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I love Unity but its performance is slow and it always lags when I multi task. I have 512 MB of RAM. Please help me, I want to do my work smoothly with Unity.

Anwar
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otto
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    The problem is your RAM. You will have to switch to Ubuntu classic, but I doubt that you'd be able to run anything good anyway with the remaining 256 mb of RAM, because the last time I checked Ubuntu normally uses around 256 mb of RAM. – nickguletskii Jun 06 '11 at 06:42
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    Current Ubuntu's system requirement is 1 GB RAM. so it's natural you're experiencing lag. Either switch back to GNOME Classic, use Unity 2D or try lighter DE a la Xubuntu, Lubuntu. – Oxwivi Jun 06 '11 at 07:17
  • It's not only about the RAM, which CPU are you using ?? P4 ?? Believe it or not the CPU is the main culprit when it comes to lagging. I own a C2D E4500 with 2 gigs of DDR2 Ram. After 3 years once the core temp of my CPU started exceeding 75, I noticed subtle lag on Ubuntu. – Utsav Dec 08 '11 at 06:08
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    I have 8 GB of DDR3 ram and a i5 Intel i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30GHz / 2.9 GHz Turbo and unity behaves exactly as described above: Slow and laggy while multi tasking... – n3rd Dec 08 '11 at 07:09
  • I have 8 GB of DDR3 ram and a i5 Intel i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30GHz / 2.9 GHz Turbo and unity behaves exactly as described above: Slow and laggy while multi taskin... – n3rd Dec 08 '11 at 07:09
  • It seem like it's not going to work "smoothly" for you. You will need to move to an earlier version of Ubuntu or install XFCE ! –  Dec 08 '11 at 02:59

1 Answers1

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Here are your best options

  • Upgrade your RAM!

    The more RAM you have the more Ubuntu can cache and the smoother your system will feel. Also, the offical requirements state that you should have at least 1 GB of RAM.

  • Use the classic desktop

    You can switch to the classic desktop very easily. Just go to the shut-down menu in the top–right corner, and click "System settings". There you can change your default desktop environment.

If you can't upgrade your RAM or use the classic desktop you can always tweak your system. If you open the System Monitor you can see what programs use a lot of RAM, try to use others or try not to open all the programs you need at the same time.

If you have classic desktop

If you have some heavy themes or other effects you can turn those down. just go to System → Preferences → Appearance (If you have a classic desktop.)

If you have unity

Just click on the power button in your right corner and select system settings in there you can select Appearance.

Alvar
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    Also, if it doesn't have to be unity: There are official Ubuntu derivats, that are less hardware hungry. Those include Lubuntu and Xubuntu. – con-f-use Jun 06 '11 at 07:57
  • yes but he wants to use unity – Alvar Jun 06 '11 at 07:59
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    I know. Note the "if" in my comment. Just wanted to encourage him to try something different. Not all hardware is upgradable. 512MB almost sounds like P4. – con-f-use Jun 06 '11 at 08:09
  • I found zeitgeist eats a lot of memory.. What will happen if I kill the zeitgeist process?? – otto Jun 06 '11 at 09:03
  • http://packages.ubuntu.com/en/maverick/zeitgeist I don't know actually. but nothing might happen (guess). – Alvar Jun 06 '11 at 09:08
  • You could do sudo apt-get remove zeitgest and remove zetigest, some programs that use it might have some errors. – Alvar Jun 06 '11 at 09:22
  • Killing zeitgest has... issues - 1 http://askubuntu.com/questions/45548/disabling-zeitgeist/45549#45549 - http://askubuntu.com/questions/45560/unity-stopped-working-after-zeitgeist-uninstall – jrg Jun 06 '11 at 10:36
  • but If you type zetigest* isn't the same as just type zetigest I accidentally removed ubuntu desktop wine I ran sudo apt-get remove wine* – Alvar Jun 06 '11 at 10:45
  • I have killed zeitgeist and the performance is still slow.. Then I switch to Classic desktop but I find no difference.. My PC keep freezing and lagging.. I can't do ANY work with Ubuntu.

    I think Ubuntu is overrated. Ubuntu is not fast and intuitive, ubuntu is totally a crap!! Shame on you, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical! Windows 95 is better than Ubuntu (I can multi task with Windows 95)..I think I might switch back to Windows 7 which is far better and responsive than the crappy ubuntu.. FAIL MARK

     – otto Jun 07 '11 at 10:43
  • Try with another system version of ubuntu like xubuntu, which is a lightweight system designed for hardware that isn't top of the range. http://www.xubuntu.org/news/11.04-release – Alvar Jun 07 '11 at 21:17
  • I have the same issues and plenty of RAM and a fairly good CPU, so this post does not really help – n3rd Dec 08 '11 at 07:10
  • @R3s3t your problem may be that your pc doesn't have 100% support for Ubuntu. Have you looked at this? http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/ – Alvar Dec 08 '11 at 08:36
  • @Alvar The sandy bridge support is not that bad in Ubuntu 11.10, I read a lot about it. That should not be the reason for the performance loss. – n3rd Dec 08 '11 at 17:26
  • @R3s3t are ther any other parts on your system? other than the cpu? ;) – Alvar Dec 08 '11 at 18:00