startup question

Dave Henderson dhenderson at digital-pipe.com
Mon Oct 30 05:47:36 PST 2006


Carsten,

    Thanks for the reply.  I have replied to the other reply to me regarding config and some other things.  For any help you can offer me with that, please do.

How big of a RAM disk should that be made into?  Alot of ram seems to be needed because I was loading mplayer from within X the other day and noticed that it was giving a message saying "This computer is not capable of using mplayer" or something to that effect, but it would still play the video.  I am unsure about this and will post a message in the mplayer list about that.

Thanks,
Dave


Carsten Haitzler <raster at rasterman.com> wrote: On Thu, 26 Oct 2006 19:05:51 -0700 (PDT) Dave Henderson
 babbled:

> Gang,
> 
>     I am working on a project that involves X11.  I am more comfortable at a
> bash prompt than a GUI so I would greatly appreciate any help anyone can give
> me.
> 
> My project is working with older hardware (667mhz cpu, 128mb RAM, 10gb hard
> drive).  I am trying to get X to load as fast as possible.  I currently have
> a base installation of Debian Sarge 3.1 installed with the
> x-window-system-core (4.3.0) package installed (X only, not window managers,
> apps, etc).  I ended up adding iceWM-lite as the window manager since it was
> a very light weight manager.
> 
> As I said above, I am trying to get X to load as fast as possible.  What
> components can I remove from the system to speed it up and what will be the
> result of removing those components.  I have done some searching on the
> internet but didn't have much luck.  Probably because I didn't know what in
> particular to look for.  Once again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

1. remove all x modules you don't need want or use (so just keep your driver
that you ened for that video chipset and only the input drivers you need and
extensions you need). actually reduce the extension modules you use too (eg no
glx if you don't need it etc.)
2. reduce font installations of x core fonts to minimum (fixed + cursor) so the
mount of font index files to parse and their size is tiny
--- now onto advanced stuff
3. put all the libs x and x clients need in a ramdisk and load it as an initrd
no boot (ldd for x itself, then its modules, ldd on icewm, icewm and its data
files). (optional if you want to expend the ram - but hellishly fast).
4. start hacking your x drivers - remove unneeded paranoid chip reset cycles
(have done so before for an i830 chip since x reset the chipset so the
backlight went off and came back on which added about .5 seconds to startup
etc.).

> Thanks,
> Dave
> 


-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com
Í繥¿
Tokyo, Japan (Åìµþ ÆüËÜ)

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