slow system

[Dan Farrell]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:13:16 -0600
Blaine Fleming <groups at digital-z.com> wrote:

> Define running slow.  When you run a program is it slow to start or
> is it slow to load a webpage?  Running 'top' from the command line
> and providing the first five lines can be very useful to diagnose
> further.
> 
> --Blaine
> 

Top is a very useful program.  You can use the < and > keys (make sure
to hold shift!) to sort by column.  Use > a few times to see what is
using the most CPU and Memory.  If anything is running at nearly 100%
CPU it's probably going to slow your computer down pretty
significantly.  If you are low on memory and something is using quite
a lot, it might have to swap to disk (but with 2G memory, this is
unlikely the problem).  

If your web connnection is slow, but local stuff is speedy, you're
likely to have a saturated internet connection.  This could be the
fault of ubuntu, or it could be the fault of another computer on your
network.