Apps won't start or slow to start

[Kermit the Frog]

• Was it the same before you installed the proprietary Nvidia driver?

• Is it the same if you boot with systemd? (You'll find in "Advanced Options" on Grub).

• What if you boot with the Xfce version (AHS or regular MX), (you can try even on live session, don't have to install).

• Nope, it's not a hardware issue since it's ok with other distros. No need to buy something.

[j2mcgreg]

@lars_the_bear wrote:

But, since you've established (IIUC) that you don't have the same issue with other Linux variants, that suggests that hardware, in itself, isn't a problem, right?

His machine is nine years old and sdc ( our presumed location for MX) is at least fifteen years old. All the instances of the other distros confirm is that the difficulties hadn't started yet

[lars_the_bear]

@lars_the_bear wrote:

But, since you've established (IIUC) that you don't have the same issue with other Linux variants, that suggests that hardware, in itself, isn't a problem, right?

His machine is nine years old and sdc ( our presumed location for MX) is at least fifteen years old. All the instances of the other distros confirm is that the difficulties hadn't started yet

My most up-to-date machine is older than that, and it works fine. I presume that if the OP has run other Linux variants on it, he won't have unrealistic expectations of how a machine of this age performs. So far as I can tell, it's not clear how long the OP used other Linux variants, or why he/she changed. In fact, there's a lot that isn't all that clear, to be honest.

BR, Lars.

[j2mcgreg]

@brinesharks wrote:

I can go buy an new SSD to troubleshoot but I have invested a lot of time getting this install to run all the apps I need (including work apps that are essential) so any other suggestions before I change hardware are welcome.

A better plan of attack would be to clone your Seagate ST3320418AS onto a new drive, but back up your data first in case things go sour.

[retroD0d0]

Would running S.M.A.R.T diagnostics on sdc be a good idea to identify whether you are experiencing pre-fail symptoms? Perhaps try KDiskMark to see if any of the metrics are unusually low? Maybe you would be be able to spot anomolies in these two places before you invest in a new drive.

[brinesharks]

@lars_the_bear wrote:

But, since you've established (IIUC) that you don't have the same issue with other Linux variants, that suggests that hardware, in itself, isn't a problem, right?

His machine is nine years old and sdc ( our presumed location for MX) is at least fifteen years old. All the instances of the other distros confirm is that the difficulties hadn't started yet

My most up-to-date machine is older than that, and it works fine. I presume that if the OP has run other Linux variants on it, he won't have unrealistic expectations of how a machine of this age performs. So far as I can tell, it's not clear how long the OP used other Linux variants, or why he/she changed. In fact, there's a lot that isn't all that clear, to be honest.

BR, Lars.

For more context, I've used various Linux flavours for about 10 years on various computers, including Raspian. I was running Kubuntu and then Linux Mint as my daily driver for around 5 years. I also run Debian on a very old laptop and it runs faster on that than MX Linux runs on my PC, hence why I made the post. OS takes about 2-3 mintues to startup. Then it takes around 20 seconds for an app to start after the OS is fully loaded. Sometimes an app won't start at all and I have to open it again. Once the app is running, shutting it down and opening it again shows a noticeable improvement. And when I open any browser (Firefox, Chromium or Chrome) it takes a good 20 seconds for the browser to load a page. Once it's running, they load pages fine. I notice that the sluggish performance is always associated with high CPU loads. RAM rarely gets about 50% load. I also get a few apps crashing but it's hard to say if that's the OS or the app. I also get freezes at least once a week and have to hard reboot.

I decided to change to MX Linux as I don't like the Mint desktops now and my installation was quite old. I tried a few different flavours over a few months (eg. Mint, Debian, Kubuntu and OpenSUSE) to see which one I prefer. MX Linux seemed to be best for me.

[brinesharks]

• Was it the same before you installed the proprietary Nvidia driver?

• Is it the same if you boot with systemd? (You'll find in "Advanced Options" on Grub).

• What if you boot with the Xfce version (AHS or regular MX), (you can try even on live session, don't have to install).

• Nope, it's not a hardware issue since it's ok with other distros. No need to buy something.

Nvidia drivers seemed to improve stability a little. Steam/games crashed or refused to start without them.

Noted - I will give them a try but flat out for a few days with work.

[lars_the_bear]

For more context, I've used various Linux flavours for about 10 years on various computers, including Raspian. ...

What isn't clear to me, and perhaps isn't to others, is what version(s) of Linux you've used on the computer that is the subject of this thread, and how well they worked. I was under the impression that you'd used other Linux variants on this same computer, which would have made a hardware problem less likely.

If faulty or inadequate hardware can't be ruled out, then that changes things a lot. There are any number of benchmarks and diagnostics that can be used to look for hardware problems, but I was under the impression that this would not be helpful.

I guess that you might start, as others have suggested, by testing the disk where MX is installed. smartctl should be able to tell you if the drive is reporting any fault codes. A simple 'hdparm -t' and 'hdparm -T' will give some idea of the basic drives performance, especially if compared with other drives in the system. There are better tests, but you probably have `smartctl` and `hdparm` already.

BR, Lars.