome those limitations,
> you should be fine.
>
>> People would never try to run XP on such hardware, but they seem to
>> expect X and KDE to run like greased lightning. I don't get it.
>
> Linux users (myself included) have told them that Linux runs just fine
> on old hardware that is tossed as "old junk" by Windows users. It's
> also true, within the limitations that the hardware has.

Linux yes. KDE no. At least not in my experience. My point was that
many people take statements like yours above and think that a DE like KDE
will also run "great" on old hardware that XP will not run well on because
it's "linux", which I do not feel is true.

>
> My grandparents' computer, for example, is an old 200MHz system, with
> 48MB RAM. It runs Linux/KDE (Slackware-10.0), not like "greased
> lightning", but not like "a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane"
> either.

Like I said before - slow is in the mind of the beholder. Also depends on
what you run.


>No one in their right minds would consider running any current
> version of Windows on this system (I would argue, of course, that no one
> in their right minds would run any version of Windows on any system, but
> that's flamebait for another thread).

Flame bait goes with any thread.


>
> They're aware of the limitations of the system (and they're aware that
> they have to wait, just to start most applications), and certainly would
> upgrade it, given a suitably low-priced available improvement (I do
> intend to set them up with a replacement when I roll down my own
> systems), but as it is, for the purposes they have of their computer,
> it's certainly reasonably usable. More memory would definitely help
> more than a faster CPU would.

I agree with this and was more general in my statement than I should have
been. I still think that more ram will help with X and KDE while CPU will
help with the OP's complaint regarding slow kernel compile times.

Niki Kovacs wrote:

> Genome wrote:
>
>> Sounds horrendous doesn't it?
>>
>> make bzImage took 3Hrs and make modules took about the same!!!!
>
> You know that there are actually S & M clubs out there, where you can
> eventually volunteer for the "M" part? I bet this will be more fun.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Niki Kovacs

Yes.... I believe that such people invented LaTeX to stop me from getting
the intended results from a Google search.

DNA

Franklin wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:02:07 +0000, Genome wrote:
>
>> Agpgart still reports no supported devices found (?) but I can
>> still mount the cdroms.
>
> What does agpgart have to do with cdrom drives?
>

Not a lot, maybe but last time I sent it sideways I lost access to them. I
seem to remember having to add lines to fstab and lilo to invoke scsi
support for them on the basis of something I read on the interwank but when
I broke it something else happened.

This time around something different happened but it made more sense. Like I
didn't need to spawn scsi in the first place... but I might still need it.

> Do you have a PCI video card or an AGP video card?
>

I have a piece of gold anodized aluminium heatsinky thing on the motherboard
that has TX-ProII/Video Inside printed on it. Google says it's a second
sourced SIS 900(? must check tomorrow) thing.

There was one time I found that in menuconfig but I seem to have frightened
it away.... I'll have to find the beggar again.

> With a K6 motherboard do you even have an AGP slot?
>

Are you questioning my sexuality? Which part of your anatomy would you like
to fit in it? (;-)

> Why are you reconfiguring the kernel with such old hardware?
> What was not working that made you go through all this?
>

Someone gave it to me.

It used to be a Windblows something or another so I scrubbed it as an
opportunity to.... well I wanted to network things and set up a webserver
and Windblows looked like shit plus Girlys keep coming onto me and, since
I'm past puberty, spots are not an option so I opted for Linux.

>> KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.
>
> It would be with that CPU and low ram.
>

I'll back off a bit. It is better now it knows its got.... Heck, I'm just
guessing. It seems better. 412MHz K6-II with 256MB. Things seem to draw
faster but there is a long waiting time while it thinks about things.

Referring to the diagnostic LED suggests it's not thrashing the hard disk
about whilst doing it.

> People would never try to run XP on such hardware, but they seem to expect
> X and KDE to run like greased lightning. I don't get it.

Heck, I had to install XP on the Landlords Windblows machine because his
Lexmark printer broke (third replacement) and he bought a Dell 720 (A
Lexmark masquerading as a Dell) off Ebay that doesn't work on 98.

If I wasn't such a timid person the local police would be looking at a jump
in the regional body count...

You want that I should try XP on this one? I think it would go faster but
then let us not forget that, at the moment, it is my fault.

Cheers

DNA

Grant wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:02:07 GMT, Genome <ilike_spam@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Any ideas...
> For what?
>
>>Sounds horrendous doesn't it?
> That it does.
>
>>make bzImage took 3Hrs and make modules took about the same!!!!
> Something's not right, build kernels from the CLI rather than
> the gooey dragon drool UI.
>>
>>KDE is still as slow as a frozen turd sliding down a horizontal plane.
> Try IceWM or XFCE?
>
> Grant.

Hmmm. I looked at make xconfig but it seemed a bit dodgy because I had to
open a console to run it and then it just seemed to give me the same stuff
as make menuconfig.

I am in make menuconfig (outside of KDE). Next time around it might be a bit
more super whizzy because it knows its processor. Then I'll be stripping
out some other stuff.

Tomorrow I will be on K6SIS2

Cheers

DNA