Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#1
Hi, I just installed antiX M-8.2 on an old laptop with a 2.4GHz Celeron processor and 256MB of RAM. Things are running very slowly with CPU at 70-100%. The two biggest processes are iceweasel at ~35% and X at ~11%. Memory usage is at ~59%. It's slow as it is but when I try running Synaptic things slow to a crawl with CPU at 100%.
Is this normal? I saw another topic here about 100% CPU but that problem resolved itself and according to the poster his machine didn't seem to slow down. What can I do to fix this? Thanks!
Last edited by gimmejimmy on 01 Dec 2009, 17:21, edited 1 time in total.
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#2
Post the output of
inxi -F

If you have intel drivers, this is probably the cause and you'll need to use vesa in xorg.conf
Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#3
I left the laptop running iceweasel and aptitude for a few hours. When I came back CPU, RAM and swap were almost maxed. Here's the output of inxi -F:

Code: Select all

System:    Host mepis1 Kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8 Intifada! 12 February 2009
CPU:       Single core Mobile Intel Celeron (UP) cache 256 KB flags (sse2) bmips 4789.48 clocked at 2393.993 MHz 
Graphics:  Card Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device X.Org 1.4.2 Res 1024x768@60.1hz
Audio:     Card Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller driver Intel ICH at ports 1000 1880 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.17
Network:   Card-1 Intel 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller driver e100 at port cf40 
           Card-2 RaLink RT2600 802.11 MIMO driver rt61pci v: 2.1.8
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 40.0GB (4.5% used) 1: /dev/hda IC25N040ATMR04-0 40.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 9.2G used: 1.7G (20%) ID: swap:/dev/hda3 size: 0.61GB 
Info:      Processes 72 Uptime 6 min Memory 106.8/232.2MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.
How do I switch to vesa? Thank you.
Edit: I booted with apic=off. That seems to have helped things.
Last edited by gimmejimmy on 28 Nov 2009, 23:52, edited 1 time in total.
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#4
Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (as root)

This part:

Code: Select all

Section"Device"
  Identifier "Card0"
  Driver"vesa"
  BoardName"unknown"
Make a copy(just in case). Yours probably has intel for vesa.
If you are not sure, post the xorg.conf file
Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#5
Thanks, do you think I should make the apic=off option permanent?
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#6
If vesa option works without apic=off then no. Otherwise yes.
To make it permanent add it to /boot/grub/menu.lst
Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#7
That seems to have done it! Another tihng. when I installed I asked it to use existing partitions for /, /home and swap. It handled / and swap correctly but the partition hda2 was mounted on /mnt/hda2 instead of /home. Can this be fixed by simply editing fstab? Is this correct:

Code: Select all

/dev/hda2 /home ext3 defaults,noatime 1 2
and I should remove this right:

Code: Select all

/dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 ext3 noauto,users,exec,relatime 0 0
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#8
I think so yes.
(save the original, just in case)

I just noticed that you are using antiX-M8. The latest release was antiX-M8.2 and antiX-M8.5 will be out fairly soon.
Any reason why you installed antiX-M8 rather than a newer version?
Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#9
Actually I thought I was running the latest. I got this from linuxtracker because I prefer torrent downloads. I hadn't realized I got the wrong version until you pointed it out.
Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#10
It's working fine now. Although sometimes iceweasel and X still act up. (X hit 20-40% earlier!). All in all I'm very happy with antiX. I tried two other light distros but I like this one best.
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#11
You may want to change browser. iceape is lighter, some swear that opera works better.
Posts: 1,228
secipolla
Joined: 15 Jun 2008
#12
I use Swiftfox in antiX-base. It's a Firefox/Iceweasel compiled for different CPU types. I think the newer CPU types may gain more.
Mine is an old CPU and so I use the swiftfox-i686 package and I think you would too.
I don't notice improvement on browsing but I do notice that when I close Iceweasel (or Seamonkey/Iceape) it takes some seconds for the used ram lower and when I close Swiftfox the ram is already down (maybe it was already and I didn't notice - must check).

To have it, it's best to add the repo line in /etc/apt/sources.list

Code: Select all

deb http://getswiftfox.com/builds/debian unstable non-free
then, as root

Code: Select all

apt-get purge iceweasel && apt-get update && apt-get install swiftfox-i686

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://getswiftfox.com/deb.htm"
linktext was:"http://getswiftfox.com/deb.htm"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false
Posts: 21
gimmejimmy
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
#13
Thanks for the tips!