Ubuntu

System is very slow & sluggish after installing Ubuntu

Asked by bizres

Hi,

I have a PC system with the following basic config:
Mainboard: Mercury PVCLE266M-L
BIOS: AMI BIOS with 2MB Flash ROM
Processor: Onboard VIA C3 Samuel 2
Chipset: CLE266 & 8235
RAM: 128MB (184 pin DDR DIMM)
Hard Drive: Seagate 40GB

At this moment, I have the following apps running:
Mozilla FireFox
Skype (in the notification area)
GAIM (in the notification area)
Ekiga Softphone (in the notification area)
and the System Monitor says:
CPU: 20%
User Memory: 66.2% 60.6MiB of 91.2MiB)
Used Swap: 17.6% (111.9MiB of 635.3MiB)

Before installing Ubuntu, I had Win2k installed on this system and it used to operate (normally) fast. A few days back I installed Ubuntu (completely removing Win2k) and I notice the system is very sluggish. Any app takes ages to load, especially Open Office 2. Yesterday after opening the database program of Open Office, the system actually froze.

There's now way I'd be able to open Open Office and another program (let's say Mozila Firefox).

Even a simple thing like the Calculator takes more than 30sec to load.

Any idea what could be causing this?

Regards.

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Wolf Canis (wolf-canis) said : 		#1

Hello bizres,
I assume you have installed Ubuntu 6.10 edgy. For this distribution (all Ubuntu versions) the among of memory is to small. I would you recommend that you try Xubuntu ( http://www.xubuntu.org ). Xubuntu is based on Ubuntu, but it uses Xfce and mainly GTK+ application and therefore it doesn't need so much hardware resources. The installation is so simple as for Ubuntu.

Mr Canis

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bizres (bizres) said : 		#2

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the installation I have is Ubuntu 6.10 edgy and where it comes to ease of use and user interface, I REALLY REALLY like it. By shifting to xubuntu, will I miss the ease of use, user interface or any part of it?

Also, will I be able to use all the applications usable with Ubuntu and features of Ubuntu?

Regards.

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Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#3

256MB is the minimum recommended memory for an Ubuntu system.

Even if you install Xubuntu, opening large applications like openoffice will still take ages because they are large whether you install Ubuntu or Xubuntu.

Also take a look at this documentation regarding machines with low memory:-

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems

Revision history for this message
bizres (bizres) said : 		#4

what I'm actually dreading is having to download the .iso file for xubuntu. as for ubuntu, it had taken me 2 days of continuous downloading, only to see the file downloaded with an unmatching md5 checksum (you can imagine my frustration), so I had to download again. and, in my location there are very few linux users, so it would be difficult to find anyone with a working cd here.

Revision history for this message
Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#5

You dont need to reinstall

You can install xubuntu like this:-

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get xubuntu-desktop

Then restart and choose xfce in the logon screen.

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nightcap79 (nightcap79) said : 		#6

Alan means this

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

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