On Monday 23 August 2010 12:01:28 Bob Williams wrote:

On Monday 23 August 2010 10:56:56 C wrote:

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On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 11:27, Bob Williams wrote:

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I have a process running as root which is taking 25 - 30% of my processor activity. Htop tells me it's

/usr/bin/Xorg -br :0 vt7 -nolisten tcp - \ auth/var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-j1o7xa

It's obviously something to do with the graphic display, but it would seem to me to be using too much of the main CPU.

I have a quad core, 2.8GHz processor with 8Gb Ram, and no particularly graphics intensive software running (Kontact, Firefox, Amarok, gkrellm, Krusader). The graphics card is nVidia GeForce 9600GT.

I'm running openSUSE 11.3 and KDE 4.5.

Sounds familiar...

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Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.3, Kernel 2.6.34.12-desktop, KDE 4.5.0 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT

If your signature line is correct, and you're running kernel 2.6.34, you could try upgrading to 2.6.35 from Kernel:Head. This has been discussed a fair bit here on the mailing list with various solutions. The one that worked for me with all nVidia/openSUSE11.3 combinations was a kernel upgrade (and of course re-installing the nVidia binary driver)

C.

Yup: :~> uname -r

2.6.34-12-desktop

I'll try a kernel upgrade.

Thanks.

Bob

Well, I tried upgrading to both the Kernel:openSUSE-11.3 and Kernel:Head repos, but neither worked any better. Kernel:openSUSE-11.3 just booted to run level 3, and Kernel:Head grumbled about a load of missing modules, and couldn't find the second partition on my hard drive. Switching kernels is not something I'm familiar with, so I've reverted to the original Desktop kernel. I'm sure this graphics problem with KDE 4 will sort itself out sooner or later, so I'll sit tight and wait. Actually, I know I won't, as soon as I see another suggested cure ;) Bob -- Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.3, Kernel 2.6.34.12-desktop, KDE 4.5.0 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 24 August 2010 13:49:54 zGreenfelder wrote:

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Switching kernels is not something I'm familiar with, so I've reverted to the original Desktop kernel. I'm sure this graphics problem with KDE 4 will sort itself out sooner or later, so I'll sit tight and wait.

Actually, I know I won't, as soon as I see another suggested cure ;)

Bob -- Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.3, Kernel 2.6.34.12-desktop, KDE 4.5.0 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT

this is probably totally off, but you don't have the machine to set to runlevel 5 and auto login as a particular user do you? that seems to be a default check on install, is the only reason I ask. at work we found a similar sort of issue where it seems that *dm and the auto login stuff would somehow end up fighting for the display and run CPU usage up. it seemed to behave reasonably if you either used auto login and put some logic in to .profile/login/whatever to do a startx if on a regular tty, and disable the display manager (or just set the runlevel back to 3)... or do the exact opposite and use the display manager to login.

Runlevel 5, yes, autologin, no. Each user has to login with a password, although I'm the only user physically sitting in front of the machine using a graphical login. Others login remotely via ssh. Bob -- Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.3, Kernel 2.6.34.12-desktop, KDE 4.5.0 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 23/08/10 17:05, Rodney Baker wrote:

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On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 11:27, Bob Williams wrote:

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I have a process running as root which is taking 25 - 30% of my processor activity. Htop tells me it's

/usr/bin/Xorg -br :0 vt7 -nolisten tcp - \ auth/var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-j1o7xa

It's obviously something to do with the graphic display, but it would seem to me to be using too much of the main CPU.

I have a quad core, 2.8GHz processor with 8Gb Ram, and no particularly graphics intensive software running (Kontact, Firefox, Amarok, gkrellm, Krusader). The graphics card is nVidia GeForce 9600GT.

I'm running openSUSE 11.3 and KDE 4.5. Sounds familiar...

...

Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.3, Kernel 2.6.34.12-desktop, KDE 4.5.0 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT If your signature line is correct, and you're running kernel 2.6.34, you could try upgrading to 2.6.35 from Kernel:Head. This has been discussed a fair bit here on the mailing list with various solutions. The one that worked for me with all nVidia/openSUSE11.3 combinations was a kernel upgrade (and of course re-installing the nVidia binary driver)

C. Turning of KDE4's desktop effects (i.e. suspend compositing) will drop the CPU usage to near zero again. Consistently repeatable here but things are much better with the 256.44 drivers and 2.6.35.1-1 kernel. Still, if I want max

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:26:56 C wrote: performance while watching video/tv on the desktop, either full-screen video or disable compositing is the way to go. It seems that KDE4's eye candy (esp. Blur) works the X server pretty hard - perhaps there's some mutual optimisation that still needs to go on.

I did notice that switching off Blur (I *think* it was Blur, anyway) did make a significant difference in CPU usage. It might be worth switching off the desktop effects one-by-one to see if there is a consistently repeatable pattern. If there is, then a bug report is in order.

Same here on two machines - one with an NVIDIA card and another with an ATI card. I've reported this as an bug against KDE because the same Xorg/driver stack on both machines runs GNome + compiz without any issues. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=248729 -- Regards, Vadym ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ********************************************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Peter Suetterlin said the following on 08/25/2010 08:40 AM:

Rodney Baker wrote:

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Turning of KDE4's desktop effects (i.e. suspend compositing) will drop the CPU usage to near zero again.

While true, this is only a workaround. Wasting 20% of a really powerful machine for *nothing* (it uses it even if nothing happens) is a bug and not a blemish....

The same could be said of any GUI ... "we command line fanatics ..." Why waste money on computer power when a * radio * mp3 player * tv costs so little? The answer is the user. In practice, delivered CPU power has stayed about the same as the workload and complexity and presentation has grown ore sophisticated. If I compile things now on my dual-core machine, they seem to go about as fast as they did on that old PDP-11/45 back at the beginning of the 80, when I had a dumb terminal and a CLI. Seem to. And even though DOS3.3/WordPerfect4.2 was the hight of office automation I'm not producing business letters and printing them an faster than I did 25 years ago. Or it doesn't seem that way. Well, there are some benefits. This Compaq Presario laptop is a lot lighter and has a bigger, clearer screen than the 386/20 "luggable" "lunchbox" I had back in 1987, so I'm not complaining. -- The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. -- Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995), quoted from Victor J. Stenger, Has Science Found God? (2001) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Peter Suetterlin said the following on 08/26/2010 05:33 AM:

So I repeat my statement, an idle system must not use substantial CPU time

Oh I got your point. I just disagree on a number of points. Not least of all what constitutes 'idle'. Just because you-the-user are not doing anything does not mean the system is idle. And I don't mean the background tasks. (Although I've run things like 'powertop' to see where the interrupts come from, and yes the video driver is up there in the top 5.) If you choose decorative eye-candy that consumes CPU then it will consume CPU. But do check the archives. In one sense 30% is getting off light. I met an anomalous condition where Firefox (which is gnome-native) under KDE4 with a certain revision xserver produced XSYNC problems. Everything would run fine until a certain icon in firefox was displayed. The Sync (XSYNC) with the video card was handled badly. A different icon set, running Gnome or a small change in xorg.conf fixed it. Eventually the xserver was revised. Just a very specific code path that involved many items. But if you want the 'dancing babies' of a decorative GUI this is a situation you can get into. Your system isn't idle just because you aren't interacting with it. Is this a shortcoming of compiz, kwin and others? Of course it is, in just the same way that its a shortcoming of beer, sugar-donuts, red meat and chocolate. You can choose not to overindulge. You can chose not to be <strike>an idle system</strike> a couch potato. I reported this problem, was told about the XSYNC problem, and worked with the team to resolve it rather than condemned the software and developers. But then I've been a PM as well as having worked in ATE. -- There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. -Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 26/08/10 14:18, Will Stephenson wrote:

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Peter Suetterlin said the following on 08/26/2010 05:33 AM:

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So I repeat my statement, an idle system must not use substantial CPU time Oh I got your point. I just disagree on a number of points.

Not least of all what constitutes 'idle'. Just because you-the-user are not doing anything does not mean the system is idle. And I don't mean the background tasks. (Although I've run things like 'powertop' to see where the interrupts come from, and yes the video driver is up there in the top 5.)

If you choose decorative eye-candy that consumes CPU then it will consume CPU.

But do check the archives. In one sense 30% is getting off light. I met an anomalous condition where Firefox (which is gnome-native) under KDE4 with a certain revision xserver produced XSYNC problems. Everything would run fine until a certain icon in firefox was displayed. The Sync (XSYNC) with the video card was handled badly. A different icon set, running Gnome or a small change in xorg.conf fixed it. Eventually the xserver was revised. Just a very specific code path that involved many items.

But if you want the 'dancing babies' of a decorative GUI this is a situation you can get into. As I see it, this is a valid bug report, since the dancing babies didn't require so much CPU in 4.4, and the same behaviour is present on 11.2 and 11.3, so the intel driver can't be blamed. When the system is really idle,

On Thursday 26 August 2010 13:48:13 Anton Aylward wrote: there are no animations happening, so nothing needs repainting and the X server should keep its hands off of the processors, except for moving the hands on the clock.

My not-very-educated guess is that the implementation changes in Transparency and the addition of Blur causes the performance regression.

Will

-- Will Stephenson, KDE Developer, openSUSE Boosters Team SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex So has anyone else raised bug reports for this very issue in KDE's or Novell's bugzillas? If so, what are the bug numbers?

-- Regards, Vadym ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ********************************************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 26/08/10 18:29, Anton Aylward wrote:

Vadym Krevs said the following on 08/26/2010 11:25 AM:

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So has anyone else raised bug reports for this very issue in KDE's or Novell's bugzillas? If so, what are the bug numbers?

Back for me an my 100% ....

bnc#584919 and 584919,

If I understand the comments for issue 584919, the fix for the reported issue was put into openSUSE:Factory on 26 Apr 2010, so it should be present in xorg in the released 11.3, right? If this is the case, the clearly the issue discussed in this thread and the issue from 584919 are two different things. -- Regards, Vadym ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ********************************************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 01/09/10 11:15, Vadym Krevs wrote:

On 27/08/10 09:05, Vadym Krevs wrote:

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Vadym Krevs said the following on 08/26/2010 11:25 AM:

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So has anyone else raised bug reports for this very issue in KDE's or Novell's bugzillas? If so, what are the bug numbers? Back for me an my 100% ....

bnc#584919 and 584919, If I understand the comments for issue 584919, the fix for the reported issue was put into openSUSE:Factory on 26 Apr 2010, so it should be

On 26/08/10 18:29, Anton Aylward wrote: present in xorg in the released 11.3, right? If this is the case, the clearly the issue discussed in this thread and the issue from 584919 are two different things.

Just discovered a "workaround" for the issue. Once your XOrg process starts consuming a lot of CPU, telnet/ssh into the machine from another host, become root, and attach to the xorg process via gdb. Leave it for 3-5 sec, then detach, and observe Xorg's CPU usage return to normal for a while.

NVIDIA just released a new beta driver version: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=2314331 Installed it this morning, and Xorg no longer appears to have CPU spikes. -- Regards, Vadym ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ********************************************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Anton Aylward wrote:

Not least of all what constitutes 'idle'. Just because you-the-user are not doing anything does not mean the system is idle. And I don't mean the background tasks. (Although I've run things like 'powertop' to see where the interrupts come from, and yes the video driver is up there in the top 5.)

I'm somewhat experienced in computers, using Linux since 1994, so I do have at least some idea of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' ;^>

If you choose decorative eye-candy that consumes CPU then it will consume CPU.

True. But the only thing that is active is the glow around active windows, cube animation when switching desktop and active corners to 'zoom out' (forgot the official name of those features). Oh yeah, and a background image that is refreshed every 5 minutes.

But do check the archives. In one sense 30% is getting off light. I met an anomalous condition where Firefox (which is gnome-native) under KDE4 with a certain revision xserver produced XSYNC problems. Everything would run fine until a certain icon in firefox was displayed. The Sync (XSYNC) with the video card was handled badly. A different icon set, running Gnome or a small change in xorg.conf fixed it. Eventually the xserver was revised. Just a very specific code path that involved many items.

Yes, and I assume something similar is going on here, as wrote in my post... (and I assume you *do* agree that the above was a bug)

Is this a shortcoming of compiz, kwin and others?

Yes :-)

Of course it is, in just the same way that its a shortcoming of beer, sugar-donuts, red meat and chocolate.

Ehm, I'd have a problem with beer that would just have twice the number of calories without delivering me more bang for the bucks...

I reported this problem, was told about the XSYNC problem, and worked with the team to resolve it rather than condemned the software and developers. But then I've been a PM as well as having worked in ATE.

I'm not condemning anyone. I just point out a flaw. What's wrong with that? Cheers, Pit -- Dr. Peter "Pit" Suetterlin http://www.astro.su.se/~pit Institute for Solar Physics Tel.: +34 922 405 590 (Spain) P.Suetterlin@royac.iac.es +46 8 5537 8507 (Sweden) Peter.Suetterlin@astro.su.se -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Rodney Baker wrote:

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Turning of KDE4's desktop effects (i.e. suspend compositing) will drop the CPU usage to near zero again.

While true, this is only a workaround. Wasting 20% of a really powerful machine for *nothing* (it uses it even if nothing happens) is a bug and not a blemish....

Same here an my laptop, though 'only' around 18% CPU, and goes down to some 6% when deactivating compositing. Weird thing is, my system at home (also a DualCore machine with an nvidia card, though an older one) does not show this problem. Both are OS 11.2....

Pit

fwiw . . . I noticed this behavior with X for quite a while on 11.2 over several versions of the nvidia driver. It seemed to occur when I had Firefox open for a long time, having used a lot of tabs (low cpu but >600MB ram) and especially alongside kmail, again after having it open for a long time (so also using a hefty amount of ram). X would jump up to as much as 40%, but usually came back down on its own. But occasionally it stayed at the high cpu level and I noticed a response hit (this machine is 3.8GHz dual-core w/8GB ram) until restarting KDE, which would drop X back to usual. A couple months ago I searched bugzilla, but found nothing reported that fit, and I cannot reproduce the condition at will. I left it there, since it was for me only a minor occasional annoyance. Since upgrading to 11.3 (only last week), I haven't seen the behavior again. Not much help, for sure. But confirmation of what at least appears to be the same condition you are seeing. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 26 Aug 2010 13:05:29 Anton Aylward wrote:

dwgallien said the following on 08/25/2010 11:30 AM:

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fwiw . . . I noticed this behavior with X for quite a while on 11.2 over several versions of the nvidia driver. It seemed to occur when I had Firefox open for a long time, having used a lot of tabs (low cpu but >600MB ram) and especially alongside kmail, again after having it open for a long time (so also using a hefty amount of ram).

Yes, that describes what I was seeing. About 40 tabs, half a dozen other application/windows open.

Very slightly off topic here BUT would someone please explain why on earth you need so many tabs open in a WEB Browser 2 3 4 i can understand but 40 it makes no sense at all we are after all talking about a WEB browser are we not .. Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34-12-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.4.4 (KDE 4.4.4) "release 2" 13:16 up 19 days 3:14, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.06, 0.05 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2010-08-26 14:18, Peter Nikolic wrote:

On Thursday 26 Aug 2010 13:05:29 Anton Aylward wrote:

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Yes, that describes what I was seeing. About 40 tabs, half a dozen other application/windows open.

Very slightly off topic here BUT

would someone please explain why on earth you need so many tabs open in a WEB Browser 2 3 4 i can understand but 40 it makes no sense at all we are after all talking about a WEB browser are we not ..

I use more. So? :-) -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" GM (Elessar))

On Thursday 26 Aug 2010 20:45:27 dwgallien wrote:

I don't see your point re "WEB". With my work, on average I have 4-6 windows open, often with each having that many tabs open.

Ok Then lets put it another way lets see a WEB browser is for viewing / reading pages on the web you can only read them 1 at a time unless you got six eyes or something It is a web browser therefore by description it is not for running applications on email is read by mail clients (in my book web mail does not exist) And whilst i can see the usefullness of having maybe 3 or 4 tabs open i run 2 normally but can find no valid reason for more i can not read them all at the same time Maybe i am old fashioned but such is life i actually prefere the old netscape navigator but alas it is no longer useable Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34-12-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.4.4 (KDE 4.4.4) "release 2" 21:18 up 19 days 11:16, 3 users, load average: 0.40, 0.64, 0.58 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:55:31 Peter Nikolic wrote: On Thursday 26 Aug 2010 20:45:27 dwgallien wrote:

[...] Maybe i am old fashioned but such is life i actually prefere the old netscape navigator but alas it is no longer useable

Pete .

What makes you say that? Only a couple of weeks ago I downloaded and installed Netscape Navigator 9 for Linux on oS11.3/KDE4 and it works fine. I had to have it for compatibiliy with some web-managed devices that we have where the web interface won't work with the latest Firefox, IE, Opera or Chrome. They only work properly with IE <= 6 or NN. -- =================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au =================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org