[sclug] Where to start troubleshooting machine speed?

[Darren Davison]

I've got a desktop box running Gentoo that I've had for a while and also
recently installed Gentoo on a laptop that I use for work.  For some while
I've been suspicious of the general speed of the desktop but put it down
mainly to the graphics chipset (Intel 855G) not being much cop.

The laptop however uses the same graphics chipset and has the same drivers
installed as the desktop, but X apps noticeably all run much faster on the
laptop.  It has more memory than the desktop (2G vs 768Mb) but a slower
processor (1.6Ghz vs 2.4Ghz).  Funnily enough though, it also seems
significantly quicker compiling software than the desktop box.

It's all subjective of course, I have no benchmarks to offer, but the
difference in general speed of operation is very, very noticeable.

The desktop always seems to have plenty of RAM free and it's certainly not
doing any swapping.  Any hints on where I should look to start figuring this
speed differential out?  Could it all really be just due to the extra RAM in
the laptop?

Regards,
-- 
Darren Davison
Public Key: 0xDD356B0D
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