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[Matilda]

Fellas, my Peppermint 9 netbook is so slow loading up web pages. It's driving me bonkers. I'm fed up seeing that wait box pop up. I have fibre broadband and updated Chrome. My Chromebook which sadly broke last week (my clumsy leg with the broken knee knocked it off the sofa and its screen cracked) was lightning fast loading up web pages, so it is not my internet connection.  I know an SSD drive is faster (which it had and which the netbook doesn't) but can there really be such a huge difference? The netbook takes twice as long to load up web pages! What can I do to speed things up? And yes I've cleared my cache. Not made it any faster. My smartphone and tablet (both running on Android) are faster as well!

[Matilda]

System specs for you fellas, if you have any questions on that.

stem:    Host: ASUS-X102BA Kernel: 4.15.0-167-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.5.0
           Desktop: N/A Distro: Peppermint Nine
Machine:   Device: laptop System: ASUSTeK product: X102BA v: 1.0 serial: N/A
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: X102BA v: 1.0 serial: N/A
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: X102BA.212 date: 08/30/2013
Battery    BAT0: charge: 0.0 Wh 0.0% condition: 33.0/33.5 Wh (99%)
           model: ASUSTek X102-30 status: Charging
CPU:       Dual core AMD A4-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-)
           arch: Jaguar rev.1 cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 3992
           clock speeds: max: 1000 MHz 1: 998 MHz 2: 998 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Kabini [Radeon HD 8180]
           bus-ID: 00:01.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: [email protected]
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD KABINI (DRM 2.50.0, 4.15.0-167-generic, LLVM 10.0.0)
           version: 4.5 Mesa 20.0.8 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Kabini HDMI/DP Audio
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-167-generic
Network:   Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: ath9k bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCIE Fast Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-3: Atmel usb-ID: 004-002
           IF: null-if-id state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (4.7% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: HGST_HTS545050A7 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 457G used: 22G (6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 71.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 71.0
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 4500
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic main restricted
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic-updates main restricted
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic universe
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic-updates universe
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic multiverse
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic-updates multiverse
           deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ (http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/) bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu (http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu) bionic partner
           deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu (http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu) bionic-security main restricted
           deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu (http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu) bionic-security universe
           deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu (http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu) bionic-security multiverse
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
           deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ (http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/) stable main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/peppermint.list
           deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/peppermintos/p9-release/ubuntu (http://ppa.launchpad.net/peppermintos/p9-release/ubuntu) bionic main
           deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/peppermintos/p9-respin/ubuntu (http://ppa.launchpad.net/peppermintos/p9-respin/ubuntu) bionic main
Info:      Processes: 189 Uptime: 1:33 Memory: 1509.9/3381.4MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.5.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.201) inxi: 2.3.56

[steve57]

Just to clarify, is this something that's recently changed, that is has it suddenly become slower than what it was? Or has your netbook always been like that?

[Matilda]

Just to clarify, is this something that's recently changed, that is has it suddenly become slower than what it was? Or has your netbook always been like that?

It's always been slow loading web pages.

[steve57]

In that case I'll have to leave it those that are more "expert" to make some suggestions, and I will be keeping a close eye on things in case anything useful to me comes up. One of my machines is also a netbook of same age, and similar spec by the looks of it. Not very fast are they? Which is one of the reasons mine doesn't get used much.

[Matilda]

In that case I'll have to leave it those that are more "expert" to make some suggestions, and I will be keeping a close eye on things in case anything useful to me comes up. One of my machines is also a netbook of same age, and similar spec by the looks of it. Not very fast are they? Which is one of the reasons mine doesn't get used much.

Thank you Steve. It is indeed slow! I was given it from a brother so I'm grateful for it of course. I was mostly using it when I wanted to scan documents and photos and sometimes to use Audacity, but my go to laptop was the Chromebook. Chromebooks run on a Linux kernal so I was still a Linux user of sorts! In my experience no other laptops are as fast as Chromebooks! I can't wait to get a new one. The one I have was a refurbed one and did me for a year. It was on its last update so I was going to replace it this year but I'd rather it hadn't fallen off the sofa before I could buy a brand new one.

My first foray into Linux was in 2011 when my mother took me to Cash Converters to buy me a laptop and we saw a little pink Dell netbook for £99.99. It happened to have Ubuntu on it. I didn't know what Linux was then but I'd heard of it. It looked easy to figure out (using the netbook). The assistant called a man from their basement who knew Linux and he summed it up for me. I told my mother that sounded good to me and she said if I thought I could understand how to use it she'd get me it. We saw other laptops but they were more expensive.

I knew of a local LUG group and went to a meeting and showed the guys it. One of them told me that Ubuntu distro version was out of date so he put Mint on it for me. That Dell netbook was fast despite it having a tiny SSD drive! Of course over time it became out of date due to the lack of disc space and only 1 GB of RAM. The hardware couldn't be updated.  No idea why this Asus netbook is so slow.