I have an Acer 4736z with 2gb Ram and ubuntu 12.04 is running too slow for my standards.
I would like to know if I am running useless processes that I am not aware of and remove packages I will never use.
How can I do that?
free -m output:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1944 1627 316 0 15 340
-/+ buffers/cache: 1271 673
Swap: 1976 676 1300
You could probably remove the indicator-messages service, but that won't save much.
Another option would be to run unity 2d or gnome-classic from the login screen. The 3d desktops use more computer to do "compositing" and newer software tends to consume more resources than older software. Unity uses compiz to do its compositing and it does seem to accumulate notable cpu time on my laptop.
The next time you want to install Ubuntu you could install the Xubuntu flavor of Ubuntu. It is built to be lighter weight.
Run sudo apt-get autoremove to remove any useless packages.
Also I installed ubuntu-tweak and this has a janitor function for clearing up your system, but this is not recommended. See How do I install Ubuntu-Tweak? for instructions on how to get it.
Use the Software Center to remove any unwanted apps.
Hope this helps you.
Another solution would be to install an Ubuntu derivative that is lighter, such as Lubuntu.
