I got massive Mint XFCE-CE performance issues

[Bicycle-Rider]

Well, not exactly me, but both installations that I did for my Fiance and a friend. Only the one on my own Thinkpad T42 runs smoothly.

My Girl has my old Thinkpad X21 (700MHz PIII / 256MB RAM), on which - after some hour(s) of running - Firefox starts to use up more than 70-80% of the CPU. Previously she had a nice XFCE-Kanotix (also Debian-based, with a new stock-kernel) wich ran perfectly smooth and flawless. I installed Mint on her machine because of the neat software installation and management tools ... and because of the beautyfull design ;-P.

The most what she does is surfing with firefox (incl. Flash-plugin for youtube), writing in OpenOffice and chatting via Skype. I also recognized that mint-update used to suck a lot of atention from the processor and had it shuted off because of that.

And the second machine - wich is the desktop of a friend of mine - a PIV 1.8GHz with only 256MB of RAM also is reported to run very 'gooey' like walking in a swamp.


Any Ideas? My Fiance is already stomping my head because her system tends to hang itself up in its slowness every now and then - and she needs it for her University-homeworks. Thanks for the attention

[Husse]

The Firefox problem is a "Firefox problem" - FF can be resource hungry

PIV 1.8GHz with only 256MB of RAM

This is probably one of the first P4 with terrible performance - not much better than your PIII 700 (yes!)
But it's very hard to say what is wrong with so few facts
I believe Merlwiz will start on a Elyssa xfce - lets hope that'll happen
(Remember that the Community editions cannot be guaranteed to progress - except the KDE which i treated almost as the main)

[Bicycle-Rider]

I gladly supply you with more facts if you tell me what information would be helpful to corner these issues. I have set up complete standard systems, and at least those to wich I'm in directly contact with (mine and my Girls) are fully up-to-date (I also corrected the faulty sources.list).

[merlwiz79]

I am currently working on Elyssa XFCE CE.
I am currently looking at the Elyssa main Beta Live cd and it takes 10 tab to get to 70MBs in Firefox.
Also mintUpdate has been worked on and should not* use as much memory as before.
Here's the latest mintUpdate from Romeo(testing) repo. http://www.linuxmint.com/repository/poo ... 3_i386.deb
You don't really need mintUpdate running, just run it once a week.

You can also turn off services not used.(like bluetooth)

You could also try a different bowser.
Seamonkey viewtopic.php?f=32&t=10508&p=71902#p71902
Flock viewtopic.php?f=32&t=9895&p=71745#p71745
Swiftfox (in Synaptic)
epiphany-browser (in Synaptic)
opera (in Synaptic)
* a little word added by husse

[Bicycle-Rider]

Hi Merlwiz, thanks for the tips! You wrote that it takes ten tabs to get to 70MB for Firefox, but that wasn't exactly my Problem (maybe I wrote it a bit too complicated - if yes - please excuse me I'm German ). The Problem was that FF produces 70-80% of CPU-Load. Sometimes even more. And at some point the system is so overloaded, that it freezes completely. But I can't tell if FF is causing this, because I can't even get a terminal to open when it comes that far.

I'll take a look at the services and sort out what's needed and what not. I would also give Swiftfox a try if it is likely to help speed things up a little.

I guess the Elyssa you speak of is the successor of Daryna? Would it be necessary to make an dedicated update/installation from a new CD, or could I just update my sources and do a dist-upgrade when you release it?


And what you surely hear a lot (but it is absolutely justified!): Linux Mint is the Distro I searched for for a long Time! It is the perfect balance between easy-to-use-nes and fully debian-like configure- and controleability. I really love it because its great work and very well thought-through! THANKS TO YOU AND ALL YOUR COLLEAGUES A HUNDRED TIMES!! (yes I'm soon going to donate a (subjectively) big amount of money to the project )

(Sorry that wanted out)

[merlwiz79]

There will be away of updating from Daryna to Elyssa some time ofter the stable comes out.
I try to make it easier for people by using a script to do most of the work for you.

I don't know why it would use 80% to 90% of the cpu.
Have you tried uninstalling all the add-ons.
Then reinstalling one and testing which could be the problem.
Also have you tried backing up the ~/.mozilla folder and deleting it and starting from scratch.(export bookmarks and all)
You might have some bad settings messing it up.

[Arron]

I cant wait for there to be the new Elyssa XFCE! I love Darnya XFCE, and that is after a lot of distro hopping, its my new home. Good luck, i know it is no small task, and I really hope XFCE gains more support to make it a mainstream distro within Mint.

Arron

[merlwiz79]

This may also be your problem.
viewtopic.php?p=77696#p77696

[astromech]

Beta 8 XfCE Daryna is the first Mint I tried. I only ran it it off the cd, but man was it slow! It took almost ten minutes to boot ! Once it was loaded it wasn't super slow, but it was nothing compared to zenwalk live, or vector. Mint XFCE is nice in most ways .Maybe i just got a bad download or burn .if not, it just isn't ready for my comp yet! Hp Compaq D530 P4 2.66 Ghz W/ 512 MB RAM .Happily The Daryna KDE version is excellent And runs quite well In terms of both features and performance.It also ran much faster as a live cd than the xfce version.
I wish the XFCE team all the best of luck with their work!

[merlwiz79]

Beta 8 XfCE Daryna is the first Mint I tried. I only ran it it off the cd, but man was it slow! It took almost ten minutes to boot ! Once it was loaded it wasn't super slow, but it was nothing compared to zenwalk live, or vector. Mint XFCE is nice in most ways .Maybe i just got a bad download or burn .if not, it just isn't ready for my comp yet! Hp Compaq D530 P4 2.66 Ghz W/ 512 MB RAM .Happily The Daryna KDE version is excellent And runs quite well In terms of both features and performance.It also ran much faster as a live cd than the xfce version.
I wish the XFCE team all the best of luck with their work!

I never had the KDE CE run faster than XFCE CE on my PC.
P4EE 2.8Ghz FSB 800Mz
1GB RAM DDr400
Custom Built