Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: walt <w41ter@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-user] Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 02:18:40
Message-Id: 20150819191820.6aa6d015@a6
1 I'm seeing horrible performance from the xfce window manager (xfwm4) on
2 my main, everyday machine, but not on an older backup machine or on any
3 of the linux virtual machines I run on virtualbox.
4
5 The symptoms: moving a window with the mouse is so slow as to be
6 painful, and the CPU usage (on one of four CPUs) jumps to 100% almost
7 immediately (xfwm4 is the culprit, see below).
8
9 If I open an xterm and run (for example) "/usr/bin/marco --replace",
10 this sluggish behavior returns to normal immediately.
11
12 After wasting hours on google I finally noticed that I had compiled
13 x11-wm/xfwm4 with the xcomposite useflag disabled, so I enabled it and
14 re-emerged xfwm4.
15
16 Now I can get decent performance from xfwm4, but only if first I turn on
17 compositing by running xfwm4-tweaks-settings. (No, not by running the
18 puny and feeble xfwm4-settings app: I need to invoke a "tweak" to make
19 xfce4 an acceptable Desktop Environment on my main desktop machine.
20
21 <official rant mode>
22 I remember going through this same frustration with gnome3, which was
23 (and is) unusable without installing the gnome-tweak-tool package and
24 using it to customize settings that I still don't understand.
25
26 (That's why I finally gave up on gnome3, and I may yet give up on xfce4
27 and go back to mate.)
28
29 Note that I'm not turning off <official rant mode> yet, but I should
30 mention that this machine is ~amd64 with ati-drivers-15.7 and vanilla
31 kernel 3.14.51. (Same problem with gentoo-sources-3.18.19, BTW.)

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off? Michel Catudal <mcatudal@×××××××.net>
Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off? wabenbau@×××××.com