X and Fluxbox :: 2.1b fluxbox takes 3 days to load

ok, when i had 1.5 installed, I started out using the Live CD, and since it ran so well, i went to a Hard drive install. I did this from inside DSL, first creating a partition using cfdisk (i think thats what its called) then running the hard drive install tool (not the frugal install). This ran great for a while. Then I saw last friday (1/30/2006) 2.1b was out so i made a list of the extras i had installed and grabbed the iso. When I tried running the live cd, everything was great until the black and white background came up with the X cursor. Then it began to crawl and I waited at least 1 hour to see if the desktop icons would show up. Nothing did. I know it was an hour because thats how long my lunch is. Then i thought it must not have enough ram so I gave the install command at boot, and installed 2.1b to the hard drive. It installed ok. I booted the laptop at maybe 2:30pm. When i left work it was 5:15pm and it still didn't have the whole desktop. When i checked it around 9am this morning (note that it had been on since friday with no power saving features turned on) it still hadn't done anything more than the stats screen in the upper left and the bar at the bottom. I have also tried running the lowram command but that does nothing.

You really need a swap partition when you only have 16MB of RAM. You should also boot the live CD in text only, or a minimal X to minimize the amount of RAM that gets used up before you install.

I'll throw in the fact that 2.1b is also a different kernel than the 1.5 release which may not run the same on your computer. You may want to try the new 2.2 release candidate instead since it went back to the old kernel.

tried the 2.2rc1, but it did the same thing... how do i get a swap partition in there? Obviously i need to make one when i partition the drive, but it's not like the install asks where it is...

create your swap partition with cfdisk.
Let's say it's at hda5 (yours may be different)
open up aterm and type the following:
mkswap -c /dev/hda5
swapon /dev/hda5

Next Page...
original here.