Kubuntu 12.04 slows to a near halt after installation

[isaacdavid]

12.04 (64-Bit) seemed to work perfectly well when loaded from DVD (i.e. the 'Try Kubuntu' option), but once I'd installed it on the hard drive and rebooted, the only action that went smoothly was the initial login, and even that was after waiting a few minutes until the message 'Input not compatible' disappeared from my monitor. After logging in, the screen almost froze - clicking the Kickoff button brought up the Favourites menu, but none of the available Favourites worked, and I couldn't get to the other menus, including the Leave menu. I could move the mouse and, occasionally, the clock would update, but very little else happened. The Passphrase dialogue came up for encrypting my data and I was able to enter my password+<Enter> and get a reply, but it was so painfully slow, it was difficult to see which action of mine caused anything to happen on the screen.

My PC has two hard drives. The first has Windows XP on it. The second, on which I installed Kubuntu, was completely new, and I used the Disk Setup dialogue to create 4 partitions for the OS:
/boot 500Mb (Ext4)
swap 2500Mb (unformatted)
/ (root) 15000Mb (Ext4)
/home 280Gb (Ext4, encrypted)

The processor is an AMD Athlon II X2 245,
mounted on a Gigabyte GA-M61PME-SP2 Motherboard,
with 2Gb RAM (DDR2 1066),
and NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 onboard graphics processor.

I previously tried Ubuntu 12.04.2 from DVD, but the screen did strange things, froze, and then I got lines of text on the screen (each preceded by some numerical data which I haven't noted):
GPU Lockup - switching to software fbcon
Failed to idle channel 1
Failed to idle channel 2
etc...

Ubuntu 10.10 worked well from DVD, but I've decided I prefer the Kubuntu Desktop.

[jlittle]

Sounds like the dreaded Blur desktop effect. (I had trouble like yours on installing 12.04.) I was able to boot in recovery mode and disable it in system settings; perhaps you could disable effects with alt-shift-f12.

Regards, John Little

[isaacdavid]

Correction

Sorry, it was Kubuntu 12.04.2 which I installed to my Desktop PC. It's been a long day!

[claydoh]

You might check into desktop effects, sometimes the blur effect can slow things down, depending on the driver used - I will assume you are using the stock open source driver, and not the proprietary Nvidia driver.
Go into System Settings, Desktop Effects, and turn off Blur if enabled. You can quickly toggle off/on all selected effects using alt-shift-f12, which will help to check if one particular effect is the culprit. You could install the Nvidia driver using the Additional Drivers tool, but getting a usable desktop right now will allow you a better time to explore things.

Another place the slowness could be is if the nepomuk indexer is still running through your files. But I would check out desktop effects first.

[tek_heretik]

I had the same experience when I checked both 'install third party' (non-free) AND 'updates', it's the updates, big mistake while installing, the third party is fine, but DO NOT check updates during the install, update after it's on the HDD(s)/SSD(s). My theory is proprietary drivers conflict with the 'on the fly' kernel update during install, just a guess of course, but I am probably right. Install again checking third party only, and update after, you'll see, a flawless install.

[verndog]

The processor is an AMD Athlon II X2 245,
mounted on a Gigabyte GA-M61PME-SP2 Motherboard,
with 2Gb RAM (DDR2 1066),
and NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 onboard graphics processor..

We have an almost identical system. You can try using "modeset=0" , for the onboard and see if that makes a difference.

I found a catch-22 scenario, in that, once my system-settings are set up right, everything runs fast, but I can't get it set up when it crashes from the get go.
Using "modeset=0" was what worked on the first boot. After that and getting system-settings the way I wanted it, I found I could remove the "modeset=0" and my boot was very fast. There is something in one of the config files that refuses to boot straight away. In fact sometimes I get a total display collapse.

[isaacdavid]

Hey, thanks guys for the helpful replies. A thousand blessings on Middle-Earth and Middle-Funky-Little-Shack for the heads-up on the Blur effect. I tried the Alt-Shift-F12 move and it worked like a charm - the problem disappeared immediately! I'll also keep the updates issue in mind if I need to reinstall. Thanks again guys.

[isaacdavid]

Thanks also, verndog. I'm very much a Linux beginner, so your suggestion has put me on the track of some helpful stuff I need to know more about.