Which LINUX???

[SHell]

I have a PIV system(1.7 GHz) with 128 MB of RAM.
I am using RH-9 and windows XP.

I am quite satisfied with RH-9 but the basic problem I feel is that
it becomes too slow for certain applications, takes a hell lot of
time to load. I think it is primarily because of my low RAM.

Now , several flavours of Linux has been launched, right from Ubuntu
to Fedora Core 4 to Suse 9.2.
With my RAM, should I stick with RH-9 or does any other Linux flavour
would help more and be a rather more quicker than RH-9.

Plz advice.

[ujjwal]

You don't need to change the distribution you use to get speed, there are several tweaks you can try out before switching.

You can change the desktop environment / window manager you use, the default in redhat is Gnome, try out XFCE (www.xfce.org), it will be lighter on the RAM usage, and should speed things up considerably.

You can also try disabling services you don't need, using tools like chkconfig and ntsysv (read their manpage by typing "man chkconfig" and so on in a terminal).

Lastly, as Redhat 9.0 is a bit old, you should probably switch to a newer distro anyway. Ubuntu is a good choice and will be faster than Redhat, but it still uses Gnome, but you can switch to anything else if needed.

[banned2wise]

Also try ICEWM , a good desktop, the desktop which is not RAM sucking. Its pretty cool.

[ujjwal]

Yup IceWM is a very nice window manager, and along with FVWM is my favourite. But if one wants features of Desktop Environments like a file manager, graphical tools for miscellaneous purposes, menu editors etc, then XFCE is a great choice.

[e-freak]

Originally Posted by SHell

I have a PIV system(1.7 GHz) with 128 MB of RAM.
I am using RH-9 and windows XP.

I am quite satisfied with RH-9 but the basic problem I feel is that
it becomes too slow for certain applications, takes a hell lot of
time to load. I think it is primarily because of my low RAM.

Now , several flavours of Linux has been launched, right from Ubuntu
to Fedora Core 4 to Suse 9.2.
With my RAM, should I stick with RH-9 or does any other Linux flavour
would help more and be a rather more quicker than RH-9.

Plz advice.

Log in to the init 3 mode and type the command "ntsysv" as root. You will get a huge list of services with many of them marked. This means that the services that are marked with a * are supposed to run at startup. There are many of these services which you dont require at all but are still running eating up ur "low" RAM. So, deselect the ones which u dont require keeping the critical ones intact. I would recommend u to remove "cups" which is a print server and u dont need this heavy service(i guess). You can Google for "ntsysv" to know bout the services which u need to remove/keep.

[donkeyzilla]

Well best suggession is to install new RHEL 4... Its a work Station....
But Really recommends 256 Ram (Atleast).
Free downloadable frm:
www.in.redhat.com
It supports a lot of features.
Really works.

[GNUrag]

Originally Posted by donkeyzilla

Well best suggession is to install new RHEL 4... Its a work Station....
But Really recommends 256 Ram (Atleast).
Free downloadable frm:
www.in.redhat.com

as far as i know, RHELs are not freely downloadable and redistributable.

Originally Posted by donkeyzilla

It supports a lot of features.
Really works.

hmm, except for out-of-the-box NTFS filesystem support... and except for built in MP3 support.. things which he would probable require.

[ujjwal]

Anyway Redhat is not really a great idea to switch to, if what you are looking for is a speed boost. Too many unneeded services by default.

[vignesh]

you can also increase your swap partition size and xfce is also a great desktop manager thats low on resources.