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

[DaComboMan]

Here i am with an LG laptop. 500G hard drive + 4G of RAM.

Tested Helena yesterday and it was purky as could be (couldn't ask for better) but the updates couldn't come through.

Tried MATE - sluggish, almost as bad as CINNAMON.

Now i'm on with XFCE which is considerably better, but still not as quick as HELENA.

What gives? I mean, even Windows7 Home Ed. was faster!

I was always under the impression that Linux was supposed to be dynamite on dinosaur systems.
What about more recent ones?

BTW, i'm not dual bootin'.

[Flemur]

I'm an old Unix guy, and my first impression of windows was "the molasses OS" because everything reacted so slowly. (Since then I think of windows as "the users don't know any better" OS.)

Now linux speed is getting like that. I use fluxbox, and while it reacts more-or-less instantaneously, I notice that there's a couple seconds wait when the xscreensaver unblanks the screen, while under Arch+fluxbox it was instantaneous. I've done the obvious things but can't remove the delay.

[DaComboMan]

So, you think that LinuxMint is falling into the same trap as Windows?
More codes, less speed...

[stratus_ss]

I would point out that its not really Mint's fault, we are specifically talking about Desktop Environments which (aside from Cinnamon) are maintained outside of the Mint dev team.

I prefer LXDE for lightweight, I use Gnome 3 otherwise though (ya, thats right bring on the flames ). Generally I dont have any problems with hardware from the last 5 years.

[RJim]

I have been recently thinking on these same lines. I think a lot of it stems from Linux trying with a somewhat flawed idea, that being more user friendly is the same as having flashy graphics and animations. This is not the case.

Not to specifically blame compiz+beryl, sometimes it's fun to see those things, but for me personally I'd prefer to have a system that responds instantly rather than wait for animations.

Now I realize that you are talking perhaps about real delays in response, due to slowdown or perhaps even bugs; however I believe that most of these are related at least in part. The more stuff that is added on to the basic system will always create more complications, more load on the system resources, and more things that can go wrong.
(I am not a computer expert, but this is just basic reasoning and logic here)

I posted recently (found here) about what turned out to be a bug in KDE which was causing my system to use all of it's RAM even when completely idle. I could not work like that and had to switch to XFCE -- which I now love. I have no window effects, no animations, but the system is lightning fast... it even boots and shuts-down noticeably faster.

What I learned from my experience is that sometimes it pays big to return to simpler things... especially where intricate systems are involved.

--Jim

[nunol]

You should try LMDE, it's faster than Mint 13 LTS.

You have enough RAM to run any Mint fast but the CPU and graphic card are also very important. Could also be a problem with the instalation, check top to see what uses more CPU and RAM.

[DaComboMan]

Shall keep LMDE in mind next time i install over some Windows on an old desktop.

Thanks!

[Mozenrath]

Cinnamon is slow as hell unless you have updated hardware specs. Older computers and netbooks don't run it very well, which I think is ridiculous.

I've found that GNOME 3 Classic is just about as fast as XFCE, and faster than MATE.

[IslandWolf]

I've just revived a 5 year old system with an nVidia graphics card. It has an Intel dual core CPU and 4 GB DRAM. I am not overly thrilled with the MATE desktop. In fact, after reading about various desktop environments and windows managers, I am pretty sure I'm going to give Fluxbox a serious try-out.

[DrHu]

For any OS, if you want better performance than the standard bloat loading of services/apps etc, you do need to tweak the settings
http://tuxtweaks.com/tag/debian/

The desktop appearance set
The services that load on boot
Turning off indexing for the hard drive, you don't really need that unless you constantly lose files or need to collate large collections of data/information
--kde for example started their system file indexer when the dersktop was loaded

Check some tweak/tips sites for ideas..
https://linuxtweaks.wordpress.com/
http://www.webupd8.org/2012/04/things-t ... buntu.html
http://archive09.linux.com/feature/123847

these links will mainly refer to the later Gnome3 Ubuntu desktop settings, and won't all apply to Gnome2x/Mate:Cinnamon..

Ubuntu tweak can also be installed into Mint..
http://www.noobslab.com/2012/06/install ... linux.html
http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

user ideas, tweaks/tips..
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=938771
--some of it is bad advice, such as remove the Xserver and anything associated with it: you always have to research before deciding what if anything can be safely removed

For example, I always stop

• devices I don't use: bluetooth, pccard
• unattended updates,I check for myself
  avahi daemon, I don't need to discover devices on the LAN, I simply plug them in (such as a USB flaskdrive or a printer) and they become available or I can already install the driver (printer) for example..
• There are some others, just search the name on the Internet (Ubunt/Mint services selection, available via the desktop System-->Services)

--and so on..

[DrHu]

I have been recently thinking on these same lines. I think a lot of it stems from Linux trying with a somewhat flawed idea, that being more user friendly is the same as having flashy graphics and animations. This is not the case.

I agree the idea is flawed, but unfortunately it is the case for vendors

All you have to do is look at the desktop and mobile apps wars between Google, Apple, Microsoft to see that they are all about the sizzle
--no-one wants to know how well has the steak been done

Debian as a base is better, they only release when ready, and Mint tends to try and follow that edict..

Probably no-one goes back this far, but the single (initially) tasking dos system whereby one program was running and had the whole machine's attention is still probably as fast for its tasks as any modern system with GHz processors, fast RAM, fast hard drives (storage)
--was Dbase xx any less efficient than Access for the data collection that needed doing: I can't say for sure, but I have a feeling it is not (for access or more modern file oriented DB that is, with their attendant GUI look)

Despite that, and because the cost of computers (excepting Apple) have gone down significantly due to the monopolistic practice of Microsoft: this helped provide cheap hardware for Linux, we thank them for that, even if we don't like the actual practice..

So we get cheap computers that can multitask well and with Linux we are in more control
--and yes we (Linux) shouldn't get too sucked into the windows or GUI dna (or as I think the commercial vendors tell it the ecosystem
developers + apps + services + clients + $cash(pay)

[palo]

I just replaced Cinnamon with Xfce today for several reasons - speed and lightness among them. I don't understand the trend of Windows, KDE, and Gnome - all this extra power needed. If the trend continues eventually we will need 4 cores, 16G ram and dual video cards just to run the desktop - for running apps - thats extra hardware. At the end of the day you have to ask - what for? I just want to be able to click something and it is there - no waiting, no reservation needed. All this code added on code is not for the best is it? I have an old computer that I needed to run Windows - replaced XP with something called TinyXP which basically has all the extra garbage stripped out - it flies like LXDE and it looks much better than the original. It can be done and I know efforts are in place to cut the cruft from Cinnamon - I say go baby go!

Pat

[RJim]

DrHu and palo Yes that is it, you both understand perfectly.
I recently pulled out an old laptop with a 200 MHz CPU in it and 128 MB of RAM, it was running Windows 95, but everything responded either instantly or almost instantly. Why? Because the basic OS and desktop did not use up all the resources. It was still simple, but it got the job done. No unneeded flashiness or services.

Now I am not advocating going back to version 1 of anything. But the idea of going back to a simpler base is worthy of a look.
I suspect that Linux (as a whole) might be committing a slow suicide because it is stuff on top of other stuff on top of other stuff, and it is becoming over complicated.

My recent experience with PolicyKit is just a small example. PolicyKit in my opinion after talking with some experts is an extra service that is really not needed. But it cannot be stopped and cannot be removed because it is now tied in with most of the system. Well, I would just ignore it, but it has a nasty memory leak, which was reported to the developer years ago before I even started with Linux. It has never been fixed, so now what?

My solution was to move from KDE to XFCE, to simplify the system. This slowed the memory leak considerably but did not stop it completely. So now I had to make a Cron job that kills polkitd every 30 minutes.

What was my point in mentioning all this? I believe the Linux system is slowly becoming too complicated and too disjointed. Yes the strength of Linux may be its modularity, but it will lose that too if there is not some standards and uniformity (uniformity is not all evil).

These are all my personal opinions and observations, and I am admittedly a new user of Linux with not a lot of experience. But I do have the ability to notice and see things. And if I -- a new user -- can notice these things obviously then it may be time for others to take note also.

--Jim

[jamvaru]

lol, Microsoft didn't drive down hardware costs; IBM open design did

isn't it Apple that spearheaded the glitter design? more glitterdust means more kids clamoring for the next latest iBS

you can only have so much glitterdust on given xyz hardware before you notice performance degradation

too bad cinnamon doesn't have a 'low glitter' option, lol

basically 'integrated' desktop environments are for lazy windows (and apple) imigrants who don't want to learn xfce or lxde or an even more 'basic' design like fluxbox

it is nice to have everything all tied together and working without tweaking; you can't get the kids without glitterdust

[axel668]

Using Mint XFCE on a 3GB Netbook and it's lightning fast, much faster than Windows 7 or Debian (screen unlocking in NO time at all).
Maybe you have a driver problem (using Vesa instead of proprietary graphics driver or something),
Google your laptop + ubuntu + performance, most likely someone else had the same issue before (and hopefully found a fix).

[jamvaru]

did you install the proprietary graphics drivers?

[DaComboMan]

Don't want to be too pointy but... if i download openSUSE KDE 12 it occupies 702Mb on a CD.
If i download LinuxMint 13's version, it's over 900Mb (yet to be copied over to a DVD).

[cwsnyder]

@DaComboMan: And DamnSmallLinux is less than 60MB, Puppy Linux is less than 150MB for most flavors, Slitaz is less than 35MB, Tiny Core multi-core is 45MB, all with working X and GUIs. All but Tiny Core Linux has that including a web browser and many other applications.

[DrHu]

lol, Microsoft didn't drive down hardware costs; IBM open design did

That is debatable, Microsoft did ride the coattails of IBM when they made their PC, and because Microsoft owned the OS (msdos) and only licensed it to IBM (and others!) they were able to expand as IBM penetrated markets

Eventually Microsoft dropped or duped : depends on your perspective OS-2 in favor or their own newer OS: NT (New technology)
--from then on it was all guns firing for Microsoft, IBM later got out of the PC business (desktops initially and later Thinkpad notebooks (.. Lenevo)..

[jamvaru]

that is partially true

the initial IBM design allowed for clones, hence the glut of IBM style computers on the market, any of which could install MS software

and why Linux is primarily targeted towards i386 chipsets today