[xubuntu-users] speeding up Xubuntu 7.10 by upgrading kernel to 686?

[Franji Mayes]

Hi,
I'm a first-time Linux user running a laptop with 6G HDD, 646 MHz
Celeron (of the Pentium Pro class, I believe), and 192 MB RAM.

I recently installed Xubuntu 7.10 on this computer using the alternate
install disk (the live CD install failed 3x). It's strictly a Linux
box; no Windows on it anymore. Things seem to be working fine, but
everything is pretty slow. Takes Firefox about 1 min to open up. Gmail
took too long to log into, so I chose the alternate HTML option.

Anyway, I Googled for a while to try to find a way to speed things up
and came across a suggestion to upgrade the kernel. From what I
understand, the distro comes with a kernel for a 386, that being the
lowest common denominator. From what I read, it looks like I could
install a kernel for a 686. The documentation said to type "sudo
apt-get install linux-686" from the command line. I was logged in as
root, so I typed the above w/out "sudo". I got a bunch of errors, all
of which contained the text "Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical
block".

I previously tried making a few simple modifications to the file
/etc/X11/xorg.conf in an attempt to improve the video driver, but it
didn't seem to make a difference.

I'm not sure what I should do next or if I'm even on the right track.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks