Excessive resources usage

[Dfreder]

Hello all,
I tried the live cd of Kubuntu on a machine with PIII 450 and 256 MB, and in spite of it works perfectly, it showed a high requirement of resources (more than 60% CPU load for browsing within the programs submenu or simple mouse movement within the programs, 30% idle, and all of the ram occupied). Is it possible to "lighten" Kubuntu by deactivacting services, unloading programs or acting on the graphical interface in order to lower the system load (some 10-15% when idle would be fine). In order to get the above results is it advisable to try older Kubuntu versions, or even trying Ubuntu ?
Thanks a lot for any reply!

[Panther505]

Re: Excessive resources usage

OK a coupla things, first linux manages memory differently then windows. Currently I have 2GB of ram and it is about 70% used, with no swap in use. KDE is a little heavy but with only 256 MB of ram, it can and will get used a fairly quickly.

The heavy CPU load that you are seeing is most likely due to the transparency levels that you are using. If you skin down the gee whizz stuff you may see a little but better CPU usage, but the question that I have is does the system seem laggy? If no then you just need to stop watching top and the process stuff and judge the performance by usage.

Also, there are likely not too many services that are running by default that you can shut down as the Kubuntu team (and linux distros as a whole) are good about not starting useless services.

Panther505

[Dfreder]

Re: Excessive resources usage

The system is not excessively laggy: it takes long for the programs to be loaded because I'm still using the live cd. I am just worried by the plain cpu load as that will cause problems when, after installed Kubuntu on the hd, it comes to use more than one program or heavier programs (I got a 60% leaving the system idle with just the system monitor opened). I appreciate your advice about the graphical interface, I am also wondering if trying other versions or the alternate install (for system with<192 MB, so I suppose a bit lighter) things should get better.
Thanks a lot!