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I've been using Ubuntu since version 6. I'm a big fan.

I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 a while back. I did a clean install. Ever since then, my laptop's been generally slower. The GUI is generally laggy. I know you'll ask "Slow compared to what?" It's slow compared to Ubuntu 10. And it's much slower when compared to Windows 7 on the same system.

I'm using a Dell Latitude E6400, with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M, and 6 gigs of RAM. I have a high speed 1 TB disk, with plenty of empty space.

Has anyone observed this? Are there any people out there with the same hardware whose systems are very fast? Thanks.

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  • Depending on your goals, a better question might be "how can I make Ubuntu faster" (answer: by turning off effects).
    – Amanda
    Jan 30, 2012 at 21:27
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    I tried both 11.04 and 11.10 on same PC - 11.04 was normally fast, while 11.10 was unnaturally slow. I have no idea why could that be, but it seems it isn't new Gnome (in 11.10) as i.e. Fedora 16 is just as fast as anyone would expected. My wild guess is some Compiz changes...
    – zetah
    Jan 30, 2012 at 21:35
  • Amanda: While that's a nice idea, that's not the problem. I've only ever used basic effects, like Scale in Compiz and the basic drop shadow behind windows. These features have existed in many prior versions of Ubuntu. It wasn't until Ubuntu 11 that I noticed laggy performance. I'm just wondering 2 things: 1) Why this has happened and 2) How to fix it. It's not a question of turning off effects since they've worked well enough before.
    – kedmond
    Jan 30, 2012 at 22:23
  • Zeta: Fedora 16 is fast? If it runs Gnome 3, I would be willing to give it a shot. Thanks for the advice.
    – kedmond
    Jan 30, 2012 at 22:28
  • By the way, I don't think Gnome uses Compiz anymore since Gnome wanted "tighter integration". I'll need to read up on Fedora more. If it's fast, then I'll give it a whirl. Thanks!
    – kedmond
    Jan 30, 2012 at 22:35

3 Answers 3

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It can be any number of reasons. Compiz is being rewritten, and it seems to be a little slower, currently. Linux has had some issues as well.

It's very difficult to say exactly what it is. What I can tell you is that you're not imagining it, and that Precise is very much faster and cooler. 11.10 in particular has been rather slow and hot. There's been major transitional work done, so maybe that's contributed to it as well. In any case, 12.04 is going to fix those things. The improvements are already more than noticeable.

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  • Wow, that's exciting. Thanks for the information. I look forward to reading reviews of 12.04.
    – kedmond
    Jan 31, 2012 at 16:17
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    It's very exciting. Alpha 2 will be released the day after tomorrow, so if you have a spare memory stick, you should try it. Jan 31, 2012 at 17:45
  • I know this is a really old post, but I've been using 12.04 for many months, and it's much much faster. So you were exactly right. Thanks!
    – kedmond
    Dec 21, 2012 at 18:09
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I had an abnormally slow experience on a computer with an older graphics card until I set my profile to use Unit 2d, After that ut was back to normal.

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  • You're right, Unity 2D was fast for me...but I didn't want to have to sacrifice the 3D effects that worked just fine in 10. I couldn't see any benefit that 11 was providing, so 11 with Unity 2D seemed like a huge downgrade.
    – kedmond
    Jan 31, 2012 at 16:16
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Same problem here in dell inspiron n5110 with nvidia gt525m... But uninstalling the automatically installed graphic card driver fixed the problem.

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