Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

12oclocker · 2018-07-23 21:34:04

going from Hydrogen to Helium I noticed my system is about 4 times slower, quad core xeon processor with 4G of memory. I takes about 4 to 5 seconds for a command window to open. In Hydrogen it was less than 1 second. Any ideas what may be causing this? Its a clean install. thanks!

Last edited by 12oclocker (2018-07-24 01:16:10)

nobody · 2018-07-23 22:20:04

Can you determine whether only the graphical UI lags (desktop, X window system) or if pure computing or I/O workloads are also slowed down? That is, is the processor clocked down and even the execution of basic shell commands is lagging, copying of files is slow, transcoding a video…

Also, is it only the shell window or are other desktop applications just as laggy?

12oclocker · 2018-07-23 22:32:59

twoion wrote:

Can you determine whether only the graphical UI lags (desktop, X window system) or if pure computing or I/O workloads are also slowed down? That is, is the processor clocked down and even the execution of basic shell commands is lagging, copying of files is slow, transcoding a video…
Also, is it only the shell window or are other desktop applications just as laggy?

Yes I wrote a program that measures processor calculation efficiency I will run that on both OS versions and see what the result is and report back...

So far Ive installed on 3 more computers, live tested on 2 more, all of them take greater than 4 to 5 seconds to launch terminal windows and also take noticably longer to launch anything really, same computers all run the older bunsenlabs lightning fast, open terminals almost instantly... processors are Core2 Duo, Intel Atom, Xeon, all have 4gb of memory, the Xeon has an SSD and ran lightning fast before Helium. Is this because of Meltdown and Spectre fixes?

Last edited by 12oclocker (2018-07-23 22:37:54)

12oclocker · 2018-07-24 01:13:53

ok, I ran my performance test...
This is the results from Helium...
test using 4 threads...
add/sub loop test...
Loop time in ms = 795 for 500000000 loops
Loop Freq = 628.930786MHz
mul/div loop test...
Loop time in ms = 1849 for 500000000 loops
Loop Freq = 270.416443MHz

And this is the Results from Hydrogen...
test using 4 threads...
add/sub loop test...
Loop time in ms = 780 for 500000000 loops
Loop Freq = 641.025635MHz
mul/div loop test...
Loop time in ms = 1817 for 500000000 loops
Loop Freq = 275.178864MHz

mul/div float test was 32ms faster
add/sub int test was 5ms faster
Basically not much of a difference

So why is everything so laggy? When I launch SUPER+T for terminal, it takes about 4 seconds to open, on Hydrogen it opens almost instantly. Seems like everything is like this, take much longer to launch even the smallest applications. Actual benchmark of code execution cycles dont seem much different.

Any ideas? The interface seems 'snappy' moving windows around don't seem to be 'laggy' it's just when launching small applications such as the terminal (which I use a lot) and why it is bugging me so much. It's painfully slow on my Core2 Duo, worse than the Xeon. I tried "killall compton" and it's still very slow opening the terminal window.
Running "x-terminal-emulator -h" or "x-terminal-emulator -v" from the command line, their is a full 2 second delay before any texted is printed to the terminal window.

Last edited by 12oclocker (2018-07-24 01:26:57)

johnraff · 2018-07-24 01:20:34

You can change the topic title yourself: just click "Edit" on the first post.

I've always found the Terminator - the default BunsenLabs terminal emulator - slow to open, but for you it was OK on Hydrogen? Anyway, you could try installing urxvt-unicode. It has fewer features, but is definitely snappier. The default ~/.Xresources we ship will style it quite similar to Terminator. If you like it, you can set it as x-terminal-emulator in Debian alternatives.

But of course that's avoiding what seems to be the real issue. OTOH if the slow terminal turns out to be what was troubling you, it might be enough.

Last edited by johnraff (2018-07-24 01:26:25)

brontosaurusrex · 2018-07-24 08:53:15

Is this because of Meltdown and Spectre fixes?

That's the first thing I thought about.

stevep · 2018-07-25 03:50:46

brontosaurusrex wrote:

Is this because of Meltdown and Spectre fixes?
That's the first thing I thought about.

Not enough to account for a 400% slower program launch, though! You can always boot with the "nopti" flag to disable the Meltdown mitigation to test the difference, though.

Is it every terminal launch, or just the first one if you do it twice?

12oclocker · 2018-07-25 04:53:35

stevep wrote:

brontosaurusrex wrote:
Is this because of Meltdown and Spectre fixes?
That's the first thing I thought about.
Not enough to account for a 400% slower program launch, though! You can always boot with the "nopti" flag to disable the Meltdown mitigation to test the difference, though.
Is it every terminal launch, or just the first one if you do it twice?

It's every terminal launch, not just the first one. Thanks for the tip on the Meltdown disable flag, I will try it, does that flag also disable the Spectre exploit fix? Hopefully it does. I left helium installed on one test machine and I have my other machines back to the old distro. I did try installing a different console, Konsole was much faster; about 1 second, but even that launched faster on the old distro. Hopefully I will have some time this weekend to investigate this further.

Last edited by 12oclocker (2018-07-25 04:55:40)

tknomanzr · 2018-07-25 16:27:26

Also, check ~/.xsession-errors in case some error is occurring. I am on pretty good hardware on this desktop but starting a terminal is nearly instant for me.

hhh · 2018-07-25 22:47:55

I'm on fairly crappy hardware. I find terminator a bit slow to start, but xfce4-terminal, lxterminal and rxvt-unicode are all pretty quick.

stevep · 2018-07-25 23:44:06

12oclocker wrote:

stevep wrote:
brontosaurusrex wrote:
That's the first thing I thought about.
Not enough to account for a 400% slower program launch, though! You can always boot with the "nopti" flag to disable the Meltdown mitigation to test the difference, though.
Is it every terminal launch, or just the first one if you do it twice?
It's every terminal launch, not just the first one. Thanks for the tip on the Meltdown disable flag, I will try it, does that flag also disable the Spectre exploit fix? Hopefully it does. I left helium installed on one test machine and I have my other machines back to the old distro. I did try installing a different console, Konsole was much faster; about 1 second, but even that launched faster on the old distro. Hopefully I will have some time this weekend to investigate this further.

Any Spectre mitigation would be baked into the kernels and individual binaries by use of retpoline during compilation from the source code, which is not supposed to slow down processing, or in your machine's BIOS updates, or any non-free intel-microcode or amd64-microcode packages you might have installed.

Maybe it's just some regression in the Debian 4.9 kernel for your particular hardware. Have you tried running any others, such as the one in stretch-backports? I also maintain backport repos of the Liquorix and latest upstream Debian kernels on the openSUSE Build Service...both are currently at 4.17.8.

ohnonot · 2018-07-31 10:18:45

^ i agree.
when hearing hoofbeats, we should look out for horses first, not zebras or unicorns.

also, 12oclocker, could you do some measurements with standard linux utilities (instead of self-written programs)? that would make it easier for others to assess the problem.

Last edited by ohnonot (2018-07-31 10:19:06)

Bearded_Blunder · 2018-08-01 20:32:08

Oddly enough, I've found that on the same hardware EVERY new version of Debian ran slower than the last, Windows also suffers with the exception of up from Vista, I think it's expected that upgrades are downgrades in performance.

hhh · 2018-08-05 05:23:10

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

Oddly enough, I've found that on the same hardware EVERY new version of Debian ran slower than the last, Windows also suffers with the exception of up from Vista, I think it's expected that upgrades are downgrades in performance.

This has not been my experience. The kernel and graphics upgrades in Debian have helped my old hardware, and my older hardware, and my even older hardware, and some more hardware, except for the first-run glitch mentioned in the Release Announcement. I've been meaning to do some testing of Helium vs Stretch live-builds to see if it's a BL-specific issue, but lately I've been gearing up for Buster/Lithium so it probably won't happen.

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=4772

12oclocker · 2018-09-16 19:36:11

I got a newer (used) laptop Core i5-4210U, and Helium runs good on this laptop, after install I notice first boot takes a while, then I update everything, 2nd boot takes less time, then after that it boots quickly and runs quickly, no noticeable lags on anything, so it must have been due to my hardware on the other machines, more modern hardware no noticeable delay or lag.

#1 2018-07-23 21:34:04

Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#2 2018-07-23 22:20:04

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#3 2018-07-23 22:32:59

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#4 2018-07-24 01:13:53

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#5 2018-07-24 01:20:34

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#6 2018-07-24 08:53:15

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#7 2018-07-25 03:50:46

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#8 2018-07-25 04:53:35

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#9 2018-07-25 16:27:26

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#10 2018-07-25 22:47:55

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#11 2018-07-25 23:44:06

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#12 2018-07-31 10:18:45

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#13 2018-08-01 20:32:08

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#14 2018-08-05 05:23:10

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

#15 2018-09-16 19:36:11

Re: Helium running slower than older Hydrogen distro

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