I enjoy using many different desktop environments and operating systems. On a day-to-day basis, I use Finder, Explorer, GNOME, and KDE. They all have their good sides, but obviously, they have their fair share of bad sides as well. The next couple of columns will be about the latter. This week, I take a look at whatever bothers me about Ubuntu's GNOME/Linux combination (Dapper, obviously).
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Member since:2005-07-06
I'm not saying that GTK's redraw speed couldn't be better -- it definitely could -- but that video is pretty unfair.
Eh ... maybe. I see your point ... the video certainly wasn't intended to be biased though. The thing is, even if you bring MS Explorer (the file manager equivalent of Nautilus) over top of IE and resize and move the window, there is no redrawing.
Member since:2005-07-06
Using firefox on a complex webpage is probably the worst test you could ever come up with. Also the GTK+ theme that you have chosen is probably THE slowest theme there is.
Why don't you load a large text document in notepad with cleartype on, then you'll it flashing like crazy.
I am sure windows has some nice optomizations anyway to stop windows trailing. With linux and composite you never get one trail.
The latency/speed of GTK+/X should be improved but in that video was totally biased.
Edited 2006-06-04 22:28
Member since:2005-07-06
The latency/speed of GTK+/X should be improved but in that video was totally biased.
It's not biased. It *was* a real example of what *I* experienced on my system on a daily basis. Sorry if I don't make a habit of minimizing all my windows before moving or resizing a window. Moving one window over top of another window is something I do all the time on a variety of Operating Sytems including Linux, Mac OSX, Zeta, and others. The X Window System just seems really bad about redrawing. The problem is completely reproducible on FreeBSD and OpenBSD w/ X.
Besides, I have been using Linux (Debian currently) as my primary (almost exclusive) Desktop OS for the last 3 years. (And another 5 years prior to that ... but not as my primary Desktop OS.) So what the hell would I have to gain by trying to make a video that showed an unrealistic example of the Linux Desktop? Nothing. That wasn't the point. It was a *real* example of what I was seeing *every single day* on my system. And I wasn't seeing the same type of problem on Zeta, Mac OSX, or MS Windows.
Member since:
2006-02-01
http://www.davidcourtney.org/Files/Win-vs-Lin-video.asf
(Sorry that I only have an asf file. Video encoding isn't my thing.)
I'm not saying that GTK's redraw speed couldn't be better -- it definitely could -- but that video is pretty unfair.
In the Windows case, the window is on top of a blank desktop with a few icons on it -- it doesn't even have to redraw any wallpaper. On the other hand, in the Linux case you've got a Nautilus window on top of Firefox. For whatever reason, Firefox's drawing speed under Linux is extremely poor (open a page with some Flash images -- the Flash parts of the page are always displayed first). This is certainly something that needs fixing, but it's not the responsibility of the Gnome project, or even GTK, but instead the Mozilla/Gecko people.
A fairer comparison would be to move/resize a Nautilus window on top of a plain Gnome desktop, without wallpaper, exactly as you had in Windows.