ewigelicht
Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:03:59 am
Zorin 9 Lite has been recommended as a choice to extend the useful life of older/low-powered machines. With this in mind, I have installed it on a partition on a machine which presently runs Windows XP SP3, which it runs somewhat grudgingly.The machine's specs are as follows:
-AMD Athlon XP processor, 1,35 GHz, 32-bit
1 GB RAM (limited to this much by BIOS)
SiS 630/730 video chipset
75 GB installation partition
ca. 500 MB swap partition
The problem is that the Zorin installation runs grotesquely, unusably slowly (far worse than WinXP on the same machine.). The problem seems video-related: maximizing a window clearly makes things worse. Also, there is no access to the highest-resolution video setting (1600x1200.) The highest option I am givenis1280x1024.
What I believe might be happening is that Zorin is using a generic video driver which bypasses the video chipset and attempts to emulate a video card on the CPU, thus overtaxing it and causing lag. In contrast, Windows has a factory chipset driver which enables it to avoid doing this. Postings in other forums indicate that getting the SiS chipset to work in Linux can be challenging. Some claim it cannot be done, whereas others claim that it is possible while giving the reader no easy guidance how. What is wished for here is a plain-English, step-by-step explanation of how to accomplish this task.
-AMD Athlon XP processor, 1,35 GHz, 32-bit
1 GB RAM (limited to this much by BIOS)
SiS 630/730 video chipset
75 GB installation partition
ca. 500 MB swap partition
The problem is that the Zorin installation runs grotesquely, unusably slowly (far worse than WinXP on the same machine.). The problem seems video-related: maximizing a window clearly makes things worse. Also, there is no access to the highest-resolution video setting (1600x1200.) The highest option I am givenis1280x1024.
What I believe might be happening is that Zorin is using a generic video driver which bypasses the video chipset and attempts to emulate a video card on the CPU, thus overtaxing it and causing lag. In contrast, Windows has a factory chipset driver which enables it to avoid doing this. Postings in other forums indicate that getting the SiS chipset to work in Linux can be challenging. Some claim it cannot be done, whereas others claim that it is possible while giving the reader no easy guidance how. What is wished for here is a plain-English, step-by-step explanation of how to accomplish this task.
