Ubuntu 7.10 surprusingly slow on older machine

[TitanDiddly]

I'm sending my laptop in for service and I pulled an old machine out of storage to use, and installed Ubuntu 7.10 on it. It's got a VIA 1.3 "Gigapro" processor which is pretty weak with 512MB of DDR1. It's got integrated, shared memory video. I'm getting worse performance than I expected in terms of system lag. Bringing up new windows, minimizing, doing pretty much anything is laggy.. Is Ubuntu more system-intensive than I realized? What can I do to speed things up a bit? I have visual effects turned off already.

Thanks!

 

[Fox5]

Ubuntu isn't a very lite distro. I'd recommend installing Xubuntu if you want a slightly less resource intensive Ubuntu, or go to another distro if you need something low end. Ubuntu needs at least 256MB of ram to run, and 512MB to run well. Additionally, I've found that it's fairly cpu intensive, especially firefox.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: TitanDiddly
I'm sending my laptop in for service and I pulled an old machine out of storage to use, and installed Ubuntu 7.10 on it. It's got a VIA 1.3 "Gigapro" processor which is pretty weak with 512MB of DDR1. It's got integrated, shared memory video. I'm getting worse performance than I expected in terms of system lag. Bringing up new windows, minimizing, doing pretty much anything is laggy.. Is Ubuntu more system-intensive than I realized? What can I do to speed things up a bit? I have visual effects turned off already.

Thanks!

It could be that you're running the basic video driver (vesa) so it just refreshes the screen slowly. Check your Screen and Graphics tool and see what driver you're running. Its in System -> Administration.

Perhaps give the 8.04 release candidate a try? Ubuntu has normally gotten more responsive after each release.

 

[xSauronx]

xubuntu should be noticeably quicker. thats a very low-power cpu youre using.

fluxbuntu might not even be a bad idea. it lacks some of the desktop shine of even xubuntu, but is for even lighter work.

 

[TitanDiddly]

I'm using what appears to be an autodetected driver for my chipset, SiS. I'll see if I can't install xubuntu or fluxbuntu tonight. Thanks for all your help!

 

[TitanDiddly]

Okay,
I tried to install xubuntu 7.04 and I got an error when it tried to rewrite the partition. I didn't have this problem when I installed Ubuntu. Is there anything specific I need to do for xubuntu?
-Ned

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

I also suggest Xubuntu and/or Fluxbuntu.

Below is a list of Xfce distros.

Taken from: Wikipedia
# Archie
# Debian Xfce CD
# Dreamlinux
# dyne:bolic
# Fedora Xfce Spin
# FreeSBIE (FreeBSD LiveCD)
# KateOS
# Linux Mint Xfce Community Edition
# Mythbuntu
# Myah OS
# SAM Linux
# Slackware
# SLAX Popcorn Edition
# VectorLinux Standard Edition
# Xubuntu
# Zenwalk Linux
# Gentoo Linux

 

[Brazen]

Xubuntu 6.06 is snappy on my laptop with 1.4 ghz P4 and 128mb of RAM. Anything after 6.06 uses up more RAM and is noticeably slower

Your partitioning problem is one I've run into with the Ubuntu installer before. If there are existing partitions, than it has problems. You might try booting to a GParted LiveCD and deleting all the partitions, then retry install Xubuntu.

Also, the Xubuntu Hardy Release Candidate, while it uses up MUCH more RAM, it "feels" remarkably snappier.

 

[Nothinman]

You can install XFCE, blackbox, KDE, etc all just fine in regular Ubuntu. The only real difference is the default set of packages.

 

[TitanDiddly]

OK, things aren't going so hot. Xubuntu still fails, and I think the liveCD doesn't actually work right- there is no taskbar/clock etc. I tried installing ubuntu again just for variety and twice got a data copying error, even though the disk is clean. Right now I have the disk formatted as one DOS FAT32 parition because that was pretty much the best I could do with what I have on hand (a window 98 FDISK CD was handy). I don't want to try to install XP on this machine, and because of the problems with xubuntu liveCD I'm not sure that a full installation is going to work either. At this point, though, I don't have anything else to try because I don't have an ISO of fluxbuntu (I got ubuntu and xubuntu off of my school's FTP server), and there's a download cap that I'd rather not chew into by downloading an ISO or 3.

I couldn't boot from a USB stick to get into gparted.

Any ideas on why xubuntu might be screwing up?

 

[imported_protoz]

If you can still get into your Ubuntu install do the following:

Click System-->Administration-->Synaptic Package Manager

It may ask for your password so enter it then click the search box.

Type in: Xubuntu and click OK

This will find the Xubuntu packages you need for a base Xubuntu install. Click the check box next to 'xubuntu-desktop' then click OK when it asks if it is alright to install the list of packages.

After that click Apply, grab a drink and wait for it to install.

Once it is done click the red power button then select log out. Once you are logged out click Options in the lower right and find session. Select XFCE then log in. Say yes if it asks to make it the default. It will load up for the first time and you have successfully installed Xubuntu!

I do this when I want to play around in KDE, Fluxbox or XFCE but have Gnome there just in case I mess the others up.

Shoot me a PM if you have any other problems with it and I'll see if I can help you out.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: protoz
If you can still get into your Ubuntu install do the following:

Click System-->Administration-->Synaptic Package Manager

It may ask for your password so enter it then click the search box.

Type in: Xubuntu and click OK

This will find the Xubuntu packages you need for a base Xubuntu install. Click the check box next to 'xubuntu-desktop' then click OK when it asks if it is alright to install the list of packages.

After that click Apply, grab a drink and wait for it to install.

I have a faster way:

 

[imported_protoz]

I was doing it for those that don't like the command line. I could have just told him to do:

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

There is a way to do it through GUI so I figured I would point that out in case he wasn't comfortable with CLI.

It is much faster through command line and I would have done it through command line myself but sometimes it's nice to be able to read about what you are installing before you type in a command you read on the internet.

 

[ethebubbeth]

Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX
I have a faster way:
sudo apt-get install xfce

I've had an even better experience using aptitude to install the desktop metapackages. It seems to do a better job uninstalling them, should you ever need to.

If you want to install the xubuntu metapackage:

sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop

Also, if you want to remove the regular gnome metapackager afterwards:

sudo aptitude remove ubuntu-desktop

 

[TitanDiddly]

Thanks for your advice everybody! After much trial and error(including my machine falling off of my desk onto the floor while moving a couch), I was able to get Fluxbuntu to install. It feels snappier, but for some reason won't connect to the internet. My university has a registration that requires you to log in, and will just respond with any page request by an unregistered computer with the registration page. I can't even get that, just an error. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[imported_protoz]

Can you get to the page on a wired connection? Fluxbuntu isn't an 'official' version of Ubuntu yet so it doesn't have as much polish. I know I couldn't get it to boot at all but Kubuntu and Ubuntu worked fine.

Flux is pretty interesting but it's still too bogged down in command line edits for me to want to use.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

whynot just run DSL?

 

[Net]

use slackware distro and fluxbox as your windows manager

i use to run it on my 90mhz that i oc'ed to 120mhz!!! screaming fast lol

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: TitanDiddly
Thanks for your advice everybody! After much trial and error(including my machine falling off of my desk onto the floor while moving a couch), I was able to get Fluxbuntu to install. It feels snappier, but for some reason won't connect to the internet. My university has a registration that requires you to log in, and will just respond with any page request by an unregistered computer with the registration page. I can't even get that, just an error. Any ideas? Thanks!

You're going to have to talk to your university about what you need to do to be able to get a *nix system online. In some cases, I suspect you may need a VPN client.

My university is *nix friendly and all that's required is that I have to do a web login every week or so with my username and password. I feel sorry for those Windows users that are required to run two or three different programs just to surf the web.

 

[cmv]

Am I right that you got this registration/login page with Ubuntu 7.10 and now it doesn't work with Fluxbuntu? If so, look at drivers and wireless configuration. If I'm wrong, what SleepWalkerX said.