Re: bad performance: ways to speed GNOME up.

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Tue, Jun 06, 2000 at 01:07:00PM -0400 or thereabouts, Chad Cunningham wrote:
> 
> I recently built a new machine and gnome is not running well at all. The
> mouse hangs, things are drawn incredibly slowly, mouse movents are jerky,
> etc. The machine is a Athalon 850 with 256 megs RAM and a 32 MB Matrox
> G400. I am using the latest Helix-code stuff with gnome-1.2.1 and have
> tried both englightenment and sawmill for a window manager. The same setup
> on my PII350/128/Permedia2 runs perfectly fine, and WindowMaker on my
> Athalon runs great. Any idea what the gnome problem might be?

I have been collecting a list of ways to speed up GNOME for a FAQ that
I -must- finish and get somewhere more prominent. Here's what I have
so far:

 Q: I have a slow machine. How can I speed GNOME up?
  
 A: There are a number of things you can do to speed up GNOME:
   
  * If you don't usually use the applets or applications which start
    automatically when you start GNOME (deskguide, clock, help
    browser, file manager), then get rid of them. In the control
    center you will find a section called Startup Programs. You can
    attempt to identify the ones you don't need by picking them from
    the list of Browse running sessions and clicking on Remove. -Don't-
    remove gnome-smproxy, panel, or gmc, unless you know what you're
    doing. If this is too complicated, you can also simply press the
    "kill button" on the apps which started (typically the help
    browser and the file manager), or right-click on applets and
    select Remove, and then remember to save the session when you log
    out.

  * If you use themes, don't use pixmap themes. Pixmap themes are the
    ones which have a lot more detail, background which is shaded in
    varying colours, or lots of pictures in them. Some of them can be
    very heavy on a slow machine because they are more complicated to
    draw. Engine themes (non-pixmap) themes include, gtkstep (the
    default), metal, notif, redmond95, thinice, clean and xenophelia.

  * Investigate different window managers. Sawfish and WindowMaker
    are both thought by their users to be generally very light and
    zippy, as is Enlightenment if you turn all the fancy options off.
    If you don't want to change your window manager, have a look at
    the options for the window manager itself, and turn off anything
    that needs a lot of effort to redraw: complicated pictures,
    animations, transparent window moving. If you use window manager
    themes, again, pick a simple one. For moving and resizing, a light
    option is "boxed".

  * Keep menu images in memory. To achieve this, right-click on an
    empty part of the panel and select Panel->Global preferences.
    (This is the same as starting the control center and selecting the
    Panel section.) Then select the Menu section and find the Keep
    menus in memory checkbox and ensure it is selected.

  * Turn off menu icons with the control-center. You'll need to
    restart GNOME for this to take complete effect.

  * Turn off panel animations with the control-center.

  * If you use gnome-terminal, consider avoiding the pixmap and
    transparent background options. The shaded transparent background
    option in particular can slow things down.
       
I think there may also be something in imlib settings which you can
mess with but I'm not sure about that. The "Keep menu images in
memory" option makes a huge difference to menu speed.

I have a machine which is currently in a state of disrepair which is
a Cyrix Media GX (sort of "almost a pentium) with 32M of RAM. It is
so "underpowered" (ho ho) that I didn't even install Netscape on it
because it would take so long to start that I'd forget what I was
wanting to look at. With windowmaker or sawfish and a very plain theme
it is -entirely- usable. People tell me that this is not a very fast
machine, even if it's faster than the 486 on which I originally met
GNOME, so I am convinced it's possible to get GNOME to be reasonable
zippy on an Athlon with 256M (how much!?) :)

Telsa