Linux Mint is very slow

[toolrick]

Also I had an issue with the bluetooth when installing cinnamon in the first place... I know this has nothing to do with the post of running slow, but just out of curiosity... would freshinstalling Xfce would help me get rid of that problem too?

[Sir Charles]

Do you recommend Xfce better than Mint Mate?

I just can speak of my experience of Xfce running with the same CPU and same amount of RAM as you have. And it is good. Unfortunately, I have never installed Mate on this machine so I cannot tell the difference. Though, I had LM Cinnamon before and no matter how much I liked it it was a bit on the heavy side for this hardware. If I were to suggest anything, I would say give Xfce a chance. You can customize it to your liking and you will find it a quite likable DE.
Cheers
Marziano

[toolrick]

Do you recommend Xfce better than Mint Mate?

It's lighter, it should run faster on your machine.

Should I use partitions while installint it? I did not use any partitions when I fresh installed Cinnamon.. also what should I configure Swapiness to?

[toolrick]

Do you recommend Xfce better than Mint Mate?

I just can speak of my experience of Xfce running with the same CPU and same amount of RAM as you have. And it is good. Unfortunately, I have never installed Mate on this machine so I cannot tell the difference. Though, I had LM Cinnamon before and no matter how much I liked it it was a bit on the heavy side for this hardware. If I were to suggest anything, I would say give Xfce a chance. You can customize it to your liking and you will find it a quite likable DE.
Cheers
Marziano

Thanks, I will install it and see how it goes... How many programs can you use at once? and do you happen to ever get that annoying slowness on the mouse pointer?

[kukamuumuka]

I have never installed Mate on this machine so I cannot tell the difference.

Difference is very small. If the computer is slow, some packages and startup applications is good to remove. apt-xapian-index makes CPU-peaks, whose can freeze weak computer, so it the first thing to remove.

Code: Select all

apt purge apt-xapian-index

[Sir Charles]

Should I use partitions while installint it? I did not use any partitions when I fresh installed Cinnamon.. also what should I configure Swapiness to?

Not necessarily. You will be fine choosing "Erase the disk and install Linux Mint" option in the installer. I wouldn't encrypt the whole disk since there have been many cases when people have run in to trouble with an encrypted disk.
The swappiness can be adjusted post-install.

[toolrick]

I've red that changing swapiness from 60 to 10 is better... I do not know if this would work with my system.
Also is the distro still Ubuntu?

[Sir Charles]

Difference is very small. If the computer is slow, some packages and startup applications is good to remove. apt-xapian-index makes CPU-peaks, whose can freeze weak computer, so it the first thing to remove.

Code: Select all

apt purge apt-xapian-index

Thanks for the tip! You are right, that Xapian update can sometimes take a good 10 minutes or more with high CPU usage. I should look into it. And yes, uninstall it as you suggest.

[Sir Charles]

I've red that changing swapiness from 60 to 10 is better... I do not know if this would work with my system.

There is no reason it shouldn't. But that is something you would do after the install. Yow can read here: https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/linux-swappiness/ how you can go about adjusting the swappiness.

Also is the distro still Ubuntu?

If you mean if Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, the answer is yes. LM 18.3 is based on Ubuntu 16.04.

Thanks, I will install it and see how it goes... How many programs can you use at once? and do you happen to ever get that annoying slowness on the mouse pointer?

That is a bit difficult to answer. It depend on what programs you will be running and how much RAM an CPU they require etc.
One thing that I have done and actually still do is to have the Task Manager/System Monitor always open to keep an eye on the activity of the processes that are running in order to adjust my usage within the limit of my hardware capacity.

[Moem]

Should I use partitions while installint it? I did not use any partitions when I fresh installed Cinnamon..

The installer made the partitions for you. And that is fine: you don't have to do it by hand unless you want to.

[toolrick]

I have never installed Mate on this machine so I cannot tell the difference.

Difference is very small. If the computer is slow, some packages and startup applications is good to remove. apt-xapian-index makes CPU-peaks, whose can freeze weak computer, so it the first thing to remove.

Code: Select all

apt purge apt-xapian-index

I did not understand in the end if I should or shouldn't install Mint or Xfce... would it make no difference at all with the hardware I am using?

[Sir Charles]

I would go ahead and install Mint 18.3 Xfce. You just have to try it out yourself and see how it runs on your machine. On mine with the same CPU and the same amount of RAM it runs rather well. But we should have realistic expectation on how much workload these machines can pull through.
¡Suerte!

[toolrick]

Yes, I have been using Mint Mate for the past 2 weeks and it seems to be working fine...I just red on other posts that Xfce it's not as stable as Cinnamon and Mate, what has been your experience? My problem is just when I am using some apps at the same time, like spotify for music and Chrome or Chromium, and sheets from google drive that the computer starts to run a little slow... specially the mouse. Only once it totally crashed and had to give it a hard reset.

I have deleted what the others said and will see how it turns out.

Thanks,

RD

[Sir Charles]

I haven't experienced any instability with Xfce. I have made a habit of having the System Monitor open almost all the time to be able to check the CPU (Intel Celeron N2840) and RAM (2 GB) usage in order to adjust my activities accordingly. I seldom hit the swap. I can even run one VM and a browser with some tabs and listen to the music with some lightweight media player and other occasionally minor stuff. Only then I could hit the swap with around 0.3 to 0.5 GB.

[AZgl1500]

Difference is very small. If the computer is slow, some packages and startup applications is good to remove. apt-xapian-index makes CPU-peaks, whose can freeze weak computer, so it the first thing to remove.

Code: Select all

apt purge apt-xapian-index

This is something that is driving me batty..... I will be working with several things open at the same time, and then suddenly, the computer will "lock up"....

it is not totally frozen, the mouse will still move, and I can use REISUB to do a restart...
but, none of the desktop apps will return to Active Mode. they are just frozen in interstellar space where I can't access them...

I have just purged the xapian index, I truly hope that fixes the problem.

[Pjotr]

These are safe speed tweaks:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/3

[toolrick]

I just installed Linux Mint Xfce, so far so good.. I will let you know how it goes.

RD

[Sir Charles]

Sounds great! Enjoy your ride with Xfce
Cheers
Marte

[toolrick]

Sounds great! Enjoy your ride with Xfce
Cheers
Marte

One question Marte, I jsut noticed that the forward, rewind, play pause keys are not working on this distro; do you happen to know the commands to make them work?

[Sir Charles]

One question Marte, I jsut noticed that the forward, rewind, play pause keys are not working on this distro; do you happen to know the commands to make them work?

I'm sorry, I am afraid not
Hope someone looking in can help you out with this.