I installed FC5 on the weekend. I removed Ubuntu to replace it with FC5
which I hoped to be better than FC4.

Operation was extremmely slow so I tried to install the NVIDIA driver.
It would not install, I got errors in compile.

I then installed the new kernel from livna to get the NVIDIA card to
be recognized correctly. The default nv driver is useless.

It first seemed to operate reasonably well. After a while I noticed that
programs seem to take a bit long to load so I decided to run the system
monitor. That brought the PC to a near halt. I thought that the PC
had crashed until I noticed the solid red light of the disk activity.

Keep in mind that it is an 1.8Ghz AMD64 with +512M of RAM.
Firefox went into thin air shortly after the system monitor
was loaded.

I pressed on ctrl alt F2 to log on the console. It took quite a while.
It eventually logged me in (very slowly).
I did a kill to the system monitor and some sort of sanity came back.

I went back to the graphic mode (alt F7) and ran glxgears to see
how fast it ran. I could count one to two turns per seconds which
is weird considering that under SuSE 10.0 it spins so fast that it
is impossible to count. It did load the NVIDIA driver as I saw the
usual NVIUDIA name appear shortly after I type the usual startx.

Here is my system setup, (I have a few more comments at the end.)

Disk /dev/hda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1           1        8001   78  Unknown
/dev/hda2               2         261     2088450    6  FAT16
/dev/hda3             262       24321   193261950    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5             262         266       40131   83  Linux
/dev/hda6   *         267         271       40131   83  Linux
/dev/hda7             272         398     1020096   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda8             399       10597    81923436   83  Linux
/dev/hda9           10598       24321   110237998+  83  Linux

/dev/hda1 has xosl boot loader
/dev/hda2 has PC DOS 7.0
/dev/hda5 has the /boot partition for SuSE 9.3 64 bits   (ext2)
/dev/hda6 has the /boot partition for SuSE 10.0 32 bits  (ext2)
/dev/hda7 has the swap partition
/dev/hda8 has the / partition for SuSE 10.0 32 bits  (Reiserfs)
/dev/hda9 has the / partition for SuSE 9.3 64 bits   (Reiserfs)


Disk /dev/hdb: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1         795     6385806    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb2             796       14946   113667907+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5             796         803       64228+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb6             804         811       64228+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb7             812         819       64228+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb8             820        4800    31977351   83  Linux
/dev/hdb9            4801        8800    32129968+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb10           8801       14946    49367713+  83  Linux

/dev/hdb1 has Win XP French Canadian     (NTFS)
/dev/hdb5 has the /boot partition for SuSE 10.0 64 bits  (ext2)
/dev/hdb6 has the /boot partition for FC4 64 bits	 (ext2)
/dev/hdb7 has the /boot partition for FC5 32 bits        (ext2)
/dev/hdb8 has the / partition for SuSE 10.0 64 bits   (Reiserfs)
/dev/hdb9 has the / partition for FC4 64 bits         (Reiserfs)
/dev/hdb10 has the / partition for FC5 32 bits        (Reiserfs)

Disk /dev/hdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdc1   *           1           1        8001   78  Unknown
/dev/hdc2               2         132     1052257+   6  FAT16
/dev/hdc3             133         387     2048287+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hdc4             388        9729    75039615    5  Extended
/dev/hdc5             388         393       48163+  83  Linux
/dev/hdc6             394        3000    20940696    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc7            3001        9729    54050661   83  Linux

/dev/hdc1 has an unused xosl boot loader
/dev/hdc2 has PC Dos 7.0
/dev/hdc3 and /dev/hdc6 are Fat 32 partitions for Win XP
/dev/hdc5 has the /boot partition for SuSE 9.3 32 bits (ext2)
/dev/hdc7 has the / partition for SuSE 9.3 32 bits   (Reiserfs)

memory : 515.532 MB
processor : AMD 64 1.8Ghz

Selinux is disabled since it kept be from booting after the system
was installed. To fix the problem I had to boot on SuSE and
changed grub menu to disabled selinux. I was able to complete
the installation after that.
The reason I didn't want to use ext3 is that the last time I did
that, when I would boot on SuSE with the ext3 partition in fstab
the boot would fail and I had to go on a safe mode boot to
comment the offending line in fstab so I could boot on SuSE.
Since FC4 worked well with Reisefs I found it to be the only
acceptable filesystem to use considering the bad experience
with ext3.

I have an install with most support for development. I use gnome.
I was unable to unistall crap like gamin or mono as it wanted to
uninstall most of gnome in the process.

I have noticed on SuSE that the system's performance greatly improved
after I uninstalled the useless mono stuff.
It is my opinion that mono is far from being ready for prime time.

Is there a special setup that needs to be done to get the system's
performing and still keeping that stuff or is it normal for it
to bring the system to it's knees? Or is there something else that
is responsible for the downgrading of performances.
I have no such issues with FC4 either with the 64 bits or the 32 bits
FC4 install I had prior to my new SuSE 10.0
I have a high speed line at comcast. They say that my bandwidth is
5M. Yesterday I downloaded some data at 770k/secs on my OS/2 PC.
The line is fast so even if mono was trying to download some crap
it shouldn't be a problem.

I have disabled most tasks to see if I get any improvment but without
any serious result.

It is unfortunate because I do like a lot the way FC5 looks like with the
new gnome.

One last question. What is the reason for mono to be a standard install
and so glued to gnome? For those of us who do not want anything whatsoever
to do with .net or other shitware from Microsoft, it is more than an
annoyance. If I need to access windows stuff I have a winxp to do it
with. My Linux is for relaxing from work and from Microsoft and to
do interesting personal work and not to access microsoft online crap.


--
Tired of Microsoft's rebootive multitasking?
then it's time to upgrade to Linux.
http://home.comcast.net/~mcatudal
We are the Cybernetic Entomology Experts

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:27:28 -0500, Michel Catudal <mcatudal @
comcast.net> wrote:

>I installed FC5 on the weekend. I removed Ubuntu to replace it with FC5
>which I hoped to be better than FC4.
>
>Operation was extremmely slow so I tried to install the NVIDIA driver.
>It would not install, I got errors in compile.
>
>[...]Is there a special setup that needs to be done to get the system's
>performing and still keeping that stuff or is it normal for it
>to bring the system to it's knees?

I just recently installed FC5 on an old ThinkPad with a 700MHz P3 and
500MB PC100 SDRAM, and although the installation was somewhat slow
(took about 2 hours and change), and there was apparently no DRI
support for that video chipset included, the overall system speed
after installation seemed reasonable.

Have you tried booting into runlevel 3 to see whether the slowness
only occurs in association with X?  Have you tried (at least
temporarily) installing and starting KDE, and/or another window
manager, to see if the extreme slowness is specific to gnome?

Have you tried running "top" from a command line, either from runlevel
3 or after ctrl-alt-f[1..6], to see what process might be hogging
resources?

>[...]One last question. What is the reason for mono to be a standard in
stall
>and so glued to gnome? For those of us who do not want anything whatsoever
>to do with .net or other shitware from Microsoft, it is more than an
>annoyance. If I need to access windows stuff I have a winxp to do it
>with. My Linux is for relaxing from work and from Microsoft and to
>do interesting personal work and not to access microsoft online crap.

That I don't know; I usually set up Linux to use KDE by default
anyway....

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Le Sun, 02 Apr 2006 08:08:00 -0400, Some Other Somebody Else a écritÂ_:

>
> Have you tried booting into runlevel 3 to see whether the slowness
> only occurs in association with X?  Have you tried (at least
> temporarily) installing and starting KDE, and/or another window
> manager, to see if the extreme slowness is specific to gnome?
>

I never boot in graphic mode, always at runlevel 3.
It is slow with gnome. I haven't tried KDE which I have no interest in.
I am comparing with SuSE where it is very fast and in FC5 it crawls.
I have the NVIDIA driver for both.

> Have you tried running "top" from a command line, either from runlevel
> 3 or after ctrl-alt-f[1..6], to see what process might be hogging
> resources?
>

I'll do that.


--
Tired of Microsoft's rebootive multitasking?
then it's time to upgrade to Linux.
http://home.comcast.net/~mcatudal
We are the Cybernetic Entomology Experts

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:27:28 -0500, Michel Catudal wrote:

> I installed FC5 on the weekend. I removed Ubuntu to replace it with FC5
> which I hoped to be better than FC4.
>
> Operation was extremmely slow so I tried to install the NVIDIA driver. It
> would not install, I got errors in compile.
>
> I then installed the new kernel from livna to get the NVIDIA card to be
> recognized correctly. The default nv driver is useless.

Nvidia has released new drivers which are compatible with FC5, the old
drivers weren't.

As for you speed problems, do you have SELinux enable? If you do try
disabling it and see if that helps. I haven't tried it with SELinux
enabled but I read a review somewhere that said FC5 was slow with SELinux
enabled. My system has SELinux disabled. I've found that FC5 is noticebly
quicker then FC4.

One more thing, you have a marginal amount of memory. I'd add a gigabyte
to your box if I were you, it will make a big difference.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]