Why Does the Machine Run Very Slowly with GCC / X / ...?

You may have too little real memory. If you have less RAM than all the programs you're running at once, Linux will swap to your hard disk instead and thrash horribly. The solution in this case is to not run so many things at once or buy more memory. You can also reclaim some memory by compiling and using a kernel with fewer options configured. See How To Upgrade/Recompile a Kernel.

You can tell how much memory and swap you're using with the free command, or by typing:

$ cat /proc/meminfo

If your kernel is configured with a RAM disk, this is probably wasted space and will cause things to go slowly. Use LILO or rdev to tell the kernel not to allocate a RAM disk (see the LILO documentation or type man rdev).

How Do I Make Sure the System Boots after Re-Installing the Operating System?
How Do I Port XXX to Linux?

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Last Modified 2004-07-03