>> Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 20:59:33 +0100
>> From: Julian Bean <jelibean@jmlbhome.demon.co.uk>
>
>[ performance issues...]
>
>> I got my Sun3 booting off SCSI yesterday evening, and played with it
>> extensively today.  It is S...L..O..W...
>>
>> Like in X, for example, it takes seconds for the machine to notice a cursor
>> movement.  Typing a key causes disk access, and although when that
>> eventually stops the xterminal is quite adequate, actually running anything
>> causes another disk thrash (even 'ps').  I am guessing that this is
>> swapfile access mainly (I have 16M swap on the disk), and that it is slow
>> because of the oft-lamented SCSI driver.Is this right?  Will the
>> much-heralded new SCSI driver solve the problem and speed the machine up?
>
>If the machine is swapping that often, then you need more memory.
>The current (slow) SCSI driver really exacerbates this problem...
>
>Let me guess:  Does machine have only 4M of RAM?
>
>If you can't get it more RAM, you might want to consider running
>only the Xserver there (via xdm) and run almost everything else
>on some other machine. (hopefully one with lots more memory!)
>
>Gordon

'Fraid so - it is a 3/50.  No chance of any more memory on one of these....

And my other machines are a MacLCIII and a PowerMac 5200 - So they don't
really help, until NetBSD/PPC comes out, or LInux PPC, whichever is first.

The LCIII can run NetBSD/mac68k, but only via a serial console - and anyway
its internal disk is only 40M, so I couldn't even install it ;(

Jules


/----------------+---------------------------------+-----------------------\
|  Jelibean aka  |                                 |  6 Evelyn Road        |
|  Jules aka     |  jelibean@jmlbhome.demon.co.uk  |  Richmond, Surrey     |
|  Julian Bean   |                                 |  TW9 2TF    *UK*      |
+----------------+---------------------------------+-----------------------+
|  Three things hold a secret: A lady riding in a dream, the dog that      |
|  sounds no warning, and the maid who does not scream.                    |
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------/