Linux [noob!] tried various light weight distros, but I found none to be fast

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haiprazzad

haiprazzad

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I have a Lenovo Mini10 (Intel N450 1.66GHz processor with 2GB ram) laptop with XP and Win7 dual booting.

My requirements with this laptop are
1. Casual browsing.
2. Watching 720p movies/serials ( I prefer 'KMPlayer' for its easy keyboard shortcuts and subtitle placement preferences)
3. A bit of MS office.

I wanted to have a light weight OS and tried
Zorin 9 Lite, Linux mint, lubuntu and lastly bodhi (tried each version for a whole day)
Being a first time user with Linux, I found it difficult to use. Even though I am very determined to learn and use linux as my primary OS, day by day am loosing interest and booting more into XP.

Main problem is, even though these distros are regarded as "light weight", for some reason these are consuming lot of cpu. On idle 40-60% and if I do any activity like browsing it shoots up to 99%. I installed system-monitor app to check the cpu usage % and that itself is eating good amount of cpu. I couldnt find an option to reduce the refresh rate of system-monitor.
Also I was not able to connect my nexus 5 on bodhi to transfer files. Got no help from a quick googling. Do I need to install additional drivers like we do in windows? Do I need to mount it by any shell commands?

I must be doing something wrong, couldnt figure out what exactly! Please help me in finding a good/fast distro for my needs.

Mini10 specs:
* 10.1 inch display
* 1024 x 600 pixel resolution
* Atom N450 processor
* Intel GMA 3150 graphics
 
Both. Applications are opening slowly and cpu consumption high too. All of the distros didnt report any need for extra drivers other than supplied with.
 
Can you try one XMBC based light weight distro considering your primary interest is multimedia. For eg., OpenELEC, GeeXbox, etc. ?

Don't you feel same lag in XP ?
 
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no xp is snappier and quick too. Lagged only when playing 1080p movies. 720p also plays fine. will try the above and update you. thanks for the suggestions.
 
haiprazzad said:
no xp is snappier and quick too. Lagged only when playing 1080p movies. 720p also plays fine. will try the above and update you. thanks for the suggestions.
Click to expand...


I shall try to answer your query as best as possible.

a) your netbook is limited by cpu and by input-output operations. Web browsers tax the cpu considerably mainly at startup. Opening several tabs taxes the memory. Scrolling down a complex web page is limited by input output operations.

b) you can improve the input-output operations with an ssd. It also helps if you have a low latency internet connection.

c) the cpu operations cannot be improved.

d) memory of two gigabyte is ample and will not be a limitation in day to day operation of your netbook.

e)unlike xp which has been configured by m$, you have to configure your linux distro of choice to be snappy. There is a learning curve to this process.

f) a suggestion is use lubuntu 14.04.1 64bit if your netbook supports it. If not use lubuntu 14.04.1 32bit.

g) i would request you to use a website like the following :

https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/Home

goodluck.
 
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Thanks for the detailed explanation. It makes sense. Although I dont want invest on a ssd right now.
I am under the impression that 32bit are lighter/snappier for day to day work. Correct me if wrong.
Also I thought all the major/popular distros are pre-configured for normal/routine tasks. Even though I was inclined to learn, slowness killed it for me. Didn't give it up yet, will give another shot.
 
Thank you haiprazzad.

Your best bet is lubuntu 14.04.1

64bit makes better use of the cpu registers, is about 10-15 % quicker but ram usage is higher.

I am not sure if your netbook cpu supports 64 bit computing. Google it.

I would suggest that you thoroughly read the linux tips website once you get started on your project.

You would be able to run 720p videos and auto downscaled 1080p videos using gnome mplayer on your netbook.

If your laptop battery is in good shape you could get about 5 hours of non stop usage on the netbook.

To answer a more specific point that you have raised earlier 'snappiness',
you may have to decrease swap usage, tame the inode cache, remove the indexing application apt-xapian-index and do other tweaks to your installation as explained in the website.

best wishes and happy linuxing !
 
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I had a similar netbook i was running ubuntu 12 or 13 on that without much lags but no full hd video, try some earlier versions Xubuntu it may work flawlessly
 
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^^ wont work as the min resolution needed is 1024x768, which I don't have. Actually installed windows 10, but didn't get time to test it out. But I suspect it will be slow on my tiny machine
 
^^ Windows 8 works fine on that resolution. Some features like snapping two apps side by side won't work. You may need to upgrade your RAM if free slots are available.
 
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