Thanks for the reply. Yes I am running XFree86 and I know everything seems to be going to X.org. I would like to get that installed, but it isn't available under the stable apt-get sources yet. I know I could compile from source, but other packages that I am installed require some X packages to be installed or it chokes. Here is what I am doing so far. I have loaded just X to see how long it takes to load (as it should be very fast since its just X). When I do this I get flickering of the screen and sometimes when I start X (either by '# ./X' or '# ./startx'), I get "noise" on the screen while its trying to load. For example, if I had been watching a movie with mplayer (no gui version), then load X after the movie is over, I will get a glimpse of a scene from the movie that is much smaller, tiled and colors of all off (like it has been stored in some type of cache or buffer). I am not sure if this is normal, but would probably say no. If nothing had been player prior to loading X, the screen will flash several times (between the "grey" default background and a black screen) while trying to load just X. I am using the VESA driver, but have a VIA chipset graphics card. And here is the section on the XF86config-4 file that relates to fonts and modules. I am new to gui's in linux, so if I have commented out something that is a no-no, please let me know. Section "Files" # FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server # if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc" # FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1" # FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi" FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF EndSection Section "Module" # Load "GLcore" Load "bitmap" Load "dbe" # Load "ddc" # Load "dri" # Load "extmod" Load "freetype" # Load "glx" # Load "int10" Load "record" Load "speedo" Load "type1" Load "vbe" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Generic Video Card" Driver "vesa" EndSection As far as network configuartion, I would probably count this out since I can mount network drives, type in hostname and get a valid answer, etc. If there are other tests that should be performed, let me know. As far as the -screen parameter, is that similar to setting the $DISPLAY variable (ie 0:0). If so, i have set the $DISPLAY variable, but never used the -screen parameter. Is this incorrect? Thanks, Dave "R.L. Horn" <lists@eastcheap.org> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> On Thu, 26 Oct 2006, Dave Henderson wrote: > My project is working with older hardware (667mhz cpu, 128mb RAM, 10gb > hard drive). I'd consider that to be almost uncomfortably modern. Particularly the gigantic hard drive. :-) > I am trying to get X to load as fast as possible. I currently have a > base installation of Debian Sarge 3.1 installed with the > x-window-system-core (4.3.0) package installed That smells like XFree. Naughty, naughty. > As I said above, I am trying to get X to load as fast as possible. > What components can I remove from the system to speed it up and what > will be the result of removing those components. By current standards X is pretty darn tight and should generally come up with some alacrity. FWIW, I just timed it at <3 seconds from disk cache on a 1.8GHz Sempron (including running FVWM, xterm, rclock, xload, and xosview) with the xorg 1.1.0 server. At a guess, I'd say that loading the server and its attendant libraries from disk adds no more than 3-4 seconds (it's not a particularly fast drive). I've run relatively recent versions of X -- i.e. XFree 4 -- on a 200MHz Pentium and still the major bottleneck is disk access time. About all I can think of to speed things up is to avoid loading unnecessary modules and, maybe, paring down the font path (though I haven't noticed that either makes much of a difference). If you're seeing long delays, you should try running the server by itself (that is, just run "X," maybe with appropriate "-screen," etc. options). It should come up pretty quickly, though some video drivers might be a little pokey (the R300 ATI driver, for example, takes about 25 seconds to get going from a cold start on the abovementioned Sempron box). Broken network configurations can slow down or otherwise screw up authority file generation (as when startx runs hostname). Once you see the "grey screen" X is up and running. Any delays thereafter are most likely related to the window manager or whatever else you're running at startup time. </blockquote>