Really slow response from Ubuntu LiveCD

Bob Jonkman bjonkman at sobac.com
Mon Aug 18 15:29:30 UTC 2008


Hi all:  Yesterday I was trying to fix someone's really old PC by 
removing Windows98 and installing Ubuntu (7.10).  The PC dates from 
1999, and holds a maximum of 128 MiBytes RAM. I tried installing more 
RAM, but the  motherboard configuration switches max out at 128 MiBytes 
and additional RAM just isn't recognized.

With Win98 still on the computer I tried to run the Live CDs Ubuntu 
7.10 and Kubuntu 7.10 so that I could rescue all his documents by 
copying them to a thumb drive (Win98 doesn't support thumb drives 
without additional drivers).

Unfortunately, both Ubuntu and Kubuntu were abysmally slow.  It took at 
least 30 minutes to get through the booting and get to a file browser 
so that I could copy the files (which took less than a minute).  
Dragging a window couldn't be done in real time - it took over a minute 
for the window to appear at the new location, and in the meantime the 
mouse cursor was completely unresponsive.

I also tried Knoppix 4.10 (a CD from 2005), and in comparison it was 
wonderfully snappy and responsive.

I left Win98 on the computer, since I didn't want to risk such poor 
response with Ubuntu installed.

Is it possible that Ubuntu would work much better once installed on the 
hard drive?  If so, what might be causing the poor performance on the 
Live CD?  Are Live CDs known to be much MUCH slower than installed?  
How come Knoppix was so much better?

I'm sure everything would work better with more memory, but this PC 
hardware isn't capable of more than 128 MiBytes.

--Bob.


-- -- -- --
Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/    
SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice: +1-519-669-0388       
6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel: +1-519-635-9413
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