Keeping System Speed

[kris84]

I've been using Linux Lite 3.2 for about 5 months now. Initially the system ran great, very fast, but I've noticed lately some slowing down - thunar, okular, and the menu in particular are much slower. The menu takes about 5 seconds to display, thunar takes about 5-10 seconds, and okular takes about 15 seconds. Some other programs are taking a little longer to open, too, but it's not a huge difference. It's also booting noticeably slower, though the items in the startup apps are basically the same as before.

I've run top in a terminal, and I haven't yet noticed anything taking a significant portion of CPU resources or RAM (usually at 25-30%, and almost nothing in swap). I'm not a computer expert, but I'm thinking it's not a RAM problem.

What do you suggest doing or changing to restore the speed I had in the beginning? What kinds of things or programs do you use to keep your system clean and fast?

[Artim]

This article offers a few easy ways to improve the speed and resource useage of Linux Lite.

[kris84]

This article offers a few easy ways to improve the speed and resource useage of Linux Lite.

Thanks, I've implemented their suggestions, but I haven't seen any improvement from them. I have also updated all packages that had updates available, except lite-upgrade-series3 and lite-welcome. I don't like updating, and it's one of the reasons I switched to Linux from Windows. I just would like to figure out why things are running significantly slower than they were a few months ago. I've continued to run top when things are dragging, and when I can hear the processor working, but it doesn't show anything out of the ordinary (but how should I know what's ordinary?). Suggestions?

[newtusmaximus]

How much memory are you running? and what is the processor, Video card etc?

[kris84]

How much memory are you running? and what is the processor, Video card etc?

Just ran top and got:
Memory: 3455788 total, 1611552 used, 1536884 cache
Swap: 3593212 total, 13908 used
(I'm working so have Thunderbird and 10 tabs in 2 Firefox windows open, in addition to terminal to run top; nothing else)

4x AMD A4-6210 APU with AMD Radeon R3 Graphics

[trinidad]

Your video may be running through an llvm instead of on proprietary drivers. Blobs for radeon are in Deb non-free.

TC

[kris84]

Your video may be running through an llvm instead of on proprietary drivers. Blobs for radeon are in Deb non-free.

TC

Okay, but would that be the case when the computer worked fine (fast, no delays, etc) for the first 3-4 months without a proprietary radeon driver? I currently have installed:
xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:7.7.0-1
radeontool 1.6.3-1
libdrm-radeon1 2.4.70-1~ubuntu16.04.1
libdrm-radeon1:i386 2.4.70-1~ubuntu16.04.1

I'm willing to try a different driver, but not sure where exactly to find one - can you give me a link?