🚀 go-pugleaf

I've just installed RedHat Linux (Picasso 1.2.13) on my PC and am having
performance problems with some X applications.  I'd appreciate any
advice from readers of this group.

My PC is a 486sx25 (OK, OK, I know, its out of the Ark :-) with 16Mb
RAM.  I find that text oriented programs like emacs, the window manager
and xterm run beautifully, but anything with a heavy graphics component
effectively locks up my machine.  For example, it takes about 5 minutes
just to start arena (the WWW browser), and my machine does not respond
to keyboard or mouse input while it is starting.  There is little or no
disk activity (so it isn't swapping or loading huge globs of data from
the disk).  GhostView behaves similarly.

Some possibilities:

  * I need faster graphics hardware (I have a cirrus logic 5428 chipset)
  * I need a DX processor with maths on-chip
  * Linux has weird scheduling that gives up everything to loading
    processes

Any suggestions?

(PS. I asked this group a month or so ago about clone sound cards that
work with Linux, and a few people suggested the ESS chipset cards.  Well
I bought one for $50 and it works just fine. Thanks!)

Ciao.
-- 
AndyB   (Andrew Berry)
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email: andyb@dstc.edu.au       \||/      Department of Computer Science
voice: +61 7 3365 3241          @@       The University of Queensland
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