Ubuntu too slow

3dmatrix · 01-10-2010, 07:18 AM

I added, vm.swappiness=10 in the /etc/sysctl.conf file and rebooted but cant see much difference :

free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2052624 803856 1248768 0 53048 348056
-/+ buffers/cache: 402752 1649872
Swap: 1052216 0 1052216

I cant make out much difference

cat /etc/fstab shows :

# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=a5d1e7f9-2121-4230-9ef3-18fd2963e324 none swap sw 0 0

Smartpatrol · 01-10-2010, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leopard

Swappiness, not off. Editing Swappiness from 60 to 10 will fine tune how often Ubuntu wants to use RAM storage over Swap storage.

Therefore, my system still has swap and all of the positives having a swap on entails, but it tends to use the RAM first. And because RAM is inherently faster than any HDD, the system speeds up enormously.

So, why not? If you open System Monitor you will probably find your system not utilizing hardly any of your RAM. Tuning your system a little bit to use RAM a bit more is Awesome to the nth degree.

I have 2 GB RAM on a somewhat limited CPU (Intel Atom) and applications in GNOME - load in mere milliseconds.

And even with that tweak, system monitor only reports I am using 300 MB ram. Definitely worth a look into. I will be doing this after I install Arch and X and gnome.

BTW, Arch looks pretty fast. Ever tried booting Ubuntu's live cd? A couple minutes. Archs live cd, (so far I'm installing it on my netbook now!) booted in 10 seconds. Looks REAL promising if you ask me.

Too bad the the opposite is prefered you want the system to swap out pages to slower disk as often as possible so that you can utilize the faster RAM for more important thing. If you set it too low it takes longer time for the system to swap memory pages to disk.

repo · 01-10-2010, 08:48 AM

Quote:

I need a distro that is stable, secure and fast

debian

3dmatrix · 01-10-2010, 09:10 AM

yes Repo as i wrote earlier i got a Debian dvd but its an install DVD - wud like to try it (live DVD) b4 installing

repo · 01-10-2010, 09:41 AM

Quote:

yes Repo as i wrote earlier i got a Debian dvd but its an install DVD - wud like to try it (live DVD) b4 installing

linus72 has created some debian live cd's
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...erstep-780848/

lupusarcanus · 01-10-2010, 09:45 AM

Hmm...well swappiness worked for me. Damn, hoping I could help you here. Sorry.

tommcd · 01-10-2010, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3dmatrix

yes Repo as i wrote earlier i got a Debian dvd but its an install DVD - wud like to try it (live DVD) b4 installing

Did you see my earlier post about Debian live?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3820065
It is a live CD, not a DVD. But it will show you the Debian that you would get if you installed Debian from the first install CD (AFAIK... since I have never tried Debian Live).
Check it out.
I have installed both Debian and Ubuntu on 3 different desktops plus a laptop. On every system Debian ran faster and used fewer resources than Ubuntu. This has been true of all Debian releases going back to Sarge, and all Ubuntus going back to Dapper.
See this comparison of Debian with XFCE vs Xubuntu:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?is...090427#feature
Also, Phoronix has documented that Ubuntu has indeed become slower:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...nch_2008&num=1
Since that article was written, the post 8.10 releases of Ubuntu have become even more resource intensive in my experience, especially since the introduction of pulse audio.

linus72 · 01-10-2010, 09:52 AM

yeah see here too

http://linux.softpedia.com/progMoreB...isX-31789.html

http://multidistro.com/downloads/current/current.html

I would say Xodus is the one I like best

light and powerful
http://linux.softpedia.com/progScree...hot-53578.html

all are installable via remastersys-installer
I suggest you make a root password when instaling and make a new user while running live before installing
so
step 1 create root password

open root terminal or use sudo su to get to root then

Code:

passwd root

then make password and then open GDM setup/security from menu
click box that says "allow root to login"

step 2
logout of user desktop and login to root desktop

step 3
goto menu/system/admin/user setup
create a new user annd passwd with whatever priveledges
then logout as root
and login to desktop as new user name

then run remastersys-installer

heres some pics
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...78#post3814978

tommcd · 01-10-2010, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leopard

The best Ubuntu optimization in the history of history that I have found so far is lowering your swappiness to 10.
Does wonders.

Thanks for the tip. This author agrees with you:
http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_c...r_performance_
I will try changing Ubuntu's swappiness to 10 next time I run Ubuntu on my laptop.
Ubuntu is still a fine distro imo. The fact that Ubuntu has become increasingly resource intensive as it strives to be more feature rich and beginner friendly has had me questioning my continued use of Ubuntu though.
The first Ubuntu I installed was 5.04. It was amazingly faster that Windows XP on my system. Current versions of Ubuntu do not seem that fast though.
I can play music using the Exaile media player in Ubuntu and Exaile will use 15-20% of my CPU according to 'top'. This is even with pulse audio uninstalled and disabled.
Playing the same music using Exaile in Slackware or Zenwalk only uses ~2-6% of my CPU by comparison, at the most. Even though my computer has enough muscle to run Ubuntu smoothly, I really can't justify using such a bloated distro when there are so many lean and mean alternatives.

Smartpatrol · 01-10-2010, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tommcd

Thanks for the tip. This author agrees with you:
http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_c...r_performance_
I will try changing Ubuntu's swappiness to 10 next time I run Ubuntu on my laptop.
Ubuntu is still a fine distro imo. The fact that Ubuntu has become increasingly resource intensive as it strives to be more feature rich and beginner friendly has had me questioning my continued use of Ubuntu though.
The first Ubuntu I installed was 5.04. It was amazingly faster that Windows XP on my system. Current versions of Ubuntu do not seem that fast though.
I can play music using the Exaile media player in Ubuntu and Exaile will use 15-20% of my CPU according to 'top'. This is even with pulse audio uninstalled and disabled.
Playing the same music using Exaile in Slackware or Zenwalk only uses ~2-6% of my CPU by comparison, at the most. Even though my computer has enough muscle to run Ubuntu smoothly, I really can't justify using such a bloated distro when there are so many lean and mean alternatives.

Interesting Andrew Morton linux kernel maintainer says the complete opposite.....

http://kerneltrap.org/node/3000

mick463 · 01-10-2010, 06:48 PM

sorry wrong spot