Over the past couple of months, and especially over the past couple of weeks, I've been working very hard to write and complete my thesis. I performed all the work on Windows 7, but now that the thesis is finally done, submitted, and accepted, I installed Ubuntu - and immediately I was reminded of why I do not do any serious work on Linux: the train wreck that is X.org.
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Member since:2006-01-02
Bad drivers, and wayland won't save you.
You aren't using Intel gfx card by any chance? The drivers have had severe regressions for a while now. I have an ATi and my performance is fine and about on par with Windows XP on the same machine (except for KDE 4, of course).
I should add that Windows also has layers and layers, as does any modern OS. That's not why it's slow. If the drivers don't properly accelerate certain operations, they will be very slow. The overhead from X server internals is pretty low.
Edited 2009-08-15 18:56 UTC
Member since:2005-07-24
The "bad drivers" has always been such an universal excuse that I can only laugh in despair.
It's total nonsense.
I can see this on every computer with any graphics card with any driver with any X.org settings. Accelerated, unaccelerated, XAA, EXA, XRENDER, noRENDER, whatever. I even replaced the NVIDIA card on my computer with an ATI card to see what kind of difference it makes. Absolutely no difference whatsoever in anything.
Member since:2005-07-11
My example is even more embarassing. I had a mouse with a faulty cable. It would sometimes "lose the signal", which would cause the mouse to freeze or "restart" from time to time. This was no problem in Microsoft Windows (XP, from 2001). When it happened, the mouse driver was simply restarted and it would work again. In X.org, it would sometimes crash/freeze the whole X.
That's a problem with X.org on Linux, not X.org in general. On FreeBSD, where there's a proper, working, console mouse driver (moused), that handles the low-level mouse connection, things like this don't happen. If X.org loses the connection to the mouse, you just restart moused (/etc/rc.d/moused restart) and things start working again.
I have similar problems due to a crappy 2-port Belkin KVM switch. Sometimes, switching between the two computers will cause the mouse to lock up. On the Windows side, it's dead until I manually unplug/replug the PS/2 connector. On the FreeBSD side, I just restart moused and carry on.
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:2005-09-15
Okay, Troll, I'm feeding you so you can shut up and go away. Although I think Thom is pointing his ire at the wrong target, at least he has a point.
But, where you're concerned, the only way you could have such "ultragigaslowness" ( and one wonders why you'd keep on using any such system, unless bitching is what keeps you breathing ), is if you are still running the same machine you were back in '99.
Go enjoy Win 7 or buy a Mac and leave us poor X-using fools in peace.
We'll miss ya.
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:
2005-07-24
Very good article. Criticizing X.org on popular websites like one is badly needed, as more people need to be aware of the deficiencies. Only when they're aware of them, something may happen.
My example is even more embarassing. I had a mouse with a faulty cable. It would sometimes "lose the signal", which would cause the mouse to freeze or "restart" from time to time. This was no problem in Microsoft Windows (XP, from 2001). When it happened, the mouse driver was simply restarted and it would work again. In X.org, it would sometimes crash/freeze the whole X.
But my biggest gripe with X has always been the pathetic performance, horrible slowness, jerkiness and obscene inefficiency compared to MS Windows. And it's only getting slower and slower every year. My X.org desktop in 2009 is so extremely ultragigaslow that I could never imagine it was even technically possible. I have a rolling-update distro (Arch Linux), and everytime I update the system or some component, the GUI gets slower. Upgrade to a newer X.org - it gets slower. Update the video driver - it gets slower. Update the GUI toolkit - it gets slower. Update Emacs to use GTK+ instead of the archaic X GUI - it gets much slower. update Emacs again to use modern fontconfig - it gets masively slower. And so on and so on.
And it's more and more frequent. From 1999 to 2004, I could notice a major slowdown maybe every 2 years. Then it was every year. Last year it was maybe every 3-5 months. Then it was every month, and now, I can see my system getting slower almost every day, with each new update.
The whole graphics stack that sits on top of Linux is a gigantic failure. And has always been, this is a chronic problem. All the inefficient, badly written and unoptimized abstract layers-on-layers-on-layers-on-layers of superslow, rough, unfinished and buggy stuff.
So, will Wayland save us? Or anything else?