[Wiltshire] Request for help - Ubuntu 14.04

[David Fletcher]

On Wed, 2014-09-03 at 15:06 +0100, amanglo at utvinternet.com wrote:
> Hello,
>  
> A complete Linux novice, I recently installed ubuntu 14.04 LTS (from
> Live CD purchased from Canonical) - and downloaded 330.2 Mb of updates
> - on my desktop. The idea was to remove dependence on XP, which was
> done very effectively as XP was wiped completely by the installation
> of ubuntu. This was unintended - the hoped-for result was to have XP
> and ubuntu 'side by side'.

For starters, I want to say that I wish you'd asked here first! I would
have jumped in to say DON'T over-write that XP hard drive. Hard drives
are very cheap and I've found that the best thing to do is just leave
the working system intact and swap it out for a new one.

Never mind, you've taken the first step but you are finding that there
is a bewildering array of options!


> The ubuntu program operates VERY slowly, often in jerks. Everything -
> typing, browsing, opening and closing programs - is ultra-slow.

Yep! So did I. It used to work OK then "they" decided to re-write the
desktop - that's what gives you your lovely graphical display with a
mouse for pointing at and clicking on things to start up programs,
select text etc.


> If anyone can suggest a fix I shall be grateful.

My fix was the same as John's suggestion to use Mint 17 with Mate. It
"just works", beautifully.

There's no need at all to go buying a CD by the way. Ask and you shall
receive from here excellent advice about downloading the CD image and
burning it onto media yourself. Actually, I think they're nearly all
DVDs these days.

> 
> 
> The PC details are:
> AMD64 Athlon processor, 3.2 GHz. 120Gb hard disc. 4Gb installed RAM.
> Graphics card VIA S3 UniChrome Pro KT8237.

As somebody else said, you should probably make sure you get a 64-bit
operating system to take full advantage of your processor. Mine is an
Athlon X2 and it works really well, I think.

I also had problems with the graphics card - I used to have an nvidia
card in this computer but it gave me loads of problems. My advice, go
for a cheap, silent AMD based card. Mine is something like this one:-

http://www.ebuyer.com/506563-asus-hd-5450-1gb-ddr3-vga-dvi-hdmi-pci-e-graphics-card-hd5450-sl-hm1gd3-l-v2


* * * * * * * * * * * *


Anything else, get right back here and ask.

Dave


-- 
Lisa Simpson:- "They must have programmed it to eliminate the
competition."
Bart Simpson:- "You mean like Microsoft?"