X performance woes

[Leonard Chatagnier]

--- On Sat, 4/18/09, Hal Burgiss <hal at burgiss.net> wrote:

> From: Hal Burgiss <hal at burgiss.net>
> Subject: X performance woes
> To: ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Date: Saturday, April 18, 2009, 3:34 PM
> After upgrading to 8.10 I am still having awful X
> performance issues.
> The worst is of course in Firefox, but I have very similar
> problems if
> I switch to Opera, so its not just Firefox. And its not
> just my system
> since most of this is just since the upgrade. Can anyone
> explain why
> simply *typing* in a browser text field can consistently
> spike the CPU
> to 100%. Its close to unusuable. I am reluctant to scroll
> pages, as I
> will enter the land of "watching paint dry" while
> the load triggered
> case fan sounds like its in a nascar race. 
> 
> Noothing happening now, normal process list:
> 
>   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+
>  COMMAND                                  
>  8887 halb      20   0  381m 226m  24m S  3.8 22.6 
> 10:36.79 firefox                                  
> 13548 root      20   0  423m  62m 7320 S  3.8  6.2
> 663:33.21 Xorg                                     
>  4311 halb      20   0  133m  23m  13m S  1.9  2.3  
> 0:52.76 konsole                                  
> 13760 halb      39  19 32816 5760 2496 S  1.9  0.6
> 133:05.88 trackerd                                 
>     1 root      20   0  3056  560  504 S  0.0  0.1  
> 0:02.62 init                                     
>     2 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 0:00.00 kthreadd
>     3 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 0:00.00 migration/0
>     4 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 3:29.32 ksoftirqd/0
> 
> Now, a minute later while typing in a text field
> (twitter.com):
> 
>  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+ 
> COMMAND                                  
> 13548 root      20   0  423m  62m 7320 R 51.1  6.2
> 663:34.85 Xorg                                     
>  8887 halb      20   0  381m 226m  24m R 47.1 22.6 
> 10:38.51 firefox                                  
> 13760 halb      39  19 32816 5760 2496 S  2.0  0.6
> 133:06.46 trackerd                                 
>     1 root      20   0  3056  560  504 S  0.0  0.1  
> 0:02.62 init                                     
>     2 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 0:00.00 kthreadd                                 
>     3 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 0:00.00 migration/0                              
>     4 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 3:29.32 ksoftirqd/0                              
>     5 root      RT  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0  
> 0:00.00 watchdog/0            
> 
> That load is from the *keyboard*. Madness! It stays like
> that until
> after I stop typing. I have disabled addons, changed config
> settings,
> etc, but it does not help significantly. Opera is just as
> bad so I
> don't think its just Firefox bloat. Epiphany if
> anything is worse. I
> switched from gnome to xfce and that helped greatly with
> some
> performance issues, but something is still right royally
> fubared. 
> 
> 
Hal, Are you fully updated and safe-upgraded after upgrading to Intrepid?
I had a similar problem with Intrepid that just went away after fully safe-upgrading up-to-date.
Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net