Link that should be stickied?

[chrispycrunch]

You install ubuntu and it doesn't play mp3's, avi, windows media. What's up? Turns out due to legal issues they don't distribute that directly:

Here's a good Ubuntu/Linux startup guide i found:

http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com/2008/04/things-to-do-on-your-new-ubuntu-804.html

Nvidia drivers don't work? Turns out they are 'restricted'. Anyway i've gotten the ubuntu working well on a p4 1.2ghz. It's rather slow when the disc is being accessed. Multitasking is limited - again slow access to reading/writing. It has 256mb ram. Will 512mb help it?

 

[RavenD]

What's your ram usage look like?
Open up a terminal and type top to check, or use the gnome system monitor.
Or alternately type 'sudo apt-get install htop' and then open up htop in a term (way more detailed, and easy to use than top'.
If you're hitting your swap file, then 512 will help.
Also, on a computer that old, you would probably be better off running Xubuntu. Its Ubuntu with XFCE as the window manager (as opposed to gnome). XFCE is more lightweight and much snappier on old hardware.

 

[alan2308]

+1 on trying Xubuntu. I don't think that the computer is too "old" per se, I've ran modern distros on lesser hardware than that. But 256MB of RAM isn't going to run a whole lot these days. 512 will definitely help, but depending on what you're trying to run, you may still feel pinched with that.

 

[chrispycrunch]

Thanks Guys - i switched to xubuntu (by installing it within ubuntu). I'll try to add on 256mb memory. The CPU usage is 100% a lot of the time (during installs for example). I'll watch the swap file usage and report back shortly.

edit:
memory usage: 173/249mb
swap 237mb / 729.5
cpu usage is 50-100%