I installed Ubuntu MATE on an older laptop (Dual Core Centrino 2, 2 GB of ram) two days ago and have been trying to get things to simply work properly since.
My first problem is that, after closing my laptop then opening it up and logging back in, my wifi stays connected but the logo in the upper right will go to empty and the drop down menu will not display any sensed connections, or anything really for that matter.
Secondly, after closing the lid then relogging, the chromium URL bar will start to glitch out, flashing black and making it pretty unusable. The loading of web pages is not hindered though, it seems to be a graphical glitch.
These first two problems are reset/fixed upon restart.
It is taking quite a few seconds to load programs and even open files. Steam, Chromium, Firefox, and opening My user files all take longer than they should. (2 GB Swap)
Last night I tried restarting my network manager to fix the first problem. My connection was screwed for the rest of the night. This time, my wifi would show up as connected and full strength, as it should, but i could not connect to the internet at all. I tried through Steam, IRC, Chromium, and Firefox. When I woke up this morning and tried again, it started working.
I figured Ubuntu MATE would be perfect for this system as I am new to linux and it seems fairly lightweight. This computer worked fine on Windows 7 with none of these issues only a few days ago. Thank you for all help you can lend, all help is appreciated!
You could also post a thread on the Ubuntu Mate forum; it might not be very active, but Martin Wimpress would probably appreciate the feedback. Might not have any specific fix, but short of a bug report, would at least let them know there is an issue?
I've had problems with this on several laptops. On a little netbook I have as a "go places" machine, I wrote a script to restart network manager after the computer wakes up. That usually fixes it, though it takes a minute.
My atom netbook does this as well in manjaro. Theres no reason for it, its just a wicd bug. (WICD is the GUI wifi manager paired with the NetworkManager package).
Thats just chromium, sadly :/ Try vivaldi.
Lastly, why do you have 2 GB swap? Since its a core 2 duo I would think you would have 4 GB of ram, but as you have 2, make that swap file bigger. 4-6 GB is what I would put that machine at. Its not a matter of the processor, its a matter of holding spare processes that can't be held in ram. It won't speed anything up, it will just be a large pain in the ass later.
(WICD is the GUI wifi manager paired with the NetworkManager package).
Wicd and NetworkManager are two seperate network managers, you can't run them both simultaneously. Having both installed is fine tho.
To enalrge the swap the easy way is to boot to a live environment and run gparted, a graphical partition manager - just select your hard drive, shrink the filesystem partition and enlarge the swap by dragging the boxes.