I am having the same problem about performance issue, well perhaps it is
because I have slow memory, I have a P4 HT with 256mb DDR 400 and HD 40 gb,
today I reinstalled the -OS Centos 5.1 final with gnome. I donīt know if it
is okay to have only 4 megs of ram free. Perhaps I need more ram because I
am using gnome I ask because is the first time I probe linux in my desktop
pc, I note that is acting slow what do you think?
There are some ways to free up some memory in order to better adjust my os
with a minimum amount of ram like 256mb. This pc is for learning, so I donīt
know if it deserves buying more memory but your experience is more than
mine.
Thanks in advance.
George from Uruguay.
George,
I'm fairly confident your system is swapping and thereby causing the
issue, you can check it out with dstat for example. A old 40 GB
harddrive is not improving the situation, I'm sure iostat (part of the
sysstat RPM package) will tell you by showing a high await value. You
need at least 512 MB to run just Gnome in a resonable paste, you may
want to consider some lightweight window manager such as xfce4,
blackbox etc.
- Nicolas