My experience with Linux is mainly at the server level. I occasionally take a look at the desktop versions of Linux and have preferred OpenSUSE for some time, in general. I currently have two older laptops that I want to use with OpenSUSE Leap. I do not consider myself a Linux guru by any means, particularly where it pertains to troubleshooting a desktop environment. I rarely have to deal with hardware in the certified enviornments that I normally work in.
It took a very long time for OpenSUSE Leap to install - in the range of 2 - 3 hours or so each time. Each laptop has experienced the same poor performance. The fan runs at high speed, apps run very slowly, the laptop gets hung trying to reboot. I did not have these types of issues on these laptops when I tested OpenSUSE 13.2 on them previously.
The two laptops are HP nx6125 and nx6325 models.
If I can get OpenSUSE Leap to run on them successfully and it is stable, this is the OS that will remain on them for some time to come and will be used frequently.
Can anyone provide some guidance and how to resolve the issue?
I do run openSUSE successfully on some machines with lower specifications, similar to these that you have.
Firstly, how much memory and storage do you have on these systems? If you don’t havea lot of memory, you may consider increasing your swap space. I have a machine that 4GB that I have 4GB of swap space and I sometimes need every bit of it.
Next, since these machines are likely limited in storage space as well, I PERSONALLY would recommend you use XFS or EXT4 for the root file system instead of BTRFS. There is some overhead in the snapshots with BTRFS that you might find undesirable on these particular systems.
I might also recommend against using Gnome or KDE. I prefer KDE of the two but KDE can be a little heavy for older systems. Hit and miss on different architectures but I would recommend LXQt as your desktop.
The length of time on install is probably not too far out of line considering the age of the machine. I would be more concerned about how it runs after install.
What you describe at runtime sounds like low memory issues which is why you are having poor performance. Increase the onboard RAM and /or increase SWAP space.
I would recommend having at least 1GB of RAM but 2GB would be way better. 4GB for any serious work loads… but that is my opinion.
Thank you for the reply. I am just going to focus on the nx6325 for now. The system has 3 GB of RAM and plenty of hard drive space. There is no swap being utilized, and I am still running into these performance issues. When Firefox is open and going to www.speedtest.net, as an example, the web page takes a long time to load. RAM usage is only about 50% with no swap being used and maybe 50% CPU. This issue does not seem to be about space or RAM. It seems to be some kind of configuration issue, perhaps the system specs are not being detected properly.
I took a few screenshots while the laptop was idle, with Firefox open and on the Google home page, and while running an Internet speed test.
Note that the laptop is also configured to dual boot with Windows XP. I do not have these issues in Windows XP. I can also use the laptop to run Cakewalk Sonar 8 Producer with virtual instruments.
For comparison purposes, I installed OpenSUSE 13.2 on the nx6325, and it is running quite well. It is performing well enough that I can even see Netflix and Plex and other multimedia videos running through TeamViewer.
The downside is that 13.2 is no longer supported and will not receive updates. There has to be a way to get better performance out of Leap 42.x.
Try a lighter Desktop Both KDE and Gnome are pretty heavy these days. Also check what is running thee is a indexer that can take a long long time to finish and eat up CPU cycles. top will show what is using CPU. and on that processor you can’t afford greedy back ground processes
If you disable compositing in KDE, it often lightens things up a bit. Also, kill any file indexing as well. If you do those things, KDE feels lighter weight.
I would also recommed runing LXQt on this system and see how that runs for you. It might work better for your system.
From CNET specs your first machine is a Turion 64 single core, the second a dual-core. IME a Turion single core is not enough to run KDE, although 3GB RAM is sufficient. I had one, from HP, with NVidia graphics. It was usable with the proprietary graphics (no thermal issues, could sleep/hibernate, etc.), but IINM not with the opensource nvidia driver at the time.
Another issue may be the AMD video driver. AMD dropped support for older graphics cards, and the last openSUSE version to support them is/was LEAP 42.1, so 42.2 is limited - on older chipsets - to use the opensource driver (radeon, I think). Based on a few attempts on a notebook with AMD older graphics, I’d say you’l probably have to disable 3D effects.
Thanks, everyone. I am going to test a few of these suggestions and see how it goes. I might drop back to 13.2 and stay with it since it will do what I need at present. I will also likely try 42.1. I will plan to report back here when I have some new information to present.
Seeing mention of web pages taking ages to load 2 things spring to mind. Try disabling IPV6. YAST is the easiest place to do that. The other one is less likely but has been experienced by many people. Check your dns server settings in your router. These can be hacked and changed on some routers. The easiest way to find out what they should be is to google isp name dns servers. They usually list them some where. It really is best not to leave this set to auto detect. That’s how many isp’s supply them.
When I installed Leap 42.2 memory usage was often under 3gb. Now following updates it seems to generally be about 2.5gb after I have flushed the caches but a lot depends on how many applications are running.
For a lighter desktop as I have played with it I’d suggest LXDE. Memory usage is very low and there is a drop in the degree of responsiveness over KDE as a result but it’s still perfectly acceptable. In my case opensuse installed openbox and of course lxpanel. Openbox claim that it’s been specifically designed to allow any desktop’s app’s to run in it. ;)My kde desktop still seems to work in it as I logged in with it by mistake. I’d hazard a guess that openbox is lighter than qt so it might be a better option than lxqt. One of the other options may offer a different memory usage balance. There is little info about on that aspect. If it didn’t take you so long to install I’d suggest trying several. MATE might be one idea as it’s technology GTK3 now I think is more from the era of your machines. It’s extremely well supported on some distro’s so could be on opensuse too. It’s gnome based though.
My personal experience is that 42.2 has a lower memory footprint than 42.1. I do think you might be better served using a low resource Desktop environment. Although, my experience is that 2gb has been enough for KDE, it has a few more features than the other Desktop Environments. If you have any questions on installing those, you can go to the openSUSE wiki and search for Budgie, LXQt, LXDE, MATE & XFCE to see if any of those work better for your particular system.
In case anyone is reading this and thinking of changing.
Memory usage of LXDE even with lots of firefox tabs and a couple of applications remained below 3gb but it would go higher. Clearing the caches then showed that it was stuff just left there for if which is how linux is supposed to work. It’s different too - I found out about that by messing up the desktop and couldn’t get it back to how it was when I installed. I am getting to grips with handling it now though. As a for instance adding things to the task bar means editing a file. They have a wiki page on this subject and others. If some one wants LXDE it would be best to install it on it’s own otherwise the menu content and some of the directories will relate to what ever desktops are installed not just LXDE. The desktop is pretty configurable by the look of it. It needn’t look like others but the install does make it look like others. Some might find it a bit of a culture shock.
Mate might be a better option than LXDE for something more like KDE. I did run KDE under GTK when it used it and suspect that Mate will be much the same. I did try Gnome then and as far as setting up a desktop as wanted there was very little difference between it and KDE. Xfce? Pass. I don’t know anything about it at all or the others.
I have the same problems like the thread opener.
I used Suse/openSuse from the first day I bought my laptop. At last Leap 42.1. All was fine.
Now I updated to Leap 42.2 and later I installed the actual tumbleweed.
At both I have the same issues like richwaters. Fan runs at full speed, the system is really slow, shutdown or reboot doesn’t work correct.
My laptop is a HP too. In my case a HP 6715s. It seems for me that’s not a coincidence.
This issue is not openSuse specific. I tried the actual Manjaro (with KDE and LXQT) and Ubuntu, get the same problems.
The problems begin directly with booting the install media. The tumbleweed net install was about 4 hours.
Any ideas?
Edit:
Of course, Manjaro with LXQT was a bit better. The system is more or less usable. But overall worse than 42.1.
Ok… After a lot of days searching the internet, now (after my last post) I get the reason.
It’s a kernel bug and it’s still unfixed. If any kernel developer read this, it would be nice you could add the existing patch.
This is just a suggestion, but you might want to try Tumbleweed. I have been using it regularly on my main mobile machine and it went so well, I am putting it on my main “home-station” machine. The home-station machine has an Nvidia GPU and so far it has been rock solid running KDE Plasma. My experience has been mostly smooth with Tumbleweed and I would encourage you to try it to see if it works for you. I figure, what is the worst that could happen, right?
