KDE slow

Terpentijn

Terpentijn

I love FreeBSD. Yesterday I made the switch back from Arch/KDE to FreeBSD/KDE. Man, it was a bad experience. My computer was at least twice as slow on KDE than it was on Arch. All settings were exactly the same. I had to switch back to Arch to get my work done. Does anyone know why there is such a big difference? Would XFCE run better/faster? I do want to have a FreeBSD machine, but the desktop has to run well.
 
How is your Xorg configured? That's often the reason why it appears to be 'slow'.
 
SirDice said:
How is your Xorg configured? That's often the reason why it appears to be 'slow'.
Click to expand...
On boot I run the i815drm and xorg uses the Intel driver (xf86-intel). Last time I ran fbsd with xfce I used the same xorg file in /usr/local/.. And all ran fine. I have no idea why kde is so sluggish.
 
SirDice said:
How is your Xorg configured? That's often the reason why it appears to be 'slow'.
Click to expand...
Reading more in the xorg forum I get the idea that the problem lies in loadinf both the kernel Intel driver AND the one from the xf86-driver-intel. Am I correct in assuming this? And which one is faster/better for xorg? The base one or the xf86 one?
 
I thought I read there are /etc/sysctl.conf tweaks to speed up KDE5 but I don't have time to research right now - pretty sure there was a guide or something someone posted here about it when KDE5 was first available for FreeBSD.
 
Sevendogsbsd said:
I thought I read there are /etc/sysctl.conf tweaks to speed up KDE5 but I don't have time to research right now - pretty sure there was a guide or something someone posted here about it when KDE5 was first available for FreeBSD.
Click to expand...
I know of the send receive buffers needed for kmail. I don't know of other settings in sysctl.conf
 
SirDice said:
If you're on 12.0 now I would wait until it is released.


Minor version upgrades are usually really easy.
Click to expand...
No. I have to reinstall. So that's why I thought it would be quicker to install 12.1 beta. Don't know if it's wise though.
 
Currently not using FreeBSD unfortenately but:

did you install libva-intel-driver?

I had this in loader.conf:

Code: 
# Enhance shared memory X11 interface
kern.ipc.shmmax=67108864
kern.ipc.shmall=32768

and these were in sysctl.conf:

Code: 
kern.sched.preempt_thresh=224

kern.maxfiles=100000
hw.syscons.bell=0

kern.ipc.shm_allow_removed=1

net.local.stream.recvspace=65536
net.local.stream.sendspace=65536
#net.local.stream.recvspace=16384

Hope this will do for the moment.
 
I will add your notes to loader.conf and sysctl.conf
Intel mentions on its website for the libva-intel-driver: GMA 4500 series and newer GPUs up to Coffee Lake are supported by libva-intel-driver. So this one is not for me. I have an oldie (the 3000 series)
I have tested the base driver i915kms without an Xorg config file. I got spontanious failures. I was kicked out of my KDE session. I also tested KDE with the xf86-video-intel package and a special xorg config file for my intel card. This works without errors. No screentearing, fast screen updates. KDE rus very smooth and fast. Problem solved. One minor issue: I'm a big fan of the Nordic theme and colors. The theme installs and works very well, apart from one little thing. Around my screens I get a small tiny white line on both sides and the bottom. It's ugly. On my Arch linux install this did not happen. When Iook at the example of the theme I allso get 'normal' windows without the white lines. I have no idea why this happens on FreeBSD. Other themes work fine.
 
rsronin said:
Currently not using FreeBSD unfortenately but:

did you install libva-intel-driver?

I had this in loader.conf:

# Enhance shared memory X11 interface
kern.ipc.shmmax=67108864
kern.ipc.shmall=32768

and these were in sysctl.conf:

kern.sched.preempt_thresh=224

kern.maxfiles=100000
hw.syscons.bell=0

kern.ipc.shm_allow_removed=1

net.local.stream.recvspace=65536
net.local.stream.sendspace=65536
#net.local.stream.recvspace=16384

Hope this will do for the moment.
Click to expand...
BTW, are these settings specific for KDE or are they also valid for Xfce?
 
Terentijn, I can see from posts that you are try many different environments. I suggest you keep things simple, and not use bloated DEs.
 
My problems are solved. I switched to another boot environment without KDE installed. I installed Xfce 4.14 and themed it with my favorite Nordic theme. It runs flawlessly. I'll delete the KDE BE, because I'm hapy with
Geezer said:
Terentijn, I can see from posts that you are try many different environments. I suggest you keep things simple, and not use bloated DEs.
Click to expand...
Not true. I happen to like KDE but am having problems. The original ones are gone. They were caused by double loading of the Intel driver. Both the base one (i915kms) plus the xf86-video-Intel. Kde runs fantastic but has little quirks so that's why I changed to Xfce. Another one of my big favorites. Playing with DE's lies in the past. I've used them all and know which ones work best for me. Thanks for the advice though.
 
rsronin said:
kern.maxfiles=100000
Click to expand...
This is actually lower than the default. I suggest checking the value of kern.maxfiles before blindly modifying it. This value is dynamically calculated based on the amount of memory the machine has and with modern systems this value is already quite high. On my lowly Core i5 server with 16GB the kern.maxfiles is, by default, 5 times higher than what you're setting it to.

With regards to tuning, just don't, not until there's an actual reason to do so. Most of the suggestions you're going to find on the internet are mostly based on old FreeBSD versions, or for specific use cases. A modern FreeBSD version usually does a fine job tuning itself.
 
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