Linux is slow :(

[oshuaa]

Hey Guys,

Well this is more a rant then anything but I would love some great suggestions to come out of it as well. My issue is that Linux is slow! I have had the unfortunate displeasure of running windows for several years as well as Linux and I must say that it's slow.

Here is what I mean by that. I have a really fast computer (IMO) and the compairing or windows to linux on this same machine is like night and day. In windows the system is very zippy and quick. There is no lag and windows on the screen move nicely even with all the eye candy turned on.

Now with Linux and keep in mind I have tried Debian, Suse, Fedora and others and they are all slow. I am currently running FC5 and the system does not run well at all. I have everything installed and configured including the display driver from nvidia and when I move a window it lags all the way across the screen.

I have tried other systems with Custom built Kernel on other systems and removed services all that jazz but nothing makes it go any faster.

Here are my System Specs... Please let me know if anyone has some suggestions.

Gigabyte - NForce 3 250GB Mother Board
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
4 Gigs of DDR 400 in dual channel mode
250gb gb hdd using Sata
128MB Nvidia FX5200 AGP


Thanks for any information you could provide.

Josh

[David Becker]

What output do you get from 'xdpyinfo'? And what does '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' read? And while you're at it, what output do you get from 'dmesg |grep -i agp'

[SlowJet]

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ -- That's NOT a fast CPU. It is only so so in the fast catagory.
It about as fast as a 6 year oly Pent IV.

But have you yum updated to get all the fixes and are you using the lastest kernal?
What is your monitor brand, model, and settings?

SJ

[SlowJet]

#Here is mine. I have a Pent IV 2.4 ht smp, 1 GB 400 mem, 800 fsb, ata100 160 WD,
MIS GF FX5200 128 , Intel 865bgf m/b

Sj


# xdpyinfo
name of display: :0.0
version number: 11.0
vendor string: The X.Org Foundation
vendor release number: 70101000
X.Org version: 7.1.1
maximum request size: 16777212 bytes
motion buffer size: 256
bitmap unit, bit order, padding: 32, LSBFirst, 32
image byte order: LSBFirst
number of supported pixmap formats: 7
supported pixmap formats:
depth 1, bits_per_pixel 1, scanline_pad 32
depth 4, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
depth 8, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
depth 15, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
depth 16, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
depth 24, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
depth 32, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
keycode range: minimum 8, maximum 255
focus: window 0x340001f, revert to Parent
number of extensions: 30
BIG-REQUESTS
Composite
DAMAGE
DOUBLE-BUFFER
DPMS
Extended-Visual-Information
GLX
MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
MIT-SHM
MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD
RANDR
RECORD
RENDER
SECURITY
SGI-GLX
SHAPE
SYNC
TOG-CUP
X-Resource
XC-APPGROUP
XC-MISC
XFIXES
XFree86-Bigfont
XFree86-DGA
XFree86-Misc
XFree86-VidModeExtension
XInputExtension
XKEYBOARD
XTEST
XVideo
default screen number: 0
number of screens: 1

screen #0:
dimensions: 1280x1024 pixels (361x271 millimeters)
resolution: 90x96 dots per inch
depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
root window id: 0x65
depth of root window: 24 planes
number of colormaps: minimum 1, maximum 1
default colormap: 0x20
default number of colormap cells: 256
preallocated pixels: black 0, white 16777215
options: backing-store NO, save-unders NO
largest cursor: 64x64
current input event mask: 0xfa2033
KeyPressMask KeyReleaseMask EnterWindowMask
LeaveWindowMask ButtonMotionMask StructureNotifyMask
SubstructureNotifyMask SubstructureRedirectMask FocusChangeMask
PropertyChangeMask ColormapChangeMask
number of visuals: 9
default visual id: 0x23
visual:
visual id: 0x23
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x24
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x25
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x26
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x27
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x28
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x29
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2a
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x63
class: TrueColor
depth: 32 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
[root@Jade-38 ~]# dmesg |grep -i agp
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected an Intel 865 Chipset.
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
[root@Jade-38 ~]# #I actually have an GF FX5200 (without the nvidia drv)
[root@Jade-38 ~]# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# XFree86 4 configuration created by pyxf86config

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, a font server independent of the X server is
# used to render fonts.
FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
# Option "Xleds" "1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
# Option "XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
# Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
# Option "XkbModel" "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# or:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
#
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "ENVISION"
DisplaySize 360 270
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 30.0 - 95.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection

[VictorienSardou]

you are using driver "nv" .
install the nvidia drivers from livna repo. there are various guides about how to do it.
look at the output from glxgears before and after to see the difference.

[SlowJet]

I'm not the org op. ;)

I know I'm using nv because I'm running FC6t2 with xorg 7.1.

(and I use a new kenel almost every day. )

I'm waiting for the 1 line command install in October. lol

SJ

[oshuaa]

VictorienSardou - Dood that is just way out in left field. Great for him to not be using the nvidia driver.

SlowJet - I was not meaning to state that my system is the greatest think since French Toast or anything but it should not be having any trouble running the damn desktop version of a linux OS.

I will post my list of stuff although I am not sure what that is going to solve. I have the drivers installed correctly and glx gears and info are both fine.. Direct rendering is on and I am getting like 6000 FPS.

I would post it now but I am at work so I cannot. I don't want this to turn into some kind of hate fest because I am saying that Linux is slow. I love the OS and still continue to use it but I am just lost as to why it's slow... Because it will run on older hardware that windows cannot even run on anymore and is very efficient. I have a ok level of understanding Linux but I am not an expert so I thought perhaps I am not doing something right.

David Becker - I will post these for sure.. You seem to be the only person interested in perhaps figuring out why it's slow and for that I am thankful. I don't need to hated on or flamed at... I am also wondering if anyone else if having these same issues?

Again as I said I will post this information as soon as I get home...

Thanks Guys

[wshawn]

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ -- That's NOT a fast CPU. It is only so so in the fast catagory.
It about as fast as a 6 year oly Pent IV.


Easy now. Not everyone will agree with you. :D

So how is FC6 working for you?

[pparks1]

Diehard Linux fan here myself, but my experience is almost always that Windows is faster on medium to high end hardware than Linux. From booting the OS, to launching the most common apps to shutting down the system. The 3 primary machines I have used to make this claim are

#1. Pentium 3 at 1.0ghz, 512MB ram and 20GB IDE HD
#2. Sempron 2800+, 1GB ram (see sig block for remainder of details)
#3. Pentium IV at 3.2Ghz, 2GB ram.

I recently posted something about this as a challege to make FC5 perform as fast as Windows XP. It's an interesting read...(some agree, others argue that LInux is twice as fast and others seem to feel that nobody ever feels that Linux is slower).
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=120391&highlight=fast

Just another case in point of a Windows user trying out Linux and not being impressed with system speed. I am very much impressed with Linux for a number of other areas and that is why I use it, but overall system speed is lacking for me compared to XP on the exact same hardware.

[oshuaa]

Exactly... I love linux because it just works and for many other reasons... but I have to say that windows is faster :(

[pparks1]

but I have to say that windows is faster
I completely agree. That will certainly tick off some people here and I am sure that they will post that we are simply wrong, ignorant or looking at the wrong things fundamentally. But I have asked many times for people to prove otherwise to me and thus far I haven't been too impressed with the findings.

[wshawn]

I think that totally has to do with the way they are set up on the drives. I split the swap and /home off to a second primary drive and the gaming rigs I build for my clients tend to smoke under Linux. The start up times on some progs is noticeable when it shouldn't be, I have no complaints.

[thlsmith]

I've used linux on several variants of the x86 architecture (such as k6-II, celerons, recent athlons, pentium) and I have found the desktop performance in all cases to be frustratingly behind that of windows loaded on the same machines. Having said that, I also run scientific applications under linux and have found the performance of such applications to be comparable to similar applications under windows.

Regarding desktop performance (I use GNOME), the issues I have seem to be primarily due to lack of a cache for menu items and frequently used library cache. (I could be wrong though!)

Oh, and a perceived gui slowness (gtk, xorg, metacity interaction).

[pparks1]

I split the swap and /home off to a second primary drive This really shouldn't be necessary to get good performance. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I didn't run two drives in Windows (with one being the pagefile). I'm trying to compare apples to apples and that meant 1 hard drive

My feelings are based on a stopwatch and several test machines. Granted the boot time is not really a big deal since I never shut off my machine, but I was just comparing the things people tend to complain about most. #1. boot time #2. speed of apps launching on desktop #3 speed of firefox opening up for the first time. #4 start up time of OpenOffice. (not necessarily in that order).

[SlowJet]

Well, it wasn't personal.

Here are the facts.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz / 1MB Cache / 2000MHz FSB / Socket AM2 / Dual-Core (Windsor) / Processor with Fan

32-bit mode 2 GHz


My Pent IV 2.40c ht
MFG date March , 2003 speed 2.4GHZ Ht allows smp kernel.

FC6T2 has been ok until today with the new 2.16 Gnome.
It has crashed to a black screen 3 times, to the user logon screen 3 times,
(and my fav) it just rebootted for no good reason. :)
And there is no messages anywhere in the logs?

But it will all be fixed by Friday.

SJ

[oshuaa]

Ah so I see that I am not alone.. I Probably should have searched and could have found the other post.

pparks1 - Great write up on the thread man... I really love linux and use it as my main desktop as mentioned for other reasons... I just wish it would perform speed wise a little better.

[steve941]

1st, the Athlon 64 3500 is a very decent CPU, its fast, by no means is it top of the line, but .. well don't get me started on comparing to a P4 cus it destroys it in general ... on every review and comparison ive read
BUT it seems like your computer is a bit older and the actual revision core is most likely older ex the newest Athlon 64 core is I think Orleans

oshuaa: its a decent computer and i know linux kernel supports your chipset / hard drive (SATA controller ex) and CPU.

What kernel and linux don't support is video cards as there are no open source drivers, but the binary from Nvidia should work.

assuming you have everything configure correctly like the video driver from nvidia here's my suggestions:

hopefully your using Fedora 5 x86_64 because it will support your 4GB of ram and 32 bit fedora can't properly utilite it.

or you could also take 2 RAM chips out temporarily too see if that helps

Also, check bios settings, i'm not exactly sure what to look for, but check through them all. For instances on some motherboards there are Linux specific options.

my theory is its some bios setting and or memory issue becuase the kernel supports the hardware you listed.

here's something else to try just for kicks:
open up xorg.conf
<su ->
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
find Load DRI
comment out so it becomes
#Load DRI
reboot

hope something ive posted helps.

OH there may be some kernel arguments to try, its worth a shot google for them or search forum ...

[Finalzone]

About speed, it would be really nice to see how that mechanisms work under Windows system. Unfortunately, it won't happen because the source is closed. I sense that speed in Windows system is due to various hacks as the performances are degrading with intensive usage.

[timdsmith]

I think Linux speed also depends on the distribution. I run 2 linux distributions here at home. One is Arch Linux running on a PIII 866. (plus a server running FreeBSD on an AMD K62 350. But that one doesn't even have a gui so...)
The other is Fedora Core 5 running on an AMD Athlon XP 2400.
Same amount of memory in both.
The 866 running Arch is almost twice as fast launching applications, etc as the 2400 running Fedora. I put Arch on the 2400 and it absolutely screams!! Blows winbloze and everything else away as far as speed goes. But, I run Fedora on that machine just because I like it. And I'm still tweaking it to get a little better speed out of it.
Any way...Just my .02
Tim

[pparks1]

I sense that speed in Windows system is due to various hacks as the performances are degrading with intensive usageNot to be a negative Nancy, but doesn't the speed of FC# also decrease during periods of intensive usage?

I think Linux speed also depends on the distribution.Agreed. But since this is a fedora forum and the OP was using Fedora, it makes sense to continue comparing Windows to Fedora here.

I've also seen marked speed improvements by changing to extremely light-weight windows managers....but that goes slightly outside of the box as well. Many of the beginners either want Gnome or KDE and they want all of that functionality. It just doesn't seem right to me to strip down your Linux box to try to get speed out of it. If other distros are faster, how can we tweak Fedora and make it even faster yet ?

[wshawn]

My feelings are based on a stopwatch and several test machines. Granted the boot time is not really a big deal since I never shut off my machine, but I was just comparing the things people tend to complain about most. #1. boot time #2. speed of apps launching on desktop #3 speed of firefox opening up for the first time. #4 start up time of OpenOffice. (not necessarily in that order).

This is where I have to agree. The one thing we do have to take into consideration is that quite a few of programs ran in Windows will have a stub get "cached" during startup / login. Some of this is intentional by the developers other times its just smoke and mirrors as Windows is pre guessing what we are gonna do based on past history.

In either case, the app launch time should be addressed.

If other distros are faster, how can we tweak Fedora and make it even faster yet ?

Sounds like FC7 should focus on speed.....

[David Becker]

I have everything installed and configured including the display driver from nvidia and when I move a window it lags all the way across the screen.

X is a network architecture. This provides a lot of versatility not found in Windows. I can run Sparc binaries (on a sparc station) while I output on an x86 architecture.
It's a trade-off between versatility and performance.

What does 'dmesg | grep -i agp' have to say?

David

[uth]

Exactly, X provides some network overhead that makes the display be not as fast as something that renders more directly. Also the Window Manager/Desktop environment can be a source of slowness, try using different ones.

Dragging windows around has always been snappier on Windows than on Linux. However this is more of an "it feels slow" than "it is slow". I've found that Windows usually bogs down more under less load than Linux does. So there's different ways to measure performance, and there are trade-offs

Anyway there have been projects that try to build a GUI environment, bypassing X for better performance. A good example is "Direct FB". These projects don't seem to gain alot of popularity. I guess people are happy enough with X.

[David Becker]

I've found that Windows usually bogs down more under less load than Linux does. So there's different ways to measure performance, and there are trade-offs

I agree and feel the linux scheduler is more 'fair' in allocating (CPU) resources than Windows. Windows will give you more direct satisfaction at the expense of other processes. Occassionally this model (together with the rest of the WIndows architecture) makes Windows less available, i.e. have to reboot. As if cooperative multitasking still prevails in Windows' scheduler.

There's some performance loss, but that loss is in favour of better availability and reliability. On Windows, your foreground app may show better performance, but it's at the expense of all the background processes.

Still, there's always an issue of hardware vendors having certain (performance related) features only available for the (proprietary) windows drivers. Not much one can do about that, but even that has been changing in favour of linux the last couple of years.

David

[oshuaa]

How about Arch Linux? I have been looking at this for some time and it setup for i686 so I would assume that would make it must faster?

[David Becker]

How about Arch Linux? I have been looking at this for some time and it setup for i686 so I would assume that would make it must faster?

I don't know this distri, but there's also stuff like gentoo which seem pretty optimised.

I have to admit that since I swapped Firefox for Swiftfox that my machine has gotten 2-3 more years of usage left in it (not counting possible hardware failures). Firefox's performance just made the browsing experience somewhat useless, the response time didn't coincide with my usage habits. Instead of firefox activity being embedded in my usage activity, my usage activity was embedded in firefox's (sluggish) performance.

I went from slow rendering, slow opening of windows/tabs, slow activiation of bookmark buttons (and all too often the drag 'n drop being activated too soon due to firefox's sluggishness) to fast everything, or should I say 'swift'.

I think you can check in which period I started using swiftfox based on increase of my posting delta (offset against time) in these forums.

David

[timdsmith]

How about Arch Linux? I have been looking at this for some time and it setup for i686 so I would assume that would make it must faster?Like I said, it blows away any distro I have tried as far as speed goes. It doesn't have all the cute gui config tools that fedora has, so you have to get your hands dirty. I also run it at work on a 2.4 GHz processor. It launches OpenOffice.org Writer, Calc, etc in 1 second. Fully up and ready to type. That's just one example of it's speed. By comparison, on my Fedora machine which has an Athlon XP 2400 processor, (about 1.8 GHz I think....) it takes 22 seconds. Still, like I said, I run Fedora on one machine because I really like it.