mimi
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Post by mimi on May 22, 2021 9:11:29 GMT
I'm finding that my 14-year-old laptop is more 'laggy' with BL6-64bit than I'd originally thought, despite its RAM idling at only 220MB and having an SSD. Its a machine with a 2GHz dual-core T3200 CPU with the maximum amount of permitted RAM (4GB) installed.
What modules do you think I could switch-off or remove, to improve laptop performance ?
For a first step, I thought of switching-off the animation you get, when you hover over the icons on the left side of the shelf, but I'm unsure how to do this.
What other resource-hungry modules could I switch off ?
Thank you for any advice on this.
EDIT: CPU is T3200 (not T7300) - typo corrected.
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Post by thewaiter on May 22, 2021 9:46:57 GMT
Hmmm
I haven't noticed the modules have some impact to Moksha's performance. I have an idea though. Try to use htop application in terminal and look what app could take too much CPU power. Maybe this will give us a clue...
Stefan
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on May 22, 2021 12:08:04 GMT
Not much to tweak for speed, because Bodhi is already pretty lean and fast by default.... But you may get some speed gain with this: 1. Don't turn your web browser into a Christmas tree: you can install a lot of add-ons (extensions) in the web browsers Firefox, Chromium and Google Chrome. Those add-ons can be very useful, but they have a couple of important disadvantages, because they are "applications within an application": - they slow your browser down, especially if there are a lot of them; - they can cause malfunctions, both in each other and in the browser itself; - it has occurred: add-ons with malicious content. Don't trust them blindly. So don't turn your browser into a Christmas tree: don't adorn it with lots of add-ons. Limit yourself to only a few add-ons, that are really important for you. Note: watch out for add-ons that claim that they make your browser faster! Often they do more harm than good. Do not install them: even if one or two of them can really make your browser run noticeably faster, they may damage the stability of your browser. 2. Set swappiness at 20 and zswap at 40 %: easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/swappiness.htmlNote: in the how-to, replace xed admin:// by pkexec leafpad, so for example: pkexec leafpad /etc/default/grub |
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on May 22, 2021 13:47:57 GMT
For a first step, I thought of switching-off the animation you get, when you hover over the icons on the left side of the shelf, but I'm unsure how to do this.
The icons on the left side of the shelf are on the ibar (bodhi's name for what windows calls quicklaunch). Right click on any icon on it and go to ibar settings. Turn off the focus flash. I dunno if it affects performance, but I find it unnecessary myself so disable it along with the popup labels.
I have some older machines and the only thing I know to improve performance (besides not swapping) is resolution. For example on my pentium 4 and athlon64, some games aren't full speed unless I switch resolution down to 640x480 or 800x600, etc.
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Post by thewaiter on May 22, 2021 14:19:06 GMT
Icons flash could not have any impact to the system performance, because the animation starts only at mouse hover. Anyway if you do not like the flash anim, do as Enigma noted and you can also try my new feature: Adjacent icons. The icon label will not shown over the icon but next the icon. It could be sort of better for visibilty.
Stefan
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mimi
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Post by mimi on May 23, 2021 4:32:30 GMT
Many thanks for the reminder about swappiness - I'd overlooked that. The laptop uses an SSD, so swappiness is superfluous really, and htop is showing that the swapfile isn't being used at all. Furthermore, the machine rarely consumes more than 1GB out of the 4GB of installed RAM. Consequently, I've switched swappiness off, giving it a value of zero. You mentioned the use of pkexec in editing the grub file. I haven't come across this before. Is this a safer way of accessing root, without using sudo? |
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mimi
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Post by mimi on May 23, 2021 4:37:27 GMT
Icons flash could not have any impact to the system performance, because the animation starts only at mouse hover. Anyway if you do not like the flash anim, do as Enigma noted and you can also try my new feature: Adjacent icons. The icon label will not shown over the icon but next the icon. It could be sort of better for visibilty. Stefan Yes, I already tried this before you mentioned it, and couldn't see any obvious gain at all, as you've indicated. |
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mimi
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Post by mimi on May 23, 2021 4:49:51 GMT
On reflection, after reading your comments and trying out some of your ideas, I've come to the conclusion that my expectations of a 14-year-old laptop are a bit unrealistic!
Let me explain. The 'lagginess' (delay in the hardware's response-time) only really seems to be very obvious when I drag windows of open files (e.g. libreoffice or chromium) across the desktop. It shows itself by the margins of the windows not quite keeping up with the speed of window being dragged. I guess it's all down to the performance of a graphics card of that age. The response-time for the opening of apps is not instant, like it would appear to be with an i3 or i5 machine, but it's relatively comfortable.
Using htop, CPU activity & RAM consumption appears to be fine. It idles at less than 5% and RAM at 210MB (no apps open except htop), increasing to up to 6% and 690MB when the Chromium browser is open, and up to 7% and 750MB with both browser & libreoffice-writer open at the same time. Putting this into perspective with other distros, I found that MX Linux (version 19.4, 64-bit) idled at ~30% CPU activity & 1100MB RAM on the same machine, but then again MX doesn't claim to be a lightweight distro.
However, when the 32-bit version of BL6 comes out, I might dual-boot it and compare with my existing 64-bit BL6 install. I expect there to be a modest reduction in RAM consumption (not an issue), though am interested to see if there will be any reduction in 'lagginess' when moving windows around the desktop.
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Post by thewaiter on May 23, 2021 5:34:45 GMT
Oh moment
This explains a lot for me. I think your problem is GPU driver. Probably newer kernel does not cover your GPU drive no more. We have some options:
1. Identify the GPU model and ask Google for solution for Ubuntu 20.04
2. Confirm my statement about too new kernel. As a test, install older Bodhi 3.2.1 with old kernel. I use to advise this for some testing purpose.
Stefan
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on May 23, 2021 9:16:01 GMT
Many thanks for the reminder about swappiness - I'd overlooked that. The laptop uses an SSD, so swappiness is superfluous really, and htop is showing that the swapfile isn't being used at all. Furthermore, the machine rarely consumes more than 1GB out of the 4GB of installed RAM. Consequently, I've switched swappiness off, giving it a value of zero. A swappiness of zero means that when your RAM has been filled, performance will hit a concrete wall.... Freeze or near-freeze. Can happen sooner than you think, and always at an awkward moment.  I've been dabbling with swappiness reduction for over a decade, and a swappiness of 20 is probably the best compromise. Also with SSD's (all my machines have SSD's). In case you haven't done it yet: I also strongly recommend a zswap increase to 40 %. See the link in my previous message. You mentioned the use of pkexec in editing the grub file. I haven't come across this before. Is this a safer way of accessing root, without using sudo? You should never use sudo for launching graphical applications with root permissions, because it's likely to mess up the permissions of files and folders in your home folder. We used to have gksudo for safely using graphical applications with root permissions, but that has been deprecated. In many cases you can now use pkexec instead. If you've already abused sudo, this is how to fix the damage: easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/about-root.html#ID4(item 4) |
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mimi
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Post by mimi on May 23, 2021 16:46:58 GMT
kiezel Many thanks for your reply, concerning swappiness & SSDs, and pkexec vs. sudo to open apps. Yes, I take your point entirely that without at least some swappiness, you could certainly have a frozen machine, should the available RAM be all used up. There are two reasons why I have never used swappiness with SSDs. First, I never get anywhere near using up the 4GB of installed RAM - it's very rare that I'll even exceed 1GB RAM. For example, I don't use resource hungry devices like virtual machines (not enough cores on laptop for this) or video editing software. In addition, htop has never indicated any swap being used, even when I have more than one app open. My needs on this old laptop are very modest. Second, though I don't know how correct this is kiezel, I'd learned that frequent use of a swapfile (or swap partition) with an SSD, can significantly reduce its lifespan, due to the constant writes and rewrites. Concerning sudo & opening graphical applications. I only use sudo for apps that require a password to open them, e.g. synaptic, gparted, editing grub, etc. Surely this is okay - if it isn't, then in what instances can sudo be used safely ? I'll take a look at the link you provided about pkexec & sudo. Many thanks for all your feedback - really appreciate it.
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on May 23, 2021 17:44:45 GMT
Concerning sudo & opening graphical applications. I only use sudo for apps that require a password to open them, e.g. synaptic, gparted, editing grub, etc. Surely this is okay - if it isn't, then in what instances can sudo be used safely ? I'll take a look at the link you provided about pkexec & sudo. That's still not quite okay.... Because sudo doesn't set $XAUTHORITY to a new file, so the application you launch doesn't run with its own X authorization. Therefore sudo should still not be used for graphical applications like synaptic etc.: there's a risk that a root-owned .Xauthority file in your home directory, will lead to a login loop. You can use pkexec for synaptic as well. Probably also for GParted, although I find that GParted works best and most reliably when used in a live session (not when installed on the same hard disk that it's meant to do its job on). You should only use sudo for terminal-only applications without a graphical user interface (GUI), that need root authorization. For example, for turning on the firewall ufw: sudo ufw enableOn SSDs it's indeed wise to restrict write actions a bit (within reason), because even the vastly improved modern SSDs might benefit from some wear protection. On my machines the swap file is seldom used with a swappiness of 20, but there are circumstances (playing videos and such) when it comes in useful. |
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mimi
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Post by mimi on May 24, 2021 6:51:02 GMT
kiezel Many thanks for your detailed reply. You've mentioned concern over the use of sudo for opening graphical applications that require a password to open them, that I haven't seen discussed on forums before - has this issue only come to light recently? What is a login loop - is that where your machine is just stuck at the login window and, instead of fully booting, merely returns to it? If it is this, I've never had this problem for the 7 years I've been using Linux. Maybe I've just been lucky. Anyways, I've always used autologin, though I guess a login loop would just present itself as a frozen machine in that case. I'm not sure I agree with your view on the benefit of using swap with SSDs, though I'm not very knowledgeable on this. I always thought that the generally accepted wisdom was that swap is recommended for HDDs, but not SSDs. Also, I've observed that even in cases where I haven't modified the default swappiness value of 60, to a lower value, htop has always indicated that the swap file is dormant, even when playing videos. I find 4GB of installed RAM more than enough for my needs, as it rarely exceeds 25-30% usage, and even then only by a small margin, and RAM consumption always appears to be stable, i.e. it doesn't keep increasing inexorably when apps are open. However, thanks kiezel for bringing up these two issues - much appreciated - I'll take a closer look at these in the forums. EDIT: you recommended using zswap in one of your posts on this thread - doesn't zswap and zram only came into their own, when a machine's installed RAM is less than 2GB?
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on May 24, 2021 8:19:04 GMT
kiezel you recommended using zswap in one of your posts on this thread - doesn't zswap and zram only came into their own, when a machine's installed RAM is less than 2GB? Note that I don't recommend zram, because that would be counterproductive: the alternative, zswap, is already present and activated by default (set at 20 %). I find positive speed effects on machines with 4 GB RAM or less, when I increase zswap to 40 % (not any higher), in combination with a swappiness of 20. Your mileage may vary. As to your other questions: research a bit on the spots where you can find good information, like askubuntu and of course the priceless Arch Linux wiki (the wiki to rule them all).  |
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on May 24, 2021 16:05:50 GMT
Sounds like your lag is mainly graphical, so lower resolution will help that too. Are you using a compositor (i.e. picom or comptonmod)? If so, that makes dragging windows around laggy; the difference is easy to observe in such cases by trying with and without it loaded.
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