The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

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TheWebaholic

The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by TheWebaholic »

I use MATE as my desktop for my main Linux Mint 17 installation, but I wanted to try out the Cinnamon desktop, so I installed it in VirtualBox. (I have a separate Linux Mint 17 installation in VirtualBox where I can experiment with things without the fear of breaking my main operating system).

Cinnamon is extremely laggy on my computer compared to MATE. It's a shame, because in many ways I prefer the look of it.

As an example of what I mean, please see the attached screenshot. If I move a window around the screen, you can see a "shadow"/ghosting effect where it used to be (sorry I'm not sure of the correct terminology). Also, sometimes if I click the X to close a window, you can still see it there on the screen until you click to make another window appear.

My computer isn't that old - I bought it in early 2011. It's a Packard Bell iXtreme M5801. Could it be something to do with the graphics card? These are the details:
VGA compatible controller : NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 420] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

Is there anything I can do to resolve this, or is it best if I just stick to the MATE desktop?
LinuxMint17Cinnamon.png
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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kyphi
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Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by kyphi »

It looks like there is something amiss with your graphics display - the image you have posted is not the usual appearance of the cinnamon desktop.

Perhaps all you need to do is allocate your Linux Mint 16 cinnamon in VirtualBox a bit more memory.
Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon
TheWebaholic

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by TheWebaholic »

Thanks. Unfortunately, even though I increased the VM's system memory from 1GB to 3GB, I'm still having the same issues. I also increased the amount of video memory but even that hasn't helped. It doesn't feel as if increasing the RAM and video memory has had any effect at all. :(

Does anyone have any other ideas I could try?
DrHu

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by DrHu »

Have you installed the guest additions, which allow access to host GPU driver
--if you don't do that you are using the virtualbox generic driver, which would certainly be lags
if using 3d effects or compiz settings..
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... 1_3d&num=1

http://www.compiz.org/
http://wiki.compiz.org/AboutCompizFusion
  • For fans of fancy desktop effects..
TheWebaholic

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by TheWebaholic »

How can I verify if the guest additions are installed? I wasn't sure, so I tried going to the Devices -> Insert Guest Additions CD Image menu item, but the following error message appeared.
ErrorScreenshot.png
When I go to Devices -> CD/DVD Devices I can see that VBoxGuestAdditions.iso has a checkmark against it, but nothing else happens. On other VirtualBox installations, a CD icon appears on the desktop and you have to click that to install the guest additions, but this doesn't happen here.
TheWebaholic

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by TheWebaholic »

I've also tried running sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-dkms and it just says virtualbox-guest-dkms is already the newest version, so I guess this means the guest additions are already installed?
DrHu

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by DrHu »

Could be the case, but if you want to make sure, check an install guide
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/virt ... ddons.html
  • Alternatively, you can download the image yourself and then manually mount it as a CD-ROM, under the Settings for the particular virtual machine.
--addresses your cannot mount CD option?

The alternative, image file mounted as a CD/DVD is the method, probably force would have worked, and you would see the install text processing

Assuming, that guest additions are now running: how is the lagging of the VM guest OS
TheWebaholic

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by TheWebaholic »

Thanks, eventually I did manage to get the guest additions installed by mounting the CD-ROM via the terminal. However, it still hasn't fixed the lagginess even though I rebooted the virtual machine. Does this mean I'm out of luck with regards to using the Cinnamon desktop?
bwmiller
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Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by bwmiller »

Will it run from a live CD, if so should run installed.
Cardenio

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by Cardenio »

Since you already have LM17 MATE installed, why not just install the Cinnamon meta package using your Software Manager?

Then, to try Cinnamon just log out; change session to Cinnamon; and log back in.

If you find it doesn't work for you log out; change session to MATE; and log back in. I wouldn't even bother to uninstall Cinnamon after trying it, just set the session to automatically log into whichever environment you finally decide on.

I have done this with most of the desktop environments/window managers available for Mint: LXDE, Cinnamon, JWM, Fluxbox, Openbox, etc.

It has worked fine for me but however there is a bug though. If you uninstall whatever desktop environment, it will still show up as a choice in the session manager even though it will no longer work.
TheWebaholic

Re: The Cinnamon desktop is very laggy for me (LM17)

Post by TheWebaholic »

Sorry for the delay in replying. Tonight I installed LM17.1 Cinnamon edition on a live DVD to try it out, and to my surprise, it worked perfectly! :D So the problem must have been something to do with Virtual Box.

I've now installed the Cinnamon desktop on my main Linux Mint installation and it's working fine. I now prefer it to the MATE desktop. It's more modern and very pretty! :)
Workspace 1_002.png
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