Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Hi, I've had this problem ever since I've been playing with linux and never found a resolution. I find linux runs much more "jerkier" than windows (talking GUI here), with soo many basic operations making the processor usage shoot up to 100% (moving a window around, for example). Its hard to give specific examples because its just a general 'feel' of linux, everything seems to involve that little bit of lag, nothing is smooth... unlike windows xp, which runs perfectly smoothly. At its worst I've actually had xmms stop playing mp3s because I've been moving a window around. I'm using Fedora 4 right now, but I had exactly the same experience with CentOS 3.
Can anyone suggest to me likely/common causes of this general lag? Perhaps linux simply cannot be expected to be as smooth as windows? Is this a common issue, or is it something to do with my specific setup?
RAM doesnt seem to be an issue. According to system monitor I got plenty. Its more to do with procesor hitting 100% for minor things. I just watched system monitor whilst I moved the mouse cursor around and it was hitting 30% processor usage! just for moving my mouse! That cant be right.
My spec is:
1.3 Ghz Athlon
768MB RAM
ATI 9550 - with official fglrx drivers
Ah no dont say that! Spent so much time getting fedora how I like it. Besides, as I said I had the same issue with centos 3. To add a couple more specifics: Scrolling the page in firefox, file browser, etc is sluggish and unresponsive. Dragging a window leaves a trail behind (and as I said gives 100% cpu usage).
From top it seems that X uses most of the CPU when I move a window around, followed by whatever program is needing to repaint because of the covering/uncovering of it by said window. Together they add to just under 100%, not sure where the other few percent goes to make it 100%, but it does.
So basically, I should just expect linux to have a lower performance threshold that wndows xp? Even though it is seemingly (at least on the GUI side) much more simple? Dont know if I could cope with that. Looks like I'm going back to xp for a while.
I should just expect linux to have a lower performance threshold that wndows xp?
No, but I can't see from here what you didn't do to get Linux configured. Is your kernel optimised, is all your hardware working properly, do you use Opengl with the desktop, are you running the unstable xcompmgr with Xorg etc?
Linux should outperform any Windows box, since it multi-processing and ram usage is much better.
How would I go about optimizing my kernel? Does this usually result in a large performance increase?
Pretty damn sure my hardware's working properly.
I have latest ATI opengl drivers installed and can only assume I'm using opengl for my desktop. How would I go about checking this?
I looked in system monitor, couldn't see anything called xcompmgr.
See, this is the stuff I was on about, there must be a load of common causes of slowdowns -- I dont know any because I'm new but you all must know some.
OK, tried suggestions above. I got optimized tweaked kernel and recompiled... but no performance increase, and in fact lost my ntfs support! (and couldnt get it back, package already installed, yet filesystem not recognized) so I went back to my previous kernel.
I dont really understand the xorg.conf file, but I messed around with a few settings to no avail.
I am leaning towards a problem with my ATI driver. Was wondering if anyone could look at their settings and tell me if, like mine, the ATI control panel displays "Card name: unknown" and "Chip type: unknown" for display adapter? The OpenGL section all looks right. And in system settings->display, under "hardware" I have "Monitor type: Unknown monitor" and "Video card: Unknown video card"
Reason I ask is because after I changed kernel, on the first boot it failed to load the fglrx module, yet nothing changed - which leads me to suspect even when its loaded its not being used somehow.
At the end of the day, whether you have fc4 exactly how you like it or not it sounds like it would be much less work to just simply install another distribution. I have an old machine. By the end of its previous life it was struggling to run windows 98, there was no way it could handle xp. But Debian is nothing short of a miracle. Honestly judging by the speed of operation you could be fooled into thinking it was a brand new system. Don't assume linux in general is always slower than windows.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.