[wplug] Laptop Problem

[Keir Josephson]

Hey all,

I've got a dilema that I could use a hand in resolving, and this seems to
be a good group to pose the question to. First some background. I've been
a moderate linux user of various distros for a few years now. Every now
and then I throw a different version or a different config on a laptop
that I have so I can play around with it. It's a toshiba with a 12inch tft
display, PII-266mhz, & 160megs of ram. I've never had any problems
installing any of the linux distributions on this box (I've only tried a
2.2.x kernel and above).

Now for the problem.

I'm trying to get a desktop linux running on this thing so that it will
outperform an install of win2k pro. Don't get me wrong, at the command
level, most distros fly with a few minor tweeks, but when I want to run a
gui app or two, things slow down to a crawl.

The only two gui based apps that I need are the obvious ones: a graphical
web browser (sorry, I had my fill of lynx) and a word processing utility
(i.e. Open Office). The word processing is secondary, but the web browser
is a must. I know that there is an issue with web browsers for linux
matching the raw speed of IE. And as much as I hate to say it, I think
it's just the simple result of building the browser in at the kernel
level, and to my knowledge, no one has built a browser into the base
libraries much less into the kernel level of a linux distribution.

At any rate, I'm trying to do what I can with what I have. I've tried
gnome, kde, and windowmaker with a variety of browsers. The window
managers and the browsers all load and run fine, but they seem to have the
same major issue with rendering graphics quickly and efficiently on a web
page. I thought this may have had to do with the mozilla engine so I tried
opera as well. It wasn't any better. I've also tossed around the idea of
doing a minimal install with the base X libraries. Then using the Star
Office desktop gui as the window manager for graphical interaction. I
haven't tried it, yet, but I'm guessing that it won't make a difference if
the problem is inherent with the underlying X libraries themselves.

Does anyone have any ideas or is this machine doomed to run windows
forever?

-Keir