Slow down and lag

[georgetoon]

I don't know what happened, but today,Mint Linux just starting to slow down. It takes about 5 seconds for folders to open. There is a definite lag in performance. Just moving the mouse shows a lag. Firefox also has issues in loading pages. Things aren't loading in a timely fashion and it sometimes freezes.

My Linux Mint distro is up to date with all updates, etc.

I've never experienced this kind of lag and slow down in other Linux distros. Until today, the performance of Linux Mint has been quite fast.

[Fred]

georgetoon,

Does this action relate to any new program installs or updates you have done lately?

Open a terminal and type:

top

This should show you what is eating all your cpu capacity.

Fred

[exploder]

georgetoon, Here are some things that may help.

Open Synaptic and make sure to get rid of all "residual config" files.

Clean up "private data" in Firefox, cookies, cache.

Turn off "Services that you do not need, some examples; bluetooth, automated crash reports.

Go into "Sessions" and turn off "Tracker", "Tracker Applet", there may be other you will want to disable but Tracker is known to slow the system down.

Open the Terminal and type, sudo apt-get clean and enter your password.


Here are some additional tweaks that will make things a little nicer for you.

Right click on the mintMenu and choose "Preferences", click on the "Applications" tab, change the "Hover Delay" to 50. (This will make the menu feel much more responsive.}

Change the "Auto-Refresh" in mintUpdate to 1 day. (Every 5 minutes is way too often and tends to slow down Firefox.)

Go into the "Security" tab in Firefox and remove the checks for, Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected attack site, and Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery. (Doing this will help keep Firefox from crashing when using Flash.)

Open Synaptic and install "preload". This will help speed up application launch, keep in mind that preload takes time to learn your habits.

If you do not use Gnome Do, I suggest turning it off in Sessions. (I do not use this feature and leaving it enabled eats up memory I can use for applications.}

Remove any old kernels on your system using Synaptic. Be certain to start by removing the old linux-ubuntu-modules first. (It is extremely important to remove these first.) Take your time and use care and you will not have any problems with this.

I do all of these things and my system is very snappy and responsive. I hope this will help you out as well.

[georgetoon]

Guys,

thanks for all these suggestions. I'm going to go through them one by one and make sure unneccessary programs are not running in the background. I really apreciate it bdecuse I've now learned something new about Linux!:)

I did notice something, though. Being a cartoonist, I rely on graphics apps to edit and manipulate my cartoon drawings, etc. In resizing a scanned image, for some reason GIMP decided to inflate the size of the file to 132 megs. DOH! I think I inadvertently parked this image on my tool bar and went about my surfing, etc. thinking the file was closed down. I sometimes do this when I'm working...I edit a cartoon and then take a break to look at news, visit forums, get images for reference, etc. I went into the file today and reduced it to 220K. I think this may have solved the problem. This morning, things are running quite well. But, I'm still going to check these other things. Thank you so much!:) This community and forum is filled with wonderful folks! I'm really enjoying Linux Mint!:)

[badmotor]

georgetoon, Here are some things that may help.

Open Synaptic and make sure to get rid of all "residual config" files.

Clean up "private data" in Firefox, cookies, cache.

Turn off "Services that you do not need, some examples; bluetooth, automated crash reports.

Go into "Sessions" and turn off "Tracker", "Tracker Applet", there may be other you will want to disable but Tracker is known to slow the system down.

Open the Terminal and type, sudo apt-get clean and enter your password.


Here are some additional tweaks that will make things a little nicer for you.

Right click on the mintMenu and choose "Preferences", click on the "Applications" tab, change the "Hover Delay" to 50. (This will make the menu feel much more responsive.}

Change the "Auto-Refresh" in mintUpdate to 1 day. (Every 5 minutes is way too often and tends to slow down Firefox.)

Go into the "Security" tab in Firefox and remove the checks for, Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected attack site, and Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery. (Doing this will help keep Firefox from crashing when using Flash.)

Open Synaptic and install "preload". This will help speed up application launch, keep in mind that preload takes time to learn your habits.

If you do not use Gnome Do, I suggest turning it off in Sessions. (I do not use this feature and leaving it enabled eats up memory I can use for applications.}

Remove any old kernels on your system using Synaptic. Be certain to start by removing the old linux-ubuntu-modules first. (It is extremely important to remove these first.) Take your time and use care and you will not have any problems with this.

I do all of these things and my system is very snappy and responsive. I hope this will help you out as well.

Hey, this is good stuff - should be a sticky?

[georgetoon]

Okay, I'm running KDE...where are sessions? Looking at session manager and don't see the options you mention.

I installed Preload. Is this found in KDE performance? I see an option there called Preload...not sure if it was there before or not.

[exploder]

You didn't mention in the original post that you were running the KDE CE. The same principals should apply though, you will just have to go into the KDE Control Center to configure things.Preload runs in the background and monitors the applications that you frequently use and put things where they can be accessed quicker. If you run the "top" command in the konsole you should see "Top" come up every now and then.

[Katzedecimal]

Aha!! I was about to post about this myself, as I too am having this happen all of a sudden. Me, I'm running the Gnome main edition of Elyssa and had no issues with sudden slow-down or lock-up until about a week, 10 days ago, the first one happening a few days after a round of Level 3 updates.

The last time it happened was not-quite two days ago. What I had been doing was changing a few Compiz effects while writing a reply to someone's Compiz query. Then my previously-quiet and cooperative system (running only Pidgin, Firefox and Gkrellm) suddenly slowed and the CPU usage spiked from 3% to 70%, 80%, 90% then 100% and lock-up. Top usage was Xorg (coincidence or not, there had been some Xorg updates in the round of Level 3 updates that preceded my lock-up issues) As I type, my CPU0 is showing 8% usage and CPU1 is showing 37%, top useage belonging to Firefox and Xorg. Disabling Compiz drops CPU1 down to 17%, still unusually busy compared to the last couple of months running Elyssa.

I'm trying to keep notes on what's running when it occurs, but as it doesn't happen often, information is sporadic to acquire

[exploder]

Hi Katzedecimal!

I am also running the main edition. The tips I posted apply to a system using level 1,2 and 3 updates. I currently have all level 5 updates installed with the exception of the newer gnome-language-packs. (The newer package breaks xulrunner in Firefox.) I have updated Gimp, Pidgin, and Brasero through getdeb.net. I installed the new Lightning package for Thunderbird using the package that merlwiz79 built. I installed the newer Mplayer and Transmission packages from the hardy backports repo. ( The newer Transmission package on getdeb is buggy, 1.22 is the most stable version.} I grabbed Flash 10 from Adobe's site. I applied all of the tweaks I posted earlier in this thread. I tried everything on a test machine before changing things on my main machine. The end result for me was a very fast and stable system that has very good memory usage.

I also used the "How to" for fixing the log off and shutdown sounds and added the undelete from trash option.

I do not recommend this method of updating as a general rule but this method seemed to fix various memory leaks and fixed all of the little quirks with the system.

Edit: I also installed all of the new Mint tools from the romeo repo.

[Katzedecimal]

Exploder, thank you! I will try most of your suggestions. I have Firefox configured to clean itself on closing, and I run Fred's cleanout script every Friday, and I will use your suggestions for pulling off other things I don't need.

I will do most of the updates you've suggested, but I'm apprehensive about Level 5 updates (I'm still a n00b XD ) I will do the rest of the updates, then back up my data, then I may request some hand-holding I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks!!

[exploder]

Let me know if you need help. You are right to back up your data, glad you thought of that.

[Katzedecimal]

Thanks, Exploder, I appreciate your willingness to walk me through

I've not yet done any sort of program updates like Pidgin, Brasero, etc, so am unsure of the procedure. Do I simply install the packages and they will update the existing programs on their own, or do I need to uninstall the existing programs first? Just making sure

[exploder]

I've not yet done any sort of program updates like Pidgin, Brasero, etc, so am unsure of the procedure. Do I simply install the packages and they will update the existing programs on their own, or do I need to uninstall the existing programs first? Just making sure

Make sure you are getting the Hardy packages from getdeb, it is defaulting to Intrepid now. At the bottom of the page it has other versions, you want Hardy 32 bit.. I download the packages, including dependencies first. Next go into Synaptic and remove the corresponding old packages. Now you can install the new packages by double clicking them. (There is an order to install, so if you see a dependency error install that package first) Do not remove any auto removable packages in Synaptic until you are completely finished.

Brasero will update without having to remove the old version first but Pidgin and Gimp have to be removed before installing the new versions.

[exploder]

Here is an example. We will look at Gimp because it is the most difficult. Here are the packages that will work in Elyssa.

http://www.getdeb.net/search.php?search ... words=gimp

Gimp 2.6.1 is the most current version available that will work in Elyssa. All of the dependencies are listed with the download.

These are the packages you need.; gimp, libgimp2.0, gimp-data, libbabl-0.0-0 and libgegl-0.0-0

Here is Pidgin 2.5.2

http://www.getdeb.net/search.php?search ... rds=pidgin

These are the packages you need; pidgin, pidgin-data and libpurple0

Here is Brasero 0.8.2

http://www.getdeb.net/search.php?search ... ds=brasero

I posted the links so you will have the versions that will work in Elyssa.

[Katzedecimal]

Thanks, Exploder! You're really helpful and I appreciate it. I've now updated my favorite apps and have backed up my data. .......and I have a spare Elyssa install CD kicking by just in case *deep breath* ....Now what?

[exploder]

Great!

Now what?

Here is a nice fix to get your shut down and log off sounds working.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789858

To me the system just isn't complete without this fix. You can copy and paste to do this one, it's quick and easy.

[Katzedecimal]

Thanks Exploder. Logout sounds weren't as much of a concern to me, as I frequently run with the speakers off anyways However, I will likely give the fix a try, just for the learning exercise.

I chickened out and didn't apply any of the Level 5 updates that showed on my MintUpdate. Looking at them, several of them didn't really seem to apply to me (eg. a HAL update that patches backlighting on Dell laptops; I have a Velocity desktop), others seem to be for different kernels (a linux-restricted-modules-common update for 2.6.24.14-21.51, and a linux-libc-dev for 2.6.24-21.43) So I decided not to risk it just yet.

On the plus side, the fixes to the programs seem to have had a positive effect; my CPU usage is back down to 3 - 5% when running my usual minimal proggies. But it may be a red herring to the lock-up issue, only time will tell.

[Koffeehaus]

A bit farfetched, but I once somehow messed up my Nautilus File Browser. Had the same symptoms as you described. Try creating a new user, log in with your newly created account and see if the lagging persists.