12.04 slow on old machine. Can I re-install 10.04?

[Morat]

I had this plan of sticking to LTS versions so I recently upgraded the main home machine to 12.04. Unfortunately it now runs like a dog!

Unity is sort of ok-ish and we could get used to it if it was not just generally sluggish in pretty much every aspect. I have tried Gnome Classic, XFCE and various other window managers but none of them have sped it up much. Even the log-in screen is jerky and unresponsive and its behaviour seems inconsistant from one day to the next.

I am becoming fed up with it so I am wondering whether it would be safe to install 10.04 over the top or is that going to wipe all my applications and settings or even refuse to install at all?

The machine is about 7 years old. Looking at sysinfo, it appears to be a 1GHz AMD Sempron processor with 1Gb memory. So it's never going to be blistering but 10.04 ran on it perfectly smoothly.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

--- Alistair.

[23senick]

Before that step I'd try a lighter desktop - go to the software centre and add XFCE or LXDE. I have LXDE running 12.04 on an older less powerful machine. bit slow but acceptable. I would have thought yours would run well with either. On idle LXDE only uses about 130mb of RAM, and XFCE isn't much heavier.

Nothing to lose in trying those out...

[Morat]

Before that step I'd try a lighter desktop - go to the software centre and add XFCE or LXDE. I have LXDE running 12.04 on an older less powerful machine. bit slow but acceptable. I would have thought yours would run well with either. On idle LXDE only uses about 130mb of RAM, and XFCE isn't much heavier.

Nothing to lose in trying those out...

Well I had already tried xfce and it was looking good. I set it all up how I liked it on Wednesday night. Then on Thursday I logged in and got the message "No running instance of xfce4-panel was found". So I started it and got the message "Modifying the panel is not allowed" This now happens on every login, even though I save the session on logout as it suggests. In fact now I have no window furniture: I can't move or resize windows and they don't appear on the 'Window Buttons' panel item.

If I can't fix xfce then I may try LXDE but I am getting very disillusioned with it.

--- Alistair

[Karlchen]

Hello, Alistair.

There is a defined upgrade-path which allows you to upgrade an existing 10.04 installation to 12.04. But of course, there is no such thing as a defined downgrade-path from 12.04 back to 10.04.
So, in order to downgrade you will have to install everything from the scratch, the operating system and any application.

Cheers,
Karl

[sudodus]

...
If I can't fix xfce then I may try LXDE but I am getting very disillusioned with it.
--- Alistair
I think you have a fair chance to fix XFCE by removing and re-installing it. Try (from terminal, when XFCE is not running)


sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get purge xfce

sudo apt-get install xfce

[Morat]

Thanks, I think I have an acceptable solution now: I discovered the 'new' method of configuring Gnome Classic panels using ALT-RClick instead the old RClick. I have now configured the Gnome Classic desktop as I like it and it seems responsive again.

Many thanks for your suggestions

--- Alistair.

[ronnysingh]

I use 12.04 on an old laptop with Ubuntu 3D. It takes a a little more time than 11.10 too load but it works fine. I think that happens because my HDD is not crowded and I haven't installed any app exceptt default apps.

[mastablasta]

i find it hard to believe that XFCE would not speed up compared to recent gnome incarnations. it should be much faster. additionally next time you post system specs you should always add your GPU chip (or graphics card model) as they often seem to be the ones slowing down the DE.

[scubascooby]

Late yesterday I did another upgrade to my mothers machine only to find that it has re-activated/installed the awful, steaming pile that is unity.

Last year I disabled this slow, cumbersome, clunky, inefficient lump and now a simple upgrade has turned it on again. I am not happy at all. It turns a perfectly acceptable machine into a 1990 286 running Windows 2

When I started using Ubuntu it was better than XP and after many years of changes it is now a LOT worse.

I am either going back to Ubuntu 7 which is the last one that worked properly or I am going to find a copy of XP.

[23senick]

Now that really sounds like a call for xfce desktop or lxde desktop. They both run smoothly with very low resource usage. Try either!