[Solved] Installed Debian 12 but everything is unusually slow

[davinci74]

Hello everyone! So I have installed Debian Bookworm on my device but it is very slow. Whenever I close my laptop and reopen to log in, there are about three lines of something that flashes across the screen so quick that I can not make out what it says but I can catch a couple words of error but i can't read what its referring to. I mean everything works great its just slow. Also I'm connected to satellite wi-fi so that does not help. Also I have an old device. I'll leave device details if it helps. Any suggestions are highly appreciated, and I welcome constructive criticism if there is any. Thanks everyone....

Hewlett Packard HP G61 Notebook
Memory 3.0 GiB
Disk Cap. 250.1 GB
Debian GNU/Linux 12 Bookworm
OS Type 64-bit
Gnome Version 43.9
Window System Wayland

[mrmazda]

G61 is a model line, not a specific model. Thus we can only speculate what hardware comprises it. To help us help you, show us input/output from command inxi -Faz by copy and paste within code tags, not a screenshot. If necessary, install inxi first using apt or synaptic.

[stevepusser]

GNOME is pretty demanding for an older machine with only 3 GB, no matter what the hardware. I don't think there are any choices of desktop that ask more from the machine, to be honest.

Luckily, there are plenty of alternatives in Debian!

[davinci74]

Code: Select all

NbaBatman@\Debian1:~$ inxi -Faz
System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-26-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-26-amd64
    root=UUID=a3aee7a6-eb5e-462c-967c-e018a6a863a0 ro quiet
  Desktop: GNOME v: 43.9 tk: GTK v: 3.24.38 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM3 v: 43.0
    Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP G61 Notebook PC
    v: 0393100000210C10000020000 serial: <superuser required> Chassis: Quanta
    type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Quanta model: 363F v: 42.14 serial: <superuser required>
    BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: F.07 date: 10/10/2009
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 40.1 Wh (93.5%) condition: 42.9/47.5 Wh (90.2%)
    volts: 12.6 min: 10.8 model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion
    serial: N/A status: charging
CPU:
  Info: model: AMD Sempron M100 bits: 64 type: UP arch: K10 level: v1
    built: 2009-13 process: AMD 45nm family: 0x10 (16) model-id: 6 stepping: 2
    microcode: 0x1000098
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 1 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 128 KiB
    desc: d-1x64 KiB; i-1x64 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 1x512 KiB
  Speed (MHz): 1200 min/max: 800/2000 boost: disabled scaling:
    driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: schedutil core: 1: 1200 bogomips: 3989
  Flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; STIBP: disabled; RSB filling;
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250] vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: radeon v: kernel alternate: amdgpu arch: TeraScale
    code: R6xx/RV6xx/RV7xx process: TSMC 55-65nm built: 2005-13 ports:
    active: LVDS-1 empty: HDMI-A-1,VGA-1 bus-ID: 01:05.0 chip-ID: 1002:9712
    class-ID: 0300
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: radeon display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 model: AU Optronics 0x10ec built: 2008 res: 1366x768
    dpi: 101 gamma: 1.2 size: 344x193mm (13.54x7.6") diag: 394mm (15.5")
    ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1366x768 min: 640x480
  API: OpenGL v: 3.3 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: AMD RS880 (DRM 2.50.0 /
    6.1.0-26-amd64 LLVM 15.0.6) compat-v: 3.0 direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD SBx00 Azalia vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD RS880 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4200 Series]
    vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:05.1
    chip-ID: 1002:970f class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-26-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter
    vendor: Hewlett-Packard U98Z062.10 802.11bgn driver: ath9k v: kernel pcie:
    gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:002b
    class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet
    vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: 2000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 232.89 GiB used: 22.72 GiB (9.8%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: HM250HI
    size: 232.89 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s
    type: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: <filter> rev: 01C4 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 231.93 GiB size: 227.23 GiB (97.97%)
    used: 22.67 GiB (10.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 976 MiB used: 49.7 MiB (5.1%)
    priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 50.9 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 180 Uptime: 8h 40m wakeups: 2 Memory: 2.65 GiB
  used: 1.41 GiB (53.1%) Init: systemd v: 252 target: graphical (5)
  default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: N/A Packages: pm: dpkg
  pkgs: 2172 libs: 1275 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,gnome-software,synaptic
  Shell: Bash v: 5.2.15 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.26
NbaBatman@\Debian1:~$

[davinci74]

GNOME is pretty demanding for an older machine with only 3 GB, no matter what the hardware. I don't think there are any choices of desktop that ask more from the machine, to be honest.

Luckily, there are plenty of alternatives in Debian!

Yes there are several different DE's for Debian, so using a different one like Gnome Classic, for example, would help quicken my device?

[sunrat]

Please use code tags for terminal text output. Fixed it for you this time.

Every other DE is lighter than GNOME. The best common ones are LXQT and LXDE, but even mid-weight ones like Xfce and KDE Plasma are better.
For that machine I would seriously consider a Window Manager rather than DE. AntiX would be a good one to try, it comes as a live image so you could test it without installing. https://antixlinux.com/
There are also live images of most DEs for Debian you can try before installing - https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... so-hybrid/

[mrmazda]

That Sempron CPU has only one thread, so with only 3M RAM, performance is quite limited. I find limited hardware capability a minimal issue by using TDE instead of the more common and demanding DEs.

[davinci74]

Please use code tags for terminal text output. Fixed it for you this time.

Every other DE is lighter than GNOME. The best common ones are LXQT and LXDE, but even mid-weight ones like Xfce and KDE Plasma are better.
For that machine I would seriously consider a Window Manager rather than DE. AntiX would be a good one to try, it comes as a live image so you could test it without installing. https://antixlinux.com/
There are also live images of most DEs for Debian you can try before installing - https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/cu ... so-hybrid/

Yeah I'll certainly add those code tags for terminal text output next time. I really don't know how to do that but I'll definitely know how the next time that I have to post terminal text output. Thanks for the correction and advice.

[davinci74]

That Sempron CPU has only one thread, so with only 3M RAM, performance is quite limited. I find limited hardware capability a minimal issue by using TDE instead of the more common and demanding DEs.

Yeah I understand what you mean about that. Its an old computer someone gave me and I'm just experimenting. Have 4 laptops actually. This one here, I've a brand new HP with LMC22 installed and another HP Probook 444Os waiting on the charger to come in and another Dell Latitude that I'm waiting on the charger. In a few more days I'll have them all up and running Linux.