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

[craig10x]

I kind of wish they would let you move around the unity dock also but i did get use to it and actually like it now...also, i shrunk the pixel size of the icons to 38 pixels and have it on autohide (as you can do in 12.04 and 12.10)...i put all my favorites and frequently used applications on it for quick 1 click access...i kind of look at it as a shortcut task bar dock (lol) So not really bad when you get use to it...

Well, mint 14 is coming soon...which is based on 12.10 so you might want to give it a go...or you can also add cinnamon session to ubuntu...maybe that would work for you...

[DaComboMan]

Ya, i suppose you get used to that panel after a while.
The way you do it is pretty much the way i eventually did as well.

Thing is, i prefer LinuxMint and after testing the Debian version,
it's just like day and night compared to Cinnamon or Mate (especially Cinnamon).
Talking speed here and general responsiveness.

From what i've been reading on Ubuntu 12.10,
they really haven't worked at making it any faster
but added more features. Wish they could do both!

If people are running over to Chrome (and perhaps to the IE 10 for Windows 7 coming up in a few weeks),
then maybe Ubuntu is going down the wrong road.

From my point of view, Ubuntu isn't faster than Windows 7.

[nickson5]

Like many poeple I use my older computer to run Linux because I need windows on my newest computer to play games and stuff you cannot do on Linux
I'm currently back to Mint 12 which is pretty fast even with all the effects enabled. Anything over Ubuntu 12 or Mint 13 (32 or 64bit) is slow and sluggish as hell. Even with the fps fix to smooth things out a little.
My old computer was able to run GTA4 perfectly fine and as an ATI hd4xxx
Before you say it's the fault of my computer. I've tried it on 10+ different computers and it's slow on all of them. Also some of them were running on default driver because there is no Intel graphic drivers included. So many computer has that. It looks like a pita to install the intel graphic 3rd party driver.

BUT... I did also want to try it on my gaming rig. An overclocked Quad core that runs Battlefield 3 at ULTRA settings 1920x1080. The Nvidia driver installed correctly. Everything seems fine but it's still sluggish!?
I also tried a little older GFX card in it and no success.

Is it that some people are blind to see it's slow? Is it only running ok on acer crappy laptop? Is the speed based on geographic location? Should i've choosen USA to have more speed? lol

[occupant]

On my primary (Windows) desktop, I have 12GB of memory and a Core i7-950 shooting video through an HD6870 card into an LED monitor.

GTA IV does not lag...GIMP isn't crippled...Lightworks is lightning fast...BUT I can open a few tabs in Chrome for work purposes and it takes FOREVER.

It's not my internet connection, I have cable, 50Mb download (tested) 6Mb upload (tested).

It's the dang server of the company I work for. One E5606 Xeon CPU, 2GB of RAM. *smh*

[Oyabunbaba]

Like someone already have said it's about tweaking.
Tweaking animations, swappiness, even installing without SWAP if you have 6GB or more, proprietary drivers are also important. remove zeitgeist, remove orphaned packages, use bleachbit, auto-start applications, etc,etc. Of course some desktops are slower than the others in exchange of functionality and visual effects.

[DaComboMan]

Perhaps there are some "orphaned packages" to remove...

Latest LM 14 Cinnamon and Mate are both better/faster than previous (at least on my laptop).
Mate takes it hands down for sure!

But...

They're still not as fast as i would like and expect.

So...

I've dabbed into the world of Manjaro (Archlinux based) and latest Fedora 18 beta.
Both are super fast on my poor old laptop.
Much faster and lighter than any Linux version i've tried so far (Ubuntu, OpenSuse etc.).
Manjaro requires a bit of effort to install (similar to LM Debian) but more user friendly compared to Archlinux (fastest i've seen yet).
Fedora 18 beta installation was much easier but a bit murky with regards to which direction to take in that area.

If someone have tweaked their Cinnamon or Mate to make them just as fast as these last two, then i'm all ears!

[DaComboMan]

Me thinks Clem did something on LinuxMint 14.1 MATE... it is speedy like i haven't seen it in a long time!
So far (haven't checked cpu) it feels lightweight and most responsive.

Can't say the same for Cinnamon but that's okay. I found my way back home!

Manjaro Cinnamon is really cool but... what can i tell ya, hey! even the Logitech headset work right off the bat without a reboot! (clapping hands)!

[DaComboMan]

Hopefully it's not just my case but 14.1 really did make MATE super fast!
Boot time only takes a minute! Wasn't like that with 14.

Unfortunately, i can't say the same for CINNAMON.

[igor83]

I'm using Xubuntu 12.10 / Xfce at the moment, and it boots in 25 seconds, which is five seconds faster than Linux Mint Mate 13, certainly not a big difference, but I do find that the higher-def video playback is faster, don't seem to have to dial down the settings quite as much. So Xfce holds promise for htpc, may be a little better there.

Lately, I have gotten some weird messages lately about plymouthd crashing due to VMA, segmentation fault, and/or something I don't understand, but I don't know whether to be concerned about that or not. Makes me wonder whether it was really worth it to go with ubuntu 12.10 rather than 12.04. I am wondering what is really gained by 12.10?

Although I like Xubuntu for htpc, due to low weight and speed, for usability I'd probably want to explore Linux Mint Xfce, because I like that menu and all the other nice stuff that LM offers.

[moxiemontague]

I'm a lifelong MS addict: DOS 4.1 through Win 7
I tried Linux many times: Caldera, Mandrake, Red Hat, Corel, Suze . . . .
I always found Linux fast but there weren't any hardware drivers for it and darn little software.
Now I've got two identical boxes: both have same ASUS mobo. both are AMD Athlon II 3.2 ghz quadcores. Both have WD 500 g hdds. Both are running 16 g RAM. One has 64-bit Win 7 the other has 64-bit Maya 13.
Linux positively SMOKES the Windows box. Performance wise, I love Linux Mint. But I'm still a Linux newbie and I still can't get my Brother laser printer to work in Linux and I still can't get my scanners to run in Linux and I still can't get my label printer to run in Linux -- You all know where this is going if I chased it down the road a ways.

Compatibility is better than it used to be by an order of magnitude. But it's still a long way from perfect. I think a bunch of enterprising Linux geeks could lay off starting up a new distro project and devote themselves to creating Linux drivers for popular hardware. I know I'm going off-topic and the last thing I want is to start a ruckus -- but really! They're dropping support for 386 chips, fine. The only folks still running hardware that old probably live in third-world countries and may even be so far off the grid that they can't get (or can't afford) Internet service. And the last thing -- the last thing the world needs is another new Linux distro. Somebody could make a lot of dough writing drivers, though. . . .

[igor83]

I'm a lifelong MS addict: DOS 4.1 through Win 7
I tried Linux many times: Caldera, Mandrake, Red Hat, Corel, Suze . . . .
I always found Linux fast but there weren't any hardware drivers for it and darn little software.
Now I've got two identical boxes: both have same ASUS mobo. both are AMD Athlon II 3.2 ghz quadcores. Both have WD 500 g hdds. Both are running 16 g RAM. One has 64-bit Win 7 the other has 64-bit Maya 13.
Linux positively SMOKES the Windows box. Performance wise, I love Linux Mint. But I'm still a Linux newbie and I still can't get my Brother laser printer to work in Linux and I still can't get my scanners to run in Linux and I still can't get my label printer to run in Linux -- You all know where this is going if I chased it down the road a ways.

Compatibility is better than it used to be by an order of magnitude. But it's still a long way from perfect. I think a bunch of enterprising Linux geeks could lay off starting up a new distro project and devote themselves to creating Linux drivers for popular hardware. I know I'm going off-topic and the last thing I want is to start a ruckus -- but really! They're dropping support for 386 chips, fine. The only folks still running hardware that old probably live in third-world countries and may even be so far off the grid that they can't get (or can't afford) Internet service. And the last thing -- the last thing the world needs is another new Linux distro. Somebody could make a lot of dough writing drivers, though. . . .

I had similar hardware incompatibilities several years ago w/ Linux (even Linux Mint, I think) and had to slink back to Windows, so I get it. In my case, I slowly divested myself of the incompatible motherboards. Now Linux likes my motherboards and sound outputs okay. Linux also recognized my printer, an OKI 5200, after I did just the tiniest bit of research on Google. I had to enter a command in the Terminal to install it, I think. I forget what it was that I did. That's one thing you have to do if you take the Linux road, be willing to research on the Internet, because with the OS being free, there ain't no 1-800 number. If you love tech like I do and have the time to invest, then it's not quite so bad really. I should ask whether you have been hitting the search engines for solutions to your hardware difficulties. I do it all the time, but then I did it for Windows too, you know, because Windows doesn't always work right either, and there are definitely hardware problems in Windows too.

The worst problems I had with Linux in 2012 was, first and foremost, connecting to my Windows shares on the home network, and second, getting that ATI proprietary driver installed and configured correctly. I wanted to use the latest version, so I was trying to download it from ATI's site, which didn't work out too well...eventually I just went with the one available on the repository. But there are some commands that must be entered in a terminal to verify correct installation and to setup xorg.conf.

Linus Torvalds oversees the crew that writes the hardware drivers that get added to the Kernel. Some manufacturers cooperate in releasing specs more than others. I'd say ATI is not as cooperative as it should be. If the guys at AMD/ATI had a brain in their head, they would cooperate 100% and give every last bit of pertinent technical info to the open-source coders, so that the Linux driver would be that much better and Linux users would have a powerful reason to buy ATI products. As it is, we have a situation where there's the proprietary driver for Linux that ATI releases, and it's usually got some issues, and there's the open-source driver which is good in some ways, not others. Although I finally got the proprietary driver installed on my rigs, it took me a lot of time researching the right method, and I've read about the limitations of the driver. I will think twice before buying anything AMD / ATI again. You could say, who cares, Linux users don't amount to a large percentage of the market place, but guess how many people ask for my recommendations when they are in the market for a new computer? The truth is that the Linux community influences the market more than our numbers would suggest. Today, AMD is in a lot of financial trouble, and the investors are scratching their heads wondering why. Well, who knows, it is probably a lot of things besides just this, but better outreach to the Linux community couldn't hurt either. I read that ATI assigns just two coders to support the Linux driver.

I think if you want Linux, then you should gradually transition to hardware that is Linux-friendly, and sell the other, less-compatible hardware to Windows users who don't care and will be happy with it. I've slowly moved in that direction over the years. In the future, I'm going to give a lot of attention to reviews where users discuss their Linux experience.

[Orbmiser]

"I think a bunch of enterprising Linux geeks could lay off starting up a new distro project and devote themselves to creating Linux drivers for popular hardware. "

As an example Video card drivers use C/C++ and Assembly language. If you're thinking of making a driver, then you should know that you'll probably never get the proper hardware programming information that you need to program a driver for it. And most modern programmers lack assembly language skills.

Writing a device driver requires an in-depth understanding of how the hardware and the software of a given platform function. And the manufactures of video cards,printers,scanners,etc.. guard that intimate knowledge of how the hardware operates. Less competitors still their trade secrets.

The task of writing drivers thus usually falls to software engineers or computer engineers who work for hardware-development companies therefore have the necessary critical data and info for the device . Although this information can be learned by reverse engineering, this is much more difficult with hardware than it is with software.
.

[addegsson]

You should try ElementaryOS it's lightning fast even on my old laptop with 1gb ram.

[DaComboMan]

Hot off the press is Dedoimedo's http://www.dedoimedo.com/games/steam-linux-beta-here.html first experience with STEAM!

We're at new beginnings for Linux!
If games make it big (and they will), then major companies like Canon are going to get involved and hopefully share their secret codes in a near future.

[jamvaru]

got it installed no problem, but you need an access code for the closed beta
not ready for prime time yet
'/

[DaComboMan]

got it installed no problem, but you need an access code for the closed beta
not ready for prime time yet
'/

Apparently since the last few weeks, anybody can play Team Fortress 2.
I'm not into games much, but it would seem that they perform much better on Linux than Windows.
Hence my deduction that once games officially break the ice on Linux,
we're going to see other improvements in the penguin world for sure!

[jamvaru]

oh, as far as this thread goes... try wattOS
really nice for older machines or low power machines
'/