rxvt-unicode is slow? or is it just me...

[dimaash]

Hi every1. Just installed rxvt-unicode. Finally something that has AA fonts and transparency (with visual addons). However, my urxvt is kinda slow when it comes to redrawing the window contents after it's been moved. Is it normal due to AA fonts and transparency ? Or something i forgot to configure ? Cause that little moment that it takes to redraw the screen is really spoiling the pleasure.

And since we are on the topic, feel free to post ur terminal screenshots. Always wanted to see what other people can come up with.

Thanks.

[i92guboj]

Slow? Never. There might be something strange that you are doing with it. I personally never use transparencies since I believe that they are just an annoying thing when you are thrying to find out something into a coloured term (so I wont post any screenshot, since my setup is very conventional when it comes to the visual part).

Are you using XComposite of anything like that? If you are dont expect a big performance. The tinting method can also be important, so check if you get the same problems without transparency and if affirmative, try to use a non tranparent urxvt (believe me, it is possible) or change the tinting method or something. I can't advice you better since I don't like that fancy things at all. URxvt is one of the fastest terms out there, and much lighter and featureful than xterm (which in the other side is a memory hog). About configuration, I advice you to use this (along whith any other config that you might have:

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URxvt*jumpScroll:               True
URxvt*scrollTtyOutput:          False
URxvt*scrollTtyKeypress:        True
URxvt*scrollWithBuffer:         True

This will scroll asynchronously (faster output), and retain the current view if some application is throwing more output (for example while emerging, if you want to read some important output while the thing continues). It will, though, scroll down to the prompt line it you press any key. This is the excat behaviour that I want into a terminal emulator.

[dimaash]

so check if you get the same problems without transparency

You were right 6thpink. Without transparency it is as fast as XTerm. And by the way, i am not really a fun of all the candy-eye stuff, eventhough it looks good. However, i dont mind having a shadow of some pic on my terminal. That's why i was using shading. I'll try to play with different combinations to get it right. What i am mostly concerened about is AA fonts. When you are looking a terminal you want to have a good looking font which is easy on the eyes. So, can you still re-consider posting a screenshot of your terminal?. I want to see your AA font and how clear, sharp it is...and etc.

Thanks.

[i92guboj]

Here you are, as you can see, it is nothing fancy. Soft and clear, easy on the eye and very comfortable when you need to have terms all around for hours. Low contrast is the key. The fonts is just bitstream veras sans mono, 8 pixs (I can see them ok, and preffer very small fonts to work).

http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic.php?u=16075m1TQm&i=769120
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic.php?u=16075m1TQm&i=769121
http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic.php?u=16075m1TQm&i=769122

The config, in case you like it, is this:

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
! URxvt configuration !
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
URxvt*font:             xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=roman
URxvt*boldFont:         xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=roman
URxvt*italicFont:       xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=roman
URxvt*boldItalicFont:   xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=roman
URxvt*background:               Grey95
URxvt*foreground:               Grey25
URxvt*colorBD:                  darkgreen
URxvt*colorIT:                  darkblue
URxvt*colorUL:                  darkred
URxvt*jumpScroll:               True
URxvt*scrollstyle:              plain
URxvt*loginShell:               True
URxvt*scrollBar_floating:       True
URxvt*scrollTtyOutput:          False
URxvt*scrollTtyKeypress:        True
URxvt*scrollWithBuffer:         True
URxvt*saveLines:                50000
URxvt*internalBorder:           2
URxvt*externalBorder:           0
URxvt*cursorColor:              grey50
URxvt*cursorBlink:              True
URxvt*imLocale:                 es_ES.UTF-8
URxvt*color0:                   grey10
URxvt*color1:                   darkseagreen
URxvt*color2:                   steelblue
URxvt*color3:                   grey60
URxvt*color4:                   steelblue
URxvt*color5:                   darkseagreen
URxvt*color6:                   #336699
URxvt*color7:                   grey60
URxvt*color8:                   darkred
URxvt*color9:                   orange
URxvt*color10:                  darkseagreen
URxvt*color11:                  darkblue
URxvt*color12:                  darkred
URxvt*color13:                  grey60
URxvt*color14:                  orange
URxvt*color15:                  darkblue

EDIT: For some reason the sreenies seem a bit foggy, I don't know if the one to blame is ksnapshot, the jpeg format or the pix8 host. Anyway, I can guarantee you that the look of the antialiased fonts under urxvt is far better than the xterm antialias, and the rendering is much faster. I think that urxvt has the best font rendering engine when it comes to terminal emulators.

[ColdWind]

I use urxvt (in daemon mode) with transparency and it works fine.

[dimaash]

Nice combination of colors 6thpink. It actually works both ways: with dark background and with light. A question: That line drawing that you have on your prompt is that due to vga fonts?

[KK_r]

My urxvt (with deamon) takes 5 seconds to start, is that supposed to be normal? (Athlon 2400+)

[i92guboj]

Nice combination of colors 6thpink. It actually works both ways: with dark background and with light. A question: That line drawing that you have on your prompt is that due to vga fonts?

Indeed, it works quite well with dark and light bg's. The lines are just a bit of line art, which might or might not be displayed correctly depending on the font. Usually, if you use ttf fonts you should have no problem. Under the plain console (no X) it higly depends on the charset that you choose to use. Some will display them ok, some other will display them oddly.

My urxvt (with deamon) takes 5 seconds to start, is that supposed to be normal? (Athlon 2400+)

No, urxvt is lighting fast. There might be something wrong with your setup or your libraries.

[KK_r]

changed to a non-xft font and it started in less then a second...but now all fonts looks like crap is there a way of speeding up font rendering so I can use xft fonts?

[i92guboj]

Never experienced such a thing with urxvt, but seems that the thing is related to xft. What fontconfig version do you use?

Also, what font are you using? Can you post the lines regarding your font configuration? I dont really know what could be causing that glitch. I will search a bit and come back here if I find something useful.

[KK_r]

I messed around and tried a lot of different fonts, but when I returned to my old settings urxvt starts just fine...
I did a

Code: Select all

time urxvt -e

when it didn't work that took about 5 seconds, now it takes 0,8
All settings is the same as before, I have no idea why it suddenly works...
I won't be suprised if it stops working tomorrow :/

media-libs/fontconfig-2.3.2

urxvt.font: xft:Luxi Mono:size=12, xft:Arial Unicode MS

[dimaash]

Hey 6thpink, I've tried to draw the lines on my bash prompt (similar to urs) right. It worked, though I didnt use the so called VGA font (like in those howto's). What i have in my bashrc is the following:

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PS1="$(echo -e "\033(0lqWTF\nmq\033(B")\$ "

Which basically draws a rectangular bracket linking 2 lines. However, when i resize the window instead of the line i see the actual character for which the line stands. It works if i just move around the window, but if i resize it i get that. So, you have any idea how to fix that ?

[i92guboj]

Hey 6thpink, I've tried to draw the lines on my bash prompt (similar to urs) right. It worked, though I didnt use the so called VGA font (like in those howto's). What i have in my bashrc is the following:

Code: Select all

PS1="$(echo -e "\033(0lqWTF\nmq\033(B")\$ "

Which basically draws a rectangular bracket linking 2 lines. However, when i resize the window instead of the line i see the actual character for which the line stands. It works if i just move around the window, but if i resize it i get that. So, you have any idea how to fix that ?

Well, the first thing (and mybe the cause of your problem) is that you dont need echo to do that. Bash understand the escape sequences exactly the same as echo, so no need to add that overheat. You can just use this:

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PS1="\[\033)0\016\]\[\]lq\[\017\033(B\]${whatever}\n\[\033)0\016\]\[\]mq\[\017\033(B\]-> $ "

Wich is pretty much the same that you are doing but w/o the need of an echo command.

This is offtopic, but in case you are interested here are the if's that I use to handle the root user and also whether if you are into a term or a native console (no fancy characters allowed):

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# colors & co
 red="\[\033[0;31m\]"
 RED="\[\033[1;31m\]"
 green="\[\033[0;32m\]"
 GREEN="\[\033[1;32m\]"
 yellow="\[\033[0;33m\]"
 YELLOW="\[\033[1;33m\]"
 blue="\[\033[0;34m\]"
 BLUE="\[\033[1;34m\]"
 pink="\[\033[0;35m\]"
 PINK="\[\033[1;35m\]"
 cyan="\[\033[0;36m\]"
 CYAN="\[\033[1;36m\]"
 white="\[\033[0;37m\]"
 WHITE="\[\033[1;37m\]"
 NC="\[\033[0m\]"
 top="\[\033)0\016\]\[\]lq\[\017\033(B\]"
 bottom="\[\033)0\016\]\[\]mq\[\017\033(B\]"

 # tests
 if [[ "$TERM" = "linux" ]] ; then
                 # we are on the system console : no fancy characters allowed
                 if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]] ; then
                 # we are root
                         PS1="-${RED}(${CYAN}\d, \t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(\u@\H)${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}-\n+${pink}[\#]${NC}-> # "
                 else
                 # we are not root
                        PS1="-${RED}(${CYAN}\d, \t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${GREEN}\u@\H${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}-\n+${pink}[\#]${NC}-> $ "
                 fi
 else
                 # not on the system console, fancy chars allowed
                 if [[ ${EUID} == 0 ]] ; then
                 # we are root
                        PS1="${top}${RED}(${CYAN}\d, \t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(\u@\H)${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}-·\n${bottom}${pink}[\#]${NC}-> # "
                 else
                 # we are not root
                        PS1="${top}${RED}(${CYAN}\d, \t${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${GREEN}\u@\H${RED})${NC}-${RED}(${BLUE}\w${RED})${NC}-·\n${bottom}${pink}[\#]${NC}-> $ "
                 fi
 fi

This is not mine, I took from elsewhere that I can't remember, so, credits go to an unknown person.