Samsung N150 plus having some issues after update to 14.04

[fidelandche]

Hi all,

I did try posting this over on the Ubuntu forums, but it appears no one knows the answers to my questions. So I thought I join and post on here to see if I can get some answers to my issues with the netbook.

My Samsung N150 plus is having some issues, which have been around a while, but I was hoping after an upgrade to 14.04 might have shorted out the issues, so my issues are

1; boot up time, this is very slow, it takes about 2 minutes from pressing the power button to being able to click on Chrome or any other browser to access the internet.

2; video play back on Chrome is very choppy, but appears to work fine on other browsers. Chrome is up to date and so are the plugins

3; being able to access any website is slow on all browsers.

4; screen time is displayed one hour behind the time in the UK, it is set to the correct time zone but will not display the correct time on the task bar.

Cheers

[Rog132]

Welcome...

Multiple questions

It would be easier to follow and answer if there is only one question per topic.


Make it easy to answer

Give the hardware information, What have you tried before, etc...

- https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...W-GUY-lt-lt-lt


Generic answers:

A1

There are applications which help to pinpoint where the boot bottlenecks are: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BootCharting


A3

'ubuntu+slow+net': https://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu+slow+net


A4

'kde+clock+wrong site:https://www.kubuntuforums.net/' : https://www.google.com/search?q=kde+...ntuforums.net/

[Shabakthanai]

I looked up your netbook. It appears that it is a 1.6Ghz processor. I could be wrong, but attempting to run a complex OS like Kubuntu Linux or Windows 7 or 8 would be a slow process .

I have an Intel dual-core 2300Mhz laptop with 8GB ram that is slow operationally compared to my Desktop PC. It takes my laptop about a minute to boot to use and is twice the operating speed plus to your system. It is a handy backup unit for when my desktop is being repaired or serviced, but it is slow when using operating systems designed to operate the faster hardware.

My Desktop PC is an 8 Core 4Ghz processor with 16GB 1866 RAM plus a 2GB DDR5 Video Card, and it is not as fast as some of the available hardware. Still, it operates pretty instantaneously for most things.

Nevertheless, I think you may expect too much from your hardware. It was designed for stuff 5 years ago, and far from the cutting edge of where computers are now. If your processor is only 1.6Mhz and you don't have at least 8GB of RAM, it's fastest capability probably won't satisfy you. Maybe if you install something like Puppylinux and maximize your memory you can get more acceptable speed. I hope I haven't discouraged you, but the newer the operating system, the greater demands are placed on it due to all the newer software and hardware designed for people with speed demands.

It is amazing, as far as I am concerned, that Kubuntu can still function on the slower machines, but it does. It just doesn't operate as fast as the more current hardware. I hope this is useful information.

Hi all,

I did try posting this over on the Ubuntu forums, but it appears no one knows the answers to my questions. So I thought I join and post on here to see if I can get some answers to my issues with the netbook.

My Samsung N150 plus is having some issues, which have been around a while, but I was hoping after an upgrade to 14.04 might have shorted out the issues, so my issues are

1; boot up time, this is very slow, it takes about 2 minutes from pressing the power button to being able to click on Chrome or any other browser to access the internet.

2; video play back on Chrome is very choppy, but appears to work fine on other browsers. Chrome is up to date and so are the plugins

3; being able to access any website is slow on all browsers.

4; screen time is displayed one hour behind the time in the UK, it is set to the correct time zone but will not display the correct time on the task bar.

Cheers

[fidelandche]

Ok, thanks for the help,

Q4, everything and I mean everything is set to the correct time zone and also set to UTC, prior to me posting. So the clock is still one hour out.

Q3, following the above advice, the internet connection now appears to be quicker, so hopefully it is now sorted.

So that just leaves questions, 1 and 2 to sort out.

As for Kubuntu running slow and perhaps not being best suited to this net book, I do understand what you are saying, however I have been using Ubuntu since 11.04 and I am used to it running slow on different machines, however when running Ubuntu 13.04 on this net book all was fine with no issues at all, but I got bored and changed over, at first running Kubuntu 13.10 (on a clean install) was fine, but as time has gone on, the net book has thrown up these issues, I know I could use Lubuntu as that is supposed to be less resource hungry and quicker, but at the moment I like the look of Kubuntu so in no real need to change over the OS as of yet.

Kind regards

[claydoh]

that netbook will run slowly, if it has only 1gb ram. That is likely the bottleneck here. Yes, the cpu is slow, but the very low ram and the slow hard drive is likely the real pinch points here, especially if the system is going to disk swap (and it likely will a LOT at that level of ram ). Maybe once disk indexing is finished running (or disabled, which might be the best thing to try), it might settle down and have some usable speed to it. Another thing to investigate is adjusting the "swappiness" level so that you are not hitting swap as often - I think the default setting for this make it go to swap far to quickly.

[mr_raider]

Kubuntu? Have you heard of Xubuntu?

[claydoh]

Kubuntu? Have you heard of Xubuntu?

While XFCE itself is light, Xubuntu is a less so. Plus LXDE is slightly more KDE-ish

[NoWorries]

In cases where a Laptop is "loosing it" with new software, my approach is to see about upgrading the memory to a larger storage and changing the hard disk to an SSD. I did this with my 2007 ASUS F3jr and it gives it very creditable performance with Kubuntu 14.04

[fidelandche]

Thanks for the replies, how do I go about disabling the disk indexing? Or sort out the swapping?

kind regards

[claydoh]

Desktop Search can be turned off on System Settings.

swappiness needs some simple file editing
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sw...I_change_it.3F
(NOTE: substitute "kdesudo kate" for the "'gksudo gedit" as we are using KDE/Kubuntu tools)
Use the recommended value of 10 to start, if you still think you are hitting the swap too soon, try 0, but give yourself a little time using your system before adjusting. Setting it to 0 does not disable swap, just puts off using as long as possible.

A ram boost would make things a lot snappier, I just dug through my small parts box, and unfortunately only found a 1Gb stick