Slow GUI
Hi, My problem is so basic that I even fail to figure out what to debug/benchmark/google, etc. My computer feels amazingly sluggish in everything that is UI-related. For instance, it takes some 10 seconds for Firefox to fire up (counting from the click on the icon). Same with Konsole -- 5 seconds. Firefox window maximization -- 3 seconds until the actual window maximizes, and some more seconds until all the menus/panels are redrawn. The time from clicking on a checkbox in a webpage till the V sign appears is also noticeable. It happens with both Qt and GTK applications. The machine is more than strong enough for GUI tasks -- it's T7300 with 3Gb RAM with i965 graphics. The CPU level is around single percents. The software is Gentoo Linux, KDE 4.2.3. Fedora 10 on the other box I have feels MUCH more responsive. The only difference I can think of is that it has nVidia graphics card. hdparm shows 50 MB/sec (a bit lowish, but doesn't explain orders-of-magnitude slowness I exprience). md5sum of zero-filled file of 1 Gb takes 8 seconds (the second time, so that it will be read from the cache). I can't think of other tests. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Leonid Podolny leonidp.li...@gmail.comwrote: Hi, My problem is so basic that I even fail to figure out what to debug/benchmark/google, etc. My computer feels amazingly sluggish in everything that is UI-related. For instance, it takes some 10 seconds for Firefox to fire up (counting from the click on the icon). Same with Konsole -- 5 seconds. Firefox window maximization -- 3 seconds until the actual window maximizes, and some more seconds until all the menus/panels are redrawn. The time from clicking on a checkbox in a webpage till the V sign appears is also noticeable. It happens with both Qt and GTK applications. The machine is more than strong enough for GUI tasks -- it's T7300 with 3Gb RAM with i965 graphics. The CPU level is around single percents. The software is Gentoo Linux, KDE 4.2.3. Fedora 10 on the other box I have feels MUCH more responsive. The only difference I can think of is that it has nVidia graphics card. hdparm shows 50 MB/sec (a bit lowish, but doesn't explain orders-of-magnitude slowness I exprience). md5sum of zero-filled file of 1 Gb takes 8 seconds (the second time, so that it will be read from the cache). I can't think of other tests. If you go to System Settings - Desktop - do you have Enable desktop effects checked? If so, try to remove it. Try a generic video driver like vesa Does your user have permissions to write to the /dev/dri/card0 character device? Is the CPU level at single percents when you actually *do* something? Looking on it at idle does not count :) If not, what process occupies most CPU? -- Shimi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
shimi wrote: If you go to System Settings - Desktop - do you have Enable desktop effects checked? If so, try to remove it. Yes, they are. Try a generic video driver like vesa I'll try it this evening. Does your user have permissions to write to the /dev/dri/card0 character device? Yes. Is the CPU level at single percents when you actually *do* something? Looking on it at idle does not count :) If not, what process occupies most CPU? Yes, when I do something CPU-intensive, the CPU is at 100%, as expected. And looking at it at idle does count -- that's exactly the problem, my box is slow even though nothing consumes the CPU. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Leonid Podolny leonidp.li...@gmail.comwrote: Is the CPU level at single percents when you actually *do* something? Looking on it at idle does not count :) If not, what process occupies most CPU? Yes, when I do something CPU-intensive, the CPU is at 100%, as expected. And looking at it at idle does count -- that's exactly the problem, my box is slow even though nothing consumes the CPU. I didn't say CPU-intensive; I meant something that behaves slowly but is not supposed to because it is NOT CPU intensive - like ticking a checkbox in the browser that you mentioned... the question is if DURING the slowness (waiting for response) - does the CPU use spikes. -- Shimi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
shimi wrote: I didn't say CPU-intensive; I meant something that behaves slowly but is not supposed to because it is NOT CPU intensive - like ticking a checkbox in the browser that you mentioned... the question is if DURING the slowness (waiting for response) - does the CPU use spikes. Ah, sorry. No, nothing. Firefox process uses some 10-15% during those seconds it takes to start, but the CPU is still quite idle. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
Leonid Podolny leonidp.li...@gmail.com writes: Fedora 10 on the other box I have feels MUCH more responsive. The only difference I can think of is that it has nVidia graphics card. Which box has nVidia? If it is the slow one that has nVidia, then download the driver from the nVidia site and chances are you'll forget about the problem. Well, you'll need to compile the driver for every new kernel you decide to use, but it's trivial. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Leonid Podolny leonidp.li...@gmail.com writes: Fedora 10 on the other box I have feels MUCH more responsive. The only difference I can think of is that it has nVidia graphics card. Which box has nVidia? If it is the slow one that has nVidia, then download the driver from the nVidia site and chances are you'll forget about the problem. Well, you'll need to compile the driver for every new kernel you decide to use, but it's trivial. No, it's the fast one. And it already uses proprietary drivers. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Slow GUI
Hi, My hunch was also the video card, but because it's Gentoo, maybe you compiled it with some wiled flags that do the opposite? Can you start with different window manager, like fluxbox or twm and observer if the problem is related to X or lower? Starting the comp in Single user (console) works good? Do you have errors/warnings in your Xlog? Kfir ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
