Xubuntu 11.10 - an upgrade too far for older PCs?

DeepBlue

After doing a clean install on an (admittedly ancient 256 MB RAM) PC that had been running Xubuntu 11.04 without issue I found that Xubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) was practically unusable as it was so slow.
Did anyone else have the same experience?

I tried Lubuntu 11.10 and it was back to the same speed as Xubuntu 11.04 but it had various issues and seems unfinished imo so I went back to Xubuntu 11.04 and everything is zippy again (relatively speaking).

So I'm wondering if Xubuntu 11.10 places more demands in terms of processing power/memory or perhaps it's just something on my PC (video card or the like) that caused the excessive slowness?

Fluffy88

When I first started using Ubuntu (10.10) one of the reasons I loved it was because it was so fast compared to Windows 7. So when I 'upgraded' to 11.10 I was a little disappointed at how slow it was.

I am now back on 10.04 because it was noticeably slower than previous versions.

I am running it on a 4GB 2.0Gh/z Pentium 4. Nothing amazing, but still I think it's just they sacrificed some performance in the latest release.

henbane

+1, 11.10 is looking like ubuntu's vista

Telchak

A couple of days ago, I put Xubuntu 11.10 on an old Acer Aspire with an ssd(12 or 20gb, can't remember), 512mb ram and one of the earlier, single core Atom processors.

It was running some kind of fedora based distribution, and was really slow. Tried a half dozen other ditributions first. All, including Ubuntu and Joli OS, were incrdibley slow. Xubuntu works perfectly snappy though (:

calex71

Installed 11.10 myself over the weekend and am not in the least bit happy with it.

Admittedly I haven't used Ubuntu in a while so was not keeping up on all the additions.

It is massively slower on a laptop I used 10.04 on ages ago.

After the performance there are loads of annoyances with the interface too. It seems to have become harder to customize it's appearance. You can't change the default browser on the dash home without removing firefox from the system (at least from what I could see, and I'm not comfortable with the terminal at all so that was out). You can't customise the size of the side bar or it's icons either from what I could see?

I actually preferred the old system they had for installing software with dependencies etc shown , not this interface for the app store generation with all its games etc that doesn't return anything useful when you search.

Also it's drivers for onboard intel graphics now suck. Before I had no issues with a dual display with stock ubuntu drivers.

Maybe it will grow on me after I get more familiar with it.

croo

I haven't installed 11.10 - I'm still on 11.04 - and I'm not going to try to defend unity but a couple of points.

You can't change the default browser on the dash home without removing firefox from the system.

I think you can put any browser - or even no browser - in dash. At least in 11.04 I can simply remove any of the apps or add new ones - I just right click on the icon and check or uncheck the "keep in launcher".

You can't customise the size of the side bar or it's icons either from what I could see?

There might be other ways to customize unity but it seems to be a compiz plugin so if you install CompizConfig Settings Manager you'll find that there is a Unity Plugin option that allows you to configure many aspects of unity - including the icon sizes.

long_b

Replaced Xubuntu 10.10 with 11.10 on a 356 MB old Compaq Evo - it's a complete dog.

Latest version of XBMC is completely unusable on it.

I'll be downgrading ASAP. Dunno why they tarted up the UI so much - I thought Xubuntu was supposed to be a Lite distro.

shizz

croo wrote: »

I haven't installed 11.10 - I'm still on 11.04 - and I'm not going to try to defend unity but a couple of points.I think you can put any browser - or even no browser - in dash. At least in 11.04 I can simply remove any of the apps or add new ones - I just right click on the icon and check or uncheck the "keep in launcher".

There might be other ways to customize unity but it seems to be a compiz plugin so if you install CompizConfig Settings Manager you'll find that there is a Unity Plugin option that allows you to configure many aspects of unity - including the icon sizes.

I thought he was referring to the default browser icon in the Dash where you search for applications and what not. Which in any case is changeable by making the browser you are using, your default browser in that browsers own settings.

I'm not sure about the other icons though. For example the music icon.

Stuxnet

xubuntu has always been a terrible implementation of xfce
mint 9 has an excellent xfce interface, and its still in lts till april 2013, worth looking into

DeepBlue

Stuxnet wrote: »

xubuntu has always been a terrible implementation of xfce
mint 9 has an excellent xfce interface, and its still in lts till april 2013, worth looking into

But doesn't Mint need more memory than Xubuntu? I recall attempting to install an XFCE version of Mint before and it wouldn't install.

Stuxnet

both xfce editions only require 256mb of ram

want something lighter mint 9 lts lxde version only wants 192mb ram

TDOie

Debian + openbox. 113 mb of ram in use on boot.