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List:       kde-linux
Subject:    Re: [kde-linux] Re: Has The performance been forgotten?
From:       James Richard Tyrer <tyrerj () acm ! org>
Date:       2004-10-09 21:51:50
Message-ID: 41685D76.5050108 () acm ! org
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andrew kar wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 06:22 pm, Bahram Alinezhad wrote:
> 
>> If a project is deflecting from the right path, It may be necessary to stop
>> its development and revise some past steps.
> 
> Truly, Bahram,  as Werner says in his reply to you; You should learn the 
> issues and true situation and then comment.

Werner does have a point, but my understanding is that the "right path" is to
put performance first.  I don't think that you need to be a programmer to discuss
that issue.

> There are so many factors to take into account that quoting your particular 
> measurements is irrelevant. A lot is dependent on the particular distro for
> instance and your figures appear horrifically skewed. 7 seconds for konsole?
> 15 for kwrite?

My system is not as slow, it takes 6 seconds for Konsole and about the same for
KWrite with additional time depending on the file size.  I have a 400 MHz K6-3
and 7/16 GByte of RAM (512-64 MByte) and a DMA 5 hard disk.

> How about trying a distro that concentrates on optimising and compiling 
> efficiently. For instance although Mandrake and Redhat are the same base 
> there is a huge difference in speed.

This is interesting.  I have Linux (mostly) From Scratch (I have some Fedora
Core 1 RPMS -- sorry to say that I am a bit lazy :-)).

> On my system no kde application takes lomger than 1 second to launch and this
>  is an athlon 2600 with 256 Meg ram ( a medium to low level system by todays
>  standards).  My Pentium2 450 Meg system takes no longer than 2 to 3 seconds
>  for any kde app. The only slow starters are things like OpenOffice and
> Mozilla.

Do you have any ideas as to why my system that should be slightly faster is much
slower.

> How about using an up to date Linux with a 2.6 kernel which has had many
> speed improvements recently and an up to date kde and qt which has vastly
> increased its speed due to optimisations since kde3.1.

I haven't upgraded to 2.6 yet although I do have 2.4.27

> Use a limited set of fonts because the hundreds of unnecessay fonts with most
> distros cause a large delay.

This is clearly an issue that KDE needs to address.  This overhead should be 
done once when KDE is started and shouldn't be done each time that you start an 
application.  I do have a large font collection.

> Are we talking about REAL program load times or do we cheat and have most of
>  the app preloaded like windows does with Explorer, Internet Explorer and MS
>  Office? You have settings to preload your konqueror browser and file manager
>  windows and they too will come up instantaneously. If you use your konqueror
>  windows for applications and control-centre like FC2s' "start-here" then
> they become the equivalent of the MS ones and will come up instantly but if
> you want the integrated glossary and online help then you need to open the
> kde control-centre but please dont compare oranges and apples.
> 
> As to boot times once again you are comparing oranges and apples. On most 
> distros the linux boot is detecting new and changed hardware and configuring
>  the system which XP does AFTER the boot and usually requires a reboot except
>  for hot-pluggable devices. Have you turned all your relevant services OFF
> for the comparison or are you comparing a MS home OS with a Linux system
> which is by default a professional networking environment with inbuilt 
> terminal-services etc? Perhaps you should be comparing it with a MS 
> Professional system or else using a stripped down linux.

I understand that Linux takes longer to boot.  I have no problem with this.  And 
I see no problem with KDE taking a while to start.  In fact, if it could be made 
to run faster at the expense of a longer startup time, this would be an improvement.

> Now, do we compile for 386, 586 Athlon or P4? Do we strip our binaries or do
>  we leave all the debug stuff in because linux is a self evolving community 
> that likes to be able to analyse,contribute and improve its software under 
> diverse and varied conditions?

I specifically optimize for my processor and build KDE with "--disable-debug" 
but do not strip the KDE binaries.

If there are specific ways to speed up KDE, I am willing to experiment with them.

--
JRT
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