[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu unusably slow

[Colin Law]

On 7 February 2013 12:21, Gareth France <gareth.france at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/02/13 12:08, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> On 7 February 2013 11:59, Gareth France <gareth.france at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> ...
>>> I've switched to chromium to see what difference that makes. I'll try
>>> restarting thunderbird and see what happens
>>
>> When it is running slow is it using Swap memory?  You can see that
>> using System Monitor or top in a terminal.  I ask because earlier I
>> think you said the disk light was going mad, which is a symptom of
>> swapping.  With 4GB of RAM it should not need to swap.
>>
>> Colin
>>
> The problem I've got is that when it starts to run slow I'm not able to call
> up a terminal or the system monitor. I was very lucky to get the screenshots
> I did. I'll try to keep an eye on it and see if I can catch it mid spasm
> next time.

Start top running in a terminal and leave it running.  If you can keep
the top few lines visible at the bottom of the screen then even
better.

Colin