Gnome is so slow...
 

Hey Everybody,

I just installed Ubuntu linux, and I like it, sort of. The only main problem is that all of my windows are so slow! Once I have a few things open (firefox, thunderbird, gaim) it takes a good five seconds to switch between windows! What kind of solutions are there to this problem? Could I try switching to fluxbox(I'm using whatever the default gnome window manager is)? I'm really annoyed, because I want to sell my copy of Windows XP, but linux is just hogging my processer power far to easily (I have a 1GHz Celeron, is that the problem?). I know my RAM is alright, I'm only using half of it. What would you people suggest me doing?

Thanks so much!

Luke D

Well 1 GHz isn't much for gnome. Gnome and kde are resource hogs. Fluxbox is a lot faster (used on its own) but some programs will run kind of slow on slower processors. You have to use only fluxbox though, using fluxbox within gnome won't give much difference I'd say since gnome is where the bloatedness is. I have a 733 MHz and it works pretty well. Another thing to look at is the background processes you have running. If you don't need them just disable them.

WinXp isn't running fast at your PC either isn't it?

Hey,

Thaks for the response.

Yes, XP does run slow, but once I have windows open, it's not hard to change between them. The main reason I am switching to linux is just to speed things up.

I might try switching to fluxbox. We'll see.

Luke

1Ghz is a pretty fast machine. Gnome (and KDE) should be able to run well on 1Ghz processor. I am able to run Gnome and KDE reasonably well on a 300Mhz system.

I find that RAM is most important for Gnome/KDE. If you have 256Mb or more, than you shouldn't have much slowness problems (this goes for winXP as well). KDE and Gnome also runs fine on 128Mb (winXP can be very slow with only 128). With less than 128Mb, I would expect KDE/GNOME to be slow.

I do not know why you are experiencing such slowdown problems on your system. I do not think that a 1Ghz with 256Mb (or more) should be running that slow.

Running other window managers instead of the full desktop environments KDE and Gnome will definately help on a lesser machine. Fluxbox, mwm, fvwm, twm and many other window managers require very few resources.

It is possible to run X with a really low-resouce window manager (twm,mwm,fvwm) with a slow pentium and only 8-16 Mb ram with good performance.

LinuxDave

I was going to say
 

Thanks for that reply :)

The main reason I'm kind of concerned is that my 75MHz computer with 50 RAM is able to switch between dillo and sylphweed in less than a second (amazing!) with fluxbox. So, I guess I'm now on a quest to get fluxbox working. My main delema is getting apt-get to work again, so thanks for your help everybody!

If you do have some type of clue as to what may be going on with me, I would be very happy to hear it!!

Also, the loading between windows is only three seconds or so when I don't have as much stuff open. Must be the cache ;)

Luke

Well if I run KDE or gnome on my 733 mHz with 128 MB it runs nowhere near reasonable or fine. But well I don't like them anyway,

What's wrong with your apt?

Hehe, since you're asking:




That is the error I get every time I run apt. It used to work fine, but now it's giving me all these problems.

What do you guys think of Xfce? I'm working on moving over to it (if I can get apt to work :P)

Thanks for anything!



EDIT: I somehow got fluxbox "working" so I logged in using flux instead of gnome, and when I right-click for my menu, it gives me a completely empty one. It just has the the restart, exit, and xterm options... how can I get all my programs in there? Just a side question that would be nice to know ;)

Luke

For the fluxbox menu you have to edit the ~/.fluxbox/menu file. The syntax is pretty easy. Check the fluxbox documentation on how to do it.

The problem with apt is like the output posted that you miss some packages that are needed for another package to work. The output gives which packages are missing. First I'd try "apt-get install -f" which will try to solve dependency problems (though I have the feeling it doesn't do well in Ubuntu from other threads on the board) If that doesn't work start installing packages it says it misses and run "dpkg --pending --configure" after it till everything works and you get no error messages anymore.

XFCE is a bit better than kde and gnome in terms of speed. It's a bit less minimalistic than fluxbox but I didn't think those options were so good I'd ditch fluxbox in favour of XFCE. It's sort of KDE/gnome without all the programs like office etc. But I still like fluxbox more since it doesn't give me less in options but gives me more speed.

Hey, thanks for those tips!

EDIT2: I think I might have some serious gnome problems, like when I try to run fluxbox *****.deb it gives me an error as well as when I try to run that menu file. the error is:

Could not display "*******"
There was an error launching the application.

Strange, I'll have to edit the file in vim...

EDIT: Tried the apt-get things you mentioned, and both gave me the same errors.... strange stuff!

EDIT 3: The fluxbox menu file is empty! Is that normal? I'll have to try to find some way to add files to it.

Luke

Did you keep installing the missing packages it listed?

It's the ~/.fluxbox/menu file. ~/.fluxbox is a folder in your home directory. If it's not there just create the folder .fluxbox and then create a file called menu in it which you change to your liking.

Yes, I found it, it was hidden, and empty. I think I am at the point of reinstalling ubuntu, as I might have somehow messed something up. I'll get back to ya'll on how it works :)

Luke

Most Gnome packagers tend to add alot of extra stuff that slows it down massively. The first Gnome I tried was on Mandrake...well by far the slowest I tried. Then Dropline Gnome. It seemed fast, but now I would call it less slow (lots of bloat). Ubuntu is about the same speed as Dropline, maybe a little faster depending on your setup. I recently installed Slackware 10.0 without a DE and then I installed the Gnome packages from here with a few exceptions (apps like Gaim and Abiword, I like to install the latest versions). Lightning speed! It feels lighter then KDE (something I didn't think was possible). Nothing beats this (well maybe in speed but not in speed+sweetness :p).

edit: I guess the next step would be to compile it myself...... I tried it but it's quite a mountain to climb.

Okay everybody,

Everything is working well, but I really, really want to switch over to fluxbox, as I really just like it more than kde or gnome (they're too flashy). So I used apt-get and got fluxbox. Except I have the same problem as I had last time, the menu is completely empty (sept for xterm,restart,stop). I edited the menu file, and it didn't work at all. What can I do? Where is some good documentation on this... nobody else knows my sorrow ;)

Luke

Can you post the menu file you wrote. I think you just made some error in there which is the problem.

Try this, info from the official site. Did you look for it there :rolleyes:

http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/docbook/en/html/

Hey! Good Site! Thanks for that.

Anyways, here's what I had:

Is there something wrong with it? I honestly think flux just isn't picking it up...

Luke