Joined the Linux community last week with a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10 and the Edubuntu overlay onto my wiped Dell Inspiron 8000 with 512MB RAM (max allowed) and nVidia GEForce2 GO video card.

<<lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82815 815 Chipset Host Bridge and Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82815 815 Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801BAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1 (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] (rev b2)>>


Everything worked a treat until I found GIMP a bit slow. I was advised to replace the Gnome desktop with Xubuntu (Xfce). I did this and removed the Gnome desktop. Now my laptop is slower than ever: online, offline, selecting items from menus, opening apps, even typing in the terminal. (Typing this message in this forum is excruciating as I can press 10-15 keys before my text appears!)

What has gone wrong? At this stage it's almost impossible to use. I typed "free -m" in the terminal and got the details below, but I gave up on the "top" command - after 3 hours it still hadn't finished!. If it was Windows I'd say perhaps a bug or memory leak or that going online without firewall or antivirus means I've been turned into a spambot; with Linux - well, I'm too new to know.Thanks to anyone who can help me...


Free -m:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 509 467 42 0 32 233
-/+ buffers/cache: 195 301
Swap: 839 0 839


Top: (it took 3 hours for this to come up! I couldn't copy and paste it, nor take a screenshot as did not have a command prompt as it was still running but a synopsis follows:
load average 2.55, 2.38, 2.15
Processes 129 total, 2 running, 127 sleeping
CPU 91.8 us, 6.7 sy, 1.0hi, 0.7si
Processes:
Xorg 80% CPU
Firefox 4%
ica 3.5%


Whither next?

It could be that you are running out of ram as Xorg is taking up 80% of your mem. Try booting in to console mod instead of graphics and see if it is faster. Just a guess.

Leeley211

It sounds like you're set up using software acceleration rather than hardware acceleration. I had the exact same problem, but I have a different video card from you so can't just say "here, use this, it'll work."
Check if your system is using hardware acceleration. Use this command:
glxinfo | grep rendering

You want to see "direct rendering: yes". If you don't see this, then either Xorg is not set up to use DRI or your kernel is missing DRI. Let's just start here and then we'll see what's next, although with this nugget you might be able to search Google for an answer specific to your card.

Also are you using the stock Ubuntu kernel or have you been tinkering? Likewise with your Xorg configuration, have you been tinkering or is it "out of the box" so to say?

- A

Thanks, technosapien, for that help.
I get the message "direct rendering = yes" to the glxinfo command
Yes I'm using Ubuntu and Xorg as they came - don't know how to tinker with them!

I notice that Xorg uses about 8% of CPU time shortly after startup but after a couple of hours of use this figure is about 79%. is this important?

So what now?