> Is there some sort of speed tuning I should do?
	as someone else said; try a different browser. Mozilla will *drag*
on a p133 (it was horribly slow on my p166); but galeon ought to run just
fine. (I was happy with it on my p166/48MB).
	also, try a leaner environment than KDE. the worst swapping I ever
heard in my life was a p75 running KDE in 24MB. (NT4sp1 ran quite happily
there, belive it or not). GNOME is not going to be much/any more memory
friendly. if you _must_ have a desktop environment, try XFCE. my advice is
to just abandon the desktop environment altogether; and only run a
lightweight window manager (FVWM 2.4, Blackbox, WindowMaker, pick one from
Freshmeat). after some time experimenting and customizing, you'll be much
happier.

> I am testing Linux primarily with a 133 MHz P1 with 64 mb with 20mb of swap.
> Don't tell me to get a faster box - I have one.
> WIndows 98 runs OK with this hardware.
	Windows seems to run faster, because it integrates *everything* into
the kernel. the equivalents of the window manager, desktop environment, and
web browser, are all tightly integrated with the kernel; with no real
permission checking. it runs really fast at times; but when something goes
wrong, it's likely to bring everything crashing down.

> I have tried several other distributions with much the same results.
	most distributions are optimized for eye candy, not for speed. it
doesn't matter what distro you use; it's all in how you customize it.

> I fear that the claims of Linux speed in relation to Windoze may be just
> hype.
	depends what you're doing with it. for web browsing on a
pentium-class box, Win98 may indeed be faster than the environments most
distros ship with today. but look back at what was running on the linux
desktop in 1998; and try that. you'll be surprised at the difference. 
	I remember using VNC to access a 486/66/48MB, running FVWM2, and
browsing the web almost as fast as the p200 on my desk. I remember
WordPerfect 8 ran pretty acceptably on that little linux box as well; even
over VNC. compared very nicely to Word on my win95/p200/32MB desktop.
	I also remember impressing a DOS-centric programmer by showing him
AfterStep (circa RH 5.1). his words were "Wow.. that's Linux!??" :)

Carl Soderstrom
-- 
Network Engineer
Real-Time Enterprises
(952) 943-8700