konsole running very slow [solved - workaround]

ckx3009 · Last edited by ckx3009 on Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:03 pm; edited 2 times in total

when i use Konsole on my kde 3.5.9, it scrolls lines very slow and the X process takes one of my CPUs to 100%. this happens when a lot of lines are moving on the screen, such as when i'm running an emerge. when it is no moving, the X process takes the right.

i'm not using compiz.
i have an ATI mobility radeon X1600: 3000 fps with glxgears.
i'm running the kernel 2.6.25-gentoo-r7.
if some other info's are necessary, i'll give them.

thank you for help

notHerbert · Advocate Joined: 11 Mar 2008 Posts: 2228 Location: 45N 73W

Give this a try

ckx3009 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:52 pm Post subject:

the problem is not only given by various emerge: when i have a long output, for example the output of

defenderBG · l33t Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 817

I doubt that niceness will help you, and I bet once I had this problem as well, just if I could remember what I did back then...

I think I had a problem with enabled transperancy, if you have it enabled, please disable it and see if it works better.
If not: grep ^konsole ~/.xsession-errors
egrep '^\((EE|WW)\)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

ckx3009 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 6:27 pm Post subject:

also without transparency the "cpu consume" is the same and konsole is still slow

defenderBG · l33t Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 817

Normaly when there are productivity issues you try to solve first all the problems that are on your system and then, if it didnt bring anything else, cross fingers and do black vodoo.
Unfortunalty I cannot help you, because I dont know how to solve any of those problems. While you are at it, see if you have any interesting stuff in dmesg.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:35 am Post subject:

The slow appearance of konsole is due to a change in the kernel from the .22 family to everything beyond. I am not sure what caused this, but it has been noted by numerous people. As far as I know, the only "fix" is to use another console, such as the terminal that comes with XFCE, which is what I use.

I'm not sure what changed, but I know that something changed as soon as 2.6.23 was released. If you search this forum for slow konsole, you'll find a few threads about the topic.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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ckx3009 · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:02 am Post subject:

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject:

You're welcome, and you could tag it as workaround. That lets folks know you can get things to work in spite of the error.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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ok · Guru Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 390 Location: germany

Have you started acpi?

ckx3009 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:03 pm Post subject:

no, acpi was not started...

now I stopped hald, started acpid, then hald and I'm now going to try with acpid started.
edit: nothing changed about performance, but now it loads acpi

@pappy_mcfae
there is a "little" problem using terminal perhaps given by compositing (it is similar to some "artifacts" made by compiz-fusion)...
with terminal started the screen becomes "difficult to describe": the terminal window is duplicated numerous times but is not shown as it should be...

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject:

I'm not an expert on compositing. I have used compiz, but I find it lacking in many ways. I don't believe anything in the kernel would cause a problem with compiz. Things that affect compiz are usually stored in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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ok · Guru Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 390 Location: germany

Do you use 2 screens?

ckx3009 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:33 pm Post subject:

@pappy_mcfae
I never have been able to use compiz with a good performance, probably my xorg.conf is not well configured.

@ok
I'm on a laptop so I can use an external monitor or the laptop's lcd, or, at least, i tried to do that, but without satisfaction by the result (extended desktop is not so good as in windows).

my standard resolution is 1280x800: a friend told me to set those values, so I left them as he said.

about evdev, perhaps you means this package: x11-drivers/xf86-input-evdev.
if yes, I emerged it to try to solve a problem, but with it I had some troubles with the keyboard, so I unmerged it soon. perhaps some config files may create that error.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:41 am Post subject:

Don't feel too bad. I had Compiz up and running. I lost patience with it because of it's incredible instability. Performance wasn't a problem, getting it to work right, consistently, and for more than an hour under the lash of a serious power user...that was a problem!

Blessed be!
Pappy
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ckx3009 · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject:

an other workaround to solve this trouble is....

to use compiz-fusion

using that, konsole scrolls normally!

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3286 Location: Canada

heedless · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 86

I have the same problem.

Kernel 2.6.22 solves it.

But i've also noted, that when i change fonts in konsole to something not true-type, performance is great again.
I'm now using Fixed [misc] as my font in konsole and it's at least 10 times faster.

Maybe it's an interaction between the new kernel and freetype?

jackhole · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2009 Posts: 55

heedless · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 86

Hmm.. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is slow for me. Much much slower than Fixed [misc].
I don't think that the file size matters, as the required glyphs are cached in memory. The large file size probably means it contains many different languages, but only one is loaded and used.

This certainly needs further investigation... i wonder though if people with current hardware see the same problems?
The key for the comparison would be the kernel versions... ie. current hardware with the aforementioned kernels.

jackhole · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2009 Posts: 55

dunix · Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 12:38 am Post subject:

I also noticed that konsole was slow with some fonts and normal with others. I have X configured with the following options in the device section:

heedless · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 26 May 2004 Posts: 86

donmartio · Apprentice Joined: 11 Dec 2004 Posts: 261

Hmm, i have the same Problem here and it's realy annoying.

It appears when i had to update xorg-server to 1.5.3.

I use kde-3.5.10. My kernel is 2.6.28-gentoo-r3 (since yesterday). Compiz was always disabeld (i enabled it this morning just to
test if this may solve the Problem).

Changing the font doesn't do it.

I have an ati card and the server is running with the fglrx module.

The Problem occurs in konsole only. Everything else works just fine.
I changed my term to urxvt since somebody told me he has no problems having nearly the same setup.

Is there anything else i can try.
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donmartio · Apprentice Joined: 11 Dec 2004 Posts: 261

Ok and here some funny stuff.
when i start konsole using nxclient/nxserver on the same machine everything seems to work fine.

There must be something i miss or have to add or whatever...

any suggestions???
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