Kubuntu extremely slow...how come?

[kowalski]

Hi there!
i have a PC with an ASUS M2N-CM DVI Mainbord, containing an AMD Athlon 4600 Dual Core Processor and 1 GB of RAM. Should be enough für Kubuntu 17.04, shouldn't it?
My first ever Kubuntu installation worked without any errors, and all Hardware seems to work well.

But: system is unbelieveably slow: Starting Kubuntu and opening Firefox results in 100% usage of both cpu cores. Honestly, i can not believe my eyes... a pulldown menu takes 20 seconds, toggling betweens apps half a minute and storing a text file in libre office about two minutes.

As i have no experiences with linux, i simply do not know how to fix this. Your help is appreciated.

Regards
Kowalski

[Bings]

Your computer is simply not powerful enough, you need at least 2gb of RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubunt...m_requirements

You should have more luck with this OS http://lubuntu.me/ as it's designed to be run on slower machines.

[oldgeek]

I agree. Lubuntu works well on my old Lenovo netbook, and even though it doesn't have the flash of Kubuntu it is faster than other distros I've tried on it. You might want to see if you have the i386 version installed, not the AMD 64 one.

[kowalski]

Thanks a lot for the quick replayreply. Well, getting more RAM should be easy. How can i tell which version i have installed? Info Center says Kubuntu 17.04; 64-bit. Is that the information i should check?

[vinnywright]

Thanks a lot for the quick replay. Well, getting more RAM should be easy. How can i tell which version i have installed? Info Center says Kubuntu 17.04; 64-bit. Is that the information i should check?

the lack of RAM is whats killing you a Kubuntu-17.04 will use somewhere around 500-600 MB of RAM at idle ,,,just displaying the desktop.

open firefox and you will be using over 1.5 GB of RAM ...you have only 1GB of RAM so you see the slowdown right their.

did you give yourself a swap partition during or before install ? ,,,it would help some.

geting more RAM will be the key ,,,get your self up to 4GB if you can and a swap partition of the same size ,,,,,,,,if you can Get more RAM than that 8-GB or more you can leave the swap at 4GB

VINNY

[Rod J]

Yep, what Vinny said will make a huge difference in performance. Failing that Lubuntu would be the way to go.

I remember years ago my niece bought a nice shiny laptop (HP/Compaq from memory) running Win7 but it only had 500Mb of ram. Brand new but it ran like a dog, so unbelievably slow! After I increased the memory to 1.5Gb the performance improved considerably. So, the same rule applies now ... generally, memory upgrades are the best 'bang for your buck' improvements in performance.

[kowalski]

... ok, thank you very much. 4GB RAM are on the way...
I am sure i did not make a swap partition. Is it possible to do so afterwards or should i just reinstall kubuntu?

[Snowhog]

Before you consider adding a swap partition, wait to see if the extra RAM does the trick for you.

[jpenguin]

You could also make a swapfile on most FS types. BTRFS doesn't support this. After upgrading RAM, it may be easier and safer than repartitioning.

Tradition HDD, right?

Your GFX card can sometimes affect KDE performance too.