Question dealing with Ubuntu 7.10!

[Carisma]

It's slow because

1) It's trying to start up every possible piece of hardware, even those you don't have, because it's a modular kernel. This involves a lot of probing and module inserting. Strip all this from the kernel and it will be faster. Don't use modules at all when avoidable (I use one only, the nvidia binary module for 3d acceleration).

3) Init scripts you don't need. Remove them. They waste time.

I need one for my video card and I think that is it. (8600gt)

I can start wireless when I log into the system. I don't need it running any other time.

I guess I have homework when I get home from work today.

 

[MRD]

There's an option in the menu to enable restricted drivers. One choice will be nvidia. Enable this. Otherwise it will use an open source, non-accelerated driver.

 

[Carisma]

There's an option in the menu to enable restricted drivers. One choice will be nvidia. Enable this. Otherwise it will use an open source, non-accelerated driver.

Yeah I did that. Rebooted and nothing changed. Still slow all around.

 

[MRD]

That won't change boot speed, only the speed at which is renders 3d acceleration or compiz type effects.

Two totally different issues.

 

[Carisma]

That won't change boot speed, only the speed at which is renders 3d acceleration or compiz type effects.

Two totally different issues.

Oh okay.

 

[seth556]

I once tried out Sabayon which is based on Gentoo and really liked it except for having to compile every since piece of software I put on my computer. I was trying to install Thunderbird and it had been going for 3 hours when I gave up.

Right now I'm using Zenwalk and really like it. It's based on Slackware but uses XFCE and is stripped of many programs, which I like because I don't really need most of them anyway. Just had to install 3 programs that I usually have to install on any other distro and I was away. Boots up fast and works great.

 

[Misfit138]

I once tried out Sabayon which is based on Gentoo and really liked it except for having to compile every since piece of software I put on my computer. I was trying to install Thunderbird and it had been going for 3 hours when I gave up.

Right now I'm using Zenwalk and really like it. It's based on Slackware but uses XFCE and is stripped of many programs, which I like because I don't really need most of them anyway. Just had to install 3 programs that I usually have to install on any other distro and I was away. Boots up fast and works great.

Zenwalk is pretty nice..and pretty fast, being based on Slack.
I use Xfce a lot, and love it. I think me and Splat are the big Xfce fans around here.
As far as kernels, and monolithic vs modular, I ran benchmarks a while back on this very forum between the two and found a one second difference in boot times. That was on Arch, though, which has very minimal, BSD-style init-scripts, so an Ubuntu box may stand to shave off a more significant amount of time, I don't know.
Makes sense, though; Ubuntu is pretty 'bloated on the bootup'.

 

[seth556]

I tried out Arch a week ago and loved it execpt I couldn't get ndiswrapper to work. But I'm pretty sure it would have if I compiled it for source instead of using pacman. So I'll get around to re-trying it sometime.

 

[MRD]

ndiswrapper is not the easiest thing to use and it can be flaky. Sometimes the driver that came with your card won't work with it but some random driver for another card with a similar makeup will.

Personally, I'm just careful to only buy chipsets that have good wireless support in Linux.

 

[Carisma]

Zenwalk is pretty nice..and pretty fast, being based on Slack.
I use Xfce a lot, and love it. I think me and Splat are the big Xfce fans around here.
As far as kernels, and monolithic vs modular, I ran benchmarks a while back on this very forum between the two and found a one second difference in boot times. That was on Arch, though, which has very minimal, BSD-style init-scripts, so an Ubuntu box may stand to shave off a more significant amount of time, I don't know.
Makes sense, though; Ubuntu is pretty 'bloated on the bootup'.

How do you like XFCE? Someone mentioned Fluxbox to me.

ndiswrapper is not the easiest thing to use and it can be flaky. Sometimes the driver that came with your card won't work with it but some random driver for another card with a similar makeup will.

Personally, I'm just careful to only buy chipsets that have good wireless support in Linux.

Well someone from another forum ([H]ardfourm) mentioned to get a wireless bridge and hook up to the ethernet port instead of having a wireless card since most of them aren't supported. ndiswrapper was a pain to work with and I don't think it has ever worked correctly.

 

[MRD]

I have gotten ndiswrapper working perfectly, but ymmv depending on what card you have and how much you want to play with it.

XFCE is somewhat more full featured than fluxbox, which is very basic, but somewhat faster and leaner than GNOME or KDE.

 

[Carisma]

I have gotten ndiswrapper working perfectly, but ymmv depending on what card you have and how much you want to play with it.

XFCE is somewhat more full featured than fluxbox, which is very basic, but somewhat faster and leaner than GNOME or KDE.

Well I have the Linksys WMP54GS and truthfully it has been a pain.

I will look into XFCE more.

 

[MRD]

I recommend being very careful what wireless card you buy with a new computer. I will only purchase those that play nice with Linux.

 

[Carisma]

Yeah I already had this and thought it would work so I tried and it didn't work so well. Do know any Linux ones off the top of your head?

 

[MRD]

I'm not the best person to answer that question, so I'll leave it for someone else. I *think* the Intel and Atheros chipsets work well though.

 

[Misfit138]

http://www.linux-wlan.org/

Harware compatibility chart link at bottom of page.

 

[Carisma]

http://www.linux-wlan.org/

Harware compatibility chart link at bottom of page.

Thank you. I will look at this before settling on a wireless access point.

Any suggestions Misfit?

 

[MRD]

Make sure that you get a card that has full WPA support in Linux. WEP is not secure enough.

 

[Carisma]

Make sure that you get a card that has full WPA support in Linux. WEP is not secure enough.

Okay...will do. My roommate has the wireless router set at WEP.

I wish I would have set up our network.

 

[MRD]

WEP is useless security. There are free programs you can download that let you crack anyone's WEP in a few hours. It's hardly better than unsecured. I'd get your own wireless access point and plug it into a wired port on his router and set your own security.