system busy icon?

[blackturbokitty]

Hello. Ubuntu works fine though a few things take forever to load, like the software install thing. I click it and it takes forever to load and sometimes i click something and I think something whent wrong because there's no busy icon next to the cursor.  Because otherwise I'm sitting around for a really long time waitng and the system doesnt tell me it's loading.... though i do see one ccasionly, though never when i need to see it. Most programs open and the system appears to be doing nothing and then the program appears out of no where seemly.

Is there a way to modify ubuntu so it gives me more information about what the system is doing?