[GFP63]

I am new to Linux and not all *that* technically savvy so bear with me.

Perhaps cutting to the chase - should Ubuntu 11.10 run well on an HP Pavillion 515n with the following specifications taken from the 'system info':

Intel Celeron CPU 230 GHZ
Graphics : Unknown (?)
OS Type: 32 bit
Disk: 78.3GB

Initially I installed Ubuntu 11.10 on this machine alongside Windows XP Home Edition, which was having performance issues of its own. After completing the Ubuntu installation I found the system to be "sluggish" (which I appreciate is a subjective term but, for example, windows were taking 10 - 20 seconds to open, applications much longer).

I then did a complete install of Ubuntu 10.04, (intentionally) removing 11.10 and Windows in the process. That resulted in a much livelier and responsive system, but the Tenda Wireless USB adapter was not being recognized/working/what have you. I searched around the web and tried some of the suggestions without success.

So, thinking perhaps the initial 11.10 installation was suffering due to its having been installed alongside XP, I went ahead and reinstalled that over 10.04. This immediately recognizes the USB adapter and allows me to connect to the internet, but I am still experiencing the same lack of response/sluggishness. I also installed, or think I installed, the Nvidia 275.09.07 Driver per the instructions posted here: http://mygeekopinions.blogspot.com/2...driver-in.html .

Before I go back and reinstall 10.04 over everything and invest in a new Wireless USB I was wondering about the feasibility of running 11.10 on this system, and if there were any suggestions for doing so, efficiently.

I have seen various posts on the net describing both sluggish and wonderful experiences. I would like to get myself into that latter camp.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

[E-Oreo]

Intel Celeron CPU 230 GHZ

huh? 230 Mhz? 2.3 Ghz?

How much memory does it have?

[GFP63]

This is exactly what is displayed from

System Settings > System Info:

Ubuntu 11.10
Memory 488.0 MiB
Processor Intel Celeron(R) CPU 2.30 GHz
Graphics Unknown
OS Type 32-bit
Disk 78.3 GB


If I run
lshw -class memory
in terminal, included in those result is:

*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 13
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 512MiB
capacity: 512MiB
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR Synchronous
physical id: 0
slot: J5G3
size: 256MiB
width: 64 bits
*-bank:1
description: DIMM DDR Synchronous
physical id: 1
slot: J5G2
size: 256MiB
width: 64 bits

[E-Oreo]

OK, I imagine those specs are sufficient to run it. You'd probably benefit from more memory.

I would recommend sticking with the newer version and trying to tweak it to perform better. Getting wireless drivers working in Linux is generally a massive pain in the *** if they don't work out of the box, and every time you update they tend to break again.

11.10 actually uses a new graphics heavy desktop environment, which is probably why it performs so poorly.

You could try 10.10 instead. It's slightly newer, so it might support your wireless drivers, but it doesn't use the new graphics desktop environment, so it might perform more like 10.04.

Under 11.10 you might be able to disable some of the special effects to get better performance. I haven't used this version before, so I'm not sure whether they give this option or not.

You might also want to try Kubuntu, which uses the KDE desktop environment instead.

[GFP63]

Thanks for your feedback E-Oreo. It is running slightly better now, (isn't there some kind of indexing process that maybe slows thing up a bit when it is initially installed?). I will look into turning off unnecessary options and general tweaking. I think adding memory is a must.

Thanks again!

[b49P23TIvg]

My installation of Ubuntu 11.10 occupies almost 600 MiB. (That's about the same as Windows NT, if I recall correctly.)
With less memory the OS will have to swap to do much of anything useful for you.

Add memory to your system. I'm sure the online instructions for adding memory to HP computers is sufficiently explicit that you can do the job all by yourself.

I occasionally try hair-brained computations that would use way more memory than is available. Usually I know ahead of time. I've added enough memory that it takes a long time to fill. I watch the system monitor and can interrupt the task before it cripples the computer via the page files. Then I think of a different approach.

[GFP63]

Thanks for the feedback b49P23TIvg.

I did add more memory over the weekend - the max that computer will take - 1 GB (2 @ 512MB) with only a little more improvement. So if the system take up 600MB and I can only install 1GB in RAM is that computer just not going to cut it?

[b49P23TIvg]

Depends for what you use your computer.

Watch the system monitor to see memory use.

system tools->system monitor

there is a tab displaying memory use.

I don't recall if it is installed by default.

ubuntu software center -> search for "system monitor" to install it.

I found 1 GiByte sufficient for email, web browsing, emacs.

1GiB was not sufficient for some of my project Euler solutions, finite element analysis, or...programming typos.