[PLUG] Computer slows after some time

[Vikas Garud]

Hello,

I have SuSE 10.2 installed on Toshiba Laptop.  1 GB, 80 GB HDD (Win XP 30 GB, 
Win FAT 5 GB, / 8 GB, /home 20 GB, Swap 2 GB, /SomeDistribution - unmounted - 
12 GB)

About a month back I installed Beryl Desktop and that filled up the / 
partition to about 95% level (about 350 MB Free).  However, the computer did 
functin normally.

Over next couple of weeks, the computer started to go slow in a peculiar 
manner.  The functioning would be normal immediately on logging in.  It would 
slow down gradually and it would become noticeable after 20/25 minutes.  The 
HDD light would be continuously on, even with no activity on my part.  In 
fact, the HDD activity light would remain on even more than one hour after 
the screen saver was invoked after 5 minutes of inactivity.

I tried to trouble shoot:

1.  May be the problem is due to low disk space on / partition (about 200 MB).  
Emptied the trash, released some 50 MB, no effect.

2.  Deleted all games (I wasn't playing them anyway), freed some 300 MB more, 
still no significant effect.

3.  Deleted Beryl Desktop, freed some more space on / partition (free sapce 
now is about 800 MB)  Some improvement, but no real change.

4.  Updated the system through internet - now the / partition has some 200 MB 
free, but the performance has not deteriorated more than step 3 above.  Still 
degradation sometime after logging in.

The process table shows about 100 processes, used memory about 1,000,000KB and 
free memory, about 20000 KB.  Swap - about 1,980,000KB used and about 120,000 
KB free.  It also shows the process with update-status with maximum 
system % - fluctuating in the rage on 5% to 30%, followed by ksysguard, and 
xgl.

I searched for slow computer, linux, suse 10.2, etc., however, couldn't locate 
anything that would help.

What should I do to get the performance back to normal?  The last option is to 
re-install everything.  In that case, what are appropriate/optimum sizes for 
partitions - / and home?

Sorry for long mail.

Thanks
Vikas Garud