Prelink slowed it down

Prelink works by linking shared libraries to programs before they are run, and keeping those links in memory.

As a result, it slows down low memory systems (because the 16 megs of RAM needs to be swapped on and off the disk).

So I ended off disabling it and uninstalling it. However, I followed a tip from a poster on www.ubuntuforums.org to enable some feature of the Linux ext3 filesystem, and now my computer is a bit faster. I can feel it.

I downloaded the Hacked Links source code, but (lol) I couldn't figure out how to compile it. The usual method didn't work, and I tried getting automake and co. But nothing seemed to work, so I just got rid of it. On the upside, the whole computer is running a little faster, so if I restrict my surfing to sites I know, Epiphany is pretty fast anyway.

I also tried downloading Kubuntu Dapper overnight... unfortunately, I came through in the morning to find my computer turned off. When I turned it on and looked at the file, it was only 623 megs rather than 677 like it should've been. I did an MD5 checksum on it, and it failed. I burnt it to CD anyway (Toast couldn't autodetect the ISO) and the CD wouldn't read. Damn. I can't download it again for another month, as my broadband account is shaped after 1000 megs. I might try freeing up some space on my Polly drive (my Mac startup partition) and using BitTorrent next month to get Xubuntu - I want to see if it's good enough now for my primary system. I'll probably get a new computer soon anyway.

My internet access is really slow since I've gone over my limit, but I timed it so that, at 12 midnight tonight, a new billing month starts and my connection goes back to full speed. Cool :-)

Also: Our new comedy podcast is up! You can download it (7.6 megs) at: http://home.iprimus.com.au/lees107/episode_2.mp3.