How old is old? How much RAM do you have? Are you using heavy modules like diffuse or sharpen?
Yes, it’s poor hardware to see how Linux works. It’s a Toshiba Satelitte a350
(two cores and 4 GB RAM)
However, Rawtherapee works reasonably well. When editing DT I use contrast corrector to sharpen, because if I use D&S I can take the dog and go for a long walk, because then the export takes an eternity 
Yeah the performance you’re getting isn’t that surprising. Actually, 7 minutes seems on the fast side.
1 Like
I also run darktable from time to time on an old system (2012) with only 4 GB RAM and 4 cores CPU for testing purposes. In my experience, stable operation of the program cannot be achieved with such hardware. This is not a setup for serious work with the program.
1 Like
Hi @Terry. I’ve looked at GIMP 3, and can’t see what I’d use it for that I can’t do with DT. So I’d be very interested to know what you use GIMP for ‘to complement DT’.
@archiemac Adobe has the combination of Lightroom and Photoshop. Darktable and Gimp are FOSS alternatives to this pair. I do 99% of my edits in DT but just occassionally I need to also use GIMP for tasks such as extensive photo restoration, artistic effects (filters), or anything requiring layers and masks. Gimp and Photoshop are sometimes described as pixel editors.
If you don’t see a need for Gimp’s services then you don’t have a need for it, but if you every need to work with layers and masks then Gimp is a suitable alternative to Photoshop. The excellent masking options in DT remove the need for much of the layer and mask work I used to do in GIMP to combine multiple edits of the same image in from other RAW editors.
As a scientist I would use GIMP to prepare images for publication by creating collages of graphs, images etc into a single picture file.