[xubuntu-users] Performance problems on Xubuntu Edgy

[Carsten Agger]

I'm running Xubuntu Edgy on an old PC with a 450MHz
Pentium II and 256 MBs of RAM.

It usually performs excellently, but sometimes it goes
into what appears to be an infinite loop.

I got a typical version of this scenario this morning. I was browsing
the Web and hat four tabs open, and as I wanted to resize a (smallish,
52 K) JPEG picture to upload on my blog I started up the GIMP, and then
... nothing happened.

Or rather, it did: The hard drive  started spinning and spinning and
making a lot of noise, and the programs became unavailable - I couldn't
change window, couldn't bring up the Gimp to close it down, nothing was
possible. After five minutes, I gave up and pulled the plug (the mains '
switch).

My guess as to what happened:

The Gimp's startup requirements + the memory used by Firefox were >
256K, thus forcing Xubuntu to swap between the programs.

My take as to what should have happened:

I should have seen a general slowdown due to the swapping. However,
the Gimp should not have taken so many ressources as to make Firefox
unavailable, and vice versa.

Anybody knows what may be done to avoid such situations? In my book,
with 256 Mb of RAM I should easily be able to run Firefox and Gimp
simultaneously.

Thanks in advance for any response,
Carsten



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