i got a dell inspiron n4110 with a duel core celeron processor i installed ubuntu on it and it runs really slugish. im new to linux so i dont know very much. what i can tell is that i think its driver issues. i cant even watch youtube videos cause it lags like frames drop. i also installed lubuntu on it and it was the same. i was also thinking that its running slow cause it has no dedicated graphics but like i said i dont know. does ubuntu require that now. cause i ran better with windows 7. also it has 3 gb of ram. i tried everything. like i said im a newb HELP
Go to the top left of the screen and then go to 'About this Computer'. What does it say next to 'Graphics'?
Your laptop is certified to run Ubuntu:
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201101-6952/
Since it's certified for 12.04 consider downgrading to that
Check in additional drivers for any you can use.
there is no aditional drivers
Ubuntu's default configuration, right after install, taxes the graphics processor more than I am willing to tolerate. Based on the make and model you specified, I strongly suspect that's also what's making your laptop sluggish.
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/inspiron-14r-n4110/configuration
Video: Intel HD Graphics 3000 Driver
The good news is that there are many Linux options other than downgrading to a previous version of Ubuntu.
If your goal is to really learn Linux, there is not better way than to jump in head first and the above will get you started quickly, knowing what you're doing from the start but also getting a full desktop environment working in a reasonable time. If you don't have even a couple hours, or if that looks intimidating, I can recommend
https://www.debian.org/CD/
...and Wendell seems to like
https://www.opensuse.org/
...and from his descriptions, it sounds even easier to use than Ubuntu ever was.
so ur saying i cant run ubuntu 14.04 with this laptop. cause i really liked gnome. so if i downgrade to 12 i should be fine? or just get rid of everythuing and insatll opensuse.
I rarely say "can't" but I think Ubuntu may not be worth the bother. You can install Gnome on any distribution of Linux. Really, there is nothing special about Ubuntu but cosmetics, which are over-taxing your onboard GPU.
I dont get why it couldnt run 14.10 or 14.04.. Anyways lets see if something is taking all the resources.. open the terminal and type
topYou should see whats running and some general resource stats.. post that here ...
In terms of other distros.. I find linux mint XFCE as a good laptop option.. or opensuse with XFCE.. and you could always try fedora 21..
When a laptop is certified by ubuntu on 12.04 you can generally expect it to work on the next LTS release (sometimes it doesnt)... but you can also expect it to run all the other major distros nicely since the difference in distros is usually philosophy and package management... and really you will see there is no huge gaping difference.. choose what you want... it doesnt matter as long as it suits your needs
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You can also just install a different desktop environment apt-get install xfce in a terminal to trial it. When you log out and back in there is a little ubuntu logo next to your user name, click that and select the xfce to use it.
If those run as slow as stock Ubuntu ( unity ) then perhaps it's graphical.
Also you can run top to check what's bogging the cpu... Rootz beat me to it 8)
He tried LXDE (Lubuntu) and had the same problem.
He again, tried LXDE too.
Ubuntu is what this laptop was certified to run. If he can't run Ubuntu on it then it's incredibly odd and goes to stand he may face issues with other distributions
DO THIS ^^^
If top does not show it immediatley.. go ahead and go get Simple Screen recorder and record your screen while top is running for say 5-10 minutes.. might help us find the issue...
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder simplescreenrecorder-lib:i386Just going to say I'm typing this message from a 2008 business laptop (X200) with Intel HD Graphics, 3 years older than your Dell and it flies on Ubuntu. The revision of this laptop (X201) is certified for Ubuntu too, just like your Dell.
So Unity's heaviness is NOT the problem here.
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Seriously... Unity is less of a resource hog than gnome.. gnome uses more memory and hell that laptop could handle gnome easily. Also ubuntu is worth the bother bud... its like saying oh gnome is less resource hoggy on fedora or opensuse vs ubuntu.. no just no LOLS... the guy needs to tell us what is running
I will try when I get home today using top. Also maybe my laptop is broken. Idk
I think thats more likely the case.
There is a lot of FUD around "heavy" Linux Distributions. Linux will run on almost anything at a decent pace so long as your rocking over 2gb RAM and a puny dual core pentium For less ram there are specific Distros.
I have a REALLY crappy old hand me down Intel GMA laptop with a 1.6ghz dualcore, 2gb ram and a mechanical HDD. It can run Cinnamon, Unity, XFCE, MATE (( not tested Gnome )) Not the fastest but were talking just a small wait to open menus or home folder ( 1/4sec for menu 1.5 - 2 seconds for home ) we are not your old style wait 2 minuets to open your home folder on a fragmented windows vista laptop.
It could be your Temps are too high and you need to get the air can out or open the thing and clean it ( whilst powered off with the battery out ) or it could be the disc needs replacing.
Gnome is nice but I would start with something simpler and actually more configurable like xfce / mate desktop environments.
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ubuntu-gnome@ubuntu-gnome:~$ tap
No command 'tap' found, but there are 21 similar ones
tap: command not found
ubuntu-gnome@ubuntu-gnome:~$ top
top - 22:09:26 up 18 min, 8 users, load average: 0.54, 0.90, 0.78
Tasks: 174 total, 1 running, 173 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 6.2 us, 1.5 sy, 0.0 ni, 92.1 id, 0.2 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem: 4039692 total, 2241392 used, 1798300 free, 244436 buffers
KiB Swap: 2929660 total, 0 used, 2929660 free. 1290736 cached Mem
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
3860 ubuntu-+ 20 0 855612 220592 68048 S 4.3 5.5 3:57.53 firefox
5420 ubuntu-+ 20 0 229160 31496 26692 S 4.0 0.8 0:09.23 psensor
2137 root 20 0 81648 32440 23388 S 3.0 0.8 1:17.71 Xorg
3835 ubuntu-+ 20 0 206928 32956 24588 S 2.7 0.8 0:01.87 gnome-term+
2925 ubuntu-+ 20 0 747700 271588 75080 S 2.0 6.7 2:04.34 gnome-shell
32 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:00.21 kworker/0:1
5475 ubuntu-+ 20 0 5440 2800 2404 R 0.3 0.1 0:00.16 top
1 root 20 0 4292 3604 2560 S 0.0 0.1 0:04.38 init
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.64 ksoftirqd/0
5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/0:+
7 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:04.26 rcu_sched
8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_bh
9 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:06.63 migration/0
10 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.04 watchdog/0
11 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 watchdog/1
12 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:04.29 migration/1
please take a screenshot.. this is a bit hard to read its the only way I can clearly read something like that... unless someone knows how to output a load table for this guy
This is concerning.. in the immediate load its 54 percent load which is ok.. but 90 percent for last 5 minutes and 78 percent for 15 minutes... we got to find out what is using the cpu so much.... you are very close to full capacity... and it isnt graphics that would cause this... something is taxing your CPU and gnome shell or gnome is not it... Firefox is in its expected place along with the x server.. but what is psensors doing up there.. go ahead and run
sudo apt-get remove psensorsSee if that changes anything
For FUTURE REFERENCE
--We need to investigate this before your start loosing tasks or things start force quiting and you hope that your load indices dont got passed 2.00+ LOLS.. your probably feeling a slow down due to one of your two cores being fully utilized...
Also just so you know The 100% utilization mark is 1.00 on a single-core , 2.00, on a dual-core, 4.00 on a quad-core.. 16.00 on an AMD opteron 16 core.. you get it :D
Think of load indices as a road
0.00 means there's no traffic on the road at all.
1.00 means the road is exactly at capacity. all is okay but anymore and you will get pretty sluggish... Well on most dual core cpu's 1.50 already means a slow down
1.00+ means there's too much processing and either some things get dropped at a deadline or take a very long time to process
If you want to know more about what I am talking about go here
Linux Admins: Processor Utilizations and What they mean
also i get screen tearing while watching youtube at fullscreen. could hardrive cause this, cause i dont think so? also im thinking of reinstalling windows on it cause i dont remember having this kind of problems.
Try running the Ubuntu mate or the mate desktop. It works on my test pc with 2gb of ram.
https://ubuntu-mate.org/