Awful Ubuntu performance.

[gmaster456]

So I installed ubuntu on an XP machine I had laying around in hopes of putting something more up to date on it. Ever since then the machine has been unusable. Everything lags. Badly. Now, granted the specs aren't great at:

2.66Ghz Celeron D
1gb Ram
Radeon x300
Ubuntu 13.04

Planning on installing a 3.4Ghz Pentium D which is the best the machine can handle.

But surely there's a way to eek some better performance? Ubuntu has become a pig in recent versions. It wasn't long ago I was getting better performance under ubuntu than windows but those days are over. At least for older machines I suppose.

Perhaps a different distro?

 

[theevilsharpie]

The latest versions of Ubuntu make heavy use of 3D compositing, and your graphics card is not powerful enough to do compositing and maintain a 60+fps frame rate.

You'll either need to upgrade your card or switch to a DE where you can shut compositing off.

I'm in the same boat with a slightly newer Radeon. Unfortunately, I'm using a laptop, so a video card upgrade is out of the question. I'm now using Xubuntu, which I've configured to look nearly identical to the GNOME DE in Ubuntu 10.04. It works reasonably well (certainly faster than Server 2012, which I had to briefly load for a project), although I'm obviously not going to be doing any gaming or other intensive work on it.

 

[lxskllr]

I like Xubuntu, and would choose it over Ubuntu regardless of performance. You might also like...

Lubuntu
Crunchbang
Bodhi

 

[bbhaag]

No. Ubuntu is a modern operating system with modern operating system requirements.
If you're looking for a distro that is light on resources but is still capable I'd suggest Peppermint OS.

 

[gmaster456]

Decided to give Lubuntu a go. We'll see how it works.

 

[crashtestdummy]

So I installed ubuntu on an XP machine I had laying around in hopes of putting something more up to date on it. Ever since then the machine has been unusable. Everything lags. Badly. Now, granted the specs aren't great at:

2.66Ghz Celeron D
1gb Ram
Radeon x300
Ubuntu 13.04

Planning on installing a 3.4Ghz Pentium D which is the best the machine can handle.

But surely there's a way to eek some better performance? Ubuntu has become a pig in recent versions. It wasn't long ago I was getting better performance under ubuntu than windows but those days are over. At least for older machines I suppose.

Perhaps a different distro?

There are actually two problems. The first is the one described by others, that your card just isn't high end enough. The second is driver support. The open source drivers for AMD cards are painfully slow, but the proprietary drivers don't support older cards.

I had a similar experience running Linux Mint/Cinnamon. On an old (1.1) Macbook with an Intel processor/IGP, it was fine, but on a slightly newer laptop with an AMD processor/HD3200 IGP, it could run, but not real well.

My recommendation is to switch to a lighter DE like MATE or xfce. It may not be as flashy, but it'll run better.

 

[bbhaag]

How did Lubuntu work? Was your laptop able to run it better than Ubuntu? I have an older laptop to running Peppermint and have been thinking about switching distros and Lubuntu looks pretty solid.

 

[lxskllr]

How did Lubuntu work? Was your laptop able to run it better than Ubuntu? I have an older laptop to running Peppermint and have been thinking about switching distros and Lubuntu looks pretty solid.

Peppermint is basically Lubuntu with all the programs removed.

 

[bbhaag]

Hmm didn't know that. So if I'm running Peppermint and have already added and or updated the programs I want is it not worth switching? Peppermint is kind of...plain to look at. Is Lubuntu the same?

 

[Jodell88]

Hmm didn't know that. So if I'm running Peppermint and have already added and or updated the programs I want is it not worth switching? Peppermint is kind of...plain to look at. Is Lubuntu the same?

Just change the theme and wallpaper?

 

[lxskllr]

Yea, it's pretty much the same. They both use OpenBox and LXPanel. If you want something a bit flashier, you could try Bodhi. It's based on Ubuntu and uses the E17 desktop. It can be quirky, and fine tuning it takes some time, but it's a nice looking system, and very light. It comes with almost nothing installed from the start, so you have to add what you want.

http://bodhilinux.com/

 

[bbhaag]

I've done that but it just...IDK doesn't look modern I guess is the word. I feel like I'm using XP. Maybe I need to play around with it some more. I have taken the utilitarian approach with this laptop so maybe it's time to delve a little deeper.

EDIT:This post in reply to Jodell88. Forgot to quote.

 

[bbhaag]

Yea, it's pretty much the same. They both use OpenBox and LXPanel. If you want something a bit flashier, you could try Bodhi. It's based on Ubuntu and uses the E17 desktop. It can be quirky, and fine tuning it takes some time, but it's a nice looking system, and very light. It comes with almost nothing installed from the start, so you have to add what you want.

http://bodhilinux.com/

Thanks for the link. I'll check it later tonight.

 

[who?]

Try Fatdog.

 

[Mem]

I find Zorin 6.3 light to use on my old PC,

What are the minimum system requirements that I need to install Zorin OS?

For the GNOME based versions (non Lite):
700 MHz x86 processor
3GB of Hard Drive space
376 MB of system memory (RAM)
Graphics card capable of 640x480 resolution
Sound card

For the LXDE based versions (Lite):
266 MHz x86 processor
2GB of Hard Drive space
128 MB of system memory (RAM)
Graphics card capable of 640x480 resolution
Sound card

http://zorin-os.com/index.html

As you can see Windows user friendly.
Its based on ubuntu but lighter.

 

[KomodoRogue]

So I installed ubuntu on an XP machine I had laying around in hopes of putting something more up to date on it. Ever since then the machine has been unusable. Everything lags. Badly. Now, granted the specs aren't great at:

2.66Ghz Celeron D
1gb Ram
Radeon x300
Ubuntu 13.04

Planning on installing a 3.4Ghz Pentium D which is the best the machine can handle.

But surely there's a way to eek some better performance? Ubuntu has become a pig in recent versions. It wasn't long ago I was getting better performance under ubuntu than windows but those days are over. At least for older machines I suppose.

Perhaps a different distro?

Your machine is pretty old, but you have an acceptable amount of RAM. Perhaps a distro like Puppy that runs entirely from RAM would be a good choice for you? For basic tasks, it may run surprisingly quickly.

Check wikipedia, they have a list of similar Linux distros.

 

[guidedbyechoes]

This may or may not help but I have decent resources on my machine 2gb of ram and mine was running like garbage. There are some updates you can do and it improved my performance 100% I just screwed around in the service center till I found it.

 

[guidedbyechoes]

It was in software and updates in the control panel.

 

[hhhd1]

Try linux mint "mate":

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2366

http://torrents.linuxmint.com/torrents/linuxmint-15-mate-dvd-32bit.iso.torrent