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Since I've updated to Ubuntu 19, I have been experiencing some slowness when I do things like:

  • use Fn keys to control hardware settings (display brightness, sound volume etc).
  • switch input language (via the keyboard shortcut).

It takes several seconds for these actions to complete. This used to be instant on older Ubuntu versions.

In particular, I've noticed that when switching languages, if I keep the shortcut keys pressed for a few seconds so that the available languages are displayed in a popup, the popup takes a few seconds to hide AFTER I released the keys - and the time it takes to do that seems to be the delay I see when I quickly press the keys, in which case the languages popup does not even display (but its delay seem to be still occurring).

Could this be some setting I have accidentally changed or that, by default, makes things slower (thinking of things like the "Slow keys" feature, which is definitely NOT enabled)?

Renato
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  • An update? Perhaps it would be better to have a fresh install (i.e. replace existing version). Is it also slow from a session started from a live USB or DVD? This may also be hardware related, so info on hardware may be usefull. – vanadium Jan 04 '20 at 09:42
  • I do not think this is hardware related as it worked instant before I upgraded Ubuntu. My laptop uses a native installation of Ubuntu and it came from factory with Ubuntu 16 installed (I upgraded to 18, then to 19 recently). It is a Dell XPS13. – Renato Jan 04 '20 at 09:47
  • Will be better to try a fresh install. Upgrades and especially subsequent ones can introduce conflicting configurations (fstrim being sheduled twice, by both cron and systemd, for example) – vanadium Jan 04 '20 at 09:53
  • I suspect that if I can remove the delay on hiding the language input popup (and maybe all other popups) this problem will go away... but I can't find the setting to do that in dconf, do you know what that setting may be @vanadium? – Renato Jan 04 '20 at 10:16
  • I found a bug report about the same delay problem - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1754702 – Renato Jan 04 '20 at 10:22
  • THere are some workarounds there including reference to a question here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1029588/18-04-ctrlshift-to-change-language/1029605#1029605 – vanadium Jan 04 '20 at 12:01

1 Answers1

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For anyone else having similar issues with Ubuntu 19: I installed a different desktop environment (DE, to replace Ubuntu 19's default, which is Gnome3), called Plasma KDE (it's like Linux Mint, which I already liked anyway), and that fixed all the problems I was having.

Now, all my keys controlling hardware (brightness, volume etc) respond as fast as they used to with Ubuntu 16... I can also switch languages instantly, and windows/desktop-swap animations run smoothly, without stuttering.

Notice that Ubuntu 19 is not a LTS release, so this is not a criticism of Ubuntu 19 or its default DE... but as I had a lot of issues with it, I thought that posting this answer would be useful to others who don't mind using a different DE.

It's very easy to install another DE on Ubuntu... I followed the guide on linuxconfig.org to do it, in case anyone else is interested.

Renato
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