X with kernel 2.5 - speed improvements?

Message

syadnom · Post by **syadnom** » Thu Nov 28, 2002 9:49 pm

i just installed the development kernel 2.5 and i am noticing that X is performing much better. everything is smoother under both KDE and Gnome.

anybody else experience this?

previously i always ran the gentoo patched 2.4.19 and got choppy performance in X. i use a radeon8500 in this machine and i have used every driver from the DRI to gatos to firegl and now im running the newest from ATI. I thought i was just stuck with bad X performance cause of drivers but now it seems that the kernel makes the difference for me.

also, 2.5 has been very stable for me, no crashes, no lost data, everything seems great.

it also has a kernel driver for IP over Firewire, which is very nice

. I now have a web network between my 3 comps @ 400Mpbs/link. to show the relevance of this comment:
in kernel 2.5 im noticing better IO performance, my ethernet cards maintain higher thouroughput, as well as my hard drives. and with the firewire link to my machine with a 4x80Gb RAID0 array i can pull data FASTER accross the firewire link than i can to my local hard drive, i could not do this with 2.4.18 patched with the IP over Firewire.

Can't wait till its officially 2.6 and stable, people may stop dissing X

c_kuzmanic · Post by **c_kuzmanic** » Thu Nov 28, 2002 11:04 pm

I'd be willing to give it a try and see if it makes a difference in terms of performance. Could you tell us which version of 2.5 you installed?

OddFox · Post by **OddFox** » Thu Nov 28, 2002 11:07 pm

My friend says that Linux 2.5.x is a lot faster for him and manages memory much more efficiently. However, when I tried to install my NVidia drivers on a 2.5.x kernel they crapped out and told me that 2.5.x development kernels weren't supported w/the NVidia drivers. I could do a work-around and modify some of the source but I figure that it's better not to fiddle around with such things.

I would very much like some stable, official 2.5.x drivers, tho.

c_kuzmanic · Post by **c_kuzmanic** » Thu Nov 28, 2002 11:15 pm

OddFox wrote:My friend says that Linux 2.5.x is a lot faster for him and manages memory much more efficiently. However, when I tried to install my NVidia drivers on a 2.5.x kernel they crapped out and told me that 2.5.x development kernels weren't supported w/the NVidia drivers. I could do a work-around and modify some of the source but I figure that it's better not to fiddle around with such things.

I would very much like some stable, official 2.5.x drivers, tho.

Yep, that's where I hit a roadblock too since I use an nvidia card. As far as I understand it there is no sure way to compile the nvidia drivers with kernel 2.5.x .

Ahh well, I can wait until 2.6 I suppose:)

puddpunk · Post by **puddpunk** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:02 am

IIRC the latest drivers compile under 2.5.x

have a search on the forums.

dev · Post by **dev** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:03 am

I just installed 2.5.47, and I emerged the nvidia-kernel after a successful reboot, it applied a patch for the 2.5.x kernels automagically and it installed perfectly.

Everything is working great and running, from what I can tell, a bit quicker than usual.

puddpunk · Post by **puddpunk** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:07 am

i cant even get the freakin kernel to compile. It dies while trying to build my network card stuff (tulip). Thats in 2.5.47

In 2.5.48 it just dies for no paticular reason during the building of devfs!

c_kuzmanic · Post by **c_kuzmanic** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:08 am

dev wrote:I just installed 2.5.47, and I emerged the nvidia-kernel after a successful reboot, it applied a patch for the 2.5.x kernels automagically and it installed perfectly.

Everything is working great and running, from what I can tell, a bit quicker than usual.

Goodness, it patched the kernel automatically, huh? I just spent the better part of an hour patching the drivers myself, I guess I'll just try it your way then:)

Just in case, for anybody in need of the nvidia kernel 2.5.x patches here's the link:
http://thuis.zwanebloem.nl/nvidia/

dev · Post by **dev** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:31 am

In 2.5.48 it just dies for no paticular reason during the building of devfs!

I actually emerged 2.5.47 to 2.5.50. I tried each of them with the same config starting from 50 going down. I do particularly remember the devfs error in two of the kernels.

Only problem with 2.5.47 that I had was when compiling hid as a module for my usb mouse, it would require the keybdev module, which I can't seem to find. Compiling it into the kernel worked fine though.

You may want to try first compiling your nic driver as a module, then into the kernel. One way might work, you never know.

I also remember a good deal of netfilter options failing when compiling as modules.

OddFox · Post by **OddFox** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:45 am

Wow hey thanks guys, I had no idea that Gentoo automagically let you use NVidia on 2.5.x. The time I tried was in Slack 8.1. What a pleasent surprise.

puddpunk · Post by **puddpunk** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 2:06 am

I'd prefer not to compile my NIC drivers as modules, because they compile fine under 2.4.19, and since i'll be running these kernels in paralell, gentoo would try to load modules all over the place and look very ugly!

dev · Post by **dev** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 2:26 am

Each kernel has a seperate directory under /lib/modules for their modules.. One kernel wouldn't try to load modules for the other..

syadnom · Post by **syadnom** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 2:44 am

my gf2mx400 works great with the newest nvidia drivers under 2.5,

by the way, im using the 2.5.5 avail as

emerge developement-sources

-------

one thing i notice is that kernel 2.5.x takes MUCH longer to compile than the 2.4.x series did.

--
athlonxp 1600
radeon8500
512DDR
60GB WD
Soyo Dragon+

dev · Post by **dev** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 2:50 am

I noticed that also. However, if you make small changes, and have to create your kernel image again, it takes almost no time at all.

_SkeLeToN_ · Post by **_SkeLeToN_** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 3:23 am

This is the first time I try the kernel 2.5.x and I like the new interface for xconfig really nice.

Still configuring my kernel so we will see if will works

syadnom · Post by **syadnom** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 7:03 am

welcome to my hell with ati drivers!

this beta quality drive crap sucks

i can't believe im actually willing to go from a radeon8500 to a gf2mx400

this is rediculous

lotas · Post by **lotas** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 9:23 am

i had 2.5.47 from the bitkeeper sources. Worked well, and i cant actually remeber why i moved back to 2.4! Im goign to install the latest one, what ever that may be soon. Also just to note, 2.4.20 has been released.

morpheus · Post by **morpheus** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 9:46 am

i'm using kernel 2.5.44 and tried to install the nvidia-kernel-module. the module compiles and loads fine but when i start x all i get is a black screen and my computer hangs. only a hard restart helps. can you tell me what goes wrong here?

thanks

helmers · Post by **helmers** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 10:00 am

Works great!

Finally, after trying a lot of dev'sources, these work great! But I don't think that a new kernel will make X faster, the biggest problem with X is crappy acceleration. The thing kernel can do is speed up IO & lower latency, and that is good any way you look at it. I like this snappy new feeling, and will stick with 2.5. 50 unless some scary bug show up.

Swishy · Post by **Swishy** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 12:09 pm

Ive been running 2.5.47 fine also liking the snappy feeling , but have just noticed I cannot mount a cdrom .....using identical config to the old 2.4.19gentoo kernel ....might have to try 2.5.50 and see if this resolves it

Cheers
Dale.

taskara · Post by **taskara** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 12:17 pm

2.4.20 released too.. give that a whirl and compare to 2.5.50

can't be long for 2.6..... SURELY ?? ? ?

Mooses · Post by **Mooses** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 1:51 pm

Hi out there

I also wanted to give 2.5.50 a try, but every time I get the QM_MODULES Function not implemented error when lsmod'ing or modprobing. I made a nice
make mrproper
make menu (or x) config
make dep && make clean bzImage
make modules modules_install

And, yes, I do have module support enabled in the kernel.

Has anyone any answers, as I really would like to try once again (after about 5 trys)

Thanks in advance
Mooses

_SkeLeToN_ · Post by **_SkeLeToN_** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 3:57 pm

I try the 2.5.49-ac2 kernel and everything compiled fine without any problem... but after I loaded wit 2.5.49 I cant emerge alsa-driver I got seg fault ... samething for nvidia-kernel ....

anyone seen this ????

helmers · Post by **helmers** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 5:25 pm

Well, I've got the module-thing, but I've stopped using the evil Nvidia drivers (15 sec hang), and use the "nv" driver instead. The only module-based thing I've got is lm_sensors, and I can live without it, as long as my system's this responsive. The only problem I had was forgetting to enable "Unix Doman Sockets", which was bad.

Now that it's back on, everything is just peachy.

Hopefully someone will figure out prelinking too as well, so that the speed really improves.

morpheus · Post by **morpheus** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 6:28 pm

do i need any special versions of some utilities for running 2.5.50? my problem is that the modules don't load. i always get the QM_MODULES error. i've testet it with modutils 2.4.20 and 2.4.22 but the error is still there. please help me....