Ubuntu machine slow on Web.

Open a terminal.

Type "free" and you'll see memory stats.

Be aware the Linux will often allocate free memory as a cache for kernel ops, prefetching, etc, freeing this space back up if/when it is needed by real time usage.

Therefore memory stats may often *look* like the memory is pretty much all used up. Using "Free" you can distinguish between "used" "free" "buffered" and "cached" If it's mostly used, it may appear under "cached" which means it is still available really, when and as required.

Hope that makes sense!?

Type "df -h" and you'll get hdd usage stats (df = disc free and the -h switch tells it to output in "human readable" mode, which just means use standard megabyte/gigabyte instead of bytes or blocks, etc.)

Type "top" and you'll see the stats for memory/cpu usage from running programs and processes, plus much more.

Hit "Ctrl and C" simultaneously to stop Top from running.

Of course, there are graphical apps for these stats, but it's just so quick to use a terminal instead, it's usually preferred.

In fact, I played around with a hilarious app once, which showed disc usage as 3d skyscraper type images, which one can "drive" or "fly" around and between, really "exploring" the hard drive!!

As for network speed - did this only happen after upgrading to the newer 11.10? I'm unsure if you mean the problem already existed?

It sounds like you're on a wifi link? This shows a good connection?

Is it possible to plug in a network cable between PC and router, momentarily, to see if it returns to a good speed, thus narrowing the problem down to wireless specificly?

If you do this, please shut down the PC first, then hook it up to the router and then restart, just to make sure it uses that connection properly. (Not completely necessary, but helps to minimize introducing extra, unknown issues)

I'm not familiar with Ubuntu 11.10. but a quick look around appears to show that it's been shipped with a bit of a bug in the wifi handling.

I expect an update will appear shortly to fix it.

However, in the meantime, there are a few simple fixes floating around.

Firstly, you should take a look at the type of wifi card you have.

At the terminal, type "sudo lshw -C network"

Under the product and vendor sections, you should see quite clearly the make and model of your wifi card.

It seems that Atheros chipsets are particularly effected by this problem, but a few lines typed in should sort it out.......

Let me know if you want some help with it

Reality,  do think this would have affected U 10. as well?

A point about syntax there is a space between the action and the - command letter, is that correct?

I'll check to see if there is any thing about the BT wifi dongle thingy.

Thanks

adca, yes browser is Firefox.

in terminal is the command just firefox safe-mode? 

If it's possible I know even less about Ubuntu,  than OSX. 

Try unity 2d to see if the performance improves, maybe you see a slow firefox (and network) but the real culprit could be compiz process.

To do that log out and click on the gear icon, select unity 2d.

I would prefer Chromium, however you start firefox in safe mode as follows:

firefox -safe-mode

sorry for the typo (I am at work,forced to use Windows 7 ....), it is: "firefox -safe-mode"

see also: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode

adca

Thanks guys I'll try and digest that.

More info, I have an U11 update , but it keeps failing to complete. 

I just tried some dvd plug-ins they are loading up to 5000 bits/sec, but very variable usually only 4-500 b/s , it seems to start downloads quite quickly but then almost hang .

Yes, there's always a space between the command and the switches.

If you try the "sudo lshw -C network" (as above) you'll be able to find the relevant info for your wifi chipset.

It's the chipset that is relevant, rather than the make or model, as such.

Many different makes/models of wifi dongles/cards share the same chipsets. The driver used is matched to the chipset used in the device.

The bug I mentioned is in 11.10 and is just within that version.

If you were suffering the same issue before upgrading and a cabled network connection works fine, then it's likely to be the wifi driver being used.

This is why is why I mentioned looking up the wifi chipset.

Once we know that, we can look to see which driver you are using.

Once we know that, we can check if you're using the best driver available.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of opening up source code is that there can then be multiple developments of drivers,etc, from multiple developers. Sometimes, one is considered better than another.

A good example of this is with the Atheros chipsets.

This is often the underlying cause of wifi problems.

So anyway, if you can confirm the following:

• Did this problem already exist, whilst using 10.04LTS ?
• Have you checked performance using a cabled network connection (Ethernet cable direct between PC & router)
• What is the chipset? (Output of lshw command above)

If the problem previously existed, or not, it is still a very good idea to check the connection via an Ethernet cable connection. (You should have received an Ethernet cable with your Broadband router?)

If speeds are fine over Ethernet, it will immediately determine whether the issue is wifi related only. It's much quicker, in the long run, than delving into other things first and is usually the most likely candidate.

To launch Firefox without plugins, etc, open a terminal and type:

firefox (space) -safe-mode  (Obviously "(space)" represents a space!)

You may have to add the full path, but not usually.

To try a download without using a browser at all, find a download link, in Firefox, then right click on it and select "copy link location" or similar. Close the browser.

Now try the download using the utility wget:

• Open a terminal and type:
• wget
• Then right click and paste the download link you just copied, to complete the line. (i.e. full line becomes something like "wget http://downloads-r-us.com/file.txt")
• Hit Enter.
• Note the download speed obtained.
• Terminate the running download with the usual "Ctrl and C" simultaneously.

That's just a quick and simple way of testing the download speed without having any browser involved.

Sorry for such a long-winded post, but it's much quicker to actually do the above suggestions than it is to type them out, with explanations, here!!

Let us know how you get on

With the move to the X86 architecture and OSX came the Darwin kernel, which is a Unix clone, like Linux is a Unix clone.

Under the hood, they're more similar than ever.

The more you use the terminal, the more you'll find familiarity between them

Reality thanks for all that info, I'll have to study, but it won't be until Wednesday or Thursday I think.

There was a certain slowness with 10.4 which seemed to be getting worse, and 11.10 didn't fix it.

I'll have to look again at the lshw command I couldn't make any sense of the output.

I have only used this PC wirelessly, not even sure if the is an ethernet socket, if there is maybe the Blu ray player lead could reach upstairs.

I'll have a play around and see what I can find out, I'll report back in a day or so.

Thanks again guys.

Howard

No problem - Good luck with it

As for the lshw command, given previously, you'll simply get a list of the details for your Ethernet and wifi hardware.

Here's mine (I have no wifi on this machine though, so there's no *-wireless section):

 *-network           
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: b
       bus info: pci@0000:00:0b.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 10
       serial: 00:01:82:61:11:4f
       size: 1GB/s
       capacity: 1GB/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz

You'll also have a *-wireless section listed after the  *-network section, on your machine.

The part we are looking for is as above, in my listing, in bold - the "product:" and "vendor:" info.

You can see that mine is made by Realtek Semiconductor, using the RTL-8169 chipset.

That's all we're looking for.

OK thanks

Update, now that I have got all of the updates in(250+) , including another 11.10 build update, loaded, things are positively supersonic webwise. OK it's about what it has always been.

Info from lshw is:

Ethernet interface,

SIS 9000 PCI Fast Ethernet

Silicon Integrated Systems (SIS)

Not using ethernet.

I'm assuming the socket is on a PCI card?

Wireless:-

RNDIS Device

USB Link = Yes Multicast =Yes

Wireless 802.11bg

Whilst most programmes say they are missing plug-ins etc and load them automatically which is fine.

How does one upgrade the others ?

I get something in downloads what then?   

Or is there a good SIMPLE guide I should be studying?

Thanks again,

Howard.

Bump.

The simplest way is to use the graphical package manager that comes with your distro.

For example, this machine is running the KDE (the K Desktop Environment - just a different graphical desktop, basically) version of Ubuntu, called Kbuntu.

It has the Kpackage Manager.

These package managers access repositories full of ready made "packages" (programs) for your distro.

Using the package manager, one can simply type in the name of a program, have it show in the results, select and install it.

It's even simpler than Windows. No need to go and find the program, download it, etc.

There are typically thousands of programs freely available within most distro's package managers.

The package managers are usually also configured to update everything installed via them, simply by opening up the manager and selecting "update"

The only caveat being programs that you have manually downloaded and installed. These are ot usually included.

The package managers will also automatically keep you up to date with updates (software, security, etc) for your operating system itself.

Absolute simplicity, once you are familiar with it

(It's not often, these days, that one may require some software not already available within your chosen distro's repositories - always preferable to check first, before downloading manually from a web site)

If you do download and install something yourself, then the command line utility mentioned previously - "apt-get" (originating from the Aptitude package manager) is the way to go.

Simply open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get upgrade

For reference - sudo apt-get dist-upgrade  will upgarde the OS too, although I would recommend using the package manager for this.

Regarding your original problem, it sounds like 11.04 has an update to sort the issue out now and that you've successfully installed it, along with all of the other updates?

By the way, if you download something yourself, try to get in in a .deb file format.

You can simply double-click on it to open the package manager and install it.

Very similar to clicking on a .exe file in Windows.

As for books, there are quite a few Ubuntu guide books available these days. Amazon is probably a good source just for taking a look at what's available.

As usual, there's a wealth of information available online, too.

For a "Pocket Reference" guide, look here:

http://ubuntupocketguide.com/download_main.html

It's a free PDF download version of the book. A hard copy is available to purchase online, too, although the PDF version of it is probably sufficient (considering it's a free alternative!)

Auto update seems to work OK, the sorts of thing that I can't get my head round is when a video or such like says you need version XYZ download of flash or suchlike, a click "here" it then downloads a file and says use the manager to load , all it seems to do is unpack (unzip) and leave a load of files none of which looks like it can run the update.

Always a strong possibility of me doing something wrong of course.

Thanks Peter, I'll give them a go, and report back.

Howard

Aah, OK.

Well, again, the package manager is your friend

Flash, etc, will be ready and waiting in there.

If you attempt a manual install, it does only extract the .so

You'll need to copy it to relevant F'fox directory yourself.

This is because most Linux based distro's do not adhere to the FHS (File System Hierarchy Standard), as defined by the Linux Foundation.

Because of this, it can become difficult for some "generic" binaries to work efficiently, or "as intended", as their pre-defined installation destination may be incorrect for the specific distro upon which you elect to use it. Hence, occasionally they just provide the files and let *you* put them wherever they need to be!

IMHO, it's possibly one of the biggest issues preventing more wide-spread adoption of Linux on the desktop - the multitude of distro's and their different ideas of "what's best" usually just causes confusion for new adopters.

"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from."

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

This is where Ubuntu attempts to excel - user friendliness and graphical goodness.

For the sake of user-friendliness, I would suggest using the package manager, as much as possible. You'll be kept up-to-date automatically that way, too.....of course there are exceptions, where a certain package may not be available.

Also, as Peter suggested, VLC is a must, imho.

The "swiss army knife" of media playing

For Flash, herre is one of the examples on how to install it for Ubuntu 11.10. However, I personally prefer Chromium for better performance, ease of use, ease of maintenance, and ease of upgrade, everything just better than the clunky Firefox.

To install Chromium and some codecs like FFmpeg for playing multimedia contents on web:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

sudo apt-get install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

Peter & Reality

Run those sudos that Peter suggested, general performance  seems a bit better especially web access, I had a little hi-cup on accepting some windows thingy saying if you accept  <Ok>, I couldn't find any way of getting it to enter Ok , but smashed it into submission  with any combination of keys, the only thing was I can't remember what that/those key stroke(s) were. 

I'll try Chromium at some time.

I need to see what the state of play of my main H/disk is, it's a fairly old PC and I'm not sure what size the drive is, I know I fitted and extra drive but only as an extra non system drive.  

Thanks again for your time and help guys.

Howard 

I would second Peters recommendation for Chromium

Also, remember, at the terminal, type:

df -h

It will output the size of all of your available drives and their remaining capacity.

Are you using that new "Unity" desktop on 11?

I have been put off of trying it out, being an old KDE die-hard, Gnome was different enough for me, without Unity too!

(Mind you, I've started to get used to *buntu's use of sudo now, so anything is possible! (I used to always use Slackware, a comparatively "bare" Unix clone where users are users and root is root)