how to speed up linux gui

[Red Squirrel]

I've been doing lot of my code testing through a VNC session on a linux box as I can just close off the session to do something else and come back to it later without having to take 30 minutes to get setup again. One thing I've noticed is the linux GUI is bloody slow, I realize VNC will have a bit of latency, but it should not take 3 minutes to clear the buffer of a console. Any way to speed this up? Simpler theme? more ram? (its a VM so that's easy to do - new server will have 8 gigs)

 

[sourceninja]

I've only used vnc a few times on linux (mostly I just ssh and run my apps via remote X sessions). Are you running a 3d desktop or anything? I've never had problems.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Just using one of the build in fedora core 5 themes. (gnome). It may not be related to the GUI itself, maybe the ssh client, as thats really all I'm using, I have no less then 5 sessions all placed accross the desktop, sometimes they'll be outputting 1000's of lines at once. Is that just too much? I can always lower the buffer size maybe, would that help?

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
, I have no less then 5 sessions all placed accross the desktop, sometimes they'll be outputting 1000's of lines at once. Is that just too much?

i got bored at school last semester and did:

xp box at school / logmein java client (sloooow) > xp box at home /vnc client > debian box at home / ssh > laptop at home (i was really, really bored, ok?)

never more than maybe 3 or 4 seconds lag. does it otherwise respond well *before* you have all that output going at once?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Its responding half decently without that major output, its when I go to clear the console buffer where it becomes completly unresponsive for a few minutes.

 

[Nothinman]

Why not just ssh into the thing if all you're doing is running shells?

 

[QuixoticOne]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Why not just ssh into the thing if all you're doing is running shells?

Indeed.

Anyway LINUX video performance can sort of suck in the non hardware assisted X servers.
Unfortunately the performance (and worse, the stability) can suck when you're using the proprietary GPU drivers from places like ATI / NVIDIA on modern GPUs.

Upgrade your proprietary GPU driver if you're using a GPU more advanced than the NVIDIA 5700 or the ATI 9800 and see if that helps.

Running SSH text mode or X 11 forwarded over SSH may be a lot faster than VNC in some cases.

Turning down your screen resolution and getting rid of wallpaper / screen savers et. al. may help also.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Turns out it was the buffer space I specified. Guess 99999999 was bad. I put it to 1000, if I need to be able to read more I'll just buffer the output of my app to a file then open the file.

The reason I have this setup is I can have as many as 20 terminals open all neatly organized so rather then have those on my main PC they're on that VNC desktop - beauty of Linux is being able to switch desktops so I can actually organize certain things without them being in the way if I'm doing something else. I pretty much just leave it full screen on my 2nd monitor and close it off if I want to do something else, without loosing the desktop layout.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Turns out it was the buffer space I specified. Guess 99999999 was bad. I put it to 1000, if I need to be able to read more I'll just buffer the output of my app to a file then open the file.

The reason I have this setup is I can have as many as 20 terminals open all neatly organized so rather then have those on my main PC they're on that VNC desktop - beauty of Linux is being able to switch desktops so I can actually organize certain things without them being in the way if I'm doing something else. I pretty much just leave it full screen on my 2nd monitor and close it off if I want to do something else, without loosing the desktop layout.

do you use windows and not have the option of virtual desktops to start with?

 

[Red Squirrel]

My workstation uses windows but my sshgateway is linux. I can also ssh in from anywhere I want and tunnel a vnc session through. Some the beauty of this environment is it can be securely accessed from anywhere.

Eventually I want to switch to Linux even with my workstation though. But yeah think my issue was the terminal buffer space being too big. That VM has 128MB of ram so to store that buffer it was probably swapping.