Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

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Ineedhelpplease

Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by Ineedhelpplease »

I have been trying to look at Mint 17 and the Ubuntu; specifically v14.04 LTS. My computer will not properly run as currently configured. I strongly suspect that the probem may be with the CPU (processor) I have. I am currently running Mint 13 Cinnamon. I did have Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS and was working fine. The following pertains about my processor:

Name : AMD Sempron(tm) 145 Processor
Family, model, stepping : 16, 6, 3 (AMD Opteron/Athlon64/FX)
Vendor : AuthenticAMD
Cache Size : 1024kb
Frequency : 800.00MHz
Byte Order : Little Endian

Additional information about CPU can be made available if needed.

When i "try" to run Ubuntu 14.04 or Mint 17, I can get as far as the desktop but that is as far as it goes. EVERY THING slows to a crawl and makes the OS virtually impossible to use/run. A snail's pace is like a Ferrari compared to the speed of my computer right now trying run the new release(s).

I saw something about possibly needing a processor with 1000MHz speed. Is this correct?

Could someone please give me the minimum system requirements for the new releases; particularly for Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint 17?
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xenopeek
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Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by xenopeek »

Looking at http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Sempron+145 it shows this is a very slow CPU. There are no published system requirements for CPU frequency. Are you sure it is a CPU problem though, because it could also be your graphics card driver being not good enough to run Cinnamon--making your CPU do all the work your GPU is supposed to do (aka "software rendering"). I'd look into that; probably on your current installation of Linux Mint 13 you have installed good graphics card drivers and you still need to do that step fro 17.
Image
AlanWalker

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by AlanWalker »

Ineedhelpplease wrote:I have been trying to look at Mint 17 and the Ubuntu; specifically v14.04 LTS. My computer will not properly run as currently configured. I strongly suspect that the probem may be with the CPU (processor) I have. I am currently running Mint 13 Cinnamon. I did have Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS and was working fine. The following pertains about my processor:

Name : AMD Sempron(tm) 145 Processor
Family, model, stepping : 16, 6, 3 (AMD Opteron/Athlon64/FX)
Vendor : AuthenticAMD
Cache Size : 1024kb
Frequency : 800.00MHz
Byte Order : Little Endian

Additional information about CPU can be made available if needed.

When i "try" to run Ubuntu 14.04 or Mint 17, I can get as far as the desktop but that is as far as it goes. EVERY THING slows to a crawl and makes the OS virtually impossible to use/run. A snail's pace is like a Ferrari compared to the speed of my computer right now trying run the new release(s).

I saw something about possibly needing a processor with 1000MHz speed. Is this correct?

Could someone please give me the minimum system requirements for the new releases; particularly for Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint 17?
How much RAM does your system have?

The amount of RAM a system has is high on the list of things that determine system performance; generally RAM is more crucial to system performance than what CPU is being used - there are points on the hardware price/performance curve where performance of a system with a fast processor but little RAM will be less than that of a system with a slower processor but more RAM.

Your processor is only just slightly slower than one of mine according to this page.

Despite the looks of things, your CPU's real-world performance is probably somewhat near mine - I was using the light LXDE desktop on top of Mint's LMDE 201403 edition on a system with 2Gig of RAM; my system's response was good.

You may wind up installing Mint 16 or 17 for the underlying software support, but then installing, and using, a light desktop such as LXDE or Xfce on top - doing that really can make a difference - less RAM and CPU cycles used to float a heavy desktop mean more resources for what's going on underneath the hood.

xenopeek adds an important point: graphic rendering is CPU/GPU intensive; either a CPU does it, or a GPU does it (if it exists) - light desktops use less graphics.
Last edited by AlanWalker on Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ineedhelpplease

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by Ineedhelpplease »

As for graphics/video ... i am using the onboard graphics on the motherboard (Nvidia GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a/integrated/SSE2; version 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.116; X11 Vendor: The X.Org Foundation) provided during the install/setup of the video/graphics after installing Mint 13 Cinnamon. As for the RAM, I have 4GB DDR3. The motherboard is EMAXX Technologies, Inc EMX-MCP61D3-iCafe. The BIOS is American Megatrends Inc (AMI) Date: 01/20/2011 Version 080015. For whatever the reason, the newest releases will not run properly. I have not tried to go to Mint 16 or any of the previous versions of Ubuntu after v12.04.4 mainly because they are not LTS. I did use Mint 15 briefly and it worked ok. Again, Mint 15 is not LTS and support ends either this month or in July 2014. For now, Mint 13 is supported until (I believe) April 2017. I thought about maybe tring to install Mint 16 or Ubuntu 13.x and then see if upgrading to the latest versions would work. But I think that is just a bit too much. At least I am up and running on Mint 13 Cinnamon.
AlanWalker

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by AlanWalker »

Ineedhelpplease wrote: When i "try" to run Ubuntu 14.04 or Mint 17, I can get as far as the desktop but that is as far as it goes. EVERY THING slows to a crawl and makes the OS virtually impossible to use/run.

RAM, 4GB DDR3.
The motherboard is EMAXX Technologies, Inc EMX-MCP61D3-iCafe.
The BIOS is American Megatrends Inc (AMI) Date: 01/20/2011 Version 080015.
Video is Nvidia GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a/integrated/SSE2; version 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.116; X11 (driver installed during the install of Mint 13 Cinnamon).
I am up and running on Mint 13 Cinnamon.
Okay.

The screenshot below is an image of a system monitor screen of a system that I am working on.

Image

When that screen capture was taken i had Audacious and Chromium running (Chromium had a Youtube video running inside it); as you can see that system was loafing along at less than 50% of the CPU's capability (the system was running an x-session on Debian stable at that time).

Again, remember, your system's CPU is nearly as strong as the one running during the time that screen capture was taken.

I don't know why you're having trouble with Mint 17 (a different graphics driver might be the cause), but it seems unlikely to me that your system's CPU is being over-taxed by it, especially so as you are able to run Mint 13 using Cinnamon at a decent speed.

Have you tried Mint LMDE 201403? It's less graphic intensive, but (I find) it has an appealing desktop and, with its current semi-rolling design, it won't go out of support.

Are you able to run a system monitor during your Mint 17 trial to see what's going on? (You aren't, by chance, looking at Mint 17 by running it from a live-cd are you?)
Ineedhelpplease

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by Ineedhelpplease »

I really just don't know what to do or what may be the problem(s). When I tried Ubuntu 14.04 using USB, I had the HDD and the CD/DVD ROM disconnected. Only the USB w/Ubuntu 14.04 and the motherboard/CPU. I could run/open 14.04 to the initial desktop where the option to "try" or "install" 14.04. Without doing anything at this point, the entire system/computer was slow that it was virtually impossible to do anything. There was activity (of sorts) but things like the system clock wasn't moving, the mouse/pointer was slower than molassis and only moved just so much. So I'm guessing that there is something the 14.04 doesn't like and, just maybe, 14.04 doesn't support my processor and/or motherboard along with the onboard graphics (Nvidia).

I have included a screenshot of my system resources while running Mint 13 Cinnamon as I am doing this reply.

I know I could probably find the links/sources to find out what 14.04 hardware and such supports. Could you give me some links please?
wayne128

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by wayne128 »

Ineedhelpplease wrote:I really just don't know what to do or what may be the problem(s). When I tried Ubuntu 14.04 using USB, I had the HDD and the CD/DVD ROM disconnected. Only the USB w/Ubuntu 14.04 and the motherboard/CPU. I could run/open 14.04 to the initial desktop where the option to "try" or "install" 14.04. Without doing anything at this point, the entire system/computer was slow that it was virtually impossible to do anything. There was activity (of sorts) but things like the system clock wasn't moving, the mouse/pointer was slower than molassis and only moved just so much. So I'm guessing that there is something the 14.04 doesn't like and, just maybe, 14.04 doesn't support my processor and/or motherboard along with the onboard graphics (Nvidia).

I have included a screenshot of my system resources while running Mint 13 Cinnamon as I am doing this reply.

I know I could probably find the links/sources to find out what 14.04 hardware and such supports. Could you give me some links please?
My 11-yr old presario with Pentium 4, single core , 2.4G, ati legacy 128M graphic can run reasonably fast on Debian xfce and mate on sid ( which is kernel 3.13 --3.14), but this rig cannot run any version of cinnamon, it simply crash.

Yours can even run LM13-cinnamon..

No doubt your hardware is far superior than this P4 old rig.
I think you need not spend too much time worried over if LM17 can support your hardware.

You are running on USB.. tell you a truth, some old rigs ( i have a few) can be dead slow when, for some reason it behaves as if it was running on USB1.0
If you can run it on USB2.0 you will be alright.

You can just try a distros that is modern, but allow you to load in RAM mode, so that the slow USB would affect only your initial loading, once fully loaded, it should be running as fast as that distros in RAM mode.

Alternatively, test on LM17-Mate.. which should be much faster compared with cinnamon, especially on older machine or with lower specs graphic.
Ineedhelpplease

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by Ineedhelpplease »

When I stated I was using USB to try the new release(s), I had setup the thumb drive to run the ".iso" from the thumb drive
as if I were using the CD/DVD drive.

I tried using the OS (.iso) from the CD/DVD .. too slow. I tried using the OS (.iso) from the USB thumb drive ... again, too slow.

There has got to be something with the motherboard and/or the processor and, just maybe, the RAM.

So, for now, I will continue to use either Mint 13 Cinnamon or Ubuntu 12.04.4.

I am thinking about setting up Ubuntu 12.04.4 on a separate HDD so that, if anything happens, I will have something to use.

I have tried to run Ubuntu 14.x and Mint 17. Each time I could get to the initial desktop where I could continue trying the OS or install the OS. But, no matter which I wanted to do, my computer slowed way down to less than a snail's pace.

Oh well, I'll keep plug'n along and see what happens.
gary s

Re: Linux Mint 17 Minimum System Requirements For CPU

Post by gary s »

I am having the same problems. I usually but not always get to the desktop but the mouse wont move or moves erratic at best. if I try and install computer freezes. I have an amd athlon 64 processor 3500+, 2.21GHz,960 MB of RAM. I suspect it is not enough ram. I am no puter whiz. but wouldnt xp that is on here use even more ram then linux mint 17.1? For some reason I thought that was part of the beauty of linux. It required less system resources. On my other puter running mint 17.1 I notice it is slower than win 8.1. any one have any info?? I am hoping to use this old computer to experiment making a web server but cant get the desktop version to install becasue of this problem. are there any other distros that are better suited for older systems? I do want a desktop version but simple is good, no bells and whistles needed.
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