Is Linux slow for you?

[v8YKxgHe]

Hey,

I've used Windows for years now, and recently i've been on Ubuntu for about 3 days now, and I seriously find it very slow. Here is my PC spec:

AMD X2 3800
ATI X800XT
DFI LanParty UT Ultra-D
2x SATA2 RAID 0 WD hard drives
Tagan 530w PSU
1GB ( 4x256 ) Corsair PC3200

Windows will boot in like < 20/30 seconds, yet Ubuntu takes near a minute to boot, then it has to load Gnome which takes around 10 seconds but with Windows it's < 5.

Applications load amazingly slow, with Windows Firefox opens instantly yet with Ubuntu/Linux ( I've tried many distros, all have this problem ) it takes around 10 seconds to load, or sometimes it doesn't even load at all.

Generaly the whole Gnome desktop feels slow and slugish to do anything. Windows is just instant really, Ubuntu/Linux isn't ( even with ATI drivers installed )

[aysiu]

For boot time, Windows is almost always faster.

It sounds, though--based on what I've read in numerous threads over the past year--as if people have had varied experiences as far as application loading time and responsiveness.

You may want to look into trying KDE or XFCE. XFCE in particular is very fast.

[v8YKxgHe]

hello again =)

Yeh i've been thinking of trying XFCE, seems good. KDE I think looks childish ( espically with that big dragon everywhere! ) and feels bloated, I use to have Ubuntu Hoary on KDE, didn't like it at all ( though I liked how custimizable it was )

[aysiu]

You can change the big dragon. You can also tweak KDE to be less "bloated" and more minimalistic using the kpersonalizer application.

You'd be amazed--with the right settings--how snappy and uncluttered KDE can be, even on a machine with 128 MB of RAM; though, you probably have more than that.

[Hg80]

i have an amd x2 4400 1 gig of ram and find that linux may take a bit longer to load from boot but once in gnome its far quicker, to me this sounds like a driver or hardware issue conflicting somewhere have you tried reinstalling Ubuntu?

[v8YKxgHe]

Woops, forgot to add my ram spec, 1GB ( 4x256 ) Corsair PC3200.

Hum, if I just do " sudo apt-get install kde-desktop " and then xfce-desktop, will that install both KDE and XFCE?

Edit: Hg80, i've re-installed Ubuntu about 12 times now ( was trying to get XGL working before, but i've gave up now ) and it's not just Ubuntu - FC5, Suse 9.1, Arch Linux, Vector Linux, Mandrake are all slow.

[jinx099]

AlexC: do you have your fglrx driver installed? Ubuntu felt much faster after getting fglrx working, i didnt think thered be a big difference but there is.

[aysiu]

I would advise this instead:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install kde-core
sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop

aptitude is preferable to apt-get because it remembers what dependencies came along with the metapackage (in case you want to remove it later).

Since you complained about KDE being too bloated, kubuntu-desktop is probably too much, so I would advise kde-core instead.

[v8YKxgHe]

Jinx, yes - I did, but when I have them installed my GPU fan is constantly at 100% which is loud! So i've removed them and are back on the, mesa drivers is it? I didn't notice that much difference to be honest

Aysiu, thanks - I shall try that in a min.

[woedend]

the single biggest "speed up" feeling is the appropriate graphic drivers...too bad about ATI. It just makes everything "feel" faster.
Ubuntu can be made fast, but you have to start stripping it. At one point I had boot down to 21 seconds or so...with initng it can be even lower.
Windows cheats and pretends to be ready when it's not. When I see gnome, it's ready to go...when windows loads up, I normally wait 30 seconds to a minute before digging into anything.
Firefox normally takes about 3 seconds to load the first time, <1 second each subsequent time because it's loaded in memory. If you really want instantaneous firefox windows, keep one open at all times, each new instance will be immediate.
My computer doesn't have the specs yours does...I just want you to know that it's unfortunate things are so slow for you but it's not the "norm".