Subj : LINUX the Cross Roads
To   : Spaceman Spiff
From : Angus Mcleod
Date : Thu Jan 06 2005 09:01 am

  Re: LINUX the Cross Roads
  By: Spaceman Spiff to All on Wed Jan 05 2005 20:08:00

 > Well, it finally happened. 

Welcome!

 > I wrote over the old WIndows2000Pro installation on the P2. The drive that w
 > in the machine was a real small one, 1.6 GIG, I couldn't load all the extra
 > server stuff, but I figured I would get a taste of LINUX.

1.6 gig isn't big, but you should be able to get a fairly comprehensive 
Linux install on it.  I usually count on 1 gig for the OS and most of the 
common server apps and general OS utilities.  If you want the whole of 
GNOME *and* KDE, probably more than 1 gig, though.  

Of course, if you start installing loads of extra packages.....  ;-)

 > So far, pretty cool. I need to figure out a few things, but I managed to be
 > able to surf the web, downloaded FireFox for Linux, works good....

Good for you! 

 > I think I need to pick up a bigger drive, the machine seems a little 
 > slow, everytime I to run an application, I wait and the drive runs and 
 > runs.

Well, an old 1.6 gig drive probably isn't as fast as a newer drive.  And 
it probably isn't in the best of shape.  Try su-ing to root and running

	hdparm -i /dev/hda

to learn more about the drive, and then

	hdparm -t /dev/hda

several times in a row until the numbers peak out.  That will tell you 
what your drive is doing, performance wise.

 > I am not sure if it is the slowness of the machine or the fact that there is
 > such little free space on the Hard drive that machine is slowing because it 
 > doing a virtual memory thing on the hard drive?  Does Linux use a virtual
 > memory thing like Windows and the MAC OS?

Yes, try running (root again):

	sfdisk -l /dev/hda

and you should see how the drive was sliced.  You will almost certainly 
see one or more partitions labeled as "Linux swap".  These are the areas 
used by the kernel for demand-paged virtual memory.  If you have no 
objection, I'd like to seee the output of this, just to know how the disk 
is sliced.  By the way:

	cat /proc/meminfo

to see how much memory (real and virtual) you've got, and how it's being 
used at any moment.  

 > Anyway...I guess I have a lot to learn, but it looks pretty cool and there a
 > lots of resources.

Enjoy.  Ask if you have a question.

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