Michael Havens wrote:

>I was told that I should keep my computer running all the time (or at least 
>that linux was designed/could do that; so yesterday I turned it on and went 
>to school for the day.  When I got home the machine was still going (which 
>was a good sign) but when I loaded a program it took three times as long. 
>(for instance: I loaded kspread <which takes 10 seconds normally> and it took 
>like 30)
>
>Any idea as to what the problem is?
>  
>
Generally it is a sign of resource contention.
Usually it means that you're using more of something that you have or 
have processes that have memory leaks/etc that are consuming memory.   
Sometimes this manifests itself in the form of swapping to disk when 
you're using more memory than you have, or when there is excessive I/O 
contention and it takes longer to retrieve things from the disk.
In the windows world this could be demonstrated by copying a large disk 
to another on the same IDE channel, or by opening a bunch of large 
images in photoshop.
Do the following commands from the command line:

ps -ef | less    # note excessive number of processes/etc
top                #(Note what its consuming memory or CPU resources)
free               # Note how much you're swapping

-- 
JD Austin
Database Administrator
Maricopa Community Colleges
john.austin@domail.maricopa.edu
480.731.8759 
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.",
Arthur C. Clarke