[MX Experience] New User to MX Linux 19.4 KDE

[Prestige]

So, I installed and have been using the KDE environment for last 2-3 days. My use case mostly revolves around taking notes in Obsidian and reading relevant PDFs. So far, I wouldn't say my experience on MX has been good. I was okay with installing and setting up some applications for my use, but I see that even smallest of tasks are taking a longer time compared to even Windows 11. I came down to Linux to have a smoother experience, as in, what I intend to do it not really a resource hungry usage. While obsidian sucks in a max of 250MiB, and PDF reader might take in a few hundereds too. Still on a 8 GB RAM machine, the linux is slow!

It is not like the navigation is slow, the response time is really frustrating. To state a few examples:
1. If I click an application, say firefox, it will first show up in the task bar, then go away, then opens up, but still the window is still showing the images of desktop or whatever was open before opening firefox.
2. If I intend to right click on a file (say a PDF) in File Browser (Dolphin, in case of KDE), it takes a few seconds before it actually opens up.
3. If after 2, I select an app to open the PDF, whichever app I choose, it takes a really long time to open a mere PDF. Okular takes around 15-20 sec for a 20-30 page document, while Foxit will take eternity. And all this while behaving as discussed in point 1.

I really dont understand how a linux distro be so sluggish on a 8gb machine with i5 8-th gen. I simply moved to linux as my use case had more of basic pdf annotation and note taking which should have been faster on Linux than windows with its over bloated services and ram requirements.


On top of all of this, I am unable to find a decent PDF annotating software. Last option is to employ Wine, that too I am not sure if will work smooothly if the native apps suck as of now.

I will share my QSI. Kindly suggest ways to improve my experience here. I am really inclined to stay as a MX Linux user, since it seems to work sooo much better on my 7 year old laptop, but again that was XFCE.
But as I posted earlier, surprisingly, KDE was taking up about 200MiB lesser than XFCE. Sometimes, I wonder if KDE isn't even understanding that it can use up as much RAM as it needs, but pleaaase be fast :D

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System:
  Host: <filter> Kernel: 5.10.0-5mx-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-5mx-amd64 
  root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.5 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: MX-19.4_kde_x64 patito feo March 31  2021 
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Predator PH315-51 v: V1.26 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: CFL model: Sienta_CFS v: V1.26 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.26 
  date: 03/27/2019 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 36.3 Wh condition: 36.3/48.9 Wh (74%) volts: 16.7/15.2 
  model: LG PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-8300H bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake family: 6 model-id: 9E (158) stepping: A (10) microcode: EA 
  L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 36799 
  Speed: 1743 MHz min/max: 800/2300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1743 2: 1505 3: 1578 
  4: 1486 5: 1585 6: 1825 7: 1578 8: 1746 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, 
  STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3e9b 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0 
  chip ID: 10de:1c8c 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a348 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP107GL High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 10de:0fb9 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-5mx-amd64 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 9560 [Jefferson Peak] driver: iwlwifi v: kernel 
  port: 5000 bus ID: 00:14.3 chip ID: 8086:a370 
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 06:00.1 
  chip ID: 10ec:8168 
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.03 TiB used: 652.13 GiB (62.1%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SK Hynix model: HFS128G39TND-N210A size: 119.24 GiB 
  block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> 
  rev: 1P10 scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS721010A9E630 size: 931.51 GiB 
  block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm 
  serial: <filter> rev: A3J0 scheme: GPT 
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 
  port: 5060 bus ID: 00:17.0 chip ID: 8086.282a rev: 10 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 31.15 GiB size: 30.54 GiB (98.03%) used: 19.22 GiB (62.9%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb4 
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 7.81 GiB used: 1.8 MiB (0.0%) fs: swap 
  swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/sdb2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 57.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ buster main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
  1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
  1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
  2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libratbag-piper-ubuntu-piper-libratbag-git-jammy.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/libratbag-piper/piper-libratbag-git/ubuntu jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
  1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
  2: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster ahs
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main
Info:
  Processes: 277 Uptime: 2h 07m Memory: 7.62 GiB used: 1.70 GiB (22.3%) 
  Init: SysVinit v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 alt: 8 
  Shell: quick-system-in running in: quick-system-in inxi: 3.0.36 

[SwampRabbit]

I'm not a KDE user and I refuse to use WINE for anything I actually use so I can't help with any of that.

Two things I noticed quick, from your QSI

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RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 
  port: 5060 bus ID: 00:17.0 chip ID: 8086.282a rev: 10
  ...
  Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 57.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 

You might want to change that that off of RAID mode in your BIOS, this can cause problems sometimes.

Temp seems a little high there, but it could be reporting wrong, but something to look at as it may be getting much higher while you're actively using the computer.

That libratbag Ubuntu PPA shouldn't be bringing in anything to causes this, but don't get in the habit of adding PPAs please.

We can't do anything about Foxit its not FOSS.

Since you said MX-19 Xfce runs well on your other computer, you could try it on this one, maybe there is something in AHS (MX KDE is based on it) that it doesn't like.
You're system doesn't need AHS. You could also give MX-21 (any version) a try.

[Prestige]

You might want to change that that off of RAID mode in your BIOS, this can cause problems sometimes.

I only see two options there in SATA settings: RST with Optane and AHCI. If I select AHCI, windows fails to boot up. (Windows is on SSD, while Linux is completely on HDD)

Temp seems a little high there, but it could be reporting wrong, but something to look at as it may be getting much higher while you're actively using the computer.

I didn't notice higher temperature, and it is reporting around 44 degrees now. I don't see fan's moving or any sound that I used to hear while using Windows. Is there a way I can be certain if that are moving at certain RPM?

We can't do anything about Foxit its not FOSS.

I was merely quoting an example :)
Almost every app firefox, brave, okular, VS Code etc take time on their first start. Most of them even take time on their subsequent starts.

Since you said MX-19 Xfce runs well on your other computer, you could try it on this one, maybe there is something in AHS (MX KDE is based on it) that it doesn't like.
You're system doesn't need AHS. You could also give MX-21 (any version) a try.

I will give MX21 a try. I would like to use KDE, as it feels a bit better visually than XFCE. If nothing works smoothly, then surely, will have to manage with XFCE.

[uncle mark]

I only see two options there in SATA settings: RST with Optane and AHCI. If I select AHCI, windows fails to boot up. (Windows is on SSD, while Linux is completely on HDD)

That right there will go a long way toward explaining the perceived performance differences between Windows and MX.

[Prestige]

That right there will go a long way toward explaining the perceived performance differences between Windows and MX.

I had to go all HDD for linux as I wasn't able to shrink SSD more than 3.5GB although I had around 35 GB free. Moreover, I wanted to have a system with root on SSD and home on HDD which is posed as not recommended over the internet.

[linexer2016]

I'm not sure why anyone would declare that splitting the two (root and home) is necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, I have read that doing just that is in fact good practice. That said, I keep all mine in the one partition/disk.

[Antediluvian]

As uncle mark said, MX will be faster from an SSD. If you have about 20 GB or more free you can install root (including home) on the SSD. Make symlinks to the HHD to save all you home data (documents, pictures, etc) on the HHD. Home on the SSD will basically just contain configurations so it won't grow very large. Even 16 GB is enough for most people.

[Prestige]

As uncle mark said, MX will be faster from an SSD. If you have about 20 GB or more free you can install root (including home) on the SSD. Make symlinks to the HHD to save all you home data (documents, pictures, etc) on the HHD. Home on the SSD will basically just contain configurations so it won't grow very large. Even 16 GB is enough for most people.

I do want to do that! But as I said, windows isnt allowing me to shrink more than 3 GB. I am not sure what the reason is. The SSD doesn't even need defragmenting I guess. I tried looking for ways, but they involve turning off Pagefile.sys etc. No idea if that's recommended.

[srq2625]

I do want to do that! But as I said, windows isnt allowing me to shrink more than 3 GB. I am not sure what the reason is. The SSD doesn't even need defragmenting I guess. I tried looking for ways, but they involve turning off Pagefile.sys etc. No idea if that's recommended.

Turning off pagefile.sys is not a long-term solution, but it may be one of the things blocking your ability to shrink your Windows install.

You might want to take a look at this page --> https://superuser.com/questions/1017764 ... -partition
In particular, read the response from F.D.Castel.

Generally speaking, temporarily turn off pagefile, hibernation, and system protection. Reboot your Windows install. "Optimize" your SSD. Now, using Disk Manager, you should be able to shrink your Windows install partition. Turn all the above back on and restart your Windows.

Now you should have enough room to do a proper install on your SSD. Oh, BTW, except for when I'm doing a quick and dirty install for testing (distro-hopping) purposes, I ALWAYS place my /home on a separate partition. All kinds of good reasons for doing so and only a very few reasons not to do so.

[deanr72]

I'm not sure if it will suit your needs fully but check out Okular for most pdf needs. It's in the mx-packageinstaller.