Mint Xfce will suddenly become very slow and then crashes

[GusCtSr]

These are my system specs:

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gustavo@gustavo-530XBB:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-91-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.4.0
    Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1 Distro: Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria
    base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: SAMSUNG product: 530XBB v: P09REQ
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: SAMSUNG model: NP530XBB-AD1BR v: SGLFREEDOS-C00-R000-S0000+1.0.0000
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends
    v: P09REQ.067.190904.ZW date: 09/04/2019
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 35.8 Wh (98.9%) condition: 36.2/39.0 Wh (92.7%)
    volts: 8.6 min: 7.7 model: SAMSUNG Electronics SR Real Battery status: N/A
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Celeron N4000 bits: 64 type: MCP
    arch: Goldmont Plus rev: 1 cache: L1: 112 KiB L2: 4 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1520 high: 1587 min/max: 800/2600 cores: 1: 1587
    2: 1453 bogomips: 4377
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel GeminiLake [UHD Graphics 600] vendor: Samsung Co
    driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0
  Device-2: Silicon Motion Web Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-3:6
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 600 (GLK 2)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1~22.04.2 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor High Definition Audio
    vendor: Samsung Co driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:0e.0
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-91-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Gemini Lake PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:0c.0
  IF: wlo2 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: USB
    driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-9:9
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter>
    bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.1
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 58.24 GiB used: 51.72 GiB (88.8%)
  ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 vendor: SanDisk model: DA4064 size: 58.24 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 56.53 GiB used: 51.71 GiB (91.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/mmcblk0p2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/mmcblk0p1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 783.5 MiB (38.3%) file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0 C mobo: 48.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 250 Uptime: 2h 37m Memory: 3.63 GiB used: 3.13 GiB (86.2%)
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.4.0 Packages: 2607 Shell: Bash
  v: 5.1.16 inxi: 3.3.13

My computer is usually very fast and reliable running Mint Xfce. It's faster than other more powerful hardware I use.

There is just one problem: sometimes the system will become suddenly very slow (the mouse cursor barely moves if I move the mouse) and then it crashes. I have to reboot the computer to resume whatever I was doing.

I'm not a computer expert but since this issue only occurs sporadically I'm assuming it's some sort of error that may be solved somehow.

I retrieved log following instructions from this post: viewtopic.php?p=2045586#p2045586

Here is the log file: https://mega.nz/folder/edJ1DCpS#qxmsHhx85u2T6WV6mi-mlg

It would help a lot if I could stop whatever is making this computer crash.

[spamegg]

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Memory: 3.63 GiB used: 3.13 GiB (86.2%)

You probably ran out of memory. Then the system will freeze for a while, and oom-killer will kill some applications to free RAM.

Buy more RAM!

[Hoser Rob]

I'm thinking you may have run out of memory too. Did you have a lot of browser tabs open? Were you using a NLE or some other RAM hog?

[GusCtSr]

Hi, thanks for your replies. I was running Firefox with a few open tabs, Discord and a virtual machine running Windows XP and within it OneNote 2010. In fact this is basically all I do on this computer. It works really fast for these purposes. So It's weird that it will crash suddenly, without giving any sings of slowness before.

I have searched and saw some people reporting a similar issue and suspecting it could be Firefox, although no real explanation on this suspicion was presented. Apparently Firefox would have a sudden surge of RAM usage, causing the system to crash on low spec computers, such as mine. But it's hypothetical.

Since the day I started this thread I removed Firefox and installed Chrome. I will check whether the crashes will stop.

So far I had not experienced another crash. But before claiming it was Firefox I need to test for a longer time.

[spamegg]

So It's weird that it will crash suddenly, without giving any sings of slowness before.

That's not weird. That is exactly how running out of memory happens.

3.63GB is just too small for a modern OS. Not to mention you are using a virtual machine, along with a modern browser, and Discord (which is just a slimmed down version of Chrome). You should have at least 8GB for comfortable usage.

By the way, if you are using XP in a virtual machine just for OneNote, there is a far superior alternative on Linux called Xournal++.

Since the day I started this thread I removed Firefox and installed Chrome. I will check whether the crashes will stop.

Chrome is known for using even more RAM. Your issue is probably not the particular choice of browser. You can keep testing, and you may not run out of memory for a while, but then you open one website that's really badly coded, and RAM usage might go up suddently. So it's too difficult to test consistently.

[GusCtSr]

Thanks for the tips, mate.

I googled Xournal++. It seems a decent alternative to Onenote. The sad thing is I have so much stuff on OneNote I would have to use both. But still very interesting. Thanks.