11.04 much slower than 10.10

Question

I've tested Ubuntu 11.04 clean installs in two computers, an eeepc netbook and a hp pavilion t3010.es, which is an old desktop computer (6 or 7 years) with the specs of a netbook approximately. The issue is that 11.04 runs on these two much slower than 10.10 did, almost as Windows 7 in the desktop pc. By slower I consider a general decrease on the overall performance: longer boot time, longer log in, longer startup time on almost every application I use (chromium, nautilus, banshee,... common use ones), much longer update time... I tried both unity and classic desktop modes, with barely no difference in performance on both. Is this normal? Thanks!

Answer 1

11.04 for me is a bit slower than 10.10 but 11.04 does lean on a lot of graphical stuff with Unity (not so much with classic though so I find it odd both seem slower).

You did not specify where you consider 11.04 to be slower than 10.10

• In boottime there is not that much difference. I still need to tweak my 11.04 boot but it is close to 10.10s boottime.
• And then there is normal usage: 1st time starting chromium it is slower than it was in 10.10. Overall programs I launch from the launcher seem to be a little bit slower than with 10.10. That includes deluge, smplayer, gedit but not terminal, dash, usc (yes there is a trend here: default vs. added launchers).

So in short my answer would be: yes, it is slower but not by alot.

A few pointers:

1. Check logfiles for messages;
2. If you used the upgrade path you might consider a re-install to avoid 10.10 and 11.04 conflicting somewhere;
3. If your boot is slow use bootchart to analyse your boot;
4. If it is a specific program that is slow try and start it form commandline to see if it shows any messages that take up time.
5. 'Toy' around with settings regarding display settings and compositing.

I hope you can figure out if something is wrong with your install!

Answer 2

Desktop compositing is enabled by default. If it's doing a lot of compositing work in software, that could be one very probable reason(imo).