FreeBSD v4.10 - Newbie Needs Help - KDE Really Slow !!

[Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P.]

DK wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I just installed FreeBSD v4.10.
>All installed OK & I choose KDE as the Desktop
>
>Problem: KDE v3 is reallly SLOW!!
>
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Probably true.

>- Takes 2 minutes to start/load !!
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2 minutes --- After the system grabs the tty?  How long
from the power button until you have a desktop?

>- Just opening a simple Console takes almost a minute !!
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This might be KDE, might be other bad configuration.

>- Resolution looks really grainy - as if its 256 colors - Don't know how to change this ???
>
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Read the FreeBSD handbook (IIRC, Chapter 5 is the one ... whichever
is "The X Window System").  It's a process that's not easily described
in a short email such as this...

>My System:
>Pentium 200Mhz
>128MB RAM
>16MB PCI Creative Graphics Blaster Riva TNT
>  
>

I'm running GNOME2 on an AMD 475 for one of my workers.
It suffers from similar issues ... quite slow in starting new apps, etc.
GNOME's a big environment, with lots of stuff running in the background.
So is KDE.

If I felt this worker could handle it, I'd give them something a tad
less weighty like black/fluxbox or fvwm.  I personally would not consider
ever running a new GNOME or KDE on a Pentium I...unless I had no
other choice.  And, if it were me, I'd probably still pick fluxbox instead
of trying to deal with modern, full blown environments on old hardware....

>I have Windows 2000 installed on the Primary Boot partition & that runs very fast.
>I thought that FreeBSD with KDE would run just as fast if not faster than Windows 2000 ???
>  
>

That I find interesting.  Have you tried booting the system to a regular
CLI?  There could easily be things holding up the boot process.  Sendmail
looking for a hostname is often one of them....

One thing I can tell you, adding RAM to FBSD does a lot more for
the system than it does for Windows, in my experience.  If you've
another chip, don't spare the horses....

>If it helps, the only thing I can think of is whether the system loaded the correct Graphics Card
>??
>- BUT I don't know how to check this ?? - Cannot find a Display Properties like windows that lists
>the Graphics Card ??
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KDE, and any other wm/environment, runs on top of XFree86.  XFree86 reads
from configuration files ... mine is /etc/X11/XF868Config.  Like I said 
above, you
need to read up a bit before you get it going.

>Any suggestions/help is greatly appreciated :))
>
>BTW: I searched Google Groups & freebsd Digest before posting but not much help :(
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Umm, yeah.  You'd have to have a better idea what to look for, I guess.  
I know
when I was a newb, I didn't even install a GUI for like 2 years.....

>Regards,
>
>DK
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