[CLUE-Tech] X-Sever/KDE "tuning"

[Jed S. Baer]

On Wed, 05 Dec 2001 08:26:31 -0700
"Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jbrockmeier at earthlink.net> wrote:

> > I like the new KDE "look and feel" however, I'm not at all 
> > impressed with the performance.  Things load really slow.  I 
> > launch an application and then sit and wait, watch the 
> > "spinning disc" icon down on the toolbar, it disappears, then 
> > I wait a little longer, and then suddenly my application 
> > appears.  The total time varies, but even a simple x-term 
> > took 23 seconds to load.
> 
> That sounds unusually slow. There are a couple of things you can
> do that will help, though...
> 
> 4. Try less memory-intensive window manager/desktops. Even though I
> have a monster desktop, I use XFce most of the time -- it's pretty
> full-featured and it screams. It's not quite as visually appealing as
> GNOME or KDE, but much, much faster. WindowMaker and IceWM are also
> pretty speedy.

Going a bit further with this approach, you can opt to not run any
"desktop environment" at all. Boot to runlevel 3, login, and use "startx"
to start your X server. There are about a dozen window managers to choose
from, with varying levels of eye candy. I use Fvwm2. You can still run
Gnome or KDE apps, as long as the libraries are there. Choosing which
window manager you want is a matter of setting up your .xinitrc file.
Here's mine:

  xrdb -merge .Xdefaults
  # set mouse acceleration
  xset m 4 7
  # set auto screen-blank
  xset +dpms
  # switch the mouse buttons around
  xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 4 3 2"
  # use appealing wallpaper
  xv -root -best24 -quit .Xwallpaper
  # fire up a terminal
  rxvt
  # start the window manager
  fvwm2

Here's a nice page on available window managers:
http://www.plig.org/xwinman/

Note that some of these require more manual tweaking than others. For
example, using Fvwm2, you edit the .fvwm2rc file.

> as they were for Windows. Also, is this a PCI or AGP video card?

If it's an AGP card, one thing which helps is increasing the AGP aperture
size in the bios.

-- 
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men,
 undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
 - Thomas Paine