Re: Gnome very slow

["Hoyt Bailey" <hoyt13 wiredok com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Telsa Gwynne" <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>
To: <gnome-list gnome org>
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 07:20
Subject: Re: Gnome very slow


> On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 06:43:02AM -0600 or thereabouts, Hoyt Bailey
wrote:
>
> [Reformatted a little to get rid of the extra quote marks from the
> forward]
>
> > > > I am having difficulties with gnom.  There is excessive
> > > > delay between clicking on an item and any response.  This
> > > > delay is from 30 sec to 1 minute.  I am running Mankrake
> > > > 9.2 on a athlon 2100+ XP w/512M mem running @ 1.7G on a
> > > > gigabyte KT400 mobo. The kernel is 2.4.22.
>
> I think the clue is in here, and I nearly posted, but Malcolm asked
> the question I was going to.
>
> > > > This is unacceptable. KDE runs at a much faster rate and top,
> > > > on the gnome desktop, with nothing going on cycles from 1
> > > > to 3 processess running, approx 88 sleeping. I don't have
> > > > a clue.  Since this isnt normal I came to the experts.
> > >
> > > Obviously this is not normal, but you have not really
> > > provided enough information that I can think of anything
> > > obvious to suggest.
> > >
> > > When say "clicking on an item", what do you mean? Are you
> > > selecting a menu item or something on the desktop or ...?
> > >
> > Previously I dont remember using the menu a lot, due to the
> > speed,  so I guess I was mostly clicking on icons & applets
> > on the desktop and panel.
>
> > > So you have 'top' running in a terminal and you say that
> > > one to three processes are running actively -- which
> > > processes are they? Are they using a lot of CPU?
> >
> > No.  A 386 could have handeled what the cpu was doing.
> > Monitor applett showed a spike occasinally not very high
> > (about 1/8").  the only time the cpu showed activity was
> > during installation of a program + an occassional burst to
> > 1/2 in high and decaying for no more than 1/4 in in time.
> > The only processes I saw on top yesterday were X, top &
> > terminal. Today with normal cpu activity on the monitor
> > there was rpmv, top, X & ternimal, rpmv stopped showing up
> > while I was watching.
>
> > > time to time)? Is the machine connected to a network? If
> > > so, can it do DNS lookups (the period of inactivity could
> > > be related to DNS timeouts in some circumstances)?
> > >

I did note that there is a DNS.  I know nothing about it however, what, why,
or what it does(Name Server:  What names does it need to serve).

>
> > Previous to today it was always there today things are
> > 'normal'.  No network as far as I know no DNS.
>              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>

No network at all.  There is however an eth0 card.  I suppose for connection
to DSL should I wish to do so.  This box should be configured for a stand
alone desktop.

> This may be the crux.
>
> A consistent 30s delay between clicking a menu item and
> the application starting sounds like something trying to
> establish a connection and timing out to me.
>
> I am not clear on the details, but Gnome does like to
> know when it's on a network. It used to be the case that
> if you had messed up settings, Gnome would try to read
> something (nameserver?) as it started up and then tell you
> it couldn't identify something (hostname?) and did you
> want to continue to log in?
>
> If you did, you would get 30s delays on every new Gnome
> app starting up, from the editor to gnome-terminal.
>
> If you have a machine which is absolutely not connected to a
> network (laptop, for example), it's fine. If you have a machine
> which is correctly connected to a network, it's fine. If Gnome
> gets the idea that it is on a network but can't contact the
> (hmm --what? something, anyway!) to find out where on the
> network it is, it gets very upset.
>
> You can find out whether it's doing something like this
> with strace, perhaps. This will generate _tons_ of output
> so don't post it all to the list!
>

If you could post the command or directions I'll try it, strace is installed
but I know nothing about the program.

> > > Are you just using the standard GNOME packages that came
> > > with the Mandrake installation?
> > >
> > Yes GNOME 2.4.
>
> I don't know enough about Mandrake to know how to do this,
> but if you could somehow not only disconnect the box from
> a network but convince the machine that it is disconnected
> (comment out everything in resolv.conf etc), and this goes
> away, I would focus on this as the problem.
>
There is no network.  Would this be located '/etc/resolv.conf' or where. Or
where would you expect to find it?  Hope this helps,  remember I know little
about Mandrake and not as much as I thought about Linux.

Regards;
Hoyt