Memory boost

Linux was running marginally well with the previous 256mb, but with X-Chat and Firefox going constantly, things were starting to seriously bog down. The whole system started taking seconds to refresh a window, then minutes. Eventually, I could watch the screen re-paint, and it wasn't fun at all.

So, I broke down this weekend and decided to pick up a gig of Kingston. Ironically, they are using the exact chipset of the memory I took out, one stick of which had gone bad. Inherited Dell system, and the previous owner couldn't get Dell to figure out what was wrong with it. They bought a different computer and I got this one. Damn good machine overall, but I am pretty sure it is dual channel, and I only have the one stick of memory in it now.

Not that it really matters. When I get another gig for it and set it up to dual boot as a Windows machine, the dual-channel might kick in, although I doubt it would be a noticeable difference anyway. I would likely need to get a benchmarking app to see any improvement over 2gig that wasn't dual-channel.

After installing it, life has been a dream. Prior to that, Linux was constantly hitting the swap partition with the couple of programs I had running. I was starting to worry that it would shake itself apart, and I would have to get another drive to replace it. Now that I have the gig in there, I don't hear the drive click at all, unless I am listening carefully when a program launches. I have two Open Office documents and an Open Office spreadsheet open, X-Chat on five channels, Firefox with half a dozen tabs I switch between, Pidgen instant messaging, and a large image for the 5th Edition Herbalist's Guide in full colour, with alpha channels, on five layers (and counting!) that I am editing in the GIMP.

I was getting a little frustrated for a while, but once again, I feel like Linux is the best choice for me. Naturally, I should have remembered the Golden Rule: Memory upgrades are the best ROI available. The frustration is largely my own fault, for not upgrading that sooner. I was hoping Kubuntu 8.04 would be able to do a bit more with the limited memory I was using. Granted, I never actually crashed with memory real estate as low as I had, because I am sure running under Windows would have been a daily re-boot, if not more so.

Now that my system is back up to operating speed, I can concentrate on a couple of other snags; KDE never seems to remember that I told it to show my mounted hard disks on the desktop, and System Settings will fail to repaint the options after I go into root mode from my regular login. Minor annoyances, now that I have a real computer back again. And what is more fun than tracking down a glitch and fixing it?

The lesson here is, don't skimp on memory, even with Linux. Especially if, like me, you like running a beefy GUI like KDE.