Speed of HD Installed Knoppix vs. Redhat?

[sb73542]

Hi,

I use Redhat 9 and Mandrake 9.0 on AMD K-6 300 MHz system w/ 128 MB ram and a slow HD. Redhat w/ KDE runs fairly quickly most of the time, but programs load quite slowly and it thrashes the HD in doing so. I know Debian is supposed to be faster- can anyone give their experience with the speed of Knoppix when installed on the hardrive? Thanks!!

[rickenbacherus]

Knoppix is much faster than MDK on my K7 550 256M. There is no comparison, plus with Knoppix you don't have to put up with that ridiculous rpm nonsense. Just give apt a try and you'll swear off those nasty rpm's in a hurry. ;)

[Superstoned]

128 mb isn't alot... i have 256 and im going to upgrade cuz its always full ;)

[sb73542]

Thanks! Sounds good. I know 128 MB isn't much, but like I said, any improvement over my current OS's is, well, an improvement. If there's a noticeable speed-up, then it's worth the effort I think. Where's the best place to buy a very cheap Knoppix CD? There's no way I'm going to download it at 14.4 kbps! :? And are there any branches that include XFCE4 and KDE? Thanks again!

[Superstoned]

the standard knoppix can be bought on several places, check the homepage www.knoppix.net (under 'get knoppix') that might do. and standard, knoppix includes KDE, but afaik not xfce (correct me, someone, if im wrong?).

and for speed, you might try gentoo - compiled for your computer so the speed is at max. And really, kde needz more than 128 ram, u better use a lighter WM (like, indeed, xfce). And well I guess an cable or (a)dsl internet connection is highly recommended for linux there is so much to download (games, updates, other software) its hard to resist ;)
if u dont have a broadbandconn you have to update debian by istalling knoppix from a new cd again, and the best thing about debian is you can fully upgrade using INTERNET by just 2 commands....

[sb73542]

I don't mind waiting for a 500 - 1200 KB download to finish (and there are quite a few cool programs at that size) so I manage w/o broadband. This is probably a bit off topic, but how current are the debs that apt installs? What about availability of little-known programs that don't get much attention, which I often try? And what if I want to use an RPM? I have quite a few of them on CD's which I've downloaded elsewhere. Can I just install the RPM system on debian, and then use rpm -i <package> if I want to? Thanks for the help.

[fingers99]

FWIW, I find Knoppix faster than SuSE 8.1. But I think 128Mb is cutting it a bit fine. I'd go for 256: it'll cost you less than £20 and will make a huge difference.


how current are the debs that apt installs?

Depends where you point your sources list at: point it at unstable and they'll be as close to the bleeding edge as you'd like to get! There are probably at least as many debs out there as there are rpms.

rpm is included in Knoppix. I've never used it........

[oscar]

Hi,

I use Redhat 9 and Mandrake 9.0 on AMD K-6 300 MHz system w/ 128 MB ram and a slow HD. Redhat w/ KDE runs fairly quickly most of the time, but programs load quite slowly and it thrashes the HD in doing so. I know Debian is supposed to be faster- can anyone give their experience with the speed of Knoppix when installed on the hardrive? Thanks!!

after installation all distributions are the same thing, all they are Linux, the same Linux.
The unique difference between distributions are packaging method, *.rpm *.deb etc etc etc

[Superstoned]

to increase the speed of booting linux, you might use this info:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-boot.html

but its rather complex...

btw indeed i think most distro's are quite the same, once installed - but some need re-installation every new version comes out, and debian can stay forever up-to-date. and some are faster compiled (more optimized) than others, in this aspect debian isn't the best.

If you have time to invest in an installation of linux, you might try gentoo - portage, its package manager is as good as apt-get, but all software is compiled on your pc - and optimized for your pc, to maximize the speed.

and if you use the unstable branch of debian, the packages it installs are very up-to-date, sometimes just a few hours old... testing is at least 10 days behind, and stable can be up to three years old!

[garyng]

to increase the speed of booting linux, you might use this info:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-boot.html

but its rather complex...

btw indeed i think most distro's are quite the same, once installed - but some need re-installation every new version comes out, and debian can stay forever up-to-date. and some are faster compiled (more optimized) than others, in this aspect debian isn't the best.

If you have time to invest in an installation of linux, you might try gentoo - portage, its package manager is as good as apt-get, but all software is compiled on your pc - and optimized for your pc, to maximize the speed.

and if you use the unstable branch of debian, the packages it installs are very up-to-date, sometimes just a few hours old... testing is at least 10 days behind, and stable can be up to three years old!

I remember reading some where that gentoo is no longer a source compilation distribution anymore but more like debian now.

[sb73542]

Thanks for the input. I'm more concerned with debs for "desktop" usage, i.e. image editors, VoIP clients, etc. Are debs for such programs widely available, even if the program is obscure or newly released? But I'm glad to here that RPM's are supported with Knoppix, if neccesary, even though they're definitely not without problems. Unless I'm mistaken, not all distros ship with RPM functionality, although it's always possible to make anthing work on any Linux variant. I'm on the verge of buying a Knoppix CD, once I find out just a little more!

[Superstoned]

Debian has the biggest pile of programs available... you most likely will find a deb for a certain (even rare) program, but rpm's are mostly only available for populair software.

[Pelek]

I remember reading some where that gentoo is no longer a source compilation distribution anymore but more like debian now.

It's Still compiled @ your machine, but they have added option with compiled packages.