I put an old computer back into service. The machine is slow. Any recommendations on tools or distributions for diagnostics and testing?
Games! That is actually a great question. I know Linux comes with a Hard Drive utility that can run tests on your hard drive. When you boot up there should be a memtest option too for testing your memory. Games really are the best way to test your video card... If Linux its-self is really slow you may want to try a different desktop manager or windows manager. But I remember you saying it has a old dedicated video card, hopefully its fast enough to run your Distro's basic operations?
Booman's got a point that most of the more modern Linux desktop environments can run slow on old hardware. Using a lightweight desktop environment could prove helpful there. Xfce and Lxde are both lightweight. Or instead of a full desktop environment (provided you don't mind setting things up a bit yourself) you could simply use a lightweight window manager, and simply add whatever tools or panels you wish to have present.
Yeah, Openbox (for example) runs great but I don't know how to configure menu's and options. So its really hard to use. Kinda like having a white canvas and not knowing where all the colors of paint are.
Actually, Openbox is just the window manager. If you want menus, you need to install something that provides a menu, so you can in essence create your own desktop environment from whatever tools you want, but it of course requires time and effort to sit down and learn about it all. I did at one point consider doing it, but I quickly fell in love with Xfce since it is easily configured.
Great suggestions! I ran accross another problem. Dang CMOS battery is dead. That can cause some issues.
Oh yeah, totally causes issues. Stop by Target, get a standard 3.3 volt battery, pop it in, back to gaming
