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Ubuntu 12.04 and slowness

Asked by snellant

Ever since I upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 my desktop has been pretty slow. It is dell 8400 512MB RAM, RV370 RADEON X300SE graphics card. plenty of disk space.

uname -a

3.2.0.-33-generic

wheezy/sid

I read some issues with graphic drivers. I'm wondering if mine is related to that. I'm ok to go and buy a card if it is Ubuntu supported. after spending the whole day (some solutions from ubuntu site, wiki, etc) with trial and errors, no success yet. I'm using a windows laptop to enter this issue (desktop response is so bad that i can't even use that for doing anything).

besides, where did they hide the class menu? I can't locate anything under this thing. any help would be appreciated.

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15
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Best N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#1

Hi snellant ,

I think that 512MB of RAM are not enough for fast performance.

Try to switch to ubuntu-2d environment and see if is better . From login screen you can switch with one click. Ubuntu-2D environment is pre-installed in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
If you don't know how to switch , see the pictures below
(1) http://i.stack.imgur.com/34AbA.png (2) http://i.stack.imgur.com/gPLtQ.png

The classic menu is not exist anymore. Considered as deprecated , but some other menus like the old gnome2 exist. You can search for "gnome-session-fallback" package (through Ubuntu Software Center) and install it, then logout and login through gnome-classic (no effects). The procedure is exactly the same as above pictures shows.

A better idea would be to install an Official flavor (derivative) of Ubuntu with a lighter desktop environment.
You can try Lubuntu 12.04 (but Lubuntu is NOT an LTS version) , can be found here: http://lubuntu.net/tags/lubuntu-1204
or
Xubuntu 12.04 LTS (support for 3 years) , can be found here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/12.04/release/

Also , this Debian/Sid you wrote , what is this ?

Thanks

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

Have you tried the 2D session?

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snellant (snellant) said : 		#3

thanks a lot for quick response. I tried Ubuntu 2d (thanks for the screen snapshots..you saved a google search!), but no improvement.

but I tried Lubuntu 12.04, wow, what an improvement!....so, basically it is Ubuntu's heavy GUI killed my basic desktop experience, can't believe Ubuntu can do this! why didn't they check my config and just say in plain english 'DON'T UPGRADE or use LUBUNTU, etc'.....shouldn't be too hard to implement this basic checking instead of upgrading and screwing up the whole Ubuntu experience. perhaps this is an enhancement request....I was about to go and buy another desktop with Win 8. You helped me to avoid that expense. thanks again.

Lubuntu rocks. I like it. I'm going to stick to this. Can I use Eclipse and android with Lubuntu?

thanks a lot folks.

Regards,
snellant

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#4

You can use almost everything in Lubuntu. It has not so many programs pre-installed but it uses the Ubuntu sources , so you can install anything you want.

Mark the answer that solved your problem (for future-help-others with same problem).

Ubuntu will warning you about low specs , only if you are out of range, you wasn't , you was in the limits , but working in the limits , you cannot have a speedy OS.

Yes Lubuntu rocks (I use it too) also I use Xubuntu 12.04 .

Thanks

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snellant (snellant) said : 		#5

Thanks NikTh, that solved my question.

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snellant (snellant) said : 		#6

I ordered 2GB already, waiting for it to arrive. I kinda thought that 512MB is awefully low now a days. so ordered it before even I resolved this issue. thanks much for your help and for this community. long live Ubuntu/lubuntu!

Revision history for this message
snellant (snellant) said : 		#7

NikTh,
by the way, I ran into similar issues with laptop - config below. In this case, pretty decent size of memory (2GB)...I followed same approach - installed lubuntu after which everything is ok.

model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.60GHz
MemTotal: 2061288 kB

I don't know why this config. would run into same issue. We can't blame it on memory size. just adding this - so it may help someone/you...