Zorin running sluggishly

General Help
1

Hi,
I have noticed that Zorin runs sluggishly even when there is basically no major program running and taking up space. Brave and Thunderbird are open and the cursor is not snappy and stays behind for like .5 second and generally the rendering of the desktop environment is slow. Even while I am typing this, the text appears with a slight delay.
Its a fresh install. Up to date according to the utility software.
I have googled for a while and tried almost every solution I was able to find to no avail.

Thinkpad T480s
8 GB
Intel® Core™ i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz × 8
Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2)
640,1 GB

Zorin OS 17.3 Education
64-bit
X11

Any ideas how I could change this behavior?
I am new to the whole linux game and am finding my way slowly.

1 Like
2

Check if Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS are disabled. If it should be a Dual-boot System check that Fast Start-Up in windows is disabled.

In the Energy Settings, You can check if the System runs in Balanced, Energy Saving or Performance Mode.

How did You install Zorin OS?

In the last Step, You could try Zorin Lite with xfce-based Desktop which is a bit more Ressource-friendly.

3

I wonder if the CPU of your notebook is stuck at minimum frequency. Maybe you can check that with a tool like lm-sensors.

4

Try Zorin 17.2 Core, instead.

5

Hi @zonebun, welcome to Zorin and Linux in general :waving_hand:

From my own experience with a ThinkPad, here are a few points you may want to check:

  1. Memory usage – if you hover over each Brave tab, you can see how much RAM is being used. If it’s above ~800 MB, the system tends to feel sluggish, especially with input lag when typing.
  2. Wayland vs X11 – on my ThinkPad L560 I found that Wayland runs smoothly even before I upgraded RAM from 8 GB to 16 GB. Your T480s hardware (8th gen i5, Intel UHD 620) has stronger capabilities than my L560, so Wayland should work well for you too.
    • You can check what you’re running on Terminal with:
      echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
      It will print either x11 or wayland.
  3. SSD upgrade – if you are still running on a spinning HDD, replacing it with an SSD will dramatically improve responsiveness across the whole system: boot times, application launch, and overall snappiness.

See below my current setup for reference:

:laptop: ThinkPad L560 – Zorin OS 17.3 Core – 16 GB RAM – SSD
:brain: Stable, streamlined and productive setup
:globe_with_meridians: Brave · LibreOffice · Pipewire · Wayland