SOLVED - ACER Aspire 5253-BZ602 is sooooo slow - XFCE to the Rescue

[AZgl1800]

I was given an old notebook a year ago, and when I tried to use it on Win7 it was a sluggard beyond belief.

So, I thought I would put Linux Mint 18.3 on it.....
Better? nope, just as bad.

Firefox 54.x and when I do the ALT-B for Bookmarks, it just waits and waits and waits....

Ask for a website, and it is another horrible wait....
so, I am asking for the version of Mint that requires the absolute minimum overhead requirements.

Here are the notebook specs, and notice their remarks about performance.


https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspi ... 804.0.html


why am I messing with this? Because it is free, and I thought it would be a good thing to use on my motorcycle trips.... less chance of breaking my good laptop....


Addons: just a weather applet on the screen, nothing else, just what came with Mint Cinnamon

john@john-Aspire-5253 ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: john-Aspire-5253 Kernel: 4.10.0-38-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.6 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3)
Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine: Mobo: Acer model: Aspire 5253 v: V1.04
Bios: Acer v: V1.04 date: 12/31/2010
CPU: Dual core AMD E-350 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 6384
clock speeds: max: 1600 MHz 1: 1280 MHz 2: 1600 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310]
bus-ID: 00:01.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1366x768@60.01hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PALM (DRM 2.49.0 / 4.10.0-38-generic, LLVM 4.0.0)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler HDMI Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.10.0-38-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit Ethernet
driver: atl1c v: 1.0.1.1-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 06:00.0
IF: enp6s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-2: Broadcom BCM43225 802.11b/g/n
driver: bcma-pci-bridge bus-ID: 07:00.0
IF: wlp7s0b1 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 250.1GB (3.2% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: Hitachi_HTS54502 size: 250.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 227G used: 5.8G (3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
ID-2: /boot size: 472M used: 68M (16%) fs: ext2 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-3: swap-1 size: 1.85GB used: 0.39GB (21%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-1
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 50.5C mobo: N/A gpu: 51.0
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 182 Uptime: 2:38 Memory: 1034.0/1725.4MB
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35
john@john-Aspire-5253 ~ $

[Pjotr]

Do a clean installation of the lightweight Xfce edition of Mint 18.3. And then apply these safe speed tweaks:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/3

[Moem]

Less than 2GB of RAM? I agree with Pjotr: that's not a Cinnamon machine, that's an XFCE machine.

[JadedMonk]

I'd have to concur with Moem - you need more RAM.

I speak with experience, as I've installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1 on 2 Acer Aspire Notebooks, one with 1GB of RAM and the other with 4GB. The 1GB machine, even with the swap speed set low, gui bells and whistles all off, etc takes 30 seconds just for the menu to open. The 4GB machine, which we still use, (one of my sons is on it right now as we speak) runs pretty good but it has occasional issues with NVIDIA, which you'll find no matter what OS you put on them. Our other machines have 8GB of RAM or more, and Linux Mint runs like a dream on all of them. (I only wish I could put it on my children's PS4 )

You might find that you have other problems with the ACER Aspire Notebooks, this is quite well documented on these forums, but don't let it discourage you. We've had Mint running on them for years now and are happy. I'll be glad to help in any way I can.

[Penn]

That same model of Acer is how I ended up on LMDE2. I do have 4 gigs ram though.

For me, I was seeing signs that the graphics card wasn't cutting it in the Ubuntu based version. I tried several Linux distros and landed on Debian as the only one that worked decently. So I figured why not try the Mint version of Debian. Been with it since and just overall prefer Debian to Ubuntu now.

If you go with Mate it should be able to handle the lower memory but many have had issues with the latest version of that and I never tried Mate on that machine. Cinnamon runs fine with the increased memory but will probably struggle with your lower memory.

I haven't tried true Debian Stretch (the more recent version than the Jessie base used by LMDE2) for an extended time on that machine but if you want some of the components to be more up to date you will need to go to Stretch. At least with Stretch you will have more desktop environments that will use lower memory than LMDE has with just 2 options (but then you will need to install the non-free drivers after install, not hard but an additional step).

And be forewarned, if you use suspend or hibernate you will probably need to install the 4.9 kernel from backports (again, not hard but an extra step) unless one of the more recent updates fixed whatever the issue is with some of the 3.16 kernel (I haven't tried the latest 2).

[jimallyn]

You definitely want to get Cinnamon off that machine and put XFCE on it. And do all the speed-up tricks that Pjotr linked to.

[AZgl1800]

You definitely want to get Cinnamon off that machine and put XFCE on it. And do all the speed-up tricks that Pjotr linked to.

Done.... and this ACER Aspire 5253-BZ602 is much snappier now.

Decided to just download the XFCE version and reformat the whole thing from scratch.
Not going to add any heavy apps to this, just use it as a web browser when out cruising the boulevards on my Honda Goldwing GL1800

Many thanks for all you guys, who help me so much.... we have had quite the struggles with my ASUS TP500L laptop, but it has taught me a lot.

I am no long scared of Linux

this XFCE desktop is pretty decent, nice and snappy.

going to mark it SOLVED....