You can try "Transmission" if you like.

I don't understand.

Is the twin PC identical? Maybe it just doesn't have a speed-controlled fan. My computer has one of the best CPUs that existed at the time it was built a few months ago, and one of its cores goes to 100% when doing stuff like that.

OK, but some things like installing software are easier from the terminal.

Ubuntu comes with GNOME. Kubuntu comes with KDE. Xubuntu comes with Xfce.

You might have noticed that KTorrent's theme is different than most other apps, this is because KDE uses a different GUI toolkit than GNOME and Xfce.

I don't understand the question, but ad blockers keep the ad from being downloaded in the first place if the image's URL matches a list of known ad websites for your region.

There is nothing wrong with being a newbie with Linux so don't let that bother you. It's a learning curve and we have all made mistakes along the way. It looks like you may have installed some KDE components into the Gnome desktop. I did this once with 'Kate' - a simple text editor. The result was a load of core KDE junk got added and the system ran like a dog funny enough - I removed it pretty quick.

In this case you have a couple of downloaders consuming nearly half of your CPU cycles on a fairly old processor. It follows that other programs will suffer as a result of this. A system running close to max may well call the system fan to speed up to cope with the load - it's normal enough. My 7.10 on an IBM Thinkcentre does just that when it is heavily loaded.

If I'm honest my view is that the software you have installed and are running for your downloading is the main issue here, coupled with the fairly slow processor it really makes the issue stand out.

Personally I would find a later version of Ubuntu (8.10 is fine and dandy) and not add KDE parts to the Gnome desktop. For your BT stuff I would use Transmission. Java applications that run in a virtual machine are not as efficient as native C coded programs, but it's quite something to see it eating half of your processor power. I'd personally be sacking that - it seriously sucks - and finding something else to do that job.

I appreciate that is probably not the answer you want, but the advice to try a fresh copy of a later Ubuntu without the additional KDE bloat is the best I can give. I can say that if I run transmission with a couple of downloads it barely touches the load:

17405 spig 20 0 49236 14m 9m S 0 0.4 0:54.38 transmission

But it *does* slow browsing down considerably - even on a fairly good DSL pipe - unless I limit the bandwidth it consumes. I would echo what somebody else said about blocking flash. I would also express concern regarding the nature of your use - and please forgive me here. If you are visiting lots of 'download' type sites, you are going to come across places that make use of system freezing flash, heavy ajax calls and other browser nasties. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you've randomly installed things without really knowing what they are - or if they are compatible - it would support the idea of starting out again with a fresh install. If I'm blunt you need to get past the 'it can't be this' because it really probably is.

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It's still strange for me how a download manager can take all your CPU. Because the CPU should only wake up once in a while, copy a few bytes, update the GUI, and sleep again most of the time. If possible, I would ditch that program.

Perhaps the program "busy-waits"?

In case you don't know, busy-waiting means implementing a delay in a program by going in a loop and checking the time, instead of sleeping. This non-stop calculation (looping, in this case) without sleep is very intense on the CPU. Most programs actually spend almost all their time sleeping. Busy-waiting is probably a sign of a programmer that doesn't know any better and/or doesn't know how to make the program sleep.

It crossed my mind that the application was probably not well written, it's pretty easy to jam something in a 'while' type loop knowing no better. Someone recently supplied me with a five line perl script for reading caller ID information from a modem that maxed out the processor in this way.

It could also be that the program is doing something nefarious. Given the nature of the program (a downloader) and other downloaders (BT). and the system sluggishness it would be stereotypical - but probably not wide of the mark - to consider just what is going on here.

I know one thing, I would be very *scared* to be running that kind of stuff on a Windows box with no anti-virus and only an inbound hardware firewall in place!

I'll have a copy of xubunto 8.04 and see what's happening.

The PCs are absolutely clones, except for I added some RAM to the linux one (contrary to my beliefs!) and the CD-RWs which did not come as standard (industrial grade). I won't change them ...

My wife work these weeks at something important, making her to change the text editor is erh, well, can you imagine a straighter way to divorce?

In my experience, some ad providers check if you loaded the ads before letting you see the real content.

It's not jdownloader, I have it for 2-3 days, yes it's bloatware like all java applications I know, is there anything C++native for this?

Thank you guys for your time and precious advices. I'll keep you informed on the progress.

PS: I know this issue, busy-sleep, I simply did not know how is called, it's the "cheapest" way to program a polling loop.

What does the text editor your wife uses have to do with your problem? I haven't heard you mention a text editor before.

That never happened to me.

How could that be if you load the HTML page first, and then the browser just checks the URLs for the ad images and does not get them?

I really strongly recommend you get AdBlock Plus, it never caused me any problems. All it does is remove the annoying ads and make some pages load in about 1-2 seconds versus 30 seconds without it!

I mentioned open office work. She edit some text for some of her work. This is the main reason I won't do an update or change the system, at least until she finishes.

Xubuntu is on its way down to me

OK, it's just that my definition of a text editor is a plain ASCII text editor.

After you have installed xubuntu (try to make a separate /home). With a separate /home you can upgrade all you want without loosing your private data .

Do you know medibuntu? With that you can get some useful tools installed.

See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

With that you can install a lot of things, you have expressed that you want and need and some software besides that you might want to use.

Here is a hint of what I install (make sure to go to the medibuntu site first).

If you wish copy the quoted stuff and insert in the Terminal.

Best regards

Stardustdk

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My personal prefs for FF add-ons for avoiding junk on websites are NoScript (this is really good for preventing scripts from other websites running unless you allow them) & Flashblock.
YMMV (I've heard good things about adblockplus though)

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I still think that an ad blocker is best because scripts and flash are often used for good.

An ad blocker blocks only bad Flash, and removes images too.

7.04 is very old and you should upgrade to 9.04.
Watch out for 9.10 as its buggy.

And blocking Flash is almost a requirement these days:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/12/adobe_updates/

to quote the salient point:
"Flaws in Adobe software, second only to Microsoft, have been exploited in numerous targeted hacker attack over recent months"

My suggested addons to firefox: Noscript, flashblock, addblock plus, webmail notifier (gmail/hotmail etc),webmail ad blocker.

Regards

Personally I use Opera most of the time and the flash/add blocking is already built in. There is alleged to be a cross platform vulnerability in the Firefox plugin api. That said, I guess with a browser running as an unprivileged user it's 99.99% more secure on Linux than it would be on Windows :-)