OpenGL problems & low mem tips

My Linux box has always had trouble with OpenGL. I get roughly 1 frame per four seconds with the glxgears program, and similar figures for SuperTux with OpenGL on. SuperTux with OpenGL turned off is actually faster.

I tried a couple of things, like disabling DRI and reducing the colour depth, but that's not improved the situation. I might just try and forget about it. What's really frustrating is the glxgears program runs at full speed for the first second!

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Here are some tips for low memory/slow systems running GNOME:

1. Instead of using the default Metacity window manager, why not use Openbox? (sudo apt-get install openbox obconf). It is themable, customisable, and lightweight. You can use it standalone by selecting it from the gdm Sessions box, or as a drop-in replacement for Metacity by typing the command "openbox --replace".

2. Rather than open gnome-terminal just to run a command-line program, or open up the Applications menu and navigate just to use a GUI program, put the Mini-Commander into one of your GNOME panels. Right-click on a panel, choose "Add to Panel...", then select the Mini-Commander. To launch a GUI program, just type its name into the commander and press Return. CLI programs can be invoked in the same way; if they need to be run as root, append "gksudo" to the beginning of the command. The Commander also supports drag and drop, PLUS it automatically puts quotes around dropped files and folders!