Very slow or stalled NAS access
Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:24 pm
I am new to Linux and struggling to get Mint xfce running properly with my NAS. I tried Ubuntu and everything was easy but I am keen to give Mint xfce a chance. I am using version 14 live from a USB stick.
After a lot of searching around I worked out how to download the driver for my Broadcom 4312 wireless card. In Ubuntu, I was just offered the options and everything worked - why make it so difficult in a distribution which is actually based on Ubuntu?
It then took a lot more searching to find out how to access my NAS using File Manager. Again, why not make it easier to access the network?
Problem 1: Now when I try to access the NAS under battery power, it takes about 10 seconds, sometimes more, to access each folder when trying to browse through the drive in File Manager (it works fine when the power supply is plugged in). This is when accessing directly using smb://. It is even slower (a lot) when using gvfs. Under the power management settings I can't find anything about the network. Is there a way to make this work usefully?
Problem 2: (Probably related) I keep my Firefox profile on the NAS so that I can access it from different computers and different operating systems. It took a while to work out what file path to use in the profile.ini file (anything invalid in the syntax and Firefox just creates a new profile). Now Firefox tries to start using the profile but freezes and I have to terminate it. After that, when I try to access the Firefox profile folder in File Manager, I just get the little thing that is equivalent to the Windows hourglass. I can still access other folders using File Manager but not this one. I tried copying the fresh Firefox profile folder from .mozilla to the NAS and pointing profiles.ini to it in case my existing profile was causing problems but it was just the same.
Can anyone shed any light on these problems or do I have to resort to Ubuntu?
After a lot of searching around I worked out how to download the driver for my Broadcom 4312 wireless card. In Ubuntu, I was just offered the options and everything worked - why make it so difficult in a distribution which is actually based on Ubuntu?
It then took a lot more searching to find out how to access my NAS using File Manager. Again, why not make it easier to access the network?
Problem 1: Now when I try to access the NAS under battery power, it takes about 10 seconds, sometimes more, to access each folder when trying to browse through the drive in File Manager (it works fine when the power supply is plugged in). This is when accessing directly using smb://. It is even slower (a lot) when using gvfs. Under the power management settings I can't find anything about the network. Is there a way to make this work usefully?
Problem 2: (Probably related) I keep my Firefox profile on the NAS so that I can access it from different computers and different operating systems. It took a while to work out what file path to use in the profile.ini file (anything invalid in the syntax and Firefox just creates a new profile). Now Firefox tries to start using the profile but freezes and I have to terminate it. After that, when I try to access the Firefox profile folder in File Manager, I just get the little thing that is equivalent to the Windows hourglass. I can still access other folders using File Manager but not this one. I tried copying the fresh Firefox profile folder from .mozilla to the NAS and pointing profiles.ini to it in case my existing profile was causing problems but it was just the same.
Can anyone shed any light on these problems or do I have to resort to Ubuntu?