Hey Paul can you stream video and play wmv files ok? I have read everything under the sun but there is no solution for my problem. I use hardly any ram so it has to be cpu related I would guess.

Does your computer start fast? For my cpu to be so slow I am up and running in 45 seconds with everything loaded.

Have you turned off any services to make it faster? I have a total of 12 services without anything installed. If I start my computer with nothing starting at bootup I have only 10 processes running and use 42mb of ram.

Not bragging about any of that I just wondered what else us guys with slow computers did to save RAM and try to make it faster. BTW thats why I started using KM.



Reeko



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2009 08:29PM by reeko124.

No streaming videos are a nightmare, buffering problems, I just download them and play back later. Now thats really frustrating on FB, you post a video that everyone else watches live! As far as services go I turned off indexing, system restore and remote access services as I believe they are the main system hogs.WMV are also a pain, although I've found 'spotify' very good. It's live streaming with no record facilities attached but, I use software that rips the audio from the sound card (naughty I know! but hey, needs must!). The one thing I won't do is turn of the display sevices, I like my windows to look pretty (sad I know!).

I'm in the middle of moving home so moneys a bit tight, the only solution is to upgrade in the near future.

BTW Along with the 498mgz cpu I only have 256mgz of RAM. Hardly enough to run XP let alone anything else.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2009 10:46AM by Paul.

@ reeko124

Reeko according to the majorgeeks experts this dudes guide is supposed to be good for info on which services are safe to disable on XP. He also does batch files for the reg' tweaks.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2009 07:28PM by Paul.

@ Paul

Aside from Indexing, do you find that turning off un-needed services helpful? I read some where(?) on the Internet that doing so actually slows statup. I do not recall the web site or reasoning, but it seems to have shortened the startup speed of my XP/2.66MHz/1 Gig. RAM from 3 minutes to 2 minutes. I now, even 2 minutes is slow but I have a lot of startup programs.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

I don't have many programs in my start up folder. I'm using portable broadband at the moment and, it take 2m 30s from a cold start to being logged in on FB. As for the disabling services I really believe that the system restore is a real memory hog for people like myself with small amounts of ram. The spec of this very old (6-7years) tower will only allow 500megs of ram tops. By hook or by crook a new tower with at least a pentium 3 on board for me in the next couple of weeks and maybe a gig or ram.

@ Paul

RE: I don't have many programs........

Do you have System Restore set to creat a new restore point at startup? The only time I have SR create a restore point is during installations and occasionally manually. That aside, the only mem it uses is HDD mem. The only backup I run durring startup is The Emergency Recovery Utility NT wich is free. Appearantly it uses very little mem. But I need to create a backup manually when I get ready to install something, but it only take a few seconds. And unlike SR, it creates a complete backup of the Windows Registry, something SR is incapable of doing. Also, it is much more reliable than SR. In my case, I also use SR as two backups are always better than one, but I have been using ERUNT for at least five years and have never had a problem with it.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

No I don't use system restore at all I use Norton Go Back. It's useful as I can leave my teenagers on it and no matter what 'damage' they do, on reboot Go Back just clears anything they've added/removed.

I mean to say Go Back will add anything removed and remove anything added once it's been set to 'Go Back'





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2009 12:00AM by Paul.

Quote
Paul
@ reeko124

Reeko according to the majorgeeks experts this dudes guide is supposed to be good for info on which services are safe to disable on XP. He also does batch files for the reg' tweaks.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

i already turned off everything that he said wasn't safe to. I removed a bunch to. I read what everything was for elsewhere and just dumped everything that I would never use. Been alot of trial and error when i first started to nlite it. I've had it like this for a long time with no problems whatsoever. I get my updates from windiz when need be. I can add print spooler and other things if I need to.

Quote
Paul
Go Back.........

Goback does work great. I wish it was still a stand alone by Roxio as suites of apps (particularly by Norton) tend to be big resource hogs. It was for this reason that I stopped using Norton after the 2002 release. I find most individual stand alone apps, even in the aggregate, usually leave little or no foot print. You might try uninstalling or disabling Norton then installing stand alones such as Avast A/V and Zone alarm. Even the Windows Firewall does an excellent job, it just doesn't monitor out going traffic. Or any of the other many freebies availble. Sometimes the best things really are free. I have noticed that some security apps indicate false positives regarding KM but of course are not malware, nothings is ever perfect even when we pay for it. But what ever you do never run more than one AV and one firewall at a time as this can cause serious problems.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

Yep GoBack is the business. I use ESET AV 4 and Malwarebytes,+ I just use the windows firewall it's good enough for the average user. Agree with your comments about freeware, I used to use Avast it's a dammed good AV.

BTW the GoBack I use is the last stand alone version Norton issued, I believe they incorporated it into 360 after that. It's amazing the number of friends that have copied it from my comp onto their USB's to put on their own systems. It's a real 'life saver'





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2009 11:06AM by Paul.

Quote
Paul
windows firewall it's good enough for the average user

I understand that any incoming traffic that can breach a firewall can be made capable of compromising out bound protection as well. I guess at least "trying" to protect others makes me feel good. And it seems that the Zone Alarm fire wall offers a few more options and info regarding traffic, though I have not used the Windows fire wall enough to really see all it may offer, I only use it when I have NO fire wall and I go online to download ZA.

BTW, I still have the Roxio version of Goback on CD. It is installed on my mellinium machine. But for some reason it will not install on my XP macnine, perhaps becouse it is an Emachines OEM(?).

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2009 03:17PM by caktus.

Paul,

I've been messing around with this linux distro the past few days.Slax Linux Really light 190mb liveCD and easy to understand. I had a connection and audio issue but I figured it all out. To install it all you need to do is unrar the iso and place it in your c:\ drive with a couple files and add a line to your boot.ini file. Or edit one of the files and put it in its own partition. Which I am doing tomorrow. It reads my storage partition as does nearly any linux actually but gets to it quicker. I'm not getting that lag switching between tabs like I do in windows. Only downfall NO K-MELEON

I was running both puppy linux and slax. Slax won out just because of it having the programs I used in windows and how easy they install. Plus it looks better then puppy lol. Here is a screenshot sorry it is so big just wanted you to see the details:




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2009 06:49AM by reeko124.

Reeko thats is quite tempting, I think I'll give that a try this w/end. I've just moved house today, so every things a bit hectic. I'm gonna move the comp into the bedroom now despite her who must be obeyed's moaning. If I open the windows I can hear the sea lapping against the shore, very relaxing away from the Tv and kids.

Have I misunderstood or can you run this version from disc?

Yes just run it from the cd. The only downside is any thing you run can't be saved when you shutdown. You can on usb though. Have had a little quirks here and there with it but nothing major yet haha. I haven't gone to a myspace page yet to see if it locks up a browser yet. It likely will.



Reeko

Quote
reeko124
Yes just run it from the cd. The only downside is any thing you run can't be saved when you shutdown. You can on usb though. Have had a little quirks here and there with it but nothing major yet haha. I haven't gone to a myspace page yet to see if it locks up a browser yet. It likely will. Reeko

Would coping it to CD/RW OR DVD/RW permit saving settings and files?

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

Quote
caktus

Quote
reeko124
Yes just run it from the cd. The only downside is any thing you run can't be saved when you shutdown. You can on usb though. Have had a little quirks here and there with it but nothing major yet haha. I haven't gone to a myspace page yet to see if it locks up a browser yet. It likely will. Reeko

Would coping it to CD/RW OR DVD/RW permit saving settings and files?

You could I am not sure. I will look it up and get back to you. Everytime I shut it down and restarted it I had to run alsaconf(sound drivers) and didn't have my settings saved. You can always put your modules(programs) on your partition and go to it and open them. You can also extract the iso and put all your modules in the modules folder and reburn it as an iso. I am actually have a pretty fun time with it. I haven't had to use command line a lot. It resembles windows the closest I think.

In Windows
C:\

In Slax
/mnt/hda1

You can also shortcut the hda1 and any other drive to your desktop and just click on it.
I think its a good learning linux for a dummy like me Thank god they make modules so I don't have to compile and place things through the command line just yet.

In Slax you can use the boot parameter changes=/path/
to get a persistent directory for your changed files
or changes of the system.
path would be the place, where you want your changes
saved.This can be anywhere on an existing harddisk partition
or on a mounted USB stick.
Instead of booting from a CD , where the Slax .iso file
has been burnt with the special iso burning command,
which can be found in the menus of Nero and other
burning programs (simple copying of the downloaded .iso
does not work), Slax can be booted also from a bootable USB stick,
containing Syslinux. This is so fast, that it is mostly
not necessary to install Slax on its own partition on
harddisk.
As Slax by default runs only as root, it is advisable to
add a personal user account, because working as root
all the time means giving possible intruders the possibility to
do everything they want on your computer with administrator
rights. Adding a user is quite easy in Slax, which I consider
to be an important advantage compared with Puppy, where adding
a full user account is quite difficult, if not impossible
for most.
To add an additional user in Slax, I would open the Terminal
window (menu -> System -> Konsole), where you are already root,
and first change the root password with the command :
passwd
Then add a user with the command :
adduser yourselectedusername
This will create a home directory in /home with
the selected user name, for example /home/slaxer ,
if you would select "slaxer" as your user name.
The following questions in the Terminal can all be
answered with the Enter key without changes, except
the question for the groups, to which the new user
wants to be added.
Answer this simply pressing the key "Up Arrow", to add
the user to all groups, and then the Enter key.
This is important, because it is necessary to hear
music with the user account, for example.
When you are asked for a user passwd, select a personal one.

To become the user without administrator rights,
write into the Terminal :
/sbin/init 3
and press the Enter key.
This will close the GUI and bring you to the text-based
console, where you will be asked to login with your
user name. Write the name, for example
slaxer
and then the Enter key.
Give the passwd of slaxer, and press the Enter key again.
You can then start the GUI, writing :
startx
and press the Enter key.

You can use K-Meleon in Slax with the emulator wine.
To get the wine module, open the browser Konqueror and go to
http://slax.org/modules
In the search box enter
wine
Download it to your Home directory , for example /home/slaxer.
To become root, when you are a simple user, write into the Terminal:
su
Enter the root password, that you have chosen at the beginning.
Then write :
activate /home/yourusername/wine
and press the Tabulator tab.
This will complete the name wine to the full name of the wine.lzm file.
Press Enter.
This will install wine.
To become the simple user again write :
exit
Download one of my K-Meleon variations for Linux to your Home directory or to /opt.
For example the simple version K-Meleon-NX-18121, from here:

http://one.xthost.info/eichhein/K-Meleon-NX-18121.zip

(An existing official version should possibly work too.)

Click on the Home icon in the taskbar.
You will find the zipped browser in your Home directory.
Right click on it and select
Open with Ark.
In the Ark window, click on the icon Extract.
This will unzip K-Meleon into your Home directory.
To make it work in Linux you will need two additional .dlls from the Internet,
for example from
http://dll-files.com
Search there for the dlls msvcp71.dll and msvcr71.dll.
Download them and unzip them as described above.
Open a second instance of your Home directory clicking on the Home icon
in the taskbar again.
Open the K-Meleon main folder and pull msvcp71.dll and msvcr71.dll over from the second window.
Click (single click only necessary) on K-Meleon.exe .
A window will open asking how you want to open that .exe file.
Write into the box
wine
and enable the little box "always open with" at the bottom.
This will open K-Meleon, and all other .exe files from
added Windows programs with wine from now on,
if they are started clicking in the file manager Konqueror
or from a menu entry, if confirmed there.

A useful double window file manager for Linux to add would be
emelfm2, which is probably also available as a slax module.

Another useful module would be kdesu , to enable sudo, to start apps with administrator rights if necessary.

It is also possible to add other slim windows managers like Xfce,
Icewm, Fluxbox or Openbox.

Regards and good luck with Linux.

Fred

P.S. :
Slax address for modules should be :

http://www.slax.org/modules.php

If you want sudo su like in Ubuntu without a password request
use the modules

sudo-1.7.0
and
Linux-PAM 0.99.10.0

Download and activate them.

Edit /etc/sudoers calling up as root (with su and password) :

visudo

and add a new line after
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
namely
yourusername ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL
and save with the key F2

note :
if your visudo editor should be a vi editor
insert the line with
i
and save with
:wq
because the editor vi has particular commands.

This action enables in Terminal
sudo su
to become root without asking for a password
every time, and enables also menu entries
for commands acting as root for installs etc
of the form
sudo command

To enable downloaded modules like wine or sudo
when booting, put your personal modules into
the folder
modules
adding them to a CD burn or whereever slax is.

Fred

I'm like a kid with a new toy . Its really fast. At least to me it is.



Reeko

Great stuff Reeko, I just found this http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/10-free-linux-e-books-beginners.htm

So along with yours and Freds links I'm gonna have a busy and I hope frustration free w/end.

Quote
Paul
I hope frustration free w/end.

I have no doubt that you will get frustrated .



Reeko

Thanks Fred for an excelent tutorial. :cool:

It has been sometime since I fooled around with Slax, but I must say that it's the most USB friendly distro I tried, making it perfect for Linux-On-The-Go... I just wish Thomas would switch from KDE to OpenBox+LXDE, for a really lightweight experience.

More savvy linuxers migh want to have a go with Slitaz for that effect...

--- sig ---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2009 11:26AM by foobarly.

@foobarly


Would you say that Slax is a good learning distro? I know that puppy is also but the look of it and the fact that when you install .pets they are sometimes hit or miss and take a long time to show up in the menus. Actually ubuntu was pretty easy when I messed around with it except for a few things.



Reeko

@ foobarly

I have created an small lzm file containing
Openbox and LXpanel without any bells and whistles.
If you are interested, go to

http://one.xthost.info/eichhein3

and look in the folder "added" for the zipped file.
Unzip it after downloading and install the lzm file

with
xterm
su
the root password
activate /path/to/the/lzmfile
Enter

To start Openbox
stop the GUI with the key combination
Ctrl+Delete+Back
which brings you to the console.
Login with your user name and password, and use then
startx /usr/bin/lxpanel
which opens the LXpanel.
Click on the icon for Openbox in the toolbar
to start Openbox.
To get a background picture, click on the icon
for the image viewer gqview, which is included
and search the background picture, that you want.
Then click in the gqview menu on View->Zoom to fit
and then in the menu Edit->Set as wallpaper.
The Slax applications menu should already be working
from the LXpanel menu button and Openbox desktop right click.

Note: To start KDE again go to the console again with
Ctrl+Delete+Back
and write
startx

Note:Using startkde will not work anymore (not sure yet why),
but startx will bring back KDE with some icons in the
taskbar missing,but which can be readded.
That is why I would advise you to check first, if this
Openbox satisfies you, and therefore first do that
booting a Slack fresh without changing any possible saved files.

Regards

Fred

Fred I wanted to personally thank you for the very informational post you have made in this thread. You've answered questions that haven't even been asked even though they would be. If you would see how many linux forums are out there, and see someone bump their threads 4 times just because no one has cared to respond.



Reeko

i agree, fred's posts are so thorough.. i've learnt a lot from them
km forums are the best for anything pc-related..not just kmeleon not to mention support for stupid websites with bad sniffers

This may be because questions are being asked about
things that for people who have used Linux for many years already
seem to be so easy and obvious that they get annoyed, while there are other questions that they would have themselves are still complicated
to solve. You may compare that to questions about K-Meleon
and Hotmail or Yahoo that come again and again.
Nevertheless it's important to answer them still because
new users are not able to find the answers on their own.
In Linux there is a much bigger community, and I know myself
that finding the answers for a beginner can be a problem.
So I think that pointing them into the right direction
is important, when the opportunity is there, as far as my
own experience can help.

Fred

Thanks yet again, Fred. Testing your SLAX module later today. Will report (sorry for delay...) :cool:

--- sig ---

Disregard... hasty posting!

--- sig ---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2009 03:13PM by foobarly.

Three days without any problems just ifne tuning it now. I am probably going to get opera for it because Seamonkey just doesn't cut it for me.



Reeko