Ubuntu :: Newbie Seeking Advice On Performance Improvement?
Aug 27, 2010
every now and then my company cleans its it trash by giving away computers to its employees. this i became the owner of a p4, 2ghz compaq evo with 512 mb ram and no hard drive. i bought a 500 gb hdd, dowloaded ubuntu, created a live disk and in a matter of minutes i had a new desktop! i love it! a new computer with a new operating system set by a non-techie in 15 minutes? not even microsoft can beat that. oh, and the total cost was zero!
then i started clearing issues (mysterious crash on p4 computers solved with a patch, screen resolution solved with a new mode, not recognized microsoft webcam to be solved, connection to stora nsa to be solved, etc.). this is nothing different from what you would go through installing windows on a new computer, in fact the process seemed easier for me as there's tons of documentation and people willing 1. overall system performance, mostly while browsing seems low. could it be the 512 mb of memory? would it improve its performance to jump to 1 or 2 gb? or it's just the processor that's too slow and not all the memory in the world would make it faster? while we're at it, is it reasonable to expect good performance on ubuntu 10.4 on a p4 2.0 ghz? (my notebook, a 2 ghz core duo runs faster on xp, but it has 3 gb memory, so i guess memory would help...).
2. choppy videos and other video, both in partial and full screen modes. again, would more ram help? updating drivers? updating flash? (i think it's all updated, but i'll retry...). or is my bottleneck in the processor? 3. my computer has an extra video card, but it's disconnected. i'm not sure about brand or model or even whether this would be an improvement on the on-board card. should i plug it and see what happens? would a better video card improve my performance?
simplifying, this is a computer for me to play and for my baby boy to pound at the keyboard. if i were to spend little money on it, what's the best investment, memory or a new video board? (i think i know the answer, memory). i don't want to extrapolate too much from my windows experience because this is a new os, but i think i would go for extra memory. if memory were the solution to all my problems... how much memory? should i go for an additional gb? full 2 gb? 3? what about buying a 1 gb card and plugging it side by side with the existing 512 mb? would 1.5 gb be enough?
I have been running GNU/Linux for quite a few years, and over that time have tried many different looks. I have never seemed to find the `right' one for me, however.
When I first started, I ran GNOME/Enlightenment, straight out of the box. I played with themes a little and liked it, but had not yet learned about the breadth of choice out there. Over time, mainly due to memory issues, I gradually disabled features. I ran this combo for probably three years in the end, with a minor dabble in KDE along the way. I felt like a change. I decided to try fvwm. I hated it! It did teach me something important, however; I did not need a Desktop. I had not realised before now that I never used any of the features of a Desktop. I also learned that my system ran a lot faster without one. I have never looked back.
After a short stint with FVWM, I decided to see if you could have a window manager that looked good. I experimented with several, including IceWM, but finally fell in love with WindowMaker. It looked nice and was not loaded with features I did not use. I ran it for several years before growing bored and moving on. This time, I experimented with other low-resource options, such as Blackbox, Openbox and, finally, Fluxbox. Fluxbox was my new `best thing' for a couple of years, though I quickly found myself getting rid of half its features (tabs, etc), before I found myself being driven mad by the sheer fact it was so minimalist: I wanted more bling I went on another journey where I experimented with the likes of Sawfish and Metacity, before finally settling on Enlightment again. This was fairly short lived, however, and I soon found myself back on WindowMaker. I have continued to use WindowMaker for the past four or five years. It does the job fine, but I am beginning to find it bland. After all, five years of staring at the same screen does get a little samey :P I have just bought myself a new, flashy, wiz-bang system and it has a clean install of Debian Lenny on it. I feel it is time for a new look.
Over the years, I have learned a few things about my preferences. I hate tiling window managers with a passion --- they look cluttered to me. I do not like toolbars or start buttons, and hate the concept of a desktop with icons all over it. In WindowMaker, I hate the clip beyond using it as a way to prevent my applications for leaving those horrid icons down the bottom of my screen. On the Windows system I use at work I also have the taskbar auto-hide, so I guess I do not like anything down the bottom of the screen. I like the dock, but the only docapps I really use are the clock and volume control (which do not really have to be on a dock); I would be happier if these could auto-hide and I just have to mouse-over to get them when I want them, allowing more real estate for the applications themselves. I am lazy when it comes to making themes --- I can do it, but prefer not to --- so I want a good selection from the community I can take from. Virtual desktops are a must, but I do not care for pagers (I just disable them when they are available). I also like it when I can configure which virtual desktop an application opens too, especially if it remembers the window's dimensions (so I do not have to keep resizing). Shading windows is also something I like.
I am running Debian Lenny with xfce4. I just bought a used iPod Touch (1st gen) yesterday (4/8/10). Dropbox works great, easy way to transfer files. My yahoo mail account also works very well.
Gtkpod works great with my iPod Shuffle, but does not seem to work with the iTouch. My PC does not seem to automatically mount the iTouch. Any thoughts on iFuse, or Floola? Or would I be better off trying to run iTunes under Wine?
I have an XP laptop with iTunes installed, maybe I should just use that to sync music, and my Yahoo contacts? I would also like to sync to my yahoo calendar, but I know of no way to that - maybe I could sync my yahoo calendar to google calendar, and use Floola to sync to the iTouch?
I've got a box (prev used for WinXP) with 2GB Ram and a new 500GB HD to throw in there.Noticed on the Wiki CreatingUpdateMedia and reading as much as I can ramping up for this.I'm curious how I should partition this disk, and what other decisions I'll need to make on install.I see quite a bit of interest also in virtualization, and if I find a need, this could be useful too.Kernel upgrades?how to do? Does the disk have to be wiped or just use an alternate boot device to replace K on HD? I have a tech background in programming and some solaris, but *nix has grown up in the last 5 years.Hopefully devices will function and networking connectivity can be acheived without too much troubleshooting.
I'm doing this in part to be more educated, especially in the new world of web-hosting where you have a virtualized box, root and shell access, and need to manage it yourself. Beyond that even, my goal is to be able to work on my web-host by setting up a remote linux desktop, and I'll be looking for ways to configure that. There are clients out there (VNC, etc), but I'm not sure on the host-server configuration, and also the port-forwarding setup on my local router.
I see that the latest hplip is by default (3.10.2 in synaptic)great I thought but unlike the 3.10.2 version which was previously downloaded from the web(for 9.04) this default version STILL cannot produce photos without borders? In trying to install the web version (over the default version) which allows for exact printer settings. my printer then went haywire! Its for this reason only that I must go back to windows for HP essential. its a pity because this problem has been known for ages
Using slackware current and I'm really digging KDE 4.4.3. It's been way more stable on my machine than 4.3.x and it performs MUCH better. I think slackware 13.1 is going to be a really good release. Much better than 13.0. Looking forward to upgrading all of my hosts though it will probably take me a few months given how many I manage.
I recently upgraded a server's networking card to a Gigabit NIC, and got a hold of a Gigabit switch (Here's a link) in the hopes of increasing my network performance - however, I'm getting around 10 MB/s throughput now, which is exactly what I used to get with the old 10/100 switch & NIC. The new switch recognizes both computers as Gigabit (the other machine has always had a Gigabit NIC), and both computers say they're gigabit - I've found various sites around the interwebz recommending tweaking some TCP/IP buffer settings, which I have tried to no avail. I also saw that hard drive speed is usually the limiting factor. According to "hdmarp -t", the server HDD (definitely the slower of the two) is:
Code: Timing buffered disk reads: 226 MB in 3.00 seconds = 75.26 MB/sec
So that's obviously not my issue. The cabling is CAT6 - I ran it myself, but if I'd mis-wired the end connections, wouldn't it just not work at all? I admit, I bought cheap NIC's (I'm not going for like 124.9 MB/s throughput here..), and I didn't expect them to be stellar, but I certainly expected the speeds to improve. I'm moving files from a server running Ubuntu 9.04 to a Windows machine - I've tried both my Samba shares on the server and an SFTP transfer: they both have about the same throughput.
Ubuntu's request for an encryption passphrase on installation could be greatly improved.
After installation, if the option to encrypt the home folder has been checked, Ubuntu prompts: "Record your encryption passphrase".
On running the action there are the following problems:
# When you type a passphrase, your keypresses are not indicated on the screen
# If you make a mistake typing the passphrase, and backspace, there is no way of knowing whether the backspace operation has worked
# The passphrase is typed once and the operation ends. There is no attempt to validate the correct entry of the passphrase by asking for it to be typed twice.
The combination of these shortfalls can be fatal. My last recorded encryption passphrase proved to be incorrect when after a critical failure I was required to enter my encryption passphrase to retrieve my data. It had not been backed up for a while. Ubuntu did not recognise my passphrase. Only after some dogged support from Canonical was the problem resolved.
I've just done a fresh install. I have butter fingers. I inevitably fumbled over the entry of my encryption passphrase. I have absolutely no way of verifying the passphrase I just set. Should Ubuntu ditch another critical failure on me, what do you think the chances are that my passphrase will work?
Here's a screenie of partitions where Ubuntu is currently installed:[URL]..sda1 is the partition where Windows used to reside - that's why it's flagged as 'boot'. When I nuked Windows, I just left it flagged that way as I figured that's where Grub is installed and didn't want to screw anything up.
I'm about to add a new 1TB drive for Lucid (most likely). I want to move this current drive to the second drive bay so it will become sdb 1,2,3 but keep it functional (at least until I'm convinced that Lucid will work for me). Here are my questions:
Will Lucid find the old Ubuntu install on sdb automatically and give me a choice of dual boot?
Will the old Grub legacy be overwritten? Should I remove the old 'boot' flag or leave it like it is? Do I even need a boot flag on sdb since BIOS is set to boot from sda? Any other tips before I start mucking around in a perfectly functioning system?
This issue has already been discussed on this thread: [URL]. But it's 1 year old so I wanted to know if any of you had other ideas. It seems to me that [URL] is quite a good choice indeed, but I want to be sure before I engage my company with it. So for you who are using linode, are you all happy with it?
If they allow having a Slackware guest, and is not too "g33k" (like this one which is NOT an option) because I need to make my colleagues confident and they are a bit scared of having a service only for hackers. In fact I need to reassure them even with linode, they're scared to death because I want a Slackware server ...
I just wanted to know if having my laptop set to ondemand, will this affect performance in any way? I realize it increases the clock speed to performance when the CPU is under load, but does the time it take to go from ondemand to performance affect speed? Will there be any noticeable difference between the two setups? I have a dual core intel at 2.2GHz when in performance. When ondemand is set with no load it downclocks to 800Mhz.
I just acquired a 1.5Tb Hdd which I am sticking in an old desktop to make a home net portal and server. I'd like to share files between the server and my various linux boxes, as well as my wife's XP and w7 laptops. For this I plan to use Samba. I'd also like to use the box as my media library, streaming video (using VLC?) I'm assuming if I can connect to the box over the home network I'll be able to read write and stream media files easily.
I'm also toying with the idea of installing Apache and hosting a website from the same box. I'd also like to be able to ssh in remotely, and allow for sending files via ftp. I've got the hardware set up, the drive is partitioned in to /, swap, and /home. I'm going in for a full Slackware 13.37 install, but from there I'm not sure exactly how to proceed.
I have two 320GB Seagate 7200.4 hard drives on my laptop and I am looking to set them up as a RAID 0 array to install Debian on. After reading a bit online I wanted to seek some guidance with this as this is my first time setting up software RAID. My biggest concern is how to maximize performance of the array with regards to block sizes, chunk sizes, stripe sizes, filesystem types, etc. etc. It seems there are a lot more nuances to setting up a RAID array (properly) than I thought there would be
Edit: It also appears that grub2 cannot be installed to /dev/sda when the drives are setup in RAID 0. Is there an easy way around this? I read somewhere that if you select to install grub to the RAID partition it will work? Is that the case, or do I need to do something else to get grub to boot directly to the raid array?
I somehow installed 2 versions of ubuntu on my computer. how do i uninstall them to start over? it ony shows me a black screen , but does say theres not enough room to do anything
a widow with 4 kids - 2 of whom have severe depression & signs that one may be suicidal and is taking interst in some dark garbage on the net. Overall still a pretty good kid, but he surely doesn't need help online to get further in a hole. The 15 year old boy is highly intelligent (whole family actually) and knows how to get around software parental controls with peer to peer, live disks, etc. There are several PCs - both windows and mac, and an X-box.
I want to set up the household with a router or similar solution that is smarter than the kid and his friends. I figure protecting the network is the most tamper proof, all-encompassing way to go. In the short term, I really want to lock that home net solid, while still allowing mom to do her facebook and the oldest to use the web for schoolwork. Dlink Securespot technology seems to be the best overall solution I have found so far. If there is something better, I'm hoping someone here can steer me to it.
some of you may have seen my recent posts on inquiries about servers, well I have a new idea as my brain is always spinning...well I'm not sure this is possible, but could I run 1 server that can work as a LAMP, mail server, and a LTSP?
I am searching for an xmms like music player. rythmbox doesn't do it for me because it organizes songs by genre and such rather than by files - I find changing tags on individual music files tiresome, and I prefer the xmms style - all music was accessed as I access all other files on my computer. Frankly I don't know how to "compile from source" and can't quite follow the instructions describing how to "compile" the original xmms. Xmms2 doesn't seem to work on my computer.
I'm about to install a 'new' ATI Radeon video card into a Ubuntu 10.04 computer of mine (an ASUS A7VT) that has VIA onboard graphics. My question is, how will Ubuntu deal with this? Will it automatically download the required drivers or would I be better off with a fresh install after I've put the card in?
Every now and then a window titled 'authorization dialog' pops up. It says "you need to supply a username and a password to access this site". Please view the screenshot of that window in the attachments. Even if I cancel it, the program seeking it seems not to terminate. It returns repeatedly...in every log in also. I am pretty irritated.how to terminate this appending agony.
I'm new to Linux and Ubuntu 9.10. I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 on an older Compaq Presario 6100. Initially my built in wireless was not working. I searched the forum and was able to get my wireless working (I think) by installing the BCM43XX driver. I assume that works on my computer since I believe the BCM4306 driver is needed. Anyway, assuming my wireless is working, my home network does not show up in the pick list when I go to network<wireless.
I've spent a couple of hours already researching this and up someone can help me out. I would really like to give this new system a try.
I just installed Ubuntu 10.04 Server the other day, which gives me access to a command line only, to start out with. I'm hoping someone would be able to recommend a guide (online or a book, either way) for absolutely clueless beginners, so that I can learn to competently get around from the command line.
This would include information like:
Navigating the file system. Editing text document. Installing drivers. Mounting data sources. Installing and configuring packages. and eventually installing a desktop environment.
Can anyone tell me of a simple chat program that I can install on both Windows and Linux? I need it more for the local intranet than the internet. I wish to chat with window users in my network? Also please forgive me if this is the wrong forum for this question.
I have several linux laptops and a desktop-server running Ubuntu Lucid. I also have Android(tm) and iPhone(tm) devices. All of these connect to my at-home LAN using wireless or wired ethernet through my home-LAN router+gateway and on through the cable modem. In addition, printers are network capable and deployed on the same at-home LAN. All of that works.
Now I want these various and several computers to share files and services (web, print, media) with each other and interact with each other on this same at-home LAN. Can someone point me to a HOWTO or similar application notes that discuss what I need to do? Since all of the at-home LAN devices use DHCP and get dynamic IP addresses, any /etc/hosts files that I create stop working when leases renew. I can configure "fixed IP address" settings, but then wifi roaming is a royal pain in the anatomy -- at least the ways I know how to do this.
I can use the router+gateway to give a specific IP address to each hardware (MAC) address, but then when folks visit it is irksome to setup so that we might give or get the odd file or they might print the odd document. I vaguely remember that there was a way to generate dynamic "local network" host names or similar attached to dynamic "local network" IP addresses all under the control of DHCP-server and supporting utilities. I'm dashed if I can find anything about that other than really antique details. Once folks stop laughing at what I'm certain is a totally noob question, I hope that there is a solid HOWTO that just works out there and that some kind soul will tell me where to find it. I apologize in advance if this question has been asked and answered in the past. One must know enough to know what to search for and get meaningful results. ~~~0;-/
So I installed FC11 and it seemed to be working ok I was having an issue configuring sendmail so I decided to use Yum to remove it and to re-install sendmail.I type yum remove sendmail and it asked me if I wanted to remove 39 dependancies. I said yes and it removed way more than just sendmailIt even removed Yum itself HELP...I do not even have any way in the GUI for software installs, and YUM is no longer present.It even removed all but 7 items in my administration drop down. Can I fix this with the install CD of Fedora
I was struggeling with IPMI on my Debian Squeeze Supermicro 5014C-T server.I solved this issue and kept the original opening post in small font. This is what I had to do to make this work on my supermicro 5014C-T to get the IPMI controller working:
Code: # create the device mknod -m 0600 /dev/ipmi0 c 254 0
I encountered a problem when i tried to unzip a large .zip file ( about 7.8G). Below is the error message i got from shell. Could any guy help to look into this problem? How can i fix it
(I also have a win XP pro installation on my machine - but no dual-boot)
I would very much like to be able to transfer music to my iPhone, from my linux-fedora, which the iPod device on the iPhone is able to see...
I have successfully transferred several "libgpod-something.mp3" files to my iPhone, but I can't play them on my iPhone.
I have tried the following software:
Rhythmbox (came with Fedora 14), here i am able to see the content of my iPhone, and transfer libgpod files. But I cannot see any music folder under the iPhone icon. So I just drag and drop .mp3 files to iPhone. iPhone can't see them.
Banshee (newest available version installed with add/remove programs), here I'm also able to see the content of the iPhone, and I can see a music folder icon under the iPhone icon, but I can't drag and drop to the music folder, but I can drag and drop to the iPhone icon, and the files gets transferred, but again iPhone can't see them. But I can play the transferred files from Banshee...
Gtkpod (newest available version installed with add/remove programs), is largely the same as Rhythmbox, but i get a warning that says: Extended info will not be used, when the iPhone is mounted. There is no music folder icon, but only a poscast icon, under the iPhone icon. And again, I'm able to transfer files to the iPhone, that my iPhone can't see...
In Gtkpod, there is no option for the white iPhone 4, so I've used the "xC605" profile, which is for the black iPhone 4, 32GB.
I'm also able to see content of my iPhone with nautilus. I discovered that the linux software I'm using, are converting the .mp3 files into "libgpod" files, but iTunes(transferred with WinXP) is converting the .mp3 files into "XXXX.mp3" files (X= is for random letters).
Is this significant?
I've also just updated libimobiledevice with "libimobiledevice-1.0.6-1.fc14.x86_64.rpm", but my iPhone still can't see any of the linux transferred files. Only the iTunes transferred files.
Believe me I've tried and tried for a week now. I've searched a lot, but most of the hits in my search, were for Ubuntu...
My iPhone is not jailbroken.
Am I missing something here, is my iPhone 4 supposed to be jailbroken to work with the above mentioned software?
Please help, I am completely new to Linux and having trouble installing software.The packages I am attempting to install are:Google Chrome.I followed the codeweaver instruction and in the user terminal I entered: sh install-crossover-pro-8.0.0.sh
The response I got was unable to find directory.All of the above packages are on my desktop and in my Downloads folder. I have tried Synaptics without success. What to do next?It's 0300 hours here (Australia), yawn, I will be back on later.
