Slow - Ubuntu or Hardware?

Stainless_Steel

Hi all,

I just installed Ubuntu (latest version) onto an old Advent tower I had lying around.

It's very difficult to use however. Everything is so slow.

The system monitor shows CPU usage >90% on idle most of the time! There are only 2 processes visibly running - both using around 5% each on idle. What would be using up what is unaccounted for? Kernel?

It may be just down to the age of the hardware I am running it on, but thought I'd ask for advice. I definitely wasnt expecting it to be so slow (a lot slower than when the machine ran XP a few months back).

The specs of the PC (bought in 2004) are as follows:

2.16 GHz (I think) AMD Athlon XP CPU
512 MB DDR2 RAM
256 MB nVidia xx00 GPU
120 GB IDE HDD

Is the hardware just not good enough to run the latest release of Ubuntu???

Can anyone recommend a distro that will be snappier on such hardware?

Thanks all!

PrzemoF

The hardware isn't the problem.
Start your PC, leave it idle for 5 (or more if you wish) minutes than type uptime and check the load. You'll get something like that:

$ uptime
09:53:15 up 119 days, 19:08, 10 users, load average: 3.73 7.98 0.50

You might also use "top" to check what process is using CPU

Stainless_Steel

Thanks for the reply.

Excuse the ignorance, but what indication does the uptime give?
Edit: sorry your code snippet was cut off in my browser, I see that uptime displays the average load!

Will try your suggestions when next at the machine...and report back on findings.

Stainless_Steel

Have a bigger problem now....

Ubuntu won't accept any keyboard inputs or mouse clicks

The pointer moves around the screen no probs....but clicking has no effect. I also tried connecting remotely with VNC and same affects....mouse moving but no clicks working.

I can't even shut down properly! Tried powering down and up a couple of times but no change. Very annoying.

Any help much appreciated!

iCosmopolis

Ditto, I resurrected my older defunct HP laptop (sililiar specs as op) and installed ubuntu for my own amusement before xmas, was working ok'ish, I was working on its refusal to connect to my wifi and I can't get it to do anything much now,and won't boot-I assumed it was the original hardware failures (which I thought I worked through) but not so sure either now

Stainless_Steel

Is there something we are missing?!

I think I should give up....

Rebooted one more time for the craic and what do ya know....all working well! CPU averaging around 12% which you would expect! I thought all the problems were behind me....until...

I went to connect via VNC and no sign of the Ubuntu box on the network. Sure enough when I checked at the box it had no recognition of the ethernet cable that was plugged in. The network was one thing that always worked. Tried everything from rebooting machine to rebooting router and assigning reserved IP addresses. Nothing worked.

Then while tinkering the whole thing froze up. No cursor movement or anything :mad:

Surely the hardware has to be on it's last legs?! Hard disk maybe or probably even more severe problem with the main board. I will probably throw XP back onto it and it will work no probs! Baffling!

Ah well....

PrzemoF

Stainless_Steel wrote: »

Then while tinkering the whole thing froze up. No cursor movement or anything :mad:

Did you turn on option to allow for remote control? I quite sure default setting is "off" .

Set lower level of desktop effects (search for it in the menu). I don't have nvidia, so I don't know how good are the drivers.

Try different mouse - sound silly, but linux boxes are not know for frequent random freezing. Last time my laptop was frozen, it was after I left it for a couple hours in car, but the cursor was still moving ;-)

Connect the network cable and make sure networking is ON (click on network icon). I've not had a single situation that cable connection wasn't working properly, ever. Try to remove existing connection and let the system set it up (disconnect the cable, remove connection, connect cable)

A next step is, if you feel confident enough, to check what you have in logs. You can access them from menu.

A general comment: in most cases you should be able to nail down the problem and solve it without rebooting.


Don't give up!!!

Galen

Isn't Ubuntu far too heavy for computers that old? Wouldn't the crunchbang or puppy distros be more suitable?

PrzemoF

Galen wrote: »

Isn't Ubuntu far too heavy for computers that old? Wouldn't the crunchbang or puppy distros be more suitable?

My personal opinion - no, it's not. I use similiar PC (with 1GB memory) and it's quite OK.

If you want to use, let's say firefox with 20+ tabs, gimp and vlc in the same time the memory/CPU load is going to be the same no matter what distro you're using. I think that gnome/compiz "hunger" for memory/CPU is relatively small comparing to i.e. gimp with one big photo opened.

Again, it's just my opinion.

Telchak

I tried Ubuntu on a really old laptop that was taking about 20mins to boot Windows XP. It has 256mb ram, probably about 1.5GHz processor.

Found Ubuntu booted pretty quickly, but got very slow after a few minutes (tried both Gnome Panel and Unity). Tried Lubuntu pretty much the same results. Using Xubuntu on it now however and it works (almost) like new. Really usable now, and it's not too different to Gnome, so I suggest giving this a try (:

Stainless_Steel

PrzemoF wrote: »

Did you turn on option to allow for remote control? I quite sure default setting is "off" .

Set lower level of desktop effects (search for it in the menu). I don't have nvidia, so I don't know how good are the drivers.

Try different mouse - sound silly, but linux boxes are not know for frequent random freezing. Last time my laptop was frozen, it was after I left it for a couple hours in car, but the cursor was still moving ;-)

Connect the network cable and make sure networking is ON (click on network icon). I've not had a single situation that cable connection wasn't working properly, ever. Try to remove existing connection and let the system set it up (disconnect the cable, remove connection, connect cable)

A next step is, if you feel confident enough, to check what you have in logs. You can access them from menu.

A general comment: in most cases you should be able to nail down the problem and solve it without rebooting.


Don't give up!!!

Thanks for the suggestions.

Yeah I had remote desktop prefs set to allow control, it had been working fine previously.

The problems now are quite frustrating. When powering on the box, it is only responsive maybe 1 time out of 5. Tried different mice and USB ports. It just boots up (quite quickly actually) but won't accept any clicks and a few times not even cursor movement. Also tried using a PS2 mouse and keyboard. Same issues.

PrzemoF

Stainless_Steel wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions.

Yeah I had remote desktop prefs set to allow control, it had been working fine previously.

The problems now are quite frustrating. When powering on the box, it is only responsive maybe 1 time out of 5. Tried different mice and USB ports. It just boots up (quite quickly actually) but won't accept any clicks and a few times not even cursor movement. Also tried using a PS2 mouse and keyboard. Same issues.

OK, what about the keyboard? Press Alt-F2 - you'd see a small window. Type xterm (I hope it's installed by default). If you succed you'll have command line access.
Try:
dmesg | less
("dmesg" is a command, "less" let you see it in a controled manner, "|" is a pipe that streams what "dmesg" produces to "less")
and:
cat /var/log/messages | less
(similiar as above, just different log)
and:
lsusb (or sudo lsusb) to show list of usb devices (you have an usb mouse?).
I can't tell you what you should look for in the logs.. just scan through, you might spot something useful.

Again: don't give up - it's worth it! :-)
You may also ask on ubuntu forum for help - http://ubuntuforums.org/ or on irc #ubuntu

Stainless_Steel

PrzemoF wrote: »

OK, what about the keyboard? Press Alt-F2 - you'd see a small window.

Tried lots of keyboard shortcuts, no response from the box. Tried a USB keyboard and a PS2 one. And made sure to boot with the keyboards attached.

I think I'll give up on this particular machine, but not ubuntu. I very much doubt this is a software issue. I will dig out a different box from the attic and try again!

Thanks