Ubuntu 11.10 running slowly

What is the specification of your PC? The default installaction assumes a reasonably up to date machine.

The full system requirements are here

https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/installation-guide/i386/minimum-hardware-reqts.html

Basiacally if it could run XP, Vista on Windows 7 OK then It should be OK.

If you dont meet these then you could try Lubuntu. I have that running on a very only machine with no problems. If your PC should be OK however come back to us and we will try to help you find whats going wrong

It ran XP pretty fast. I'm not sure where to find the system specs on Ubuntu, but I do know it was not slow before. IF someone could point me in the direction of those I will post them.

So my system meets the specs with no problem, but why would it be so slow? I basically use this to watch videos/movies online, play my music and that's pretty much it. So if there are programs that I can remove to make it faster I will do it, but I don't know if that's the root of the problem.

Can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a; cat /proc/cpuinfo; free -m

Thanks

OK, I think I did it right, but what do you need? I t showed me a lot of info, would it help if I copy and pasted the whole thing?

If it ran XP fast it should be OK. Paste all the results back here and one of us should be able to help

OK, here it is. Hope this helps because this is like a different language for me:

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

ben@ben-A7N8X-E:~$ sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a; cat /proc/cpuinfo; free -m
[sudo] password for ben:
PCI (sysfs)
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: NV43 [GeForce 6600 GT]
       vendor: nVidia Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       version: a2
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm agp agp-3.0 vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=32 maxlatency=1 mingnt=5
       resources: irq:19 memory:e5000000-e5ffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:e6000000-e6ffffff memory:e7000000-e701ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric
Linux ben-A7N8X-E 3.0.0-17-generic #30-Ubuntu SMP Thu Mar 8 17:34:21 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 8
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 1729.000
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow up
bogomips : 3488.08
clflush size : 32
cache_alignment : 32
address sizes : 34 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management: ts

             total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1255 955 299 0 97 497
-/+ buffers/cache: 360 894
Swap: 1277 0 1277
ben@ben-A7N8X-E:~$
ben@ben-A7N8X-E:~$ sudo apt-get remove gnome-screensaver && sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra

ok and the output of:

dpkg -l | grep nvidia

Thanks

The system is slow because you haven't installed the nvidia driver, you are using the opensource nouveau driver. The output of the next command will let us know what we need to do.

ii nvidia-common 1:0.2.35 Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers
ben@ben-A7N8X-E:~$

Is that all you need? It figures it was something that's a noob mistake

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

will install the driver you need. Reboot after installing and you will be ok. This is what the additional drivers app does but we can do it in CLI easily :)

Excellent - I'll give it a try and let you know how it works out

Well, it seems to have helped quite a bit. The only way I could get youtube to run smoothly was with Google chrome. It still feels a little slow, so I'm not sure if there is anything else I can do or if it is just this old machine.

model name : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 1729.000
cache size : 256 KB

Little less these days for 3d environments.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DemystifyingUnityGraphicsHardwareRequirements

Maybe select Unity-2d session on login or try Lubuntu as suggested above.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DerivativeTeam/Derivatives

Hey just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me out. I have a lot to learn, but this community seems very helpful. My computer seems like it should handle 11.10 easily, but I'm switching to lubuntu because I really just need a basic machine. Thanks again!

Lubuntu is badass :)