Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

Lenny W. · 2018-03-14 02:14:01

New Linux user here. I've checked the forums and found similar issues but not from anyone with this machine.

I have an Acer Aspire One D255E, 1.66ghz Intel Atom processor with 2 gigs of memory. This is the model that came with Windows 7 Starter installed on it. It has no modifications except that I have doubled the memory from the original 1GB.

When I run Bunsenlabs on a live boot from the USB drive, everything seems fine. Once installed and running from the hard drive, my internet browsing lags a lot. This is straight out of the box, no adjustments made. This problem presents itself on text-based sites that are not flash heavy.

Research tells me it's a common problem with other netbooks, but the suggestions I've seen don't seem to apply/make a difference in my case.

I have tried removing and limiting all cookies for both Firefox and Chromium, didn't do anything.

Before I dig deeper into possible remedies via commands, I'd like to know if it should be possible for this machine to run smoothly with Bunsenlabs or if I should try Lubuntu instead.

I don't use the computer for videos, gaming or music. All I need it to do is run LibreOffice, a Wordpress dashboard and a couple of Google Analytics tools.

I love the look and feel of Bunsenlabs- can I make it work for this computer?

victor3d · 2018-03-14 06:51:37

I have the same model. Instead of HDD I've installed SSD drive. And instead of Firefox I use PaleMoon and links2 -g for simple websites.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-14 07:43:17

Does browsing work any better in the "live" session?

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2018-03-14 07:44:11)

Lenny W. · 2018-03-14 15:07:55

I tested the OS out by running a live session from USB before doing an actual install, and browsing was great. Much better than with Win 7 starter. This is what makes me think it's solvable.

However, after posting here last night I tried a live session from USB again and the performance is now the same as what I'm getting when running off the main drive.

Live session from USB in failsafe mode will not load at all, freezes up mid-process.

Scrolling through Google search results page or a page with lots of form fields presents a "skipping" effect on the display. Could this be video card related?

I should mention that I downloaded the 32-bit iso file without the pae kernel. When I installed bunsenlabs it said my cpu was compatible with a pae kernel and gave me the option to update the kernel but I declined.

brontosaurusrex · 2018-03-14 18:40:01

a. Check the cpu temps
b. disable compton (killall compton), this should in some cases give you some speed and in some cases it could remove the tearing effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceX18O9pvLs
c. On laptop I'd probably go with a tiler (like dwm)

Last edited by brontosaurusrex (2018-03-14 18:41:32)

beaker · 2018-03-14 19:31:19

victor3d wrote:

Instead of HDD I've installed SSD drive.

^this. You are 'p!ssing into the wind' with ANYTHING else if you want 'reasonable' performance.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-14 21:57:19

Lenny W. wrote:

I tested the OS out by running a live session from USB before doing an actual install, and browsing was great. Much better than with Win 7 starter. This is what makes me think it's solvable.
However, after posting here last night I tried a live session from USB again and the performance is now the same as what I'm getting when running off the main drive.

A sudden change would suggest a hardware-related problem — our new "Helium-dev" ISO image has a memory tester as an option in the boot menu, perhaps that will show up some problems.

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=4636

FWIW, I would think that BunsenLabs would run fine on that hardware and I seem to remember positive reports from other Atom users.

DeepDayze · 2018-03-15 01:29:58

Any messages in the system log?

Lenny W. · 2018-03-16 04:21:36

Ok, I've messed up.

I'm away from home on a work-related trip and this little computer is all I've got access to at the moment, aside from my smartphone. I need it for work, asap.

I mistakenly thought that Bunsenlabs would be pretty much plug and play, but it appears I'm in over my head and racing the clock. I'm looking at some basic commands but this is a deeper rabbit hole than I can do at the moment.

Can you kind folks please help me get Lubuntu installed? I have the iso file but can't write it to the USB because the USB is write-protected, and I don't know how to change that through the terminal or GUI.

In the simplest language, I need to know how to clean my USB and put the iso file on it, so that I can reboot and at least run a live session of Lubuntu. Could I bother someone to give me a hand with that please?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, very appreciated. I just don't have the time to research much of this right now.

johnraff · 2018-03-16 04:49:28

It sounds as if you might have a hardware problem, and I can't think why Lubuntu should run any faster than BunsenLabs, but anyway, there's no need to "clean" your USB drive - just overwrite it with the iso you want to boot from. If there is some kind of physical "write-protect" switch on it you'll have to turn it off (I've not run into such a thing with USB drives), but otherwise you'll just need to use root powers when copying the data.

The basic command is:

sudo cp </path/to/somename.iso> </dev/sdX>

The two sections inside <...> will have to be replaced with the correct data, but be very careful that you replace X with the correct letter for the usb drive that you have plugged in. And do not append a number to it.

See: https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb

victor3d · 2018-03-16 06:16:10

Try to browser's cache to ram (tmpfs), browsing should be faster

Last edited by victor3d (2018-03-16 06:17:48)

cloverskull · 2018-03-16 07:36:59

Timeout - we could probably reasonably hypothesize that you're caching. The major delta between a live ISO and running on bare metal post-install is that the installer builds you some swap space. My assumption is that you're swapping for some reason.

Can you run your browser, get it to lag, drop to a command line and 'free -m' and paste the output? Then, can you live-boot the ISO from the USB drive and do the same?

Lenny W. · 2018-03-18 00:53:31

Here are the results of typing "free" and "free -m" into the command prompt:

After Lag:

Lenny@reme:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2062052 710200 1351852 57796 28420 381504
-/+ buffers/cache: 300276 1761776
Swap: 4170748 0 4170748
Lenny@reme:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2013 693 1320 55 27 372
-/+ buffers/cache: 293 1720
Swap: 4072 0 4072

On Live USB boot, after lag:

user@debian:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2013 885 1128 78 111 485
-/+ buffers/cache: 288 1725
Swap: 0 0 0
user@debian:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2062096 905288 1156808 80336 114140 497072
-/+ buffers/cache: 294076 1768020
Swap: 0 0 0

I don't know what this information means; anyone see anything wrong here?

A few more questions...

1. victor3d suggests "browser's cache to ram (tmpfs)." I tried typing "tmpfs" into the command prompt and it says command not found. What is this and how do I do it?

2. What command do I use to find the letter that corresponds to the USB drive, so that I can use the command johnraff gave to write Lubuntu iso file to the USB?

3. How do I access system log?

4. How do I check the cpu temps and disable compton? (What exactly is compton?)

I'm having difficulty finding a comprehensive list or guide for basic commands in this language. Viewing system log, finding the USB port and mounting it, etc...I don't know how to do these things.

With my slow browsing issue it's quite difficult to hunt this information down. Can someone point me to an absolute newbie's guide for navigating the terminal?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-18 01:12:19

Lenny W. wrote:

anyone see anything wrong here?

Looks fine to me.

What command do I use to find the letter that corresponds to the USB drive, so that I can use the command johnraff gave to write Lubuntu iso file to the USB?

First run this command:

dmesg -w

Then plug the USB stick in and read the new output that appears in the terminal, it will list the device, name it and tell you what it is called.

Here is an example from my system:

usb 3-6: New USB device found, idVendor=14cd, idProduct=125c
usb 3-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=3, SerialNumber=2
usb 3-6: Product: Mass Storage Device
usb 3-6: Manufacturer: Generic
usb 3-6: SerialNumber: 125C20100726
usb-storage 3-6:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
scsi host6: usb-storage 3-6:1.0
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Mass     Storage Device        PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 3994624 512-byte logical blocks: (2.05 GB/1.90 GiB)
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
usb 3-6: USB disconnect, device number 5
usb 3-6: new full-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-9: new full-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-6: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-6: New USB device found, idVendor=0951, idProduct=1665
usb 3-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 3-6: Product: DataTraveler 2.0
usb 3-6: Manufacturer: Kingston
usb 3-6: SerialNumber: 60A44C413E29FE61EB4CF82B
usb-storage 3-6:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
scsi host6: usb-storage 3-6:1.0
scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 15131636 512-byte logical blocks: (7.75 GB/7.21 GiB)
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 00
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
usb 3-6: USB disconnect, device number 8

It looks confusing but the [sdb] lines indicate the assigned node

How do I access system log?

sudo journalctl

It is a very powerful tool with many filtering mechanisms, guide here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/ … stemd-logs

How do I check the cpu temps

sudo apt install lm-sensors
sensors

and disable compton? (What exactly is compton?)

pkill compton

But you will have to edit ~/.config/openbox/autostart and remove the bl-compositor line to prevent it from starting when you log in.

The program is a compositor and it allows for transparency effects and fading, along with some rudimentary vsync control.

I'm having difficulty finding a comprehensive list or guide for basic commands in this language. Viewing system log, finding the USB port and mounting it, etc...I don't know how to do these things.
With my slow browsing issue it's quite difficult to hunt this information down. Can someone point me to an absolute newbie's guide for navigating the terminal?

Try

man intro

Lenny W. · 2018-03-18 02:13:03

Ok, thank you for your help.

I have decided to put lubuntu on the usb and run a live test, see what happens.I downloaded the appropriate iso file, and it is now located in the "downloads" folder in the file manager.

When attempting to write this iso file to the usb I get these results:

isaac@NationalSupreme:~$ sudo cp lubuntu-16.04-desktop-i386.iso /dev/sdb
[sudo] password for isaac:
cp: cannot stat ‘lubuntu-16.04-desktop-i386.iso’: No such file or directory
isaac@NationalSupreme:~$ # cp lubuntu-16.04-desktop-i386.iso /dev/sdb
isaac@NationalSupreme:~$

What do I need to do to make this happen?

beaker · 2018-03-18 02:38:50

sudo cp ~/downloads/lubuntu-16.04-desktop-i386.iso /dev/sdb

Lenny W. · 2018-03-19 05:53:16

Ok, so here's what I've got so far.

I ran Lubuntu as a live session on USB, and browsing in Firefox is even slower than what I'm getting on Bunsenlabs. It was dial-up speeds, even after installing the latest video drivers as suggested on other forums.
There was a memory tester included with the iso file; I used it and it showed a 100 percent pass.

Back on Bunsenlabs, the cpu temperature readout doesn't look bad to me. However, the cpu usage fluctuates wildly between 3% and 95% or more. With the terminal open and browser open with two tabs, cpu usage is often near 100%.

I'd like to putting the browser's cache to ram with "tmpfs" but not sure what this means. What is/are the command(s) to do this? Also, how would I go about editing this file

(~/.config/openbox/autostart)

as Head on a Stick has suggested? I tried typing "edit" as a command, no dice. Having difficulty finding and understanding basic commands/processes here. A directory or "dictionary" of frequent and common commands would be nice to have, if you can point me to one.

I've run journalctl and these are the lines that looked suspicious to me. Maybe they point to an issue?

1. platform eisa.0: EISA: Cannot allocate resource mainboard (cannot allocate for slots 1 through 8)

2. sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

3. systemd-udevd[210]: failed to execute '/lib/udev/mtp-probe' 'mtp-probe /sys/devices/pci0000:00/
systemd-udevd[211]: failed to execute 'lib/udev/mtp-probe' 'mtp-probe/sys/devices/pci0000:00'

4. ntpd_intres[466]: host name not found: 0.debian.pool.ntp.org
ntpd_intres[466]: host name not found: 1.debian.pool.ntp.org
ntpd_intres[466]: host name not found: 2.debian.pool.ntp.org
ntpd_intres[466]: host name not found: 3.debian.pool.ntp.org

5. ModemManager[386]: <warn> Couldn't find support for device at '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00

6. lightdm[468]: ** (process:1663): WARNING **: Error getting user list from org.freedesktop.Account
lightdm[468]: ** (lightdm:468): WARNING **: Error using VT_WAITACTIVE 7 on /dev/console: Interr

Anyone see anything that can be remedied? Any other ideas?

I'm going on a week of no work because of this comp and it's getting hairy, man. Unfortunately, getting an SSD is not an option for me at the moment.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-19 07:30:32

Lenny W. wrote:

When I run Bunsenlabs on a live boot from the USB drive, everything seems fine.

^ If this was the case originally but is not the case now then something must have broken inside your computer.

Your specifications are fine for BunsenLabs, there is no way the CPU should be running at 100% if you're just browsing here, even with an old Atom.

beaker · 2018-03-19 21:04:50

the cpu usage fluctuates wildly between 3% and 95% or more. With the terminal open and browser open with two tabs, cpu usage is often near 100%.

this actually sounds about right to me.

Lenny W. · 2018-03-21 02:47:08

I've decided to install another operating system on the computer so I can check out my hardware and get to the bottom of this issue.

I'm really sorry to keep bugging you guys with stupid questions, but I can't figure this Linux stuff out fast enough and I need something a lot more dumbed down, "user-friendly" for the layman. I'm ok with that, and much respect to those of you who have earned your stripes to gain your knowledge. If I had more time I'd jump in with you and learn, it looks like a cool community.

If you guys can help me get the hell out of Bunsenlabs Land I'll tell the folks back home to send you a chocolate cake, or whatever dessert you're into.

I need (very desperately) to know how to do the following things, step by step and in child's language.....please.

1. Install and open/run Bittorrent graphical user interface so that I can download an iso for Linux Mint. (Once there I can at least get Windows back, if not diagnose my problems from the Linux Mint GUI.)

2. Locate and download the correct iso file for Linux Mint's most recent, stable, 64-bit version. (Assuming the Bittorrent GUI doesn't walk you through this process as in Windows.)

3.Put that iso file onto the bootable USB drive so that I can install Linux Mint.

I'm going to keep Googling in the meantime, but if you can get me on an installed version of Linux Mint I can find my way home from there. Thank you very much, gents.

#1 2018-03-14 02:14:01

Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#2 2018-03-14 06:51:37

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#3 2018-03-14 07:43:17

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#4 2018-03-14 15:07:55

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#5 2018-03-14 18:40:01

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#6 2018-03-14 19:31:19

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#7 2018-03-14 21:57:19

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#8 2018-03-15 01:29:58

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#9 2018-03-16 04:21:36

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#10 2018-03-16 04:49:28

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#11 2018-03-16 06:16:10

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#12 2018-03-16 07:36:59

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#13 2018-03-18 00:53:31

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#14 2018-03-18 01:12:19

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#15 2018-03-18 02:13:03

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#16 2018-03-18 02:38:50

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#17 2018-03-19 05:53:16

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#18 2018-03-19 07:30:32

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#19 2018-03-19 21:04:50

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

#20 2018-03-21 02:47:08

Re: Should Bunsenlabs run this slow on my computer?

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