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New to Ubuntu and just installed 19.10 earlier today. I installed it using a USB drive and have it set up for dual boot. Windows and Ubuntu both start up fine with no problems. During setup it was also incredibly slow, and I set the partition to have 100gb. It would take several seconds for any input or action to happen. For example, Firefox would open fairly quickly but took several seconds before it registered me clicking on it

Eventually I also noticed that it would not let me connect to the internet through wifi. I have 8gb ram on a 64bit AMD processor.

Did I do something wrong and what can I do to fix this? Here are my resources and disk Smart data 1 Smart data 2

Wizzy
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    What do you mean by "*During setup it was also incredibly slow*?" Are you saying that the *install* too long? If so, compared to what? – user535733 Nov 20 '19 at 23:09
  • Edit your question and show me `free -h` and screenshot(s) of the `Disks` application `SMART Data` window (it may require two screenshots to capture all of the data). Start comments to me with @heynnema or I may miss them. – heynnema Nov 20 '19 at 23:41
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    @user535733 it was unresponsive and slow like Ubuntu after boot. The install has a mini version of Ubuntu that I assumed was slow due to being on a USB drive. The install was quite fast and only took a minute or two – Wizzy Nov 21 '19 at 00:17
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    @heynnema I've added an image of my disks app – Wizzy Nov 21 '19 at 00:35
  • @Wizzy thanks for the info. However, I need to see the `Disks` app `SMART Data` window, accessible via the 3-dot menu. (it may take 2 screenshots to capture all of the data). – heynnema Nov 21 '19 at 00:40
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    Possible duplicate of [Ubuntu 19.10 freezes and lags reguarly](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1185491/ubuntu-19-10-freezes-and-lags-reguarly) – WinEunuuchs2Unix Nov 21 '19 at 00:43
  • @heynnema oops. There you go – Wizzy Nov 21 '19 at 01:02
  • Is mouse movement/typing slow too? Because I had a similar problem a while ago, an external USB hdd was causing somehow lagging USB input for every device on the hub. – x0a Nov 21 '19 at 01:03
  • Mouse movement is normal but typing anything is awful. It's like the computer is freezing for several seconds at a time and then updating. But the mouse cursor is completely normal – Wizzy Nov 21 '19 at 01:06
  • So sorry that its taken so long to get back to you. The images you loaded look fine, except that the SMART Data isn't complete, as the data area is scrollable, and you didn't provide a 2nd screenshot that shows the remainder of the data. See if you can get that for me. Lets look elsewhere for your problem... in `terminal` type `sudo dmidecode -s bios-version`. Give me that output, and the make/model # of your computer, so I can see if there's a newer BIOS available. Also do `sudo fdisk -l` and check if it says you have mis-aligned partitions. – heynnema Nov 29 '19 at 13:37

2 Answers2

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One consideration is the speed of the HD, which could impact if swap is in use. Based on your model HD, it is a rotating disk, and as you use space further from the start, disk speed degrades. Since you have your Linux partition after the majority of the space, you are using the slowest possible space on the drive. This drive itself is pretty slow to begin with anyway. To tell if swap space is being used, open a terminal window, and type "free". You should get an output like the following (this is with 64GB of RAM):

$ free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:       65881252    14549200    48598296      165048     2733756    50491124
Swap:       2097148           0     2097148

If a significant portion is used, then you may be swapping programs constantly, and this can certainly degrade your performance. You also may want to specify what AMD processor you are using, as there are a wide range of processors at different speeds.

Erik Brandsberg
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  • How would I go about changing the order of the partitions? – Wizzy Nov 21 '19 at 02:28
  • This is not something that is easily explained, and is prone to failure even if you do it (and can break your windows install). If I were in your situation, I would purchase another drive, preferably an SSD drive, and use that for Ubuntu. There are several SSD drives in the 100GB-150GB range on Amazon for $40 or less, and you may be able to nab a black Friday deal. While this may not be the ultimate root cause of your problem, it certainly can't hurt, and having a fast SSD can't hurt. – Erik Brandsberg Nov 22 '19 at 05:19
  • @ErikBrandsberg OP's disk partitioning looks fine. Rearranging partitions would not solve their problem. User has 1TB HDD, so a 1TB SSD would be required and they're about $80-$100 now. SSD, although it can provide superior performance over a HDD, will also not solve the problem. – heynnema Nov 29 '19 at 13:41
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EDIT: original answer below is useless, feel free to downvote at your pleasure. But I learnt a lot from the comments it prompted, and other might be able to learn too. And on that basis think my answer should not be deleted - perhaps to provide as an indication of what is definitely UNLIKELY to help the OP and anyone with a similar problem on THAT version of ubuntu. Also, some users who come to this question might be in a situation where:

  1. They have an older version of ubuntu, and
  2. They don't know that "gparted will only show a swap partition. Newer versions of Ubuntu, if freshly installed, use a swapfile, and you can't see that in gparted." as pointed out in the comments.

I doubt that adding a swap partition will make a major improvement, but you do not seem to have one at the moment.

If you have the time to experiment while waiting for better answers then you may want to take 8gb off your "/" ("root") partition or the windows one, and make it a swap partition - there are plenty of guides online.

pateksan
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  • They have a 2G swap now. – heynnema Nov 21 '19 at 00:48
  • I don't understand your comment I'm afraid, what do you mean? – pateksan Nov 21 '19 at 00:51
  • You said "swap... you do not seem to have one at the moment". That's not correct. Their screenshot clearly shows a 2G swap. – heynnema Nov 21 '19 at 00:53
  • The installation created a 2g swap by default, and I had read that with enough ram creating a bigger swap is unnecessary – Wizzy Nov 21 '19 at 01:07
  • I see, I think I didn't notice the terminal window. Am I being blind or is the swap not displayed in the Disks window though? I've only used gparted recently and my vague memory is that swap was clearly shown in gparted. – pateksan Nov 23 '19 at 02:10
  • @pateksan gparted will only show a swap **partition**. Newer versions of Ubuntu, if freshly installed, use a **swapfile**, and you can't see that in gparted. – heynnema Nov 29 '19 at 13:26