From: Weiqi Gao Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: slow startup on less (lss332b.zip) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 1997 08:45:12 -0600 Organization: Spectrum Healthcare Services Lines: 39 Message-ID: <345B4078.684016B4@a.crl.com> References: <199710312143 DOT PAA28683 AT manatee DOT dms DOT auburn DOT edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: a116014.stl1.as.crl.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk Darrel Hankerson wrote: > > Startup time = time from pressing Enter to a change on screen. It > takes several seconds, and is same on repeated runs. There are no > network disks (although machine is tcp/ip connected). > > The machine is a 486-66 16meg which has been used for Linux for some > time, but only recently for testing Win-95. No special hardware other > than a Kingston ethernet board. IDE CDROM, no SCSI, S3-801 video at > 640x480x256. > > less works fine on Win-3.1 (on a different machine), and from the > Linux dosemu environment (with DOS 5) on the Win-95 machine. > > I thought perhaps this was a known bug. I'll look for another > Win-95 machine for testing. Thanks for your note. I use less all day long on Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 machines and the response has always been instantaneous. To try to solve your problem, I would list out ALL the tasks your computer has to perform between the time you pressed ENTER and the time the screen change occurs: 1. Parse the command line - Did you issue "less *" in a directory with 20 million files? 2. Find the executable - Do you have CD-ROM directories in front of your DJGPP directory in your PATH? Especially CD-ROM directories on the outer rim of the CD. 3. Get EXE information - Did you compress your drive in any way? 4. Load the program - How much free memory do you have before you started less? Does Windows 95 need to swap some huge executables out (like a Microsoft Exchange)? 5. DJGPP startup - Shouldn't be any problems here. 6. Getting at the file to view - How fragmented is your hard disk? -- Weiqi Gao weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com