Ubuntu - so slow.

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  1. #1
    Hammerhead Shark Geforce255's Avatar
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    Ubuntu - so slow.

    Ubuntu 11.10 with the Unity shell is a good looking OS. It nicely supports my duel monitor setup and even my Genesis printer. For a Nix build, it's pretty compatible. Unity works a lot like Windows 7, with smart docking of windows and seamless switching between windows and applications.

    From this perspective, it's a pretty nice system.

    But it's fatally flawed. The major one being that it is just flat out slow. This is a I7 960 with 8GB of DDR3 - 1600 and a OCZ SSD boot device. I duel boot this same machine to Windows 7, 64 bit.

    Boot times may not mean much, you don't boot all that often. Still, the incredibly sluggish boot times of Oneiric Ocelot leave me shaking my head. Not only are the boot times uncomfortably long, but the odd, purplish screen gives you no indication that anything is happening. The first time through, I thought the machine had crashed.

    This was understandable, because despite warning, the first round in I tried the 64 bit version. Ubuntu pretty well tells you it doesn't work, but I thought I'd try it anyway. - it doesn't work.

    Okay, so it takes over twice as long as Windows to boot, that doesn't mean anything if the OS runs well, right? This is the 32 bit version. It works and appears rock solid, no issues that I've run into. It's just slow. I thought the Linux specific drivers for the Nvidia GTX460 would help, but they really didn't. The X Server interface provides much of the functionality that was present in Windows, which is nice. But Unity remains sluggish.

    Windows has a distinct "snap" on this hardware. Launch a program and the response is instant - it should be with this kind of power. Not so with Oneiric. I can only describe it as "ponderous." You click on an icon and Linux ponders it for awhile, then launches the program. The same LibreOffice applications that run quickly under Mint, run eventually with Ubuntu. I can't help but wonder if the whole thing is memory starved and if a working 64 bit version would salvage it all?
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  2. #2
    Great White Shark
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geforce255 View Post
    Ubuntu 11.10 with the Unity shell is a good looking OS. It nicely supports my duel monitor setup and even my Genesis printer. For a Nix build, it's pretty compatible. Unity works a lot like Windows 7, with smart docking of windows and seamless switching between windows and applications.

    From this perspective, it's a pretty nice system.

    But it's fatally flawed. The major one being that it is just flat out slow. This is a I7 960 with 8GB of DDR3 - 1600 and a OCZ SSD boot device. I duel boot this same machine to Windows 7, 64 bit.

    Boot times may not mean much, you don't boot all that often. Still, the incredibly sluggish boot times of Oneiric Ocelot leave me shaking my head. Not only are the boot times uncomfortably long, but the odd, purplish screen gives you no indication that anything is happening. The first time through, I thought the machine had crashed.

    This was understandable, because despite warning, the first round in I tried the 64 bit version. Ubuntu pretty well tells you it doesn't work, but I thought I'd try it anyway. - it doesn't work.

    Okay, so it takes over twice as long as Windows to boot, that doesn't mean anything if the OS runs well, right? This is the 32 bit version. It works and appears rock solid, no issues that I've run into. It's just slow. I thought the Linux specific drivers for the Nvidia GTX460 would help, but they really didn't. The X Server interface provides much of the functionality that was present in Windows, which is nice. But Unity remains sluggish.

    Windows has a distinct "snap" on this hardware. Launch a program and the response is instant - it should be with this kind of power. Not so with Oneiric. I can only describe it as "ponderous." You click on an icon and Linux ponders it for awhile, then launches the program. The same LibreOffice applications that run quickly under Mint, run eventually with Ubuntu. I can't help but wonder if the whole thing is memory starved and if a working 64 bit version would salvage it all?
    Maybe it's because I run the server version with kernel 3.0.x But I've never run into any of the issues you have described. My system boots in a few seconds from the time the BIOS disappears until the login prompt is there. I've run Ubuntu x64 edition for quite some time without issue.

    Sorry you are having such a bad time with it. You wouldn't happen to be running Ubuntu from an NTFS partition, would you?

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  3. #3
    Hammerhead Shark Geforce255's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by James View Post
    Maybe it's because I run the server version with kernel 3.0.x But I've never run into any of the issues you have described. My system boots in a few seconds from the time the BIOS disappears until the login prompt is there. I've run Ubuntu x64 edition for quite some time without issue.

    Sorry you are having such a bad time with it. You wouldn't happen to be running Ubuntu from an NTFS partition, would you?
    Hi James, this is indeed on an NTFS volume. I let it carve a chunk out of my existing SSD. That could explain the sluggish performance.

    Thanks.
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  4. #4
    Invisible Modfish Vindir's Avatar
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    Install 64 bit, there is really no reason not to and every reason to go ahead and do it when you're running a box with 8 gigs in it.

    Bootup should be faster on x32 than it sounds like you're getting regardless. You may be hanging up on one of the startup processes. Do you see anything amiss in the output of dmesg?
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  5. #5
    Hammerhead Shark Geforce255's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vindir View Post
    Install 64 bit, there is really no reason not to and every reason to go ahead and do it when you're running a box with 8 gigs in it.

    Bootup should be faster on x32 than it sounds like you're getting regardless. You may be hanging up on one of the startup processes. Do you see anything amiss in the output of dmesg?
    The 64 bit would never launch. It installed but failed to load. Reading the forums, it looks like it has a very limited range of hardware it will run on. 12.04 is supposed to stabilize the 64 bit version on non-Xeon CPU's.
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  6. #6
    Great White Shark
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geforce255 View Post
    The 64 bit would never launch. It installed but failed to load. Reading the forums, it looks like it has a very limited range of hardware it will run on. 12.04 is supposed to stabilize the 64 bit version on non-Xeon CPU's.
    Again, I'm confused. I've run it on my old 9650 Core2Quad, a Core2Duo, a Phenom X4 (with the TLB bug, and it still worked), An old Opteron dual core, an E3-1230, A core i5-2500K, And multiple VM environments on each of the above platforms as well. (Ubuntu x64 in Virtualbox on either an Ubuntu x64 host or a Win x64 host). I've not installed a 32-bit Ubuntu variant in maybe 4 years now. Heck, I only install 32-bit windows on my old laptop because it was a Pentium M and 32-bit only.

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  7. #7
    Mako Shark
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    I'm using 10.10 64bit and it boots faster the Windows. I have never bothered to upgrade to 11.10

  8. #8
    Hammerhead Shark Geforce255's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by drdoom View Post
    I'm using 10.10 64bit and it boots faster the Windows. I have never bothered to upgrade to 11.10
    10 booted faster than 11. I identified the Unity shell as the suspected culprit. Could be the NTFS partition as well.
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  9. #9
    Great White Shark
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    Yeah, I just loaded a VM with Ubuntu 11.10 x64 Desktop. From BIOS to desktop on the VM (on an SSD) taks approx 5 seconds if that. This is using an ext4 partition with auto-login enabled.
    Last edited by James; 04-13-2012 at 08:59 AM.

    Crusader for the 64-bit Era.
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