Sorry, I didn't get a notification so I didn't realize there had been a reply. I'm not trying to do photo editing or anything like that although I do it on this machine under Netrunner with no problems or slowness at all. The slowness I am talking about is in simple things like just opening programs. It takes so long to just open a program that I haven't tried to do anything but some web surfing under Mint. It's not the hardware in and of itself, since I run other distros (all of them KDE) on this same hardware without problems. In fact, I'm still using Netrunner on this machine because so far, Mint isn't really usable. Maybe I don't have something set up correctly? Here's the results of ini -Fx:
System: Host: melisa-Mintkde Kernel: 3.5.0-17-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.7.2)
Desktop: KDE 4.9.5 (Qt 4.8.3) Distro: Linux Mint 14 Nadia
Machine: System: HP-Pavilion product: GX612AA-ABA m8330f
Mobo: ASUSTek model: NARRA3 version: 3.02 Bios: Phoenix version: 5.11 date: 04/15/2008
CPU: Quad core AMD Phenom 9500 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 17680.3
Clock Speeds: 1: 1100.00 MHz 2: 1100.00 MHz 3: 1100.00 MHz 4: 1100.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA G86 [GeForce 8500 GT] bus-ID: 02:00.0
X.Org: 1.13.0 drivers: (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau) FAILED: nvidia Resolution: 1440x900@59.9hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce 8500 GT/PCIe/SSE2/3DNOW! GLX Version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 304.88 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card: NVIDIA MCP61 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:05.0 Sound: ALSA ver: 1.0.25
Network: Card: NVIDIA MCP61 Ethernet driver: forcedeth port: ec00 bus-ID: 00:07.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:1e:8c:6e:f2:d0
Drives: HDD Total Size: 640.1GB (1.7% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HD320KJ size: 320.1GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: SAMSUNG_HD320KJ size: 320.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 57G used: 5.6G (11%) fs: ext4 ID: /boot size: 461M used: 43M (10%) fs: ext4
ID: swap-1 size: 4.19GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap ID: swap-2 size: 4.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 49.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:71C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 173 Uptime: 2 min Memory: 660.5/3029.7MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.7.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
karlchen wrote:Hello, LNXlady.
Based on my own experience: 4 GB of RAM is absolutley all right, in particular for a 32-bit Mint version. My office machine has got 4 GB of RAM (3.45 GB of them usable). I hardly ever use more than 1.5 GB although I run a number of applications in parallel. Yet, it all depends. If I did video editing 4 GB might be not enough. In this case the good old Nvidia Geforec 8500 GT might be undersized as well.
By the way my GeForce 8500 GT has got only 256 MB of dedicated video RAM. Yet, doing office work most of the time my Mint 13 x64 Cinnamon 1.6.7 desktop runs really fast.
On the other hand on Windows 7 the same video card only scores 4.6 points out of 7.9 for its gaming performance. So the 8500 GT, seen from the current perspective, is not a really power card.
Yet, as stated above, it is good enough for Cinamon. I cannot, however, judge whether it is good enough for KDE. I have never bothered to try Mint KDE.
So, no, your hardware specifications alone do not explain why your machine works in a sluggish way. Sorry, but it is not that simple.
You might wish to run
and post the screen output here. This will give a concise overview of your hardware and the relevant hardware drivers.
Kind regards,
Karl