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I'm seeing horrible performance from the xfce window manager (xfwm4) on |
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my main, everyday machine, but not on an older backup machine or on any |
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of the linux virtual machines I run on virtualbox. |
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|
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The symptoms: moving a window with the mouse is so slow as to be |
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painful, and the CPU usage (on one of four CPUs) jumps to 100% almost |
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immediately (xfwm4 is the culprit, see below). |
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|
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If I open an xterm and run (for example) "/usr/bin/marco --replace", |
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this sluggish behavior returns to normal immediately. |
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|
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After wasting hours on google I finally noticed that I had compiled |
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x11-wm/xfwm4 with the xcomposite useflag disabled, so I enabled it and |
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re-emerged xfwm4. |
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|
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Now I can get decent performance from xfwm4, but only if first I turn on |
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compositing by running xfwm4-tweaks-settings. (No, not by running the |
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puny and feeble xfwm4-settings app: I need to invoke a "tweak" to make |
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xfce4 an acceptable Desktop Environment on my main desktop machine. |
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|
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<official rant mode> |
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I remember going through this same frustration with gnome3, which was |
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(and is) unusable without installing the gnome-tweak-tool package and |
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using it to customize settings that I still don't understand. |
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|
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(That's why I finally gave up on gnome3, and I may yet give up on xfce4 |
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and go back to mate.) |
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|
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Note that I'm not turning off <official rant mode> yet, but I should |
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mention that this machine is ~amd64 with ati-drivers-15.7 and vanilla |
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kernel 3.14.51. (Same problem with gentoo-sources-3.18.19, BTW.) |