Linux and Old hardware - What can I do to speed it up?

[dorkvader]

Hello, I'm a long-time Frets-on-Fire user, and a long time linux user. I use a 9 year old computer with windows 98 (almost never used) and Ubuntu 6.06. I recently upgraded to Kubuntu 8.04, which is the newest version. Just so you linux people know where I stand software-wise.

So I noticed FoF was in the software repositories for ubuntu. I installed it, but It runs very slowly (as is expected) even running at extremely low (like 300X400) it's pretty slow.

Now, on my old computer (intel core 2 (2.0ghz) windows xp) Fof ran a lot faster when I got a modded version. I don't know why the makers ahve such a slow game, but I really liked the speed increase.

So what mods work on linux? I assume most of the lightweight graphical ones so, and I can probably run alarian or UC under wine, but are there any lightweight mods for linux, specifically. I did a quick check on the mods section and found little =/

So that's my dilemma. Here's the hardware specs:
Intel (I think) single-core 750 mhz (I think it's a pentium 2)
384 mb ram
N-Vidia GeForce 4 (I think)

I'm thinking of installing fluxbox or xfce to free up more system resources for FoF, but it can only help so much.

Anyway, I'll keep looking. I appreciate any help. I specc'd out a good computer for $400 on Newegg, and If I can get my finances under control anytime soon, I'll probably buy. If I get it, I'll have no issues =p

EDIT:
before you jump on my case, I -know- there are mods released for linux. I know alarian is pretty good, I am good at searching the forums too. My issue, is I think that I'm going to have to have the lightest-possible (and still playable) FoF possible. I am going to try what I can, but I don't know if it will be enough.

I'm more asking 'what -else- can I do here,' other than 'where can I download a good lightweight linux mod'

Just thought I'd clear this up.

----------------UPDATE-----------------
Okay, I got alarian 2.900 and blazingamer's megalight theme, but it's not loading songs. KSysguard says it's taking up...
90% of my available ram and
50-70% of my cpu

It works fine, and runs well until it loads a song, then it hangs until I quit it. Is this caused by my old hardware?

I'll try to make the screen-size smaller (it's not running fullscreen and see if that works, but I doubt it. FoF didn't take 300 mb of RAM when I tried it on windows...

Any thoughts?

[BSRaven]

If you do go for Alarian, make sure you download the 'MegaLite' Theme Blazingamer made (he carries it around in his signature).

[dorkvader]

If you do go for Alarian, make sure you download the 'MegaLite' Theme Blazingamer made (he carries it around in his signature).

yep, i was planning on that. I have used it before, and it works well and looks good. I didn't know he had an alarian one.

Thanks for reminding me. I'm going to keep this updated, to see if I can get it to work at anything faster than (what seems to be) 2 fps. I can't even hit any notes, it's so slow.

I'll keep searching. and I'm downloading alarian now.

EDIT: I've got it downloaded, and I'm having trouble installing. What the heck is .tar.lzma? I have the package needed to open lzma files (yay for ubuntu- always thinking of everything) but I'll need to read up on how to untar it. Should be pretty easy.

Edit: LZMA files are -easy- to extract. I just have to move the directory to a better place than my previously empty desktop.

Edit: I'm going to close my browser and run it, hopefully It'll be acceptably fast. If not, I'll try 'alternative methods' I have the megalight-alarian also.

EDIT: I tried the above, and it hangs on song load. Memory usage seems a little high. see the first post, under 'update'