So frustrate one that you dont use the computer anymore 
Greener-pastures idealism is also integrated into the Linux kernel.
Allow me some hyperbole folks, but Linux’s response-time and workflow efficiency makes Windows look like a straight-jacketed sloth.
So how do I get mine to do that? Because right now Windows 7 is far more responsive to my delicate loving touch than Linux.
I don’t know, a hardware thing? My 4 year old laptop running Ubuntu with lots of pretty extra graphics bells and whistles turned on is far snappier than any current Win 7 machine I’ve used. Win 7 is better than XP is, but still noticeably sluggish.
Well when I use Ubuntu it’s only getting a fourth of the RAM I have available, as has been mentioned. Thoughts on if I were to up the RAM through the virtual machine if that would increase responsiveness?
I never saw this thread before, but I have been using Linux for a long time and perhaps can be of use recommending software. I’ll let you know my biases upfront here. Among other things, I am a physicist whose job includes developing software that runs on Linux, and have a dual boot PC at work. I only use Windows when I have to work on a group document or presentation. (I used to develop software on Windows, and before that, Unix. ) At home, I have an iMac, and a dual boot Linux/Windows machine. I got the iMac to try my hand at writing apps for iPhones. I just started that.
Linux software (non-development) I use regularly:
Firefox and Thunderbird (and no, there is no difference in speed. On a virtual machine, it is possible you are going through two virus scanners, which would slow things down.)
KMyMoney (I used GnuMyCash before that) I even got a port for my iMac. It is free, and does all I need.
Kate - a great little text editor
LibreOffice (does everything MS Office does with different fonts. It is not as good, but the price difference is huge. I know nothing about the one you pay for.) also KWrite
digiKam
I don’t use this regularly, but I found Gimp for photo editing to be easier to use than Photoshop.
Games (just things like solitaire, chess, and the clanbomber clone All of them are better on Linux, with more variations and of course, they are free)
KCalc (not that it matters much)
What I don’t do on Linux or with Linux available software:
My taxes. I bought TurboTax for my iMac. Before that, on my PC.
My GPS watch software. (The iMac version didn’t support notes, and there isn’t a Linux version)
Why not just use a different GUI instead of switching your OS? That’s actually one of the greatest advantages of Linux - that you can use different GUIs on the same Linux, or the same GUIs on different distros of Linux.
Poke around on those menu items across the top, see if you can find
System -> Administration -> System Monitor
or something similar. There is a “Resources” tab that shows memory and swap usage.
See if you can get any insights from that.
It’s certainly possible that you could have some swappiness trouble.
There might also simply be a pile of overhead just running a VM in a Windows host. Don’t know how that might compare with a Linux VM in a Linux host, which is what I did. (And remember, I did mine on an ooooold small slow machine with highly non-optimal circumstances.)
I’ve been dual-booting Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows XP on my little Atom netbook for a couple of years now - and I find that my usage is swinging toward Linux - On this machine, the user experience is superior - faster boot, faster response times in general, greater stability, greater configurability.
I’ve also been using VirtualBox (yes, on a 1.6GHz Atom with 1GB RAM) - and although it’s not blisteringly fast when I run a full desktop GUI inside it, I was still quite pleased with the performance - the other day I had one VM running SME Server, testing a LAMP setup, another running the latest version of Ubuntu and a third running some obscure Amiga or BeOS descended OS, just to have a look. It all seemed quite fine.
I use Windows 7 at work, and it’s quite good - certainly better at boot time than XP , but I’m not altogether sure I’ll bother with another Windows OS at home.
Well I bumped the RAM up to 2GB for the VM and now everything does indeed respond much more quickly. However, there is still some lag when I do things in the GUI, like launching applications or trying to view my settings, or my System Monitor or Dash Home. It certainly is still not more responsive than Windows and certain things are noticeably still less so.
Also, apparently YouTube viewing will require I use Windows, as YouTube videos in Ubuntu, no matter how short and low quality will always be choppy.
Now with the system monitor open I see pretty much zero signs of swappiness. The indicator stays flat on 0%. I don’t know what else to really do.
I believe that is because you are running through the VM. One of my daughter’s has no issues watching video on her little notepad with Ubuntu. You might see about turning off all firewalls and virus scanners within Ubuntu, since you are already running them in Windows.
I was under the impression that unless your CPU and your motherboard had hardware support for virtualisation, then virtualisation would be performed in software with a fair performance hit.
You might try running the VM full screen. I believe certain graphics calls are virtualised when running in a window or ‘single window mode’ where both the VM and guest OS look like they’re running together. If you make the VM full screen (and toggle back and forth with Command+Return or WindowsKey+ Enter, I believe) then the VM has more direct access to the hardware.
I could also see the VM vendor’s responce would be: Play the video/flash/whatever in the native OS and use the VM for things that can only be done in the VM.
You might try playing around with a Live Linux CD, to see if the performance is any better…I suspect you’ll find it is.
Lastly, there’s some support for hardware 3d acceleration…you might see if that makes a difference.
I might be getting the wrong end of the stick, but ‘virtualisation performed in software’ sounds like emulation, not virtualisation.
Bees,
what VM software are you using? many have pretty poor graphics support, it may be that it is all software emulated and that is the slowness.
He said he was using VirtualBox. I use it to run a virtual Windows instance on my Ubuntu laptop at work, and I haven’t noticed any problems with YouTube there, but it could easily be that it doesn’t work as well the other way around–VirtualBox performance on Windows may be worse.
I also run my media center PC on Ubuntu. The hardware is a fairly low-spec mini-PC (a slightly older version of this Zotac box), and it plays HD video smoothly with XBMC. I haven’t noticed any problem with YouTube videos on it, either.
My guess is that it’s a problem with running VirtualBox on Windows. I’d suggest trying it from a live CD to see if the problem is still there without the virtualization.
Purely by chance, the Ranting Dane (my cubicle neighbor) was talking VirtualBox with another coworker a few minutes ago, and he mentioned something I had forgotten: guest additions. If you haven’t already installed them, check under the Devices menu in VirtualBox for an option to install Guest Additions. Among other things, I believe they include better video drivers, which may help.
oof! By an order of magnitude! Plus moving data back and forth and improving mouse access.
rat avatar: I am using Oracle VirtualBox.
Unintentionally Blank: Fullscreen is the only way I’ve been running it.
Balance: I have the guest additions installed already.
I have not tried a Live CD though. I’ll see what I can do about acquiring one and I have no doubt it will perform beyond my wildest expectations if I were to go that route. I’ve been using Ubuntu as my “nongaming OS”, so booting from disk is going to become a pain in the ass if I want to go to Windows for gaming, then back to Ubuntu for everything else.
Yeah, I don’t think you’d want to use it as a long-term solution. I meant to use it as a troubleshooting step–if you see the same problems with the Live CD version, that eliminates the VM as the source.