Performance problems with DrRacket's editor

Question

I am required to use DrRacket for a CS course I am taking and have run into the problem that the editing features of DrRacket are too slow to even be usable. The REPL window on the bottom works fine for the most part, but I can't write any code for my course.

I am currently running on an intel 2.2GHz x 2 with 5.7GiB RAM and Ubuntu 14.4. DrRacket it version 5.3.6.

Answer 1

Although I don't recall what it was for 5.3.6, newer versions of Racket enable background expansion by default. It might help to disable this? To do so:

1. Open the Preferences dialog.

2. Click the Background expansion tab.

3. Un-check the first check box, Enable background expansion.