ah. his suggestion seems to mean that the new versions of linux need more resources than the older lappy can handle. makes sense...
but really, just get another computer
i dont think its worth the hassle trying to make the ol lappy486 do this job. my free to me 9 year old dual amd 2.0ghz whateveritwas usually hung around 4000 max for latency when you let it run for a while. that was a free computer (granted, my free computers come from my vfx studio, so they are pretty heavy duty)
of course the best way is to get a mesa card, and then none of this matters