To flow into the problems I had been dealing with, my copy of Lubuntu 13 became so unstable that I decided to do a fresh install of the alternative install of Lubuntu 14. Had quite a bit of trouble with that, but eventually, after some hours, got it through using a terminal command to make a bootable USB.
However, a particular problem that affected my prior system seems to have followed me here, and in researching/contemplating it, I think it was the problem that made my prior system so unstable.
Everytime I boot, I get this message that "cryptswap1" is not mounted, along with a prompt to manually fix it and whatnot. I don't think much of it, but in reading on it, I see it's connected to RAM-saps, and my constantly having to reboot prior was definitely due to constant computer freeze-ups. Thus, I suspect my not getting this cryptswap1 business in order is why my computer was so malfunctional.
I did search these forums and WAS following along in this guide:
https://askubuntu.com/a/342002/217795
But I got stuck on the Gparted portion. I managed to install and run GParted, but when I request that its turn /dev/sda5 into linux-swap, it cannot do so, and the source of the error is confusing. Otherwise the file system is listed as "unknown" for the partition.
I tried double-checking my terminal commands -- a funny thing about writing here is that it prompts all sorts of thoughts for what to research or solutions to try -- and I may have goofed up there.
In step two, it says to "save the file", but how does one do that within the terminal? I cannot find any save command, and there's no respond to ctrl + s.
Also, I'm having a tough time comprehending the way the terminal commands function, as, in being such a newb, I can presently only think in concrete-bound matters, and just copy the steps concretely, unable to apply originally. Thus, when asked to input sudo nano -w /etc/crypttab , I can follow through, but when it tells me to open /etc/fstab I get confused when sudo -w /etc/fstab doesn't give me the same results.
So I either goofed in doing the proper modifcations in terminal, or else I've got to get myself unstuck in Gparted somehow.
So what should this foolish man do to get his RAM back?
Oops. I forgot to include the error-info from GParted. It doesn't seem to have any useful information, but in case anyone asks for it:
GParted 0.18.0 --enable-libparted-dmraid --enable-online-resize
Libparted 2.3 Format /dev/sda5 as linux-swap 00:00:01 ( ERROR )
calibrate /dev/sda5 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )
path: /dev/sda5 start: 501760 end: 156301311 size: 155799552 (74.29 GiB) clear old file system signatures in /dev/sda5 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )
write 68.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 0 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS ) write 4.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 67108864 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS ) write 4.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 79769366528 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS ) flush operating system cache of /dev/sda 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS ) set partition type on /dev/sda5 00:00:01 ( SUCCESS )
new partition type: linux-swap(v1) create new linux-swap file system 00:00:00 ( ERROR )
mkswap -L "" /dev/sda5
/dev/sda5: Device or resource busy
Update: Problem Resolved
I'm sorry that I forgot to give a definitive finish to this problem. Anyhow, I fresh installed the latest Lubuntu, and aside from getting rid of cryptswap1, I think Google Chrome was the major problem. My old laptop is really underpowered, and apparently they gave a major update to Chrome that made it "crash-proof." Unfortunately, that crash-proof status made it a MAJOR resource hog, so I rely on Firefox now and everything runs well.