I'm using LM 17.3x LIVE. Have constant and sometimes, severe lagging issues. Problems started when I "upgraded" to 18.3x. I tried 5 other distros all with the same issues. Went back to 17.3 and , alas, the problem followed. Found this: sudo gedit /etc/sysctl. conf vm. swappiness = 15, but all it did was set in the terminal(never executed). Hopping someone here can direct me on how to alleviate all the lagging.
In my experience changing swappiness settings rarely helps unless you are on a very legacy device. Have you tried looking in top? Or ps faux? Maybe posting some of their output here would help.
EDIT: Just noticed the previous post was from April. Sorry if that's necroposting. Was not intended.
THANX for replying. I had to laugh- "Sorry if that's necroposting." No it was not. This issue has, as yet, not been resolved. I agree "swapping" should not be an issue. I've solved the lagging, but not in 17.3, so I guess I've really NOT solved it. I upgraded to 18.3. However, I now have issues with persistence. I just can't seem to get it to apply. I've had many reply with suggestions, but so far, none have worked. AND that' something I really don't understand because I did have persistence when I was using 17.3 AHh....the wonders of technology!!!
Sorry if this sounds incompetent, but: what do you mean by "persistence"? Does the system crash often?
In general i noticed that Xubuntu 17.x did a lot better than 18. I have XUbuntu installed on my laptop and the suspend-to-RAM worked flawlessly before. Now every second time i have to either use the power button because the session won't come back or it comes back but with deactivated Wifi which can't be reactivated. Suspend-to-disk (aka "hibernate") worked before but doesn't work at all now. Whenever i shutdown the system i get an error message from systemd (this thing i hate with a passion - what was wrong with init?) that it can't stop this job or that job (usually my user sessions). A job running with root privileges should be able to kill user processes IMHO - not wait for indefinite time (well, i think it is indefinite - after 10 minutes at longest my patience was used up and i pressed the power switch).
So, yes, Xubuntu 18 (the "LTS" - i suppose this is a typo for "TLS" and means "tough luck, sonny") is a major PITA. I am considering switching over to Fedora, but i hate desktops in general and GNOME and KDE in particular even more. Xfce is the "least insufferable" IMHO.
I hope this helps. (Sorry, i know, commiserating helps you not one bit but i feel better now. Thanks.)