On 07/02/13 11:57, Simon Greenwood wrote:
On 7 February 2013 11:52, Gareth France <gareth.fra...@gmail.com
<mailto:gareth.fra...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 07/02/13 11:11, Simon Greenwood wrote:
On 7 February 2013 10:43, Colin Law <clan...@googlemail.com
<mailto:clan...@googlemail.com>> wrote:
On 7 February 2013 10:31, Simon Greenwood
<sfgreenw...@gmail.com <mailto:sfgreenw...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> ..
> On 7 February 2013 10:17, Gareth France
<gareth.fra...@gmail.com <mailto:gareth.fra...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> ..
>> Thanks Alan. I think the thing that gets to me is that
aside from whatever
>> I may choose to run on it I expect a machine I paid £300
for to run properly
>> to begin with. None of these solutions address the
problem. They more sort
>> of side step it. I doubt I'm going to find the problem,
I'll just have to
>> avoid Packard Bell next time I upgrade.
>>
>
> In all honesty, that is the place to start. Packard Bell
machines are built
> to a price, and it's fairly likely that they need OS-based
accelerators to
> work properly. I'm not familiar with that processor but
there are probably
> features that aren't supported by Linux and require
Windows-native software,
> and the GPU will be integrated and underpowered. I've had
similar problems
> in the past with more expensive machines and have since
learned my lesson.
The guy is not talking about just not getting the ultimate
out of the
machine, he has problems such as "tonight it ground to a
halt, the
hard drive access light went mad and the mouse stopped
moving. Then it
moved in jerks and a variety of windows greyed out and came
back again
over and over." That is a software problem of some sort.
Something
is gobbling up his processor or/and his RAM.
Yes, I agree, and as previously described, I have seen exactly
this problem, and on what would seem to be a more powerful
machine. In the first instance, disable Flash and see if that
stops or reduces the CPU load. In my experience it will. However,
it doesn't solve the problem, and this is where I came to a halt
with trying to analyse it. It is likely to be a combination of
the Flash plugin, Compiz and the physical hardware, possibly one
that hasn't been identified before, so to get some progress, it
needs to be documented.
However, I believe my point still stands: for all the work done
to maximise compatibility, there are always going to be machines
that don't play for less obvious reasons, especially at the low
cost end of the market, and the rule still should be that if you
want to use a Linux desktop of any kind do a little bit of
homework. There is the official compatibility wiki but if you get
the model number of any laptop and put it into Google, someone
will have attempted to run Linux on it and reported on it.
s/
--
Twitter: @sfgreenwood
"TBA are particularly glib"
Just to update everyone flash blocker didn't manage 5 minutes
before both Firefox and system monitor greyed out simply because
I tried to close the monitor. As I'm typing this email Thunderbird
keeps greying out and the text appears on the screen up to 45
seconds after I typed it. (So apologies for any spelling
mistakes.) Rhythmbox is playing, well stuttering. That seems to be
the biggest problem, I have noticed flash can be a drain but any
media playing and it greatly increases the chance that the system
will halt.
Try starting Firefox and Thunderbird in safe mode. It's Help > Restart
with addons disabled in both, and see how if that improves things.
s/
--
Twitter: @sfgreenwood
"TBA are particularly glib"
I've switched to chromium to see what difference that makes. I'll try
restarting thunderbird and see what happens
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