Realisitc requirements for ubuntu?

[Lead Head]

My main computer was down for a few days, so I was forced to use my back up computer, which is 1GHz Duron, with 384 MB of ram and Ubuntu 8.04. I was really not impressed at all with the performance, perhaps it is just my install, but everything was dog slow. Firefox takes its sweet time starting up, opening a page like this would take at least 15 seconds just waiting for it to render everything.

The system as a whole is just pokey, almost to the point of being unusable. I used to have an older version of ubuntu, I think pre 6.0 on a 600MHz athlon with less ram, and it seemed faster then this turd. Even XP is faster on this thing then Ubuntu 8.04.

Is it a problem with my install? Are their some CPU optimizations I'm missing, or has Ubuntu just gotten "chunkier" with each new version?

[davidnix71]

You exceed the recommended minimums for decent performance, except for some eye-candy they call "Desktop Effects" which are turned ON by default if you have the minimum graphics card. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DesktopEffects

Maybe killing the eye-candy will speed things up.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements

[Refalm]

It's weird that Compiz is turned on by default, on community videocard drivers. Which is fairly insane, because 3D acceleration isn't even close to what nVidia and ATI propriety drivers provide.

[Lead Head]

The effects are not enabled, the chipset has no 3D support at all.

[davidnix71]

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/968521.html

This thread here suggests you may have a beta FF3 version. 8.04 came out between FF2 and 3, so there were some issues.

Which plugins are you using for FF?

[Calum]

linux is becoming MS windows in terms of usability, and ubuntu is one of the leading innovators in this field.