Ubuntu!

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by Tenor CS

Been having problems with my Ubuntu install on my laptop lately. Youtube videos are temperamental and sometimes the audio stutters. Have 2 gb of RAM on the way. Currently running on 512. Anybody have ideas for tweaks? Or should the additional RAM help?

I would advise more RAM. 512mb should be enough, but may not give you desired performance.

If you want sheer speed and performance try Xubuntu. You can install the desktop package through synaptic package manager from System -> Administration menu. It's very simple and you easily find a tutorial on the "google machine."

I installed Xubuntu on my wife's laptop (1gb ram, 1.74 ghz pentium M) and the performance increase was incredible. Also, she has an ATI 128 mb video card; which Ubuntu has some issues with. The Xubuntu is a lot less taxing on the device and overall.

More on the video issues. Have you recently upgraded to a new version? I originally had 8.04, upgraded to 8.10 with no video issues. When I upgraded to 9.04 I started having huge video issues, slow downs, audio sync. I searched everywhere for resolution. I uninstalled codecs and video players (vlc, movie player, totem) and reinstalled to no effect.

I decided to back everything up and do a fresh install. Now my system is running flawlessly. The performance increase and faster boot time is astonishing!

My hypothesis; I think when I first got Ubuntu I was playing around a lot and doing things I didn't always understand (audio codecs, running scripts, etc.). I think this botched things up and after a few upgrades my system wasn't running optimally.

[Tenor CS]

Originally Posted by Tristan

If you want sheer speed and performance try Xubuntu. You can install the desktop package through synaptic package manager from System -> Administration menu. It's very simple and you easily find a tutorial on the "google machine."

More on the video issues. Have you recently upgraded to a new version? I originally had 8.04, upgraded to 8.10 with no video issues. When I upgraded to 9.04 I started having huge video issues, slow downs, audio sync. I searched everywhere for resolution. I uninstalled codecs and video players (vlc, movie player, totem) and reinstalled to no effect.

I will definitely give Xubuntu a shot, thanks for that advice. I have recently upgraded to 9.04 from 8.10 and it does seem to correspond to the YouTube quirks. I also have the dreaded ATI 128 MB video card headaches.

When I really need to get stuff done, I run Puppy Linux off of a flash drive. It can accomplish about 80% of what I need a computer to do on a regular basis.

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by Tenor CS

I will definitely give Xubuntu a shot, thanks for that advice. I have recently upgraded to 9.04 from 8.10 and it does seem to correspond to the YouTube quirks. I also have the dreaded ATI 128 MB video card headaches.

When I really need to get stuff done, I run Puppy Linux off of a flash drive. It can accomplish about 80% of what I need a computer to do on a regular basis.

Maybe go with Xubuntu 8.10. You won't have as many ATI issues. I would wait until they resolve them to upgrade to 9.04.

The only thing I want to try is to install Xubuntu 9.04 on my wife's laptop (with the ATI) and install ENVYNG to see if I can use the ATI driver, if there is one. That might help. Not sure!

Have you check out envyNG?

In the terminal:

sudo apt-get install envyng-qt

Hope that helps!