Slow, slow, slow

**johnnyflips** · 03-11-2008

I am a Linux virgin. I just installed debian as a dual boot and man it's running slow, did I do something wrong? It seems to be working just fine (other than being slow), is there something I need to download? Please help, I know enough about Linux to know I want to run it, if I can just pick up the speed.

**dxqcanada** · 03-12-2008

Open a terminal ...
run the "top" command.
Paste the output between the CODE tag (that # button above)

**johnnyflips** · 03-12-2008

This is what I think your asking for, thanks for help. Maybe this will tell you something.

Code:

top - 22:13:46 up 45 min,  2 users,  load average: 1.73, 1.62, 1.52
Tasks:  88 total,   5 running,  83 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 13.7%us,  4.8%sy,  0.0%ni, 25.1%id, 55.3%wa,  0.9%hi,  0.2%si,  0.0%st
Mem:    125492k total,   119900k used,     5592k free,      876k buffers
Swap:   369452k total,    83632k used,   285820k free,    15096k cached

68-186-216-76:/home/rhett# T  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
68-186-216-76:/home/rhett# 0  10m 7372 R 12.1  8.6   0:05.87 gnome-terminal
 2893 root      15   0  215m 4836 2944 R  4.9  3.9   1:31.00 Xorg
 4776 root      15   0  2228 1148  856 R  0.5  0.9   0:00.20 top
 3180 rhett     15   0 16644 1800 1496 S  0.2  1.4   0:00.98 gnome-screensav
    1 root      15   0  1948  252  228 S  0.0  0.2   0:01.27 init
    2 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    3 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    4 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.03 events/0
    5 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper
    6 root      14  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthread
    9 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.04 kblockd/0
   10 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:14.72 kacpid
   91 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kseriod
  129 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:02.17 kswapd0
  130 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
  569 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
 1030 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.29 kjournald
 1207 root      12  -4  2700  200  200 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.30 udevd
 1582 root      16  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kgameportd
 1586 root      18  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kpsmoused
 1934 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kmirrord
 2265 daemon    15   0  1684   92   92 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 portmap
 2554 root      18   0  1624  324  252 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.61 syslogd
 2560 root      15   0  1576  236  188 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.22 klogd
 2578 root      20   0  4880  180  180 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 hpiod
 2581 hplip     15   0  9728  716  428 S  0.0  0.6   0:00.02 python
 2667 root      18   0  1572  368  308 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.40 acpid
 2687 root      18   0  4572  636  468 S  0.0  0.5   0:00.22 cupsd
 2695 messageb  15   0  2380  212  212 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.18 dbus-daemon
 2703 haldaemo  18   0  5844 1016  640 S  0.0  0.8   0:02.67 hald
 2704 root      18   0  2896  324  324 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.02 hald-runner
 2710 haldaemo  16   0  2016  348  316 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.06 hald-addon-acpi
 2714 haldaemo  15   0  2016  280  256 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 hald-addon-keyb
 2728 root      18   0  1808  336  296 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.15 hald-addon-stor
 2730 root      18   0  1812  208  192 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.05 hald-addon-stor
 2745 root      15   0  1864  324  288 R  0.0  0.3   0:00.00 dhcdbd
 2752 root      15   0 21404  748  644 S  0.0  0.6   0:00.05 NetworkManager
 2767 avahi     15   0  2552  308  288 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.03 avahi-daemon
 2768 avahi     25   0  2552  108  108 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 avahi-daemon
 2778 root      18   0  2936  456  456 S  0.0  0.4   0:00.00 NetworkManagerD
 2825 Debian-e  18   0  5368  200  200 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 exim4
 2842 root      24   0  1752  188  188 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 inetd
 2878 root      15   0  2176  388  324 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.04 dhclient
 2884 root      16   0 11416  296  296 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.01 gdm
 2890 root      18   0 11900  400  396 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.03 gdm
 2896 statd     18   0  1760  204  204 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 rpc.statd
 2945 daemon    19   0  1832  160  160 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 atd
 2952 root      18   0  2196  312  252 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.02 cron
 3011 root      16   0  1572  184  184 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 getty
 3012 root      18   0  1572  184  184 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 getty
 3013 root      18   0  1576  184  184 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 getty
 3014 root      18   0  1576  184  184 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 getty
 3015 root      18   0  1572  184  184 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 getty
 3017 root      18   0  1576  184  184 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 getty
 3051 rhett     15   0 21144 1676 1408 S  0.0  1.3   0:00.78 x-session-manag
 3094 rhett     18   0  4136  132  104 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 ssh-agent
 3097 rhett     18   0  2564  208  208 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 dbus-launch

**hugortega** · 03-12-2008

The processes looks normal...

You can try to monitor the top output and catch the process that use the CPU intensively the most of the time (maybe your copy paste was in a moment in which that process had a low use of cpu)

**HROAdmin26** · 03-12-2008

I am guessing from the 128MB RAM that this is an older machine...

128MB + Slower CPU + Slower HDD + Full Gnome GUI = Probably going to be a little slow.

You can try a lighter windows manager like Xfce.

* While Debian/Gnome is nothing like the load Vista would put on a system, would you install Vista on this machine and expect it to "run smoothly"? (Actually, Vista would not run at all...)

**devils casper** · 03-12-2008

Execute this

Code:

su -
lspci | grep -i vga
grep -i driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Post output here.

Thread Tools

Display

Slow, slow, slow

output

Posting Permissions