Extraordinarily slow

[ddalley]

Over the years, I occasionally come across Linux installs that take an extraordinary amount of time to operate, in general. While I am encountering this now with LM 19/Cinnamon, this has occurred with various distributions, not just LM.

Yesterday evening, somewhere around 9PM, I started this install of 19 from scratch, including the torrent download and disc write. A finished install usually eats up, say, an hour. My guess is that this particular install might finish before midnight, a day later. This is an especially egregious example, true, but I have to ask.

Why does this happen only sometimes?
What can I do about it?
How can I test what is eating up the CPU cycles, or whatever else is going on?

Conditions:
- the Pentium laptop is a few years old, yes, but other distributions and installs aren't bothered by that
- I only install Linux on USB sticks and that is not a problem in the USB 3.0 era, either
- the problem exists on my desktop box, too
- I test each USB stick and this one is typical, about 30Mb/sec

[ddalley]

OK, so it finished installing about 24 hours after I started yesterday.

[trytip]

you should not let the computer perform for 24 hours during installation. something is quite wrong and letting it do an installation for 24 hrs is out of the question. there's no telling what is wrong unless you open a task manager or top to see if cpu is hanging at 100% or if installation is actually on hold waiting for downloads. could be you connected to the internet and updates are going at a slow connection from mint mirrors. or maybe your wifi is not connecting. did it occur to open system monitor to check download speed or to see what processes are running?

[ddalley]

Once installation starts, I am not going to interfere with it.

I am almost finished installing Xfce overtop of the first install. Same hardware and Internet connection, different install disc. It is taking a normal amount of time. (It just completed and took about 1.25 hours.)

I still have no idea why the first install took so long and operated so slowly after rebooting into Cinnamon.

[smurphos]

I'm amazed by 1.25 hours. My fresh install of 19 cinnamon on a Sandybrdge i5 machine with HDD was done and dusted in about 15 minutes...

[trytip]

yes even my 2007 computer with usb 2.0 was finished in about 30 minutes

[AZgl1800]

I'm amazed by 1.25 hours. My fresh install of 19 cinnamon on a Sandybrdge i5 machine with HDD was done and dusted in about 15 minutes...

that had to be with a FOB in a USB-3 port,

a DVD takes a lot longer than that, never had one install in less than 30 minutes.

my Acer 5253 takes well over an hour to do an install. I never put a stop watch to it, but to tell someone it can be done in 15 minutes is doing them a disservice.

How much Ram is in the i5 machine you speak of? the Acer 5253 only has 2gB RAM and the DVD is very slow.

[AZgl1800]

15 minutes is way too optimistic for the average guy on the block with an average, affordable laptop/desktop.

This thread coincided with me upgrading this Acer 5253 to a faster, larger HDD.
..... the old HDD was 128gB 5200 rpm

So, with this thread in mind, I put a stop watch on the install of XCFE, as the Acer is minimal with 2gB RAM
and a 1.3mHz clock.

for this test, I used a Flash Drive that I already had made for 18.3 xcfe on a 16gB stick. FWTW

here are my notes:

Install xcfe 1TB. 7200 rpm HDD
BRAND NEW OUT OF BOX
Using xcfe ISO on 16gB Flash Drive

11:39 power on
11:51. Something else completed, had to set up the partitions. The unallocated area will be ext4 /backup
11:52:30. Time zone
Install now running
Mouse has to be moved every minute to prevent Screen Saver from locking up
the install.

12:07:45. Install Finished, Restart now.

60 seconds later it said remove FOB




So, looking at the Stop Watch, it took 29 minutes to get to "Install Done" message.

The Acer 5253 is very representative of what most folks will have to work with.
Anything better costs double the money. If I continue the upgrade with 8gB RAM ( max it can take )
and the planned SSD, I will easily double the costs of what this laptop was worth new....

the 7200 rpm 1TB drive in it now? it won't stay, that is planned for another project.
but, I wanted to verify just how long a typical install takes.

15 minutes might be doable on a much faster machine, with 8gB RAM

I do remember that when I did a fresh install on my ASUS with 500gB SSD, 12gB RAM,
that the install went much faster than I remembered it taking the very first time when I used a USB DVD for the install.
the TP500L does not have a DVD optical drive, it is a thin/mint FlipBook

[ddalley]

Back on topic...

Why are some installations incredibly slow?

I gave you a recent example of a really bad one and I still have no idea why this happens or what, if anything, I, as a user, can do about it.

This isn't my first time in this rodeo. I have experienced this with various distributions, off and on, for over a decade. If I made another attempt using the same install disc and USB stick, it might even work as expected. I just never can tell.

So, what gives?

[ddalley]

I'm amazed by 1.25 hours. My fresh install of 19 cinnamon on a Sandybrdge i5 machine with HDD was done and dusted in about 15 minutes...

If mine had an i5 and gobs of memory and a modern hard drive or SSD, it might complete in 15 minutes, too, but it doesn't.

The laptop has the maximum amount of memory possible and a Pentium Dual. It is what is, and it works. At least it is 64-bit.

I can tolerate an hour or so. A day is a bit much, especially when the installed version ALSO will run just as slow. That is a bit annoying.

[smurphos]

How much Ram is in the i5 machine you speak of? the Acer 5253 only has 2gB RAM and the DVD is very slow.

6GB. I bought it new about 6-7 years ago on sale for about £350 (sterling) so I've never thought of it as an expensive machine. In USB2 only, HDD not SSD. Installation is via USB. I've got a decent Fibre Broadband connection and the machine is wired so that will help with downloading updates during the install.

I was genuinely surprised that an install could take that long. Other than Vbox installs (which are similarly quick) I've not had the need to install linux on a machine very often - I think I'm on my 4th full install.

Edit to add - I've just compared the benchmarks for the Acer's AMD chip vs the i5-2430m - yes the latter scores quite a bit higher.

[Pierre]

in general, if the machine has less than, say, 2Gb of ram,
and / or the CPU is less than 2GHz and / or there is an older style HDD:
then any combination of those - can make the Installation Very Slow indeed.

if you are booting an Disk instead of an usb stick - then that can be somewhat slower, as well.
& there can even be issues with the usb port & that usb stick, as well.
plus, if you have a slower-than-normal internet connection - - that can affect the installation time, as well.

there is just so many variables, to be considered, as to why that One Time was So Much Slower, than is normal,
and Only One of Them, has to be non-normal & suddenly your Installation is now over an Hour .. ..
- - an Hour is about all that you should need to install any operating system,,
but those updates, are another matter, that often can take any number of Hours to achieve.

[AZgl1800]

The internet connection is a problem here.

I am on ADSL, that is a copper wire telephone line, and bit error rates are high.
Causes a lot of repeats for data packets.

The Town Board just had a discussion to bring in "modern internet" to us, they are going to 5.8gHz WiFi ?
Yes, a WiFi radio link that we would have to share amongst all of our neighbors.

It stinks to be in a rural area where the economics do not support laying fiber optics down to each home.

[ddalley]

But that is precisely my point. If this happens every single time, then I would junk the old hardware. For the vast majority of the time, everything works normally and is satisfactory, under the circumstances.

Only occasionally does an install work this way. It wouldn't be so bad if it was only slow during the install process, but the finished product works slowly, too. Like I said, I installed another LM19 distro on the same media and everything was normal. I have since created another Cinnamon install from the same install disc and it is normal, so far, so it isn't the install media or flash media. And, as I mentioned above, the same thing can happen using my desktop box, so it isn't just my laptop.

I checked using one of the few tools at my disposal and the CPU is not working above 9%, and not much memory is being used, so it's not that.

[srq2625]

as I mentioned above, the same thing can happen using my desktop box, so it isn't just my laptop.

I checked using one of the few tools at my disposal and the CPU is not working above 9%, and not much memory is being used, so it's not that.

This could point to something other than your computers. Even as your laptop (Acer 5253) has an older CPU, it's still more than adequate to the job (I've installed on hardware a lot less glamorous!).

Have you rebooted your hardware (modem, router, switch, etc) between your computers and your ISP?

Have you considered time of day. My internet connection is great on weekdays, right up until about 1730 and then again after about 2200.

If you are using wired connections, have you inspected your wire for damage?

If WiFi, have you looked to see what, if any, congestion is occurring on the frequency/channel your WiFi router/switch is using? I know you said you're rural, but ....

[ddalley]

Someone else has the Acer 5253. I have a 4730Z and it's working normally.

I have described how Linux operates, not how it deals with the Internet. When installing, it is operating from a DVD, taking any downloads into account. When it runs slowly after installation, I described how it is operating independent of anything else.