Nicholas, 2 things to consider here.
1) the NIC in the workstation. 10/100 vs Gigabit is important as you've found out. But, what's also important is the chipset in the NIC. Some chipsets are MUCH better than others. Consider the difference between an RTL8139 and a 3Com 3c905 or Intel eepro100. They all claim to be 10/100, but the RTL8139 has almost no intelligence at all. It depends entirely on the CPU to do all the work. Whereas, the 3com and Intel chipsets do much of the processing onboard, relieving the host CPU of the burden. Also, the quality of the drivers is important. Some drivers for some chipsets aren't advanced enough to take advantage of some of the performance features of the chipset. In the world of Opensource, sometimes it's enough just to get the chipset working and the refinement of eeking the ultimate performance just hasn't happened yet. 2) The video chipset. It boils down to the same issues as the NIC chipset. Some chipsets do all the work for you, others rely on the host cpu to do much of the work. With video, the choice of driver can be more important, because there's often more choices. Most thin client hardware has fairly low-end components There's really nothing inherent in LTSP that should cause it to be slower than a full computer with Linux loaded on the harddrive. Since release 5 of LTSP, it's used the same Xorg, same kernels, same NIC drivers, and same glibc as the host installation. When comparing the relative performance of different workstations, I think it would be very helpful to know the details of each machine. The Video, Network and CPU obviously can have a significant impact on overall performance. Beyond that, we can start to look at what kind of network traffic is being generated by the Java apps. tcpdump and wireshark can be very helpful in watching what is going on. Hope that helps, Jim McQuillan j...@ltsp.org Nicholas Metsovon wrote: >> You still haven't tried the most important test. >> >> Take another full workstation, and log in. Then ssh -X >> <ltspserver> <javaapp> >> which starts the java app on the remote ltsp server, but >> displays it locally, >> just like an LTSP workstation. >> >> If it's fast, then yes, it's something LTSP >> related, and we can work on it. >> >> If it's *just as slow* as an LTSP workstation, then >> it's nothing to do with >> LTSP, and purely a problem between Xorg and Java. >> >> LTSP != Xorg, we just use their stuff. So, you'd get >> far more traction asking >> on the Xorg lists at that point. >> >> Can you try this test, and let us know? >> >> Scott >> > > Ok. I ran some tests tonight. I hope I can word this so it all makes sense. > > There's really two parts to this. > > First off, it occurred to me that the on-board gigabit NIC in the workstation > where I did all of my programming burned up a couple of months ago. I had > some problems getting it to boot as an LTSP thin client after that, and I > didn't feel like fighting with it, so I set up a Diskless Workstations > Term-170 DVI on a KVM switch with that computer. The Term 170 only has a > 10/100 NIC, so it has not really been operating at gigabit speeds. > > So, I tried Netbeans on the other computer in my office that has a gigabit > NIC, running as a LTSP thin client, and it worked much better. Not great - > but much better. (And this is a much older, slower computer.) So there is > some validity to the suggestion to upgrade to a gigabit network (but only if > you upgrade the NIC's, too). > > Then I tried the ssh -X test on both computers in my office. > > I booted the computer with the gigabit NIC into Linux as a regular > workstation. It performed outstandingly when running Netbeans with the ssh -X > test. I never knew it could run so fast. It ran better than Netbeans does > on my Windows XP computer. > > So, it does look like there is a problem with LTSP. > > I booted my computer with a 10/100 card into Linux as a regular workstation, > and performed the ssh -X test. It worked much better than the Term 170, > although not as well as the computer with a gigabit NIC (as expected). > > Now here's something I found really interesting: > > I tried ssh -X from the Term 170, and from the computer with a gigabit NIC > operating as an LTSP thin client. Both seemed to work better than they did > when Netbeans was run normally (from the menu). They didn't work as well as > when the ssh -X was done from a regular Linux workstation; but there did seem > to be a noticeable improvement. I find that puzzling, but I don't know that > much about Xorg. Maybe it will make more sense to one of you? > > In any case, there does seem to be a problem with LTSP. It doesn't seem like > it is just an Xorg problem. > > And again - I'd just like to make the point that it's probably not > necessarily a problem with Java, because the Gutsy library got our Delphi > apps running in wine to run decently. They ran dog slow before the Gutsy > "fix". The problem seems to be something to do with the screen redrawing, > but not necessarily Java related. > > Please let me know if I can do anything else to help. > > I appreciate your interest in working on this! > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Create and Deploy Rich Internet Apps outside the browser with Adobe(R)AIR(TM) > software. With Adobe AIR, Ajax developers can use existing skills and code to > build responsive, highly engaging applications that combine the power of local > resources and data with the reach of the web. Download the Adobe AIR SDK and > Ajax docs to start building applications today-http://p.sf.net/sfu/adobe-com > _____________________________________________________________________ > Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss > For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Create and Deploy Rich Internet Apps outside the browser with Adobe(R)AIR(TM) software. With Adobe AIR, Ajax developers can use existing skills and code to build responsive, highly engaging applications that combine the power of local resources and data with the reach of the web. Download the Adobe AIR SDK and Ajax docs to start building applications today-http://p.sf.net/sfu/adobe-com _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
