Linux Format forums

Ram · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:43 am Post subject:

Open a terminal and run top to see what consuming your memory.
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Ubuntu LXDE 12.04 running on AMD Phenom II*4; ASUS Crosshair III Formula MB; 4 GB Ram.....

jase · Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:38 pm Posts: 93

Ram · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:00 pm Post subject:

jase · Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:38 pm Posts: 93

Thanks

Result:

Tasks: 122, 1 running, 121 sleeping
Mem: 499452k, 341480k used, 157972k free

Question

Rhakios · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:50 pm Post subject:

With top running, try pressing shift+> to sort applications by memory usage (press shift +< to switch back to sorting by cpu).
Obviously doing this after it has started to slow down is most likely to reveal the culprit.
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Bye, Rhakios

ollie · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 2:57 am Post subject:

How much space is available on your hard drive? Did you create a separate swap partition during installation and how big is it?

512MB RAM is only 33% over the absolute minimum requirements for Ubuntu 11.10, so as you load apps up you will quickly start to use swap space which is considerably slower than RAM. Turning off and on flushes the swap space, so the system seems to be running quicker because it isn't really doing anything.