[PLUG] Victor wants to have a better web surfing experience

Tim tim-pdxlug at sentinelchicken.org
Fri Jul 10 15:29:23 UTC 2009


Victor,

> You definitely need a new desktop that will be more memory friendly.  
> The difference between the desktop and the window manager is mostly in 
> programming libraries used.  The two main desktops are KDE and Gnome, 
> both are very memory hungry.  A window manager runs on the desktop and 
> provides the title bars and menus that you use to control the windows on 
> the desktop. 

Seconded.  Stop using KDE and Gnome apps if you can on the hardware
you have.

> I was having the same kind of problems on a 256MB Intel P4 box and 
> switched to xfce.  I get much better performance with xfce.  You should 
> be able to apt-get xfce to install it then choose that from the login 
> session manager.  You might also consider a new operation system such as 
> DSL or Puppy Linux.  Both are very light weight and designed for small 
> memory hardware. 

xfce is pretty good and easy to pick up for most users.  I personally
still use fluxbox, which is very light weight but also might be a bit
more difficult to get adjusted to if you aren't using the command line
for everything (like I do).

I would suggest switching to Firefox (called "Iceweasel" in Debian due
to Mozilla's non-free trademark rules) or Opera as your browser.  To
install Opera, you'll need to download the appropriate .deb file from
opera.com and do a 'dpkg -i ...'

There's no real reason to switch to another distribution if you select
the right options during install time.  I install from Debian's network
install CD, which is usually just ~100MB and always avoid selecting
the "desktop" checkbox during the install.  This option equates to
"bloated desktop software" in my book.  If I have to install some
Gnome or KDE libraries or app, then I want to minimize my exposure to
them and install just those, rather than rely on the guy that wrote
tasksel to do it for me.

Anyway, that's my minimalist take on it.  Let us know if you're able
to tame that memory hungry install.

good luck,
tim



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