It's me again guys...Linux is great, but I have a question

It's me again. I wanted to keep those who helped me posted, and I finally got Mandrake Linux installed. It's not 9.0, but 7.2 instead. It's pretty sweet so far, I like the sessions you can choose, and the wide range of tools that it provides. It even has Python tools :). However, I'm having a slight problem with it and I hope that no one has asked a question about this before, so as to not be repititive. I loaded Linux, and it is really choppy and jerky for some reason, like when I move windows around in KDE or GNOME sessions. Does it need a good tweaking?

Gil-Galad

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"We are our choices." - Jean-Paul Sartre

Hi,

It could be because of many reasons. What kind of "box" do you have? I mean video card, processor, memory, etc...

Bye.

Well, like DR stated, we'd need to know the specs of your machine before going much further. Are you running a Pentium chip, AMD, amount of RAM, etc. Linux will work farily well on older machines, as long as you don't clog the machine with a bunch of options and such that you don't need. Heck, I've got a copy of Red Hat 7.2 running on a Pentium 1, 200Mhz box and it runs fairly well...

So, get back to us with your specs and then we could go from there..

Sorry about that...

OK, I'm running a box with a 1.4 ghz AMD T-Bird, a Elsa Gladiac 720 video card (with 64 mb and GeForce 3), 60 gb 5400 rpm hd, and I have 256 mb of ddr ram. Maybe that helps things out.

gilgalad,

Fiu!!! you are so well to have Linux running on your box. Then, i really don't know what can be the problem.

Maybe a video card module (driver) problem then??? In your video card manufacturer's website, check if your model has problems with some Linux's programs. Check for updates but see the bug fixes before upgrading.

Maybe someone else can help you.

Good luck!!!

Hi,

I think you need to upgrade your XFree86...to make it better..go to this link.. http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/cooker/...-Mandrake.html

Quote:

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In addition to installing this package, you will need to install
the XFree86 package which corresponds to your video card, the
X11R6-contrib package, the Xconfigurator package and the XFree86-libs
package. You may also need to install one of the XFree86 fonts packages.

And finally, if you are going to develop applications that run as
X clients, you will also need to install XFree86-devel.

---

I think sweet_angel has the answer. Mandrake 7.2 is very old and uses XFree86 3.x, so the support for Geforce3 is probably not that hot. XFree84 4.x coupled with the new driver modules from nvidia.com should make it really rock.

Ya, with your computer it sounds like the only problem could be some sort of problem in the graphic card drive. Like problemchild said, nvidia.com should have the solution to this. I dl'd their newest version and it's extremely awesome!!! I recommend it.

linux is free so why don't you just download the latest version.or you can buy it from stores.the commercial product also includes some manuals which you can use during the installation.i've got an athlon xp 2200+,geforce3 ti machine and have no problem at all!so i can imagine that the reason you are having those problems is that you have an old kernel version that doesn't support the geforce 3 chipset.i can give you a url from where you can download mandrake 9.it's from a greek university.open an ftp client and type ftp.duth.gr
you can login as an anonymous user and have it.it's three cd's in iso type.you need the first one which is the setup disk and the other two is some extra packets.

I have Mandrake 8.2 on a machine much slower than yours. I don't know about "Choppy and Jerky", but I agree that moving stuff around and things is generally a bit slower under Linux than it is under Windows, but not to an unusable degree.

The Linux GUI layer is a lot chunkier than the Windows one, the client-server nature of X doesn't help much either, so you lose quite a lot of GUI performance that way (bear in mind that this doesn't apply to games which use opengl / DGA which bypass this system for better speed)

True stuff does generally take a while to start, but I make up for it by not having to reboot my machine at all during a typical day.

Ok, you guys might laugh at me for this, lol, but i still have Linux mandrake 7.1 complete, i know its dated, but this was the first distro i started to actually learn Linux with and it also has sentimentle value, it saved my butt from a screwed up FREE BSD install to and i also actually like it, i was runingit on an HP pavilion, 42.9 Gig HD, p3 733 processor, about 16 megs of video memory, i think i have a geforce 2 from nvidea, and at the time i had 128 megs of ram, i never had a problem like this before and your machine seems way faster than mine, and i was a complete Linux newbie so i dont think it was anything to do with me tweaking (i dont know how) i guess i was just lucky when i installed that my cards worked well *except my Modem and sound card, iv still never been able to get sound or online with Linux, but im not stoping because of that, even though music and internet are some main things i use my computer for *i record my techno i make and i make my techno on here and i also love coming online) i can never get drivers or anything either (member i said i was a complete newbie still with Linux, i cant install or compile things from source so yea, lol, i can answer Linux questions though like the person asked in the Linux experts come here post cause well...iv done what he was doing a few times, so i try helping as much as i can) anyway, i hope you get everything working again, and have a good time, also go to the tutorials board and read some Linux stuff, i was in there yesterday and last night man, theres some great Linux stuff there.