[Wolves] I'm back..trying again.

[James Turner]

On Saturday 02 Jul 2005 23:46, sean_spencer at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

> Here's an example. I launch OpenOffice Writer - I takes about 20 seconds
> before I can use it (either starting a new document, or by clicking on an
> already created Word document.)

Just been installing and testing FC4 on my first machine over the weekend. In 
the default configuration, I concur that OpenOffice.org 2 is pitifully slow 
to start up and use. I ran it to see what the new version was like, forgot 
that I had done so and carried on working in another window. I was mildly 
suprised when OpenOffice.org finally popped up a few minutes later - 
flashback to using an X terminal at university in the mid 1990s, running 
everything remotely off a chronically overloaded Sun.

Anyway, following further experimentation I've found that much of the delay 
was due to the Java-based components and can be alleviated by turning them 
off. Try the following (although it may take some time - be patient!):

 - Load OpenOffice.org
 - On the menu bar choose "Tools", "Options", "Java" and deselect the tick box 
at the top of the window to use a JVM.
 - Click OK to apply the change.
 - Restart OpenOffice.org

Loading and operation should be much faster.

As regards general responsiveness of Gnome, etc, I suspect that the main 
performance limiting factor is memory. Upping the memory to at least 512Mb 
should make a big difference without being (particularly) expensive these 
days. A 1.8GHz Athlon should be more than adequate.

FC4 runs rather nicely on my dual Xeon with 4Gb RAM and 12 disc RAID array. :)

Regards,

James