Is linux really this pokey?!
 

Hello. I am running a dual-boot with Windows and Ubuntu sharing my hard drive. Just got up and running today with Ubuntu. I'm a linux nubie. My question is this: Why does it seem that the Ubuntu is slower than my windows was? I'm running the same apps and its just dogging it. Even my audio quality is poor.

I'd be surprised, to be fair. Try some sort of benchmarking.

I am more curious about what his perception is at this stage.

gribbsy, tell us how do you notice that the performance is poor, what are the signs that you can see. For example, do apps take a lot to start? Maybe they start in a reasonable time but then they perform badly? What programs are you testing and what do you experience when running them?

You say you are using the same applications than you used in windows. I must answer to that that, either you are a very careful guy with the application your use, or your asseveration is false (because 99% of the programs you can run in Linux simply do not have a native Windows port). I am not implying that you are lying (wouldn't dare), maybe you just don't know the name of the programs you use and are naming them by their function, maybe you meant something else.

It would also be interesting to know your hardware specifications (motherboard -specially the chipset if you know it-, graphics card, cpu, ram and whatever else you consider relevant) *and* let us know also if you have enabled the desktop effects or something like that, and if you have taken the time to check if your graphics card is using the right driver, because with a vesa driver your shinny new radeon or geforce will perform like an old s3 trio2 :p

Linux seems slow (cont'd)
 

Hello again.

My motherboard is an intel D845GRG (p/n 4000792). My chipset is Intel 845G. My graphics card is integrated (onboard) and is the stock graphics card that came with the computer. (nothing special). My cpu is an Intel Pentium 4 single core 2GHz. My RAM consists of a 1 GB stick and a 256 MB Stick for a total of 1.3 GB. I have not checked if my graphics card is using the right driver because I don't really know how to do this. I have not enabled any desktop effects.

My problematic apps are Pandora radio (required Flash installation) and Pogo card games (required Java installation). So perhaps there is something wrong with my Adobe Flash or Sun Java, because my system seems to perform ok with general surfing.

Another poster told me to use the terminal to find out more information about my graphics card. Here are the results>>

nick@nick-desktop:~$ lspci |grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

nick@nick-desktop:~$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf |grep Driver
nick@nick-desktop:~$

Pretty decent machine overall to run linux. :)

I am not sure of the current status of java, because I don't use java for anything these days. Flash, however, is known to perform awfully in linux, you can only blame Adobe for that *wonderful* plugin they made for linux. Whether a flash application will perform well or bad in linux is only up to the application itself and the plugin, we can't change that because the flash plugin is closed source and property of Adobe.

You seem to be running without an Xorg.conf file, which is not necesarily good or bad, it depends on your distro, your version of Xorg and how it handles autodetection. To be sure what's happening it might be a good thing to take a look at your log file.

Can you upload /var/log/Xorg.0.log into a pastebin and provide us with a link here so we can review it?

In advance I tell you that if the rest of the OS perform ok it might just be that these two concrete applications are not linux friendly for some reason. In which case there's little we can do, other than complaining to the Adobe people (which is useless) or to the pandora people (they might consider using non-closed technologies for their frontends, flash is just a barrier and shouldn't be used on any serious web).

I tried entering the pandora radio website but they showed a friendly missive telling me that they can't offer service to ip's located outside the US for some legal reason, so I can't test that one.

the driver query won't work on the new systems you have to do it differently..
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep autoconfigured

also check if direct rendering is enabled..
glxinfo | grep direct

in the device section of your xorg.conf you might want to try adding the line

Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"

so it would look something like this..
if there truly is no xorg.conf file you can create one..
http://tuxtraining.com/2009/05/08/xo...904-and-others

Is Linux really this pokey (cont'd)
 

Hi i92guboj. Thanks for the help. Here is a url to pastebin with my Xorg.0.log file listed there:

http://pastebin.com/m4d035765

I see nothing that's obviously wrong in that log. However I am not an intel user, maybe someone around who knows more about intel video chips can take a look just in case.

But I guess that's just the flash application.

Pokey Linux, cont'd
 

farslayer -- thanks for the help. My problem is that I am a newbie. So I don't know how to edit the Xorg.conf file. I went to the link you posted and frankly I'm lost. Would appreciate it if someone would walk me through how to recover Xorg.conf.

I'm not familiar with KDE or a TTY console. I could do everything from the command prompt if given the right guidance.

One question: do you have 3-D effects enabled? With your chip-set that
may not be such a great idea... not that I know how badly it would affect
java or flash, mind you.

If your using a newer version of xorg you do not need much in your xorg.conf

Mine only has

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "0"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "0"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
Option "DontZap" "off"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "UXA"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "smart"
EndSection

Hi,
I'm not going to do a step by step for you but you could do a search for 'newbie edit xorg.conf' or provide your own keywords to the search engine here on LQ.


Basically you will need to use a text editor such as 'vi' or 'nano'. For 'vi' look at the 'Linux Editors' section of 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

'/etc/X11/xorg.conf' has 'Xorg.conf man page' to help you. You can also get helpful information by searching 'Google/Linux' with good keywords relative to your needs.

I also suggest that you look at the next links;