On my desktop at home, a 2008 Vaio w/4GB RAM and dual core processor running 12.04 LTS, I've been experiencing of late a perceived performance degradation. It's most apparent at startup but it's also noticeable when working with/on (JS, mainly) the browser (especially, Chrome but also Firefox). My system is up to date but it includes (for sure) thousands of programs which are not used very often.
I've read a thread about this issue but it looked pretty old and it didn't address the LTS vs normal distro stuff.
So, my questions are:
- Does an installation (and I mean a LTS one, of course) gradually degrades its performance over time even when it's regularly updated? If so, why?
- Is there any actual difference between a clean install and an upgrade in the case of a LTS distro? If so, how would installing (lots of) new software after the system is working could affect its preformance?
- How to recognise the signs showing that it might well be the time to invest on a new computer?
Thanks in advance,
Nacho
P.S. In case of carrying out a clean installation, is there any way of ending up with basically the same software base you had before?