Ubuntu is slow!
I hate to say this but after installing Ubuntu on a 1.8 GHz PC with 256 MB RAM, I found it to be slower than Windows 2000. Here is my experience.
The boot-up sequence takes almost 1.5-2 times longer than Windows 2000. In case of power failure, which is not uncommon here, Windows recovers much better (after manadatory chkdsk) than Ubuntu. It simply forced me to re-install both times. That is clearly not acceptable.
It did recognize the system well and installed itself correctly. But it appeared to lack in performance, at least in the UI.
I couldn't play mp3 files or mpeg movies. Due to some copyright restrictions such players are not installed by default.
The ability to recognize Windows systems and drives in the network is a big plus.
I had great hopes for Ubuntu but so far I think, either I am missing something big which I doubt or else Ubuntu needs some fine-tuning.
Note: I am not using the latest release but the one before that. I always confuse the names like Warty Whatever or Hoary Whatever and which of them is the later version, so don't ask me the name.
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July 8th, 2005 at 12:59 am
nice blog. keep it up. visit us atjohn
October 20th, 2005 at 4:01 am
UBUNTU:every mouse click was like loading something into an 8-bit Atari-400 from a Tape!
December 10th, 2005 at 10:46 am
I ran Ubuntu (not sure of the version) on a Tekram board, 256MB RAM, AMD K6-2/450 and onboard audio/video without any problems. ATA-33 drives were a bottleneck, but ran as well as Windows 98. Boot times are due to the preloading of many seldom-used components that a Linux geek (I’m a Windows geek, myself) could probably tweak.
Of smaller distros, it seemed to be pretty complete, although I favor Knoppix or Damn Small Linux (LiveCD!).
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:10 am
Hi, first of all, you have a nice name … I think there’s a famous Indian actor with this name
now, the critics.
( no offense ) The minimal 32MB for ubuntu are for a very minimalistic console based application. and it works, really.
1. as for your comparisons: I think the systems are incomparable: w2k came out when ? when 128MB of RAM was ‘wow’. and Ubuntu is from 1.5 years back, which is when 256MB is really… low life machine
2. you missed another thing: w2k, with all the stability needs to be rebooted once a week/day month. Ubuntu - doesn’t.
so bootup of a desktop - keep it up. And, of course you can optimize that times too.
3. the names/releases are actually funny:
hedgehog (HH Hoary Hedgehog 4.10)
warthog (WW Warty Warthog 5.04)
badger (BB Breezy Badger 5.10)
— > the next one is
drake ( DD Dapper Drake 6.04 )
1st digit is year of the release, and second number is the month.
4. Ubuntu doesn’t need to be fine tuned, but it needs to be at least up-to-date. order a CD it is free, man
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:48 am
Thank you Bilbo. Only famous person I know of sharing my name with is Anshuman Gaekwad, an ex-cricketer.
> low life machine
( no offense )
No offense taken. But frankly considering they are equivalent in functionality how can you justify the extra memory? In India even today 256 MB is WOW. My greatest hope for Linux is that it will replace Windows in not-so-rich countries.
> you missed another thing: w2k, with all the stability needs to be rebooted once a week/day month.
That was very much true in the past version of windows, even Windows NT. However I have to admit I have much better experience with Windows 2000. I have it up weeks at a time without any problem whatsoever.
What bothers is is that with every power-cut it forced me to re-install the OS, no less. It was cumbersome on an empty system. But if it had even half of the applications I have on this machine…
Thanks for the information on the releases.
> order a CD it is free
Sure, I will do that.
March 5th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Ubuntu still blows when it comes to speed - a better debian baised distro is MEPIS - it comes with audio and video fully enables and boots much quicker. It’s slightly more complex - but I find ubuntus overly simplified gnome interface actually makes it harder to find the things i want and tweak my system.
March 18th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
I hate to say this but after installing Ubuntu on a 1.8 GHz PC with 256 MB RAM, I found it to be slower than Windows 2000.
Its really the memory thats bottlenecking your system…
In case of power failure, which is not uncommon here, Windows recovers much better (after manadatory chkdsk) than Ubuntu. It simply forced me to re-install both times. That is clearly not acceptable.
Use ReiserFS.
It did recognize the system well and installed itself correctly. But it appeared to lack in performance, at least in the UI.
Perhaps You need to properly configure the Xorg drivers… (Trying out a newer version also could help a lot.)
I couldn’t play mp3 files or mpeg movies. Due to some copyright restrictions such players are not installed by default.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats
All in all, you should just try the latest version (5.10, Breezy Badger) or even better: wait till April and then try out Dapper Drake (6.04). That version is really gonna rock.
June 11th, 2006 at 6:43 am
I just wanted to report that as a prior windows 2000 user myself.. now Xubuntu fanatic in less than 3 days.. i thought i would chime in and say that i don’t see a reason to ever go back to windows.. what good is the speed when i spent half my time fighting windows rot and patching.. xubuntu has life time support now and the upgrades and updates that improve the performance and add cool new features are almost once a week now.. the nice thing about xubuntu updates is i don’t have to reboot my machine like i did with windows..
i’ve tweaked my system since the basic setup comes made for use as a workstation more than as a desktop and a quick search can show you the same performance tweaks that really boost the overall speed.. i just got windows streaming video running fine and mp3 files as well.. it wasn’t hard at all and i found all my answers in a quick google search.. when you get tired of the windows rot and updating and constant adware give xubuntu a try.. don’t rush to judge.. spend some time and give it a chance.. change is good..
June 11th, 2006 at 7:07 am
It is encouraging to hear about your experience with Xubuntu. My experience was with Ubuntu, not Xubuntu. I will give XUbuntu a try.
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Yes Xubuntu is the key. You can also get the Xfce desktop from your gnome system without reinstalling Xubuntu
try getting it from atp-repositories
sudo apt-get install xfce-desktop
October 9th, 2006 at 8:46 am
I’ve been using Xubuntu for 2 weeks now and really loving it. I do have problems playing my ‘mp3′. I got the problem solved by using Automatic (www.getautomatix.com). Its a scripting tool that automate common task for Debian Based Distro.
The only thing abt xubuntu, is that you need to be on the internet often to have it running well. And that is really troublesome for people with slower connection.
So, im sticking with Xubuntu, even though it is much harder to get my java 6 to run proper here… on to google :).
March 4th, 2007 at 8:16 am
I’m having the java problem too. I was a bit annoyed/shocked to see how slow even xubuntu runs (6.10) on my amd 1.2 laptop, xp runs faster once properly tweaked (eg services stopped, ballon tips disabled etc etc). CPU often stays at 100% although, oddly, the system is still responsive and will even clearly play video files when at was at 100% before I even started to play then.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I used Ubuntu for several years and it seems to me that the new releases are a lot slower booting and opening programs.
I tried PClinux OS and it is so much faster then Ubuntu, MP3’s and video codecs will play out of the box.
By the way my PC is a dell GX110 P3 800Mhz with 256Mb Ram
March 16th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I’m running xubuntu 6.10 with xfce as my wm, and it is slow. Everything seems slow, like rowing a canoe through a molasses river in the dead of winter. Booting takes a long time, applications take a long time to load (Firefox, a simple x text editor, even a terminal, all slow)…my system is a Celeron 900 MHz, with 512 MB of ram…which should be more than adequate for xubuntu….but apparently it’s not. i’m disappointed overall. It still looks crummy and patchy and disjointed…the fonts, the windows themselves….everything is still unpolished and patchy-looking.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 am
Ubuntu (much faster than Vista) is supposed to be compared in performance with Vista not with XP or win 2000. You should have tried Xubuntu in your case.
August 4th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Kubuntu is too slow on 1 gig RAM core 2 duo lappie. Compared with Vista that flies. Mouse irresponsible. I do not complain about boot time but most apps are slow. Process catcher pops up saying that almost all apps are slowing down my system, shut them? These statements that Linux is superior to windows in 1) speed, 2) sys resources, 3) functionality are so obviously wrong. Hey why it takes more than 192 MB to run live cd? What the programs like katapult can do except showing they version number, it outrageously funny. Conclusion linux never will be popular or usable OS. just a toy with hidden bugs, like a game (strategy game in text mode) manage to install it and find another 100 bugs.
November 19th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
gnome is slow
try xfce if you dont like kde
March 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Dude ubuntu sucks reason is because the kernel includes like everything. Re-compile kernel, and mess with init scripts and i bet it will speed up. I would suggest going with a distro like gentoo or if your not that good with linux yet i would suggest debian over ubuntu. Plus you wont deal with as many noob know it alls with those distros vs ubuntu (this is personal opinion). Good luck cheers
May 11th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I was happily running windows 2000 on P4 2.0ghz and 256MB Ram.
3 weeks back thought about trying the Ubuntu 8.04(Gnome) and now googling with various keywords for why ubuntu is slow. I have 2 options either to buy new hardware just to run ubuntu or reinstall win2k.
I am going with windows. Last 3 weeks, I was spending all my time in googling and setting up the ubuntu instead of doing my actual work.
I couldn´t open more than 2-3 windows otherwise I need to reboot the system as it is keep hanging.
UBUNTU SUCKS! IMO. (have read 100s of articles on why linux is better than windows :-))
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 am
Ganesh, I don’t think “Ubuntu Sucks!” is a fair statement to make.
Having said that, I too am not happy with Ubuntu so far. I installed Ubuntu on two P4 machines, one with 512Mb RAM and the other 256Mb. The 512Mb machine is doing OK, but the 256Mb machine is facing all sorts of problems. It was running Windows XP alright before that, mind you. To start, I can’t install Ubuntu from the Live CD, had to use the alternative CD. Everything runs simply too slow for it to be usable.
What breaks the straw for me is that I can’t use my Epson EPL-6100L printer, not even with the printer driver available on some sites.
So, after several months of trying out Ubuntu, I decided that it is not (yet) for me.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am
From what I’ve seen Ubuntu is a pretty well put together piece of software, it does have a few bugs. (but what doesn’t?) In my experience the start up is rather fast (about 40s after I push the ‘power’ button it’s ready to go)
btw go for the latest version of Ubuntu because it would obviously have some bugs worked out.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
are you all cracked out?? looks to me like the ubuntu haters dont have a clue about much of anything. I am runnin ubuntu 8.04 on a P4 3ghz 1 gig ram and it blows away any version of windows and vista well vista is a flamining POS on all points.
Ubuntu boots very fast and all apps run at a great speed with out problems, seems to me that most here see ubuntu as something that should work 100% right now just the way they think it should, show me any OS that dosent need somekind of tweaking to run how you want it. now go bitch about vista and how it is the worst thing that M$ has put out to date cause it is absolute junk.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Bonjour,
Si Ubuntu ne tourne pas très bien, c’est peut-être simplement que Gnome est un peu lourd pour la plateforme.
Il serait peut-être une solution à envisager que d’installer Xubuntu qui sera plus light…
August 14th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Hello,
If Ubuntu appears to be slow, it might just be that Gnome is too heavy for such a configuration.
A solution to consider could be to install Xubuntu instead wich shoud be lighter…
August 30th, 2008 at 8:12 am
This post is total crap.
From the sound of it, the poster has tried to install a version of ubuntu from 2004. Let me spell that out:
Two Thousand and Four.
Maybe you should have at LEAST tried to RTFM before you began?
Yes, there are restricted drivers. If you had RTFM, again, you would have known that 2 mouse clicks away installs all needed drivers, software, etc.
LITERALLY, TWO MOUSE CLICKS.
Oh, I don’t doubt you are missing half your brain at all. Which, despite your lack of clarity on the matter, is SOMETHING BIG. Knowledge is power, to lack it spells defeat. It’s not Ubuntu’s fault, you did not RTFM.
Also, even if you were unable to find/Read TFM, on the desktop, 1 click away, is complete support on IRC, from THOUSANDS, literally THOUSANDS of individuals willing to hold your hand and walk you through a few tasks which may be just a TAD more advanced than clicking the “Next” button.
So, you let your Ego take control and post this article bashing one of the VERY best operating systems ever made/in existence, due to the fact that you were mis-informed, however thought you did in fact know everything. (Sociopathic)
Before you create a post with a very negative title, de-faming due to your lack of intelegence, next time, DON’T try it, or RTFM, or realize you are not some god of computers becuase you know how to install windows, and you may be severely lacking large pieces of information by your own misguided actions.
/End Rant.
In Short:
If Ubuntu is too advanced, keep windows XP, or buy a Mac.
However, do not make assumptions, and post presumably false information. Ubuntu is now used by millions, world-wide.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
To Ubuntu Fanboy,
Read the post date before commenting - July 7th, 2005
September 1st, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Try it again.