Ubuntu

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Nick
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#61

Post by Nick »

Just in case people are interested and don't know, this is the chap behind Ubuntu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth
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#62

Post by Darren »

Thanks Nick, he's quite an achiever that chap !!

Been using this laptop with Ubuntu for around 2 weeks now and have made some observations.

It is quite nice to use, Layout is good with some nice little features.
But this poor old laptop really is struggling with it. Linux reports that there is 249mb of memory, and it seems that this is just not enough? I don't have any more sticks I can add, all mine are 128mb so this laptop uses two sticks.

Out of interest I took one out and tried too run it on 128mb, No go, it will boot eventually but takes about 20min. As for using it, no chance.
As I type this with 256mb installed I'm constantly waiting for the typed letters too appear on screen.

As a comparison, I can load XP and shut it down two complete cycles in the time is takes to load Ubuntu.

The system monitor shows the CPU running at 100% whilst only 12% is being used by programs? What's using the power, the desktop?
Memory usage is typically 75%, Would more memory help?

CPU is 500Mhz
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#63

Post by Darren »

Just took another look at the system monitor and noticed 3 instances of gtk-nash running at 24% each, I don't know what they are but should there be 3 of them at the same time?
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#64

Post by Nick »

Its hard to say without seeing the box to say whats running, opening a console and runing top might give more clues. The problem is that I think Ubuntu is aimed at the typical PC now, and that normally includes about half a gig of memory. The way the display system (X) works is very different, its client server, so the desktop can be on a remote machine (it gets a lot cleverer than that, but also more complex) but that means its very resource intensive. It also depends on what X server is running, it may not be making the most of the laptop screen. And again, laptop displays tend to use main memory for display memory.

A less user oriented distribution would probaly fir better on the laptop, but that would defeat what you are trying to do. The lack of memory is causing (I suspect) it to use the swap partition heavely, and the slow speed of most laptop disks will be hurting it there as well.

Linux is a good choice for low powered old machines, but you loose the ease of use, I woulkd normally not use a graphical install for that, and stick with a text system, but again, thats not much help for you.
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#65

Post by Darren »

Thanks Nick,
It certainly seems Ubuntu is not for the older laptops. Shame as i have two of these and one other.

That is,

Two of 500Mhz Pentium 3 coppermine with 256mb memory installed (max memory for these machines is 512Mb)
and
One 700Mhz P3 with 256Mb of memory (max memory for this machine is 256Mb)


I could try more memory and see if that helps,
Does anyone have any surplus 512mb chips they could offer me to give it a go?

I can't justify new laptops, and I'd like to offer at least one to the kids for schoolwork etc, But not with Wiindows on it. That is a disaster with kids causing me to frequently re-load the things due to the sites they insist on visiting I guess?
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#66

Post by ed »

All good stuff by the looks of it....

I'm absolutely amazed that XP runs quicker than Ubuntu in that config...it just goes to show!!!

I'm guessing that you're running 8.04 Darren, and as Nick suggests its now configured/matured for giving plain users an easy ride, so its a lot more hungry than it used to be.....having said that the machine is on the edge of whats called acceptable spec these days so I guess thats as good as its going to get...........

but well done for persevering

Ed
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#67

Post by Darren »

Thanks Ed,

Yes, these machines are old aren't they :shock:

But they are in good condition and work perfectly, be a shame not to use them when so many in the house want internet access !!

NOBODY is getting anywhere near my main laptop for ANY reason :evil:

Not top speck but pretty amaising all the same, 1.9mhz dual core. 2Gb memory, 250Gb HD.

That flies along with anything I throw at it, inc my digi camera with 8mb pics !!
Up as soon as the card is inserted, Nice !!
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#68

Post by Nick »

Looking around, I suspect that the resource hog will be the window manager Gnome I guess. You might find a older release of a distribution will fit better as it will have less bells and whistles.
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#69

Post by Darren »

I see release 8.04 is now superseded already.... :shock:

Better not try that one eh !! :lol:
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#70

Post by Nick »

Well, normally you would just do a update and stand back :-)

There are new versions of packages out every day. Reminds me, I need to get a new release of unixODBC out soon.
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#71

Post by Darren »

Well the speed of this computer was starting to become ridiculous, so I had a hunt around the net for info on

gtk-gnash

It turns out it's to do with flash and brings many peeps comps to it's knees.
Funny that cos it's origin is open source? Apparently Adobe's flash player is the one to have. I have yet to get flash to work, or U-tube for that matter.

Anyway, I removed the offender with: sudo aptitude purge gnash
What a difference, whilst still not the fastest machine on the planet it's improved tremendously.

I'll see how it goes
Anyone have any tips on getting the U-Tube vids to work?

Edit:
Flash and Utube work fine now with gnash removed.
Strange?
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Nick
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#72

Post by Nick »

Funny that cos it's origin is open source? Apparently Adobe's flash player is the one to have. I have yet to get flash to work, or U-tube for that matter.
Not all OS software is perfect, in many cases the developers do the best they can, but if they are trying to reverse a commercial product where there is no publically available docs its often very hard.

The normal way to get a lightweight setup is to install the bair minimum and add as needed, but I didn;t want to suggest that just now, as you won;t know what you need, or are missing.

Open up a terminal, and type

top

It will show you a talk manager like list of what processs are taking up the CPU.
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#73

Post by Darren »

Hi Nick,

Yes it must be very frustrating for the developers, I wasn't knocking them, merely passing on my experiences.

Did the top thing, nothing much hogging the CPU now, If the speed remains as it is now then this computer will be quite usable.
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#74

Post by Nick »

Darren wrote:Hi Nick,

Yes it must be very frustrating for the developers, I wasn't knocking them, merely passing on my experiences.

Did the top thing, nothing much hogging the CPU now, If the speed remains as it is now then this computer will be quite usable.
Oh, I know it wasn't a knock, but open source development can be a bit hard to come to terms if you are used to a windows world.

One thing you should find, is that the machine doesn't start getting slower after a few weeks of use.
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#75

Post by Darren »

Unfortunately, it started slowing down after just a few hrs to a crawl.

Only way out was to re-boot and then it would be fine again for a while.

I also lost the ability to select text for copy/paste and grabbing the scroll bar was no longer possible. ( I seem to remember Paul complains of this?)

Nothing came up in "top" that looked fine, but the system monitor was showing the CPU at a constant 100% when crawling along.

I've had to go back to my main laptop with Vista for now.


I'm not doing very well am I?
:cry:
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