{"id":1086,"date":"2010-11-20T11:28:40","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T17:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icesquare.com\/wordpress\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2012-08-14T18:10:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T23:10:18","slug":"how-to-speed-up-ubuntu-on-a-low-end-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icesquare.com\/wordpress\/how-to-speed-up-ubuntu-on-a-low-end-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"How to speed up Ubuntu on a Low-End computer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you think your Ubuntu box is slow. You may want to give Xubuntu a try.<\/p>\n

I have a Ubuntu box on a relative old (5+ years) laptop (HP dv1000, Pentium Celerom M + 512MB ram). I mainly use it for lightweight activity such as office and web browsing. Recently, I put this laptop in my kitchen, which required connecting to an external monitor. I found that when I am in graphics mode, the overall system was getting slow.<\/p>\n

After some investigations, I have the following conclusions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The native resolution of the laptop graphic card is 1024×900. Since I connected it to an external monitor (1680×1050), it required more CPU and memory from the system. (It is an integrated graphic card, and it does not have any memory on its own.)<\/li>\n
  2. The Ubuntu uses Gnome desktop, which uses more resources and it is not optimized for low-end machine.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
     <\/div>\n

    So I have few options –<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Go back to Windows (Guess what, a clean Windows XP runs even much faster than Ubuntu)<\/li>\n
    2. Install other high performance system such as FreeBSD<\/li>\n
    3. Stick with Ubuntu, but uses a different window manager.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
       <\/div>\n

      I do not prefer the first option because I like to keep a distance from Microsoft product. For the second option, I normally prefer using FreeBSD as a server rather than desktop because of the hardware driver issues. Therefore, I decide to go with the third option. That will minimize the change and impact.<\/p>\n

      Ubuntu comes with two other\u00a0siblings, Xbuntu and Kbuntu. Basically, these three systems share the same core, but with different themes, i.e., window manager:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Ubuntu: Gnome<\/li>\n
      2. Xubuntu: Xfce<\/li>\n
      3. Kubuntu: KDE<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
         <\/div>\n

        I have tried these three window managers before. Here are their rankings in terms of fanciness, beauty, and resource consumption:<\/p>\n

        KDE > Gnome > Xfce<\/p>\n

        So I decide to give Xubuntu a try. After installing Xubuntu, I found that the overall system is a lot faster and smoother. I know that I’ve made a good decision.<\/p>\n

        FYI, if you need even more speed, consider to install Window Maker. It is even faster than Xfce!<\/p>\n

        –Derrick<\/p>\n

        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        If you think your Ubuntu box is slow. You may want to give Xubuntu a try. I have a Ubuntu box on a relative old (5+ years) laptop (HP dv1000, Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[94,144,6,69],"tags":[93,18,92],"class_list":["post-1086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-problems-computer-help-pc-support","category-sever-problem","category-technology","category-troubleshooting-technology","tag-kubuntu","tag-ubuntu","tag-xubuntu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1sqzr-hw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1658,"url":"https:\/\/icesquare.com\/wordpress\/upgrading-ubuntu-to-11-10-via-command-line\/","url_meta":{"origin":1086,"position":0},"title":"Upgrading Ubuntu to 11.10 via Command Line","author":"Derrick","date":"October 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Ubuntu was out today, and I could not wait to try out the new features. 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