Very slow while opening up new applications

[Vaneet_Goyal]

I am new to the Linux platform and have been experimenting with KUBUNTU and LUBUNTU on a fairly old HP laptop (Intel 1.73 Ghz dual core processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard disc, GeForce 7400 nvidia graphics card). I recently revived it from a crash and don't want to use windows anymore

I installed KUBUNTU first and soon realized that LUBUNTU would suit me best. I purged the KDE components and installed the LUBUNTU desktop as described in various forums. I have also installed standard programs like VLC. libreoffice, gimp, cheese etc.

There's a dramatic change in the speed and the system runs very smoothly. But the only problem I have is that the system takes a while to load applications. I need to wait c.5 seconds before an application (like Chromium, firefox, folders, vlc....) would load. After loading the system runs very fast, smooth and without any issues.

Please suggest if I could make any changes to decrease the loading time for applications. Thanks

[Vaneet_Goyal]

Other information I forgot to mention:

UBUNTU:
Release 12.04 (precise) 32-bit
Kernel Linux 3.2.0-59-generic-pae
GNOME 3.4.2

System Status:
Available disk space: 1.9 GB (Although I have more than 60 gigs to spare in another module. The module on which LUBUNTU is mounted is only 10 GB)

[mörgæs]

Hi, welcome to the fora.

Please post (in CODE tags) the output from df -m.

[Vaneet_Goyal]

Filesystem     1M-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1           9387  7133      1778  81% /
udev                 491     1       491   1% /dev
tmpfs                200     1       200   1% /run
none                   5     0         5   0% /run/lock
none                 500     9       492   2% /run/shm

[mörgæs]

As you mentioned yourself you have very little space left on the disk, which is unhealthy. Normally fragmentation is no problem on Linux but it becomes a problem when the system is choking.

Your installation is a K/L/Ubuntu mixture and an old one, too (12.04). The Lubuntu parts are unsupported.

I suggest moving everything of value out of sda1 and doing a fresh install of Lubuntu 13.10. Maybe more adjustments are necessary but this is a good first step.

[Vaneet_Goyal]

Thanks mörgæs. Will do a fresh installation of 13.10. Is it possible to increase disk space for the time being (maybe use some of the 60gigs from another module which is just sitting idle)?

[mörgæs]

What exactly do you mean by module? Hard disk / partition / ... ?

[amjjawad]

Hi,

I highly appreciate you do a full backup for your data, use GParted to create new partition table, prepare your partitions:

Root Partition (10GB - 20GB)
Swap Partition (1GB - 2GB)
Home Partition (the rest)

And then install either:
Lubuntu 13.10
or
Xubuntu 12.04.4 LTS

Note: in 17th of April, 14.04 LTS will be released and no matter what direction you choose, you can upgrade to 14.04 once released.

How to backup?
Either you copy-paste your 'Home' Folder
Or, see this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem

More about partitioning?
https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/installa...titioning.html

And the internet is full of HOWTOs and Guides

Support for different cycles?
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

If you do need any help, please ask

[Vaneet_Goyal]

Thanks mörgæs and amjjawad. Like you guys suggested, I have done a full installation of Lubuntu 13.10 and increased the root partition. I still have the same problem and chromium still takes a lot of time to load. Again, the system runs smoothly once any application like chromium, firefox, xpad, libreoffice, vlc etc. loads. Its only the initial load time of every application that's a problem for me. Please find below the output for df -m

Filesystem     1M-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7          57990  4047     50975   8% /
none                   1     0         1   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev                 492     1       492   1% /dev
tmpfs                101     2       100   2% /run
none                   5     0         5   0% /run/lock
none                 501     1       501   1% /run/shm
none                 100     1       100   1% /run/user

Would appreciate any further suggestions. Thanks

[Vaneet_Goyal]

Also, please note that I have reduced the swapiness to 10 as suggested in some of the forums.