After some troubleshooting I have identified the precise source of this sluggishness. When I downgraded xserver-xorg-core sluggishness persisted, so I experimented with downgrading other packages selectively, and found the problem to be with libx11-6 (1.1.1-1ubuntu1). After downgrading to version 1.0.3-4ubuntu1 from the Herd4 alternative cd, performance is back to normal.
Hi,
After some troubleshooting I have identified the precise source of this sluggishness. When I downgraded xserver-xorg-core sluggishness persisted, so I experimented with downgrading other packages selectively, and found the problem to be with libx11-6 (1.1.1-1ubuntu1). After downgrading to version 1.0.3-4ubuntu1 from the Herd4 alternative cd, performance is back to normal.