4Gs of RAM and system still sluggish! [Solved in part]

[Patrickmm]

If you mean poking around on the internet is slow then that is understandable. There are so many ads on every website now that it takes forever for them to download before even a small part of the page displays. That is true of any OS and the OS has no control over what garbage makes up a web page. I'm using a 1.4 ghz cpu and only 1 gb of ram and a 64mb video card and every app I run inside of Mint, not on the internet is lightning fast. The internet is another story, as it is with my both my XP and my Win7 machines. Some small sites without a lot of ads are quick but most of the popular major sites are very slow to load. And they get slower every year. The time of day is important also. The evenings are very slow when everyone is on. Remember, with cable or DSL your sharing the bandwidth with everyone in your neighborhood far and wide. You would be doing a great disservice to blame Mint or even Firefox for a slow internet if that is what you mean. Snail slow apps running inside of Mint though, and not on the internet, would be definitely mean something is not going right inside your laptop. Others have suggested ways to do some detective work on that. Once in a blue moon I have to reboot my router when for whatever reason it locks up but otherwise my Mint PC has been pretty much problem free. You might do a search using the words Mint and the model of your laptop to see if anyone else has similar problems.

[DaComboMan]

It's normal for an older computer to be sluggish not only with regards to the OS but also to the internet.
If you take a drive on a more recent model like a quad core, i'm sure you'll notice a difference not only with your apps behavior but also on internet highway.

If i tell you that Windows 7 Home Ed. .32bit behaves better and faster than some Linux OS,
then believe me! I've grown up with Windows 98, XP, Millenium and they pale compared to Windows 7 (even if XP was pretty darn good!).

BTW, welcome to LM forums!

[cwsnyder]

If you really want to see something blaze, try a virtual machine loading of Windows 95 or 98 in a modern dual/quad core machine, or Puppy Linux from a SSD.

[DaComboMan]

I have no doubts about that cwsnyder.
Did give Puppy a spin but i really can't stand the graphics.
Otherwise, it is truly a dynamite system.

BTW, i must "confess" that i use TuneUp Utilities (2013) and it gives a big boost not only to start uping Windows7 but also for programs otherwise sluggish to get goin' (Outlook, Firefox...). So, am i fair in comparing Windows7 with other LM versions by cheatin' this way? Hackers are always looking for ways to improve their systems so i think i'm still on fair grounds. Besides, TU might work well for me but so and so for others.

[jamvaru]

windows 7 has all kinds of back-doors and ways for 'them' to keep tabs on you, or mess with you, like renaming your files, or just deleting them, for no reason at all

only reason to run windows 7 is DX11

I went back to wXP, dx9c is good enough for me

there are still plenty of goobers willing to pay for a copy of windows 7 on ebay, even a used one

[DaComboMan]

Update.

Finally got a hold of a DVD/R to try out Linux Debian (dual boot on Windows 7 .32bit)!

First of all, i really wanted to get into PuppyLinux but it was too complicated for my little head (trying to dual-boot on Windows 7 is almost impossible).
So, to have a clean heart, i decide to try the "last" of the Linux family (LXDE) and see how it behaves (not so easy to setup either).

Pros:
- The artwork (Cinnamon) is just the best!
- Firefox and Thunderbird are already there (best for Linux).
- Google Talk was super easy to install.
- Dropbox was a bit tricky to install but it's on now (these last two should be pre-installed, especially with Google now offering free SMS).

Cons:
- Had to install over a 1G of updates.
- Not much more responsive than XFCE (still better than Cinnamon and Mate).
- Still wish it would be faster (say, closer to Puppy) and smaller in size (make it fit on CD).

Otherwise, it's still a kiff kiff tie game with Windows 7 Home Ed.

[nunol]

Cons:
- Had to install over a 1G of updates.

That is expected, lots of upgrades since the last ISO.

- Not much more responsive than XFCE (still better than Cinnamon and Mate).

That's expected on faster systems but on slower computers the difference between LXDE and XFCE is bigger.

- Still wish it would be faster (say, closer to Puppy) and smaller in size (make it fit on CD).

It's difficult to be as fast as Puppy and still use full Xorg, bash, services, office suite, etc. Check top on LMDE and on Puppy and see the differences.

Yes, it could be smaller and faster but those are not Mint priorities.

[DaComboMan]

@nunol,

Hope i didn't sound too harsh!

I know LM is more full equipped than Puppy and it's logical that it demands more.

Correct me if i'm wrong.
Keep forgetting that running on .32bit system so, i don't really have 4G of RAM but almost 1G less right?
If i give 2G for LMDE then there's 1G left for Windows which keeps on running in the background,
it's understandable that i'm running at peak levels when in LMDE mode.

[jamvaru]

i believe you can use the extra 1GB for video memory, if you are using onboard video
i think it is 3.2 gb available system memory, so .8 gb video memory, max

I don't understand why you are running windows in the background (virtual box?)
Or are you running LM in a virtual box?
sry, i forgot the thread details, lol
surprised that you don't just install it on disk and dual boot
it will run better that way, i am sure
at the least you will have more memory available

[pickles99]

The new Cinnamon they're working on they've removed almost 200,000 lines of code which are Gnome3 leftovers that weren't gutted out prior to pushing Cinnamon out the door.

Every year they make Operating systems more and more bloated. I too miss running Windows 95 on a 200mhz processor and how fast it was.

We're using free debian that was modified by Ubuntu with the Xserver which was modified by the Gnome Team for Gnome which was modified for Cinnamon and there's Metacity running in there too.....too much bloat. Come on....

I still want to know why they made that "Privacy" thingy that records EVERYTHING. WHY?

[jamvaru]

what?

[nunol]

You can use up to 64GB with the 32bit i686-pae kernel.

If you are using LMDE with the i486 kernel I suggest you try the i686-pae kernel, you will be able to use all the 4GB of RAM. Check the kernel you are using by running:

Code: Select all

uname -a

[DaComboMan]

This is a sad day for me...

After dabbing with LMDE again, setting it up perfectly. The fastest ever! Yet, i get no sound.
At first i had it without the Logitech headset (sound was coming out) and then when i tried with the headset, i ended up losing both!

So. After reading up on a thread about KDE within LMDE,
i decided to give that a spin in the hope that the sound issue would be different.
But no. The only sound i get is on the headset when doing test.

I really like LMDE and LMDE KDE (more than the other LM) but now i don't know what to do...

At least i have no sound issues within Windows 7.

[nunol]

Did you check the sound preferences and selected the right output? Did you check alsamixer levels?

[wayne128]

I really like LMDE and LMDE KDE (more than the other LM) but now i don't know what to do...

At least i have no sound issues within Windows 7.

I have never had any sound issue for any Win starting 3.11 till 7.
LMDE I had a few cases of no sound on some comps.
My solution: uninstall pulseaudio and replace with alsa...in LMDE thread somewhere.

[DaComboMan]

I don't know about pulseaudio.
Have every Alsa thingy in there that i could install.
Followed must of these installation tips on:
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/sound.htm
They must be outdated.

BTW, i have no issues whatsoever with Windows 7.

[wayne128]

If you are interested on

How To: Completely remove PulseAudio & replace it with ALSA

Postby mads » Thu Nov 25, 2010 10:07 pm


link here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=60485

[DaComboMan]

Although Alsa and all its dependencies were already present,
i did proceed to remove Pulse rebooted, still no sound.
Re-installed it, same problem.

I've spent too many hours on this so i went to Fedora 17.
No issues with sounds at all. Even recognized my Logitech headset on first start!

Will consider Debian again in future as i still like LinuxMint better (for now!).

[craig10x]

Just curious, but had you ever tried ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10? I'd be curious to know if you had the same problems with that?
If you haven't, you might try running a live session of it to see how you do...just a suggestion, since you switched distros anyway...

[DaComboMan]

Ubuntu was my first outing with Linux.
There again, sluggishness was a "fun" thing too (especially when compared to some installations i saw elsewhere - albeit desktops, but computers that were quite a few years older than mine yet now behaving much faster than mine).

What teed me off again in Ubuntu (and still does) was the more recent side panel.
Auto-hide is nice but i prefer the free Linux way of deciding where i want it.
I suppose that's besides the point right?

Yesterday, just to make sure i didn't do something wrong the first time,
i downloaded and tried to install LM13 Cinnamon.
Well, after an hour at tinkering through the partitioning and so forth,
it still wouldn't finish installing. It's not that i had problems at following the procedure,
it was because of the extremely slow speed of the windows coming around.
Usually with any Linux installation process, i'm done in about 20 minutes (reboot included).
There you go. Another LinuxMint product that doesn't like my computer.
Needless to say, i cleared it off and went back to Windows 7 only (for now i suppose).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7j0l0odzn07vq ... 20Info.jpg