[kernel-bugs] [Bug 1172900] New: Videoconferencing apps on openSUSE --> much higher CPU and heat than Clear Linux
http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172900 Bug ID: 1172900 Summary: Videoconferencing apps on openSUSE --> much higher CPU and heat than Clear Linux Classification: openSUSE Product: openSUSE Tumbleweed Version: Current Hardware: x86-64 OS: Other Status: NEW Severity: Normal Priority: P5 - None Component: Kernel Assignee: kernel-bugs@opensuse.org Reporter: sb56637@gmail.com QA Contact: qa-bugs@suse.de Found By: --- Blocker: --- Created attachment 838777 --> http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/attachment.cgi?id=838777&action=edit lots of screenshots and terminal outputs Hi there, the pandemic has forced a lot of users to spend much more time in videoconferencing apps, which in turn has given more exposure to some of the inefficiencies in the Linux graphics stack. I've been fighting with Jitsi Meet via Firefox and Zoom making my laptop so hot that the fans go full speed, and it smells and feels hot. It's an all-Intel components Thinkpad T530. I also observe even higher CPU loads but slightly less palpable heat on my secondary Thinkpad T440s, also with all-Intel components. And of course, with the addtional CPU load comes much shorter battery life. I've also extensively tested other mainstream distros like the most recent Ubuntu, Fedora, and Manjaro releases with similar results, but since Tumbleweed is the one I actually want to use on this laptop I'm reporting this bug here. As a last resort, I tried Clear Linux on the Thinkpad T530, since I heard Clear was optimized for Intel hardware. Surprisingly, it reported drastically lower CPU load and generally lower heat readings. And to the touch/smell the machine was obviously cooler and less stressed. The Firefox CPU load with Jitsi under Clear Linux was similar to what I have observed under Windows 8 on my Thinkpad T440s laptop. I retested several times in Clear under Gnome (Xorg session), and then several times more on my daily driver installed openSUSE Tumbleweed system with KDE Plasma (Xorg) and Openbox, and then I confirmed the excess CPU usage with a Tumbleweed live USB running Gnome on Xorg and Wayland. I'm attaching a tarball of all my findings, since there are a lot of files. The filenames describe what OS and what applications are running. The Zoom test was with a simple 2 user meeting with first video and then screensharing. The Jitsi test was performed with just 2 users with video enabled on a fresh Firefox profile. I'm attaching Firefox's support output and Zoom's terminal output, as well as the loaded kernel modules. I'm also attaching the hwinfo for my Thinkpad T530, but I don't think it's particularly relevant because I have observed the same CPU loads with the same apps on all the other laptops I own running Linux. Please let me know if you need any other information, I'd be glad to help troubleshoot. I'm not really an expert on the graphics stack in Linux, but I have tried to follow the Arch Wiki guidelines for enabling VA-API, and I've tried tons of options in about:config for Firefox on my installed openSUSE TW system. I'm sure it has packages installed that aren't present on the TW live Gnome system I booted, which is probably the reason for the differences in CPU load and temperature between the two systems. But both are drastically worse than Clear Linux straight out-of-the-box. Any ideas on what Clear Linux is doing differently? Is it just the result of thousands of little tweaks and optimizations, or is there some major configuration or compile flag in the graphics stack that Clear is using that could be applied to Tumbleweed? Thanks a lot for the help. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
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