Trisquel 9 is acting choppy and slowish

8 respostas [Última entrada]
GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Hello,

I have been setting up a computer for a family member, it's a Pentium 4 (3.2Ghz) with 2 GB RAM. However the mother board doesn't have a VGA output so we are forced to use a graphics card which is a Radeon 9200. It used to work ok with Trisquel 7, but now it feels like it's very slow with T9, especially when trying to play a video in fullscreen. I checked and it seems Nouveau drivers are installed by default in Trisquel 9, so what could be the issue?

Thanks for any help.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

You can try a newer kernel, hence a newer version of the driver. Installing the package "linux-image-generic-hwe-18.04" (in Trisquel's repository) and rebooting will give you a 5.3 kernel. For a brand-new 5.10 kernel, you can follow the instructions on https://jxself.org/linux-libre/

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Thanks.
I'm not sure it will make a difference (this card is very old, 10+ years, so I don't expect a lot to gained from a newer kernel). However, I did try installing it, however both Trisquel's newer kernel as well as Jxself's complained about broken packages. I suspect this might be a server issue, I will try again later.

Geshmy
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Joined: 04/23/2015

I would say no.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-amd-nvidia-gpus-linux/
Seems to recommend AMD over Nvidia.

Pentium 4 and 2GB Ram would want a light weight desktop, right? Trisquel-mini?

This looked like good info
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/24/2010

Most GNU/Linux distributions ship with AMD's proprietary firmware, which does not respect your freedom. On Trisquel, AMD is the worst choice, as far as I know.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Actually that was a good call, installing LXDE made a world of difference in terms of using the desktop! I was not excpecting LXDE and MATE to have such differences in terms of performance.
Sadly I think the issue with video playback is related to 720p material, I think this old card can only do SD, which I am able to playback in acceptable conditions. And that is if it even has any H264 acceleration at all, like I said it's a very old card.

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

Unfortunately, your graphics card is AGP interfaced. The last generation of (native) AGP cards include ATI's Radeon 9xxx series and Nvidia's GeForce FX5xxx series.

The Nvidia's FX5xxx series were much weaker than ATI's Radeon R9xxx. But ATI/AMD cards are hostile to free/libre software. This is a contradiction.

However, if you just want to replace your graphics card with something more friendly to free/libre GNU/Linux, you can still try to find an Nvidia FX5xxx series card. (If I were you, I'd like to do so. Even the weakest FX5200 is still way better than any ATI card.)

Geshmy
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Joined: 04/23/2015

Ok - I'm sure your right. I remember this PC had an AMD radeon card originally. When I first tried Trisquel it couldn't get the resolution right. I had to buy a Nvidea GeForce GT 720.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

One question related to this, since now I am using LXDE, do themes make it more resource hungry? Or no matter the theme LXDE is always requiring the same CPU / RAM / etc?

Thanks.