How processor dependent is SL with KDE? [Solved]

[ancient mariner]

I've been using Sabayon on and off since version 3 and pretty much continuously since 5 as my main OS. The hardware has remained reasonably constant: AMD 3800 2X processor, 4Gb DDR2 5600 RAM, Nvidia 7900GS graphics card, SATA HDDs (currently WD 1Tb drive) and an old Soundblaster PCI card for recording.

I noticed toward the end of using 7 that Sabayon was getting slower, both starting up and opening programs, and that even with a fresh install of 8 it's taking a couple of minutes to boot, with the system not being usable until about a minute *after* the desktop appears. That's fine, but increasingly the system is becoming unresponsive while opening applications, and it's not at all unusual to see both processor cores 100% occupied when writing to external drives or manipulating images in DigiKam.

Last night I did an install on a spare system I had laying around that I usually use to test other distros: Intel 5200 processor, 2Gb DDR2 1066 RAM, 1Tb Seagate (older) drive, ATI 5850 graphics card (both systems run on Gigabyte MoBos of similar age and quality). To my surprise Sabayon was much more responsive, starting in about half the time, having a quickly responsive desktop and apps opening rapidly, despite having half the memory available.

OK, big deal, one system is faster than the other.

This is not a complaint in any way, so much as a request for advice. Since the most obvious difference between the systems is the processor, I plan to continue using Sabayon with KDE, is it better to slap a faster processor in my old system or another 2Gb in the new one? Cost is about the same (courtesy of ebay for an older AM2 processor) but bearing in mind that I don't have much free cash, which is likely to continue working well with Sabayon?

[ancient mariner]

OK, I've realised this is a damn silly question and the answer is obvious.

Nothing to see here - move along - all sorted.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Seems some people with NVIDIA GPUs have some trouble with KDE: [SOLVED] How I fixed a very slow KDE-4.8.1. Sometimes it's necessary just to disable a specific Desktop Effect, or all Desktop Effects, or Compositing in total. It could be the nvidia-drivers-295.40 performance issue. Try the following work-around to disable compositing until NVIDIA fix their driver.

1. Edit the file ~/.kde4/share/config/kwinrc and change "Enabled=true" to "Enabled=false" in the [Compositing] section.

2. Create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-extensions.conf containing the following:

Code: Select all

Section "Extensions"
     Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

If it makes no difference after you reboot, you can just delete the file 90-extensions.conf. If the directory /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ does not already exist, just create it. You can leave it there afterwards even if it is empty, as it's always useful to have if you need to add any tweaks to your X Windows configuration in future.