[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#453266: Bug#453266: xfce4-terminal: text displays slowly and hogs CPU in some tabs and instances

[A. Costa]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:27:16 +0100
Yves-Alexis Perez <corsac at corsac.net> wrote:

> I can really reproduce this. On this other box, when the first window
> is opened, I get like 1 second. Then retry, still 1 second. I open
> another tab, try there, and get 2 seconds (wich is strange, I agree).
> Then retry in this tab, and 1 second.
> Same thing if I open another window.

Suggest adding a zero or two to see if the effect is more pronounced:

	time seq 1000000	# 10 or 20 seconds in theory

Or...

	# patience
	time seq 10000000	# maybe 2 to 4 minutes?

> ...Can you try to reproduce with gnome-terminal, too?

I tried 'konsole', 'gnome-terminal', 'xterm', 'rxvt', 'eterm', 'mrxvt' but so
far haven't been able to slow down any other terminal.  At first I tried 'em
en masse like so:

	LOG=`mktemp -t terben.XXXXXX` C=100000 P="seq $C"; for f in 'xterm -e' 'rxvt -e' 'mrxvt -e' 'Eterm -e' 'konsole -e' 'gnome-terminal -x' 'xfce4-terminal -x'; do echo timing \"$f $P\".... ; $f /usr/bin/time -ao $LOG -f "%E real,  %U user,  %S sys, %P CPU :: $f" $P ; done ; cat $LOG
	timing "xterm -e seq 100000"....
	timing "rxvt -e seq 100000"....
	timing "mrxvt -e seq 100000"....
	timing "Eterm -e seq 100000"....
	timing "konsole -e seq 100000"....
	kbuildsycoca running...
	timing "gnome-terminal -x seq 100000"....
	timing "xfce4-terminal -x seq 100000"....
	0:06.89 real,  0.16 user,  0.16 sys, 4% CPU :: xterm -e
	0:03.38 real,  0.33 user,  0.38 sys, 21% CPU :: rxvt -e
	0:02.00 real,  0.35 user,  0.36 sys, 35% CPU :: mrxvt -e
	0:11.23 real,  0.18 user,  0.18 sys, 3% CPU :: Eterm -e
	0:03.82 real,  0.16 user,  0.18 sys, 9% CPU :: konsole -e
	0:04.17 real,  0.32 user,  0.42 sys, 17% CPU :: gnome-terminal -x
	0:01.95 real,  0.17 user,  0.20 sys, 19% CPU :: xfce4-terminal -x

But that code can't create the second tab, and doesn't reproduce the
current bug.  It shows 'eterm' is slowest, ordinarily.  Note that I've
used a '/usr/bin/time' command, as every shell seems to have a
different internal 'time'.

I tried the above with C=1000000 and the tail is surprising:

	timing "xfce4-terminal -x seq 1000000"....
	0:32.00 real,  1.60 user,  1.74 sys, 10% CPU :: xterm -e
	0:27.04 real,  3.95 user,  4.04 sys, 29% CPU :: rxvt -e
	0:18.36 real,  3.41 user,  3.86 sys, 39% CPU :: mrxvt -e
	1:54.52 real,  2.02 user,  1.97 sys, 3% CPU :: Eterm -e
	0:37.18 real,  1.64 user,  1.80 sys, 9% CPU :: konsole -e
	0:12.29 real,  1.85 user,  2.62 sys, 36% CPU :: gnome-terminal -x

Not a copy & paste error, the last 'xfce4-terminal' never runs.  This works:

	rm /tmp/foo ; xfce4-terminal -x  /usr/bin/time -o /tmp/foo -f "%E real,  %U user,  %S sys, %P CPU " seq 100 ; cat /tmp/foo 
	0:00.00 real,  0.00 user,  0.00 sys, 0% CPU 

...but not these:

	rm /tmp/foo ; xfce4-terminal -x  /usr/bin/time -o /tmp/foo -f "%E real,  %U user,  %S sys, %P CPU " seq 10000 ; cat /tmp/foo 
	cat: /tmp/foo: No such file or directory

	rm /tmp/foo ; xfce4-terminal -x  /usr/bin/time -o /tmp/foo -f "%E real,  %U user,  %S sys, %P CPU " seq 1000000 ; cat /tmp/foo 
	cat: /tmp/foo: No such file or directory

The 'time' command might be suspect, except the other X terminals don't seem
to be effected.

> Do you have compositor deactivated in xorg? In xfwm?

I'm not sure, how do I check those?

HTH...