[PLUG] Xubuntu Laptop Locks Up

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 7 Jan 2012, Bill Barry wrote:

> You seem to have settled on getting a new laptop to solve whatever problem
> you are having with your old laptop. Since you don't know what the problem
> is with the old laptop, a new laptop very well may not solve the problem. 
> The main reason I have seen for laptops being slow is that they have a
> finite amount of ram. This ram gets filled with lots of web pages running
> tons of javascript and flash, images being edited, movies being decoded,
> applications that have memory leaks, etc. Once the ram gets filled they
> have to use swap or crash.

Bill,

   Turns out slowness is the secondary issue; shutting down when the cursor
is moved is the primary issue. I've not seen that happen, but I spend almost
no time on that machine since all I do with it is fix problems that arise
and run the update manager every few weeks.

   Since she spends most of her time on facebook and gmail via Seamonkey I
agree that RAM constipation is most likely the problem. She's also hard on
the machine, wearing off the surface of keys, touchpads, and where her hands
rest on the case by the keyboard. The Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975 is about
3 years old now so I accept that for a low-end portable on sale at Best Buy
then it has a shorter life expectancy than do more expensive machines.

   I just ordered a Toshiba Satellite L755D-S5359 from Newegg. It's the same
line as the current machine, but with more RAM (4G vs. 2G). It has a 5400
RPM hard drive, but with 4G RAM there will be less swapping then with only
2G RAM. I can also make the swap partition larger on the new box. What sold
me is their one reviewer wrote that he installed xubuntu on it and
everything worked with no issues to overcome.

   I'll also download and install Opera to replace Seamonkey. That'll
probably make a difference, too.

   Any other advice on how to set this up considering that Web access is
where she spends 99% of her time will be greatly accepted. I'm always open
to recommendations from those who know hardware better than I do ... that's
almost everyone.

Thanks,

Rich