[System] How to do a health check on my notebook/system using Kubuntu tools?

[kubucub]

Hi,

I have Kubuntu 20.04.1 on my multiboot system. For details of notebook (NB), OSs etc. see below. When I switch on my NB and choose Kubuntu 20.04 among my grub menu, it takes literally ages before I can log in as user, and then it takes ages again before I am in and can see the desktop and work. From then on it is ok, everything such as browser, youtube, Dolphin, etc. work at normal speed. When I replace Kubuntu 20.04 with Kubuntu 18.04, same problem. Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 10 Xfce (see below) are much faster at log-on. What can I do, please. to find out what is wrong?

Thank you, kubucub

Details
********
NOTEBOOK
********

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. 300E5C-S04DE
RAM 4GB

Processor a 2,20 gigahertz Intel Core i3-2328M
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
3072 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Hyper-threaded (4 total)

Controllers
Intel(R) 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller

Display
Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 [Display adapter]
NVIDIA GeForce GT 620M [Display adapter]
PnP-Monitor (Standard) (15,7"vis, August 2010)

************
HARD DRIVE
************
Some details from "sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda"

/dev/sda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
 Model Number:       ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB                   
 Serial Number:      S2RSJ9GCA11669      
 Firmware Revision:  2AR10002
 Transport:          Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
 Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0028) 
 Supported: 8 7 6 5 
 Likely used: 8

********
SYSTEM
********
Partitions and OSs

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags OS
1      1049kB  22,0GB  22,0GB  primary   ext4                  Ubuntu 18.04
2      22,0GB  30,1GB  8060MB  primary   linux-swap(v1)
3      30,1GB  131GB   101GB   primary   ntfs            boot  Windows 10
4      131GB   500GB   369GB   extended
5      131GB   378GB   247GB   logical   ntfs                  Data only
8      378GB   419GB   40,8GB  logical   ext4                  Kubuntu 18.04 /
7      419GB   470GB   51,2GB  logical   ext4                  Kubuntu 18.04 /home
6      470GB   500GB   30,4GB  logical   ext4                  Debian 10 Xfcemichael@ubu:~$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda

My default system is Ubuntu 18.01

[jglen490]

Not quite sure what it means when you say "it literally takes ages", but with a second gen i3, 2 core CPU, and a spinner hard drive, it probably is slow at least from a subjective viewpoint.

In Kubuntu, open a konsole and enter the the following, one at a time and copy/paste you output to a CODE box.

systemd-analyze

inxi -Fxxxz

(If inxi is not installed, then

sudo apt install inxi

will bring it in.)

lsblk -f

df -h

[kubucub]

Thank you jglen490,

...literally takes ages

Sometimes a few minutes before I finally reach desktop, sometimes (when I had opened some distro on the NB before and just did a reboot it is almost like normal speed. Ubuntu 18.04 GNOME and Debian 10 Xfce which are on the same HD always start normal.

... konsole... output...

I used a terminal; hopefully this was ok instead of the console? And did outputs to files instead of copy/paste.
systemd-analyze

Startup finished in 11.177s (kernel) + 1min 58.701s (userspace) = 2min 9.879s 
graphical.target reached after 1min 58.681s in userspace

inxi -Fxxxz

System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-42-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.5 tk: Qt 5.12.8 
    wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: SAMSUNG product: 300E4C/300E5C/300E7C v: 0.1 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 9 v: 0.1 
    serial: <filter> 
    Mobo: SAMSUNG model: NP300E5C-S04DE v: FAB1 serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: Phoenix v: P09RAP 
    date: 11/01/2013 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 18.9 Wh condition: 20.5/47.5 Wh (43%) volts: 12.3/10.8 model: SAMSUNG Electronics 
    type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: Charging cycles: 625 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-2328M bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Sandy Bridge rev: 7 
    L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
    flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 17561 
    Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 800/2200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 798 2: 798 3: 798 4: 798 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics 
    vendor: Samsung Co HD 3000 on NP300E5C series laptop driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
    chip ID: 8086:0116 
    Device-2: NVIDIA GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] vendor: Samsung Co 
    driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1140 
    Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa compositor: kwin_x11 
    resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
    OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 3000 (SNB GT2) v: 3.3 Mesa 20.0.8 compat-v: 3.0 
    direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Samsung Co NP300E5C series laptop 
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:1e20 
    Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-42-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter 
    vendor: Samsung Co AR9485WB-EG 802.11b/g/n mini-PCIe card on a series 3 laptop driver: ath9k v: kernel 
    port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 168c:0032 
    IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
    Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
    vendor: Samsung Co RTL8168 on a NP300E5C series laptop driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
    chip ID: 10ec:8168 
    IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
    Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0 type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 2-1.4:4 chip ID: 0cf3:3004 
    serial: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 161.31 GiB (34.6%) 
    ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB size: 465.76 GiB speed: 3.0 Gb/s 
    rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 0002 temp: 40 C scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 37.15 GiB used: 5.58 GiB (15.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda8 
    ID-2: /home size: 46.66 GiB used: 5.01 GiB (10.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7 
    ID-3: swap-1 size: 7.51 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 29 C 
    Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 180 Uptime: 21m Memory: 3.55 GiB used: 1.02 GiB (28.7%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 
    Compilers: gcc: N/A Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: konsole inxi: 3.0.38

lsblk -f

NAME   FSTYPE LABEL           UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                               
├─sda1 ext4   Ubuntu1804      2ab58bdc-c8ea-49da-b081-3d63e45e2b35                
├─sda2 swap                   0762858e-69f7-46b9-818e-805b2dc2f086                [SWAP]
├─sda3 ntfs   Win 10          485359646C61E396                                    
├─sda4                                                                            
├─sda5 ntfs   WinLin20190725  3A10D7F510D7B5DB                         79G    66% /media/michael/WinLin20190725
├─sda6 ext4   Deb10XfceMini   da4f0acc-b716-49b3-8f9a-69429e0432d4                
├─sda7 ext4   Kubuntu2004home 2672f148-c88e-4e8a-b48d-e85508ac9350   39,3G    11% /home
└─sda8 ext4                   5f6bc5ff-6c99-4488-9ad5-641017fc05b0   29,7G    15% /
sr0

df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            1,8G     0  1,8G   0% /dev
tmpfs           364M  1,5M  363M   1% /run
/dev/sda8        38G  5,6G   30G  16% /
tmpfs           1,8G   31M  1,8G   2% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5,0M  4,0K  5,0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           1,8G     0  1,8G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda7        47G  5,1G   40G  12% /home
tmpfs           364M   16K  364M   1% /run/<user>/1000

[kubucub]

I timed it: this time, it took 2min 35s to reach the user login menu, and then after 42s I could finally use the desktop.

[oshunluvr]

A slow core-i3, integrated graphics, and a slow SATA II hard drive. How fast are you expecting it to be?

There could be some ways to make it a little faster. Try "systemd-analyze blame" to see what processes are taking the longest to complete. Probably network start is taking a long time.

[kubucub]

@oshunluvr:

How fast are you expecting it to be?

Just timed Ubuntu GNOME on partition 1: 1min 43s to reach the desktop. I would expect this from Kubuntu, too. But, as I said above, even Kubuntu 18.04 is as slow as Kubuntu 20.04., near 3 min, that is. Could it be that Partition 1 (Ubuntu) is "faster" than partitions 7,8 (Kubuntu)?

[GreyGeek]

My laptop is a 2012 Acer Aspire V3-771G. It came with 4GB of RAM and a 650GB HD. It's primary GPU is an Intel 3000HD and its secondary, which cannot be set as the primary in the BIOS, is an NVidia GT650M. My times were very similar to yours, circa 3-3.5 minutes from power on to a working desktop. Then, rather than buy a new machine, I upgraded. The RAM became 16GB. The video driver became the proprietary nvidiea-342, making my Nvidia GT650M the primary GPU for the desktop and all apps. That was a big change. Minecraft went from 20-40 FPS to over 150 FPS. However, replacing my 650GB spinner with a 500GB SSD also made a HUGE difference.

Here is by boot time now:

jerry@jerryAspire-V3-771:~$ systemd-analyze > blame.txt
jerry@jerryAspire-V3-771:~$ systemd-analyze blame >> blame.txt
jerry@jerryAspire-V3-771:~$ cat blame.txt
[B]Startup finished in 3.163s (kernel) + 3.336s (userspace) = 6.500s 
graphical.target reached after 3.322s in userspace[/B]
2.433s postfix@-.service                                  
1.358s tor@default.service                                
1.208s dev-sda1.device                                    
1.057s systemd-rfkill.service                             
 869ms upower.service                                     
 845ms smartmontools.service                              
 775ms accounts-daemon.service                            
 738ms rsyslog.service                                    
 720ms networkd-dispatcher.service                        
 715ms udisks2.service                                    
 565ms ModemManager.service                               
 556ms kerneloops.service                                 
 534ms libvirtd.service                                   
 520ms teamviewerd.service                                
 485ms ssh.service                                        
 474ms plymouth-quit.service                              
 203ms systemd-resolved.service                           
 199ms NetworkManager.service                             
 197ms cwdaemon.service                                   
 196ms alsa-restore.service                               
 167ms avahi-daemon.service                               
 163ms polkit.service                                     
 160ms he-ipv6.service                                    
 153ms gpu-manager.service                                
 124ms systemd-udevd.service                              
 121ms systemd-logind.service                             
 117ms systemd-udev-trigger.service                       
 115ms systemd-journald.service                           
 112ms wpa_supplicant.service                             
 107ms systemd-timesyncd.service                          
 106ms thermald.service                                   
 104ms user@1000.service                                  
 102ms systemd-journal-flush.service                      
 101ms systemd-machined.service                           
  93ms lm-sensors.service                                 
  93ms lvm2-monitor.service                               
  88ms grub-common.service                                
  75ms cgroupfs-mount.service                             
  75ms keyboard-setup.service                             
  74ms colord.service                                     
  66ms libvirt-guests.service                             
  63ms apache2.service                                    
  63ms grub-initrd-fallback.service                       
  61ms e2scrub_reap.service                               
  58ms gpsd.service                                       
  56ms nagios4.service                                    
  55ms apparmor.service                                   
  50ms setvtrgb.service                                   
  49ms sddm.service                                       
  49ms qemu-kvm.service                                   
  37ms pppd-dns.service                                   
  34ms coturn.service                                     
  29ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service                     
  26ms prosody.service                                    
  26ms systemd-modules-load.service                       
  24ms systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service
  23ms tor.service                                        
  20ms bluetooth.service                                  
  19ms systemd-user-sessions.service                      
  19ms binfmt-support.service                             
  18ms user-runtime-dir@1000.service                      
  18ms systemd-sysusers.service                           
  15ms plymouth-start.service                             
  14ms systemd-sysctl.service                             
  12ms dev-hugepages.mount                                
  12ms dev-mqueue.mount                                   
  11ms systemd-random-seed.service                        
  11ms plymouth-read-write.service                        
  11ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service                 
  11ms sys-kernel-debug.mount                             
  11ms systemd-update-utmp.service                        
  10ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount                           
   9ms systemd-remount-fs.service                         
   9ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service               
   8ms console-setup.service                              
   8ms ufw.service                                        
   8ms kmod-static-nodes.service                          
   7ms proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount                      
   6ms rtkit-daemon.service                               
   4ms sys-kernel-config.mount                            
   4ms libvirtd.socket                                    
   3ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount                      
   2ms postfix.service

You can create a graphical display of the services booting up by using

systemd-analyze plot > plot.svg

and then opening plot.svg with your browser.

Systemd gives you the ability to delay when a service (most of them) start up. Thus, a service in the plot.svg image which shows a red bar to the far right edge of the graph may be a subject for delay of its activation till after the graphical target has been reached, or after the passage of some time, like 5 minutes.

[kubucub]

...I upgraded. The RAM became 16GB... ...replacing my 650GB spinner...

Thank you. I am not able to do something like this with my notebook

You can create a graphical display of the services booting up by using
systemd-analyze plot > plot.svg
and then opening plot.svg with your browser.

I did that and get an empty graph. Just a little header text on top:
Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS kubu (Linux 5.4.0-42-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 10 00:24:02 UTC 2020) x86-64
Startup finished in 12.295s (kernel) + 4min 38.589s (userspace) = 4min 50.885s graphical.target reached after 4min 38.561s in userspace

However, with your

~$ systemd-analyze > blame.txt
~$ systemd-analyze blame >> blame.txt
~$ cat blame.txt

I found the culprits, or am I wrong? (Just the first lines of the output; and this time it took anout five minutes to be desktop ready):

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]Startup finished in 12.295s (kernel) + 4min 38.589s (userspace) = 4min 50.885s  [/COLOR]
graphical.target reached after 4min 38.561s in userspace 
1min 56.027s dev-sda8.device                                                                           
1min 25.157s networkd-dispatcher.service                                                               
1min 22.966s accounts-daemon.service                                                                   
1min 15.989s NetworkManager.service                                                                    
1min 15.608s snapd.service                                                                             
1min 15.197s polkit.service                                                                            
1min 4.779s systemd-journal-flush.service
[/FONT]

This is what gets me: AFTER Kubuntu has started, I am quite happy with the speed the programs are running; if only this dreary startup would not be!

So, my antique NB seems to be unsuitable to start Kubuntu in a reasonable time span; I guess I have to make do with Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 10 Xfce for another 3 years and hope that Santa will bring a new notebook during that time

However, Kubuntu start up is only slow after a "cold" start - or how do I call it when I switch on the NB and start Kubuntu? When I have, say, Ubuntu 18.04 running and do a reboot to Kubuntu, startup is agreeable. This puzzles me!?

[kubucub]

How can Kubuntu startup be 6 times faster when rebooted compared to a complete boot-up?

Using this systemd-analyze thing (see my previous posting) again, I compare time spans for a reboot to a new boot-up:

Switch on notebook and start Kubuntu 20.04 from the grub menu:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]Startup finished in 12.295s (kernel) + 4min 38.589s (userspace) = 4min 50.885s  [/COLOR]
graphical.target reached after 4min 38.561s in userspace [/FONT]

Start Ubuntu 18.04 from the grub menu, let it reach the user log-in screen, then hit the reboot button, then choose Kubuntu 20.04 from the grub menu:

Startup finished in 6.538s (kernel) + 42.612s (userspace) = 49.151s 
graphical.target reached after 42.596s in userspace

[claydoh]

Some of those slow things are not needed and can be removed/disabled:


networkd-dispatcher (not needed unless you are running a headless server - the GUI takes care of things)

sudo apt remove networkd-dispatcher
sudo systemctl stop systemd-networkd.service
sudo systemctl disable systemd-networkd.service

On older systems, I recommend not using snaps:

sudo apt remove snapd

What the output is missing is what item may be blocking or slowing other items that are waiting for something to finish before they can be run.

systemd-analyze critical-chain

Will show a better listing of this


Here is mine:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54ff54][B]claydoh@claydoh-Pavilion590[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]:[/COLOR][COLOR=#5454ff][B]~[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]$ systemd-analyze critical-chain  [/COLOR]
The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character. 
[B] The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character. [/B]

graphical.target @4.156s 
└─multi-user.target @4.156s 
  └─[COLOR=#ff5454][B]minidlna.service @4.008s +117ms[/B][/COLOR]
    └─network-online.target @4.007s 
      └─[COLOR=#ff5454][B]NetworkManager-wait-online.service @2.183s +1.823s[/B][/COLOR]
        └─[COLOR=#ff5454][B]NetworkManager.service @1.897s +284ms[/B][/COLOR]
          └─dbus.service @1.896s 
            └─basic.target @1.885s 
              └─sockets.target @1.885s 
                └─libvirtd-ro.socket @1.885s 
                  └─[COLOR=#ff5454][B]libvirtd.socket @1.884s +1ms[/B][/COLOR]
                    └─sysinit.target @1.816s 
                      └─haveged.service @1.816s 
                        └─[COLOR=#ff5454][B]systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @1.707s +33ms[/B][/COLOR]
                          └─local-fs.target @1.702s 
                            └─[COLOR=#ff5454][B]media-stuff.mount @1.324s +378ms[/B][/COLOR]
                              └─dev-sdb5.device @1.323s
[/FONT]

In your output, something is causing one of your drive partitions a long time to load, which could be for probably many reasons

[FONT=monospace]1min 56.027s [B]dev-sda8[/B].device  [/FONT]

What is /dev/sda8 being mounted as, in 20.04?

[kubucub]

Some of those slow things are not needed and can be removed/disabled:

Thank you very much for your detailed answer!

*** 1 ***
I removed networkd-dispatcher, stopped and disabled systemd-networkd.service and removed snap according to your instructions.

*** 2 ***

~$ systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character.

graphical.target @42.596s
└─multi-user.target @42.596s
└─kerneloops.service @42.436s +159ms
└─network-online.target @42.388s
 └─NetworkManager-wait-online.service @31.021s +11.365s
   └─NetworkManager.service @20.911s +10.103s
     └─dbus.service @20.904s
       └─basic.target @20.849s
         └─sockets.target @20.849s
           └─uuidd.socket @20.847s
             └─sysinit.target @20.713s
               └─haveged.service @20.502s
                 └─apparmor.service @18.589s +1.885s
                   └─local-fs.target @18.588s
                     └─home.mount @18.470s +116ms
                       └─systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-2672f148\x2dc88e\x2d4e8a\x2db48d\x2de85508ac9350.service @17.498s +956ms
                         └─dev-disk-by\x2duuid-2672f148\x2dc88e\x2d4e8a\x2db48d\x2de85508ac9350.device @17.497s
~$

*** 3 ***

What is /dev/sda8 being mounted as, in 20.04?

It is Kubuntu 20.04 "/":

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags OS
1      1049kB  22,0GB  22,0GB  primary   ext4               Ubuntu 18.04 "/"
2      22,0GB  30,1GB  8060MB  primary   linux-swap(v1)
3      30,1GB  131GB   101GB   primary   ntfs                boot  Windows 10
4      131GB   500GB   369GB   extended
5      131GB   378GB   247GB   logical   ntfs                  Data only
8      378GB   419GB   40,8GB  logical   ext4                  Kubuntu 20.04 "/"
7      419GB   470GB   51,2GB  logical   ext4                  Kubuntu 20.04 "/home"
6      470GB   500GB   30,4GB  logical   ext4                  Debian 10 Xfce "/"

[oshunluvr]

Is there a chance you're drive is stuck doing a file system check at startup? Your drive is taking forever to mount. Look in the root directory for a file named "forcefsck". If it's there, delete it.

Your drive shouldn't take almost two minutes to mount. You're not hibernating or sleeping the computer, are you?

[oshunluvr]

With a system this old and old drive you might have some bad blocks or some other drive issue.

[kubucub]

Look in the root directory for a file named "forcefsck". If it's there, delete it.

There is none.

You're not hibernating or sleeping the computer, are you?

No, I don't.
By the way, today it took 9 min to reach the user-log-in screen, then another 11 min to have the functioning desktop.

[kubucub]

...you might have some bad blocks or some other drive issue.

How can I check that?
After all, if the system is running, from then on it is smooth sailing.