Performance tuning the Fedora Desktop
by William Cohen
I work on performance tools at Red Hat. I have been told there is
interest in tuning the desktop to improve performance. I have a number
of questions to help identify the work needed in this area. I would be
interested in any answers that people have for the following questions.
What is the set of software in the "Desktop" (executable names and/or
RPM packages)?
What specific performance problems have people observed so far in the
desktop? For example heavy CPU or memory usage by particular
applications. Another example long latency between event and resulting
action.
What metrics were used to gauged the effect of software changes on
performance?
What performance tools have people used so far to identify performance
problems with desktop applications?
How well or poorly did the performance tools work in identifying the
performance problem?
Were benchmarks used to test performance of desktop applications? If
so, what type of benchmarks were used (e.g. micro benchmarks or
measuring the amount of time required to do something in an
application program)?
Were the benchmarks runnable in batch mode without human assistance?
-Will
20 years
window managers
by Havoc Pennington
Hi,
I'm triaging my bugs and there are a few sawfish issues that I know I
won't get around to fixing. Also at this point I think most people
wanting a more featureful WM are using a more maintained one, there's a
list of EWMH compliant WMs at http://freedesktop.org/standards/wm-spec
Even of those included with FC2, there's a good chance KWin and xfwm
both work OK with GNOME.
So suggestions:
1) if we have a random more-features WM in Core, I think it should
probably be one of the more maintained ones instead of Sawfish
2) maybe the right path instead is to put extra WMs in Extras and only
the full desktop envs - gnome, kde, xfce, and classic (twm/xterm) - in
Core
3) either way, pretty sure someone other than me should be maintaining
the package
Havoc
20 years
Shared Calendars
by Jon Orris
After reading
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2004-April/msg00035.html
I've been taking a look at groupware/calendaring solutions, and wanted
to share my thoughts on it:
System requirements:
Performance & scalability: The system should scale to hundreds, and
ideally thousands of users. It should be easy to purchase better
hardware or add servers in a clustered environment to improve
performance and support large numbers of users.
Community: Ideally, the project should already have a strong Open Source
community around it.
Standards: The product needs to support common open components and
standards. The use of standard protocols for storage & exchange of data
is important. There are some projects that use standard components, but
in very unusual ways with no standard protocol for exchange. Some
relevant standards are:
(The below lists of standards & features, excepting Evolution
integration, are from
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2004-April/msg00058.html)
http://www.imc.org/ietf-calendar/index.htmliCalendar/iCal (RFC2445)
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txtxCal (iCalendar DTD document)
http://xml.coverpages.org/iCal.htmlCalendar Server Extensions for WebDAV
(CalDAV)
http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-dusseault-caldav-00.htmliTIP (RFC
2446) Transport-independent Interoperability protocol
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2446.txtiMIP (RFC 2447) Message-based
Interoperability Protocol
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2447.txtCalendar Access Protocol (CAP)
transport over BEEP
http://www.beepcore.org/beepcore/home.jsp
http://beepcore.org/beepcore/docs/profile-cap.htmlICAP (extension of
IMAP 4 to support CAP)
http://www.wirs.aber.ac.uk/spk/Diary/icap-draft.htm#Overview
Features:
* Single-Sign On (usually via Directory integration)
* user management via "address book users" rather than "system users"
* Group scheduling/Meeting creation
* Resource scheduling (ie. room availability, notebook checkout...)
* Free/busy time
* Merging of multiple calendars
* import/export iCal
* synchronization:
* to handhelds/phone
* to notebook
* to other calendar servers
* notification/reminder mechanism
* Evolution Integration
Anyone have other requirements we haven't thought of here?
As an alternative to adopting a particular project, we could build
something. The WAF framework, for example, contains numerous
infrastructure components that would facilitate building such a system.
http://redhat.com/software/rha/tech/waf/
Community Projects:
The ones I've looked at so far were mentioned in
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2004-April/msg00058.html
My overall conclusion is that Open Groupware and Horde are the strongest
existing options.
k5n.us (http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php)
License: GPL
Features:
Decent PHP calendar implementaion. Does not appear to have groups, but
allows creating calendar entries for multiple individuals in 'Waiting
for Approval' State.
Allows Export as iCal, vCal, or CSV. Allows import as vCal or CSV.
Supports LDAP authentication.
Database:
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, Interbase or ODBC.
Documentation:
Pretty good documentation. Good documentation on the DB schema.
UCal from the University of Washington (http://www.washington.edu/ucal/)
License: BSD Style http://www.washington.edu/ucal/bsd.html
Features:
Java Servlets based calendar implementation. Allows import & export in
iCal. Has users & groups.
Code is of adequate to poor quality. Academic implementation. No
built-in authentication mechanism other than simple plaintext passwords.
Database code spread throughout as raw JDBC calls.
Open Groupware (OpenGroupware.org)
License: GPL & LGPL
Features:
Group Collaboration system descended from the SKYRiX groupware server.
Supports group workspaces, calendaring, some document management.
Integrates with IMAP for mail and LDAP for authentication. Written in
Objective-C, some XML-RPC APIs for Java & perl being developed.
Calendar integration works with Mozilla Calendar, Apple's iCal.app and
generic WebDav. There is an OGo specific Evolution plugin being
developed; I tried it on 1.4.5 and it was able to create entries on the
server, but not view them in Evolution.
OGo works with Ximian's Exchange Connector v1.2. The version recently
released as Open Source by Ximian is 1.4.7, which does not work, but
there is strong interest on the OGo lists in supporting it.
OGo has a plugable database architecture, and currently supports
PostgreSQL and FrontBase.
OGo has basic localization support for Latin-1 charsets, but doesn't
currently support language such as Chinese or Japanese. This is a
planned feature.
Horde (http://www.horde.org/)
License: GPL & LGPL
PHP based groupware system. Supports POP3/IMAP integration for mail,
LDAP & SQL for contact management, and has calendaring.
The calendar system now support import/export of iCal. It doesn't yet
support group calendaring, but this is in development.
Supports MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.
KGroupware (http://kgroupware.org/)
License: GPL
Groupware/calendaring solution focusing on KDE frontends. Calendaring
supports vCal standard. Calendar entries, like everything else, are
stored on the IMAP server as a special type of 'mail' message. This does
not fit well with most other software.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-October/msg00588.html
Chandler (http://wiki.osafoundation.org/twiki/bin/view/Chandler/WebHome)
License: GPL, other OS licenses in the future.
Interesting project, but is in a very early stage. It doesn't look like
full Full iCal compliance isn't scheduled until the 1.5 release, and it
is currently on 0.3. It isn't clear if even this allows external
clients such as Evolution to access calendar functionality.
Currently, development focus is on building out the application
framework. The project has full time developers being funded by OSAF.
Egroupware:
License: GPL & LGPL
community
Egroupware is a fork of phpgroupware. Some people were dissatisfied with
phpgroupware development so they forked. The calendar application is
actually on a fork of the PHP-based WebCalendar (separate project).The
project is pretty popular as a download on sourceforge.
features
Reasonable calendar. Primitive "CMS". Webmail app (strangely not based
on Horde; based on Anglemail). There is also a Wiki, Bookmarks, Forum,
and "Infolog" (notes/todos).The UI isn't very good (lots of clicking
around to figure out how to do things, and it's slow so it's a bit
frustrating). It looks pretty, though.The documentation is pretty
abysmal. There is work with LDAP.
technical
Written in PHP. It runs very slowly on a test system at Red Hat.
Supports MySQL and PostgreSQL only with embedded SQL statements.They
have made an attempt to separate out business logic from the UI. Given
the scripting language base, I don't know if this is scaleable.
Interoperability with existing systems (e.g., IMAP stores) does not seem
to be a focus.They do not have real standards support (e.g., iCal).
20 years
Fedora cd artwork: Covers, CD-labels etc.
by Sindre Pedersen Bjordal
I was wondering, do any of you know of any Fedora artwork that can be
made into a cover and CD-label for my Fedora CD-set or maybe even some
finished covers or cd-labels?
If someone not as artistically retarded as me decided to make something
like this, will it be ok (as in legal) to distribute it?
20 years
Re: Performance tuning the Fedora Desktop
by Brian Ledbetter
As many others have pointed out rythymbox uses insane amounts of RAM
after about one day of use.
On May 6, 2004, at 10:00 AM, fedora-desktop-list-request(a)redhat.com
wrote:
>
> From: Will Cohen <wcohen(a)redhat.com>
> Date: May 5, 2004 3:11:27 PM MDT
> To: fedora-desktop-list(a)redhat.com
> Subject: Performance tuning the Fedora Desktop
> Reply-To: Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop
> <fedora-desktop-list(a)redhat.com>
>
>
> I work on performance tools at Red Hat. I have been told there is
> interest in tuning the desktop to improve performance. I have a number
> of questions to help identify the work needed in this area. I would be
> interested in any answers that people have for the following
> questions.
>
>
> What is the set of software in the "Desktop" (executable names and/or
> RPM packages)?
>
> What specific performance problems have people observed so far in the
> desktop? For example heavy CPU or memory usage by particular
> applications. Another example long latency between event and resulting
> action.
>
> What metrics were used to gauged the effect of software changes on
> performance?
>
> What performance tools have people used so far to identify performance
> problems with desktop applications?
>
> How well or poorly did the performance tools work in identifying the
> performance problem?
>
> Were benchmarks used to test performance of desktop applications? If
> so, what type of benchmarks were used (e.g. micro benchmarks or
> measuring the amount of time required to do something in an
> application program)?
>
> Were the benchmarks runnable in batch mode without human assistance?
>
>
> -Will
20 years
Help Needed: Firefox 0.8 and Thunderbird 0.6
by Warren Togami
https://bugzilla.fedora.us/show_bug.cgi?id=1460
Please assist Fedora Extras in preparing revisions of the firefox-0.8
and thunderbird-0.6 packages before the release of FC2. These packages
are patched with Blizzard's xremote fixes which finally allow perfect
integration with both firefox & thunderbird running simultaneously. We
have also spent a great deal of time making sure they work within the
newly fixed Preferred Application framework of FC2.
Only minor changes are needed to both packages before publication. Also
it would help if Fedora Desktop volunteers can help to contact upstream
developers to either act as liasons, or work directly with Fedora Extras
development.
https://bugzilla.fedora.us/show_bug.cgi?id=1443
Even non-programmers can help by searching upstream mozilla.org bugzilla
and talking to firefox or mozilla developers about this issue. It is
very likely that there already exists a patch or workaround for this
issue, but the developers are too busy to search for it. You can help!
For example, we have made this kind of very successful partnership with
three upstream gaim developers. They are automatically added to all
Fedora gaim bug reports, and have helped us immensely to be very
responsive to user bugzilla reports and package fixing. (Currently
there are ZERO open gaim reports in FC!)
Warren Togami
wtogami(a)redhat.com
20 years
LTWinmodem
by Warren Walker
I recently successfully installed Fedora on an old IBM Aptiva [Amd k6-2 366, 64 Mb Ram, 3.1Gb HD].
What can I do to get Fedora to recognize the LTWinmodem?
Can Fedora recognize a Speedstream 5200 USB DSL modem?
Warren____________________________
20 years
Bluecurve Sound Theme?
by Bruce A. Locke
Has any thought been put into a Bluecurve sound theme for the GNOME and
KDE desktop environments over in the new Red Hat Desktop office?
Just curious. :)
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce A. Locke
blocke(a)shivan.org
20 years
System Freezing Completely
by Parameshwara Bhat
Hello List,
I had very bad freezing of the system,twice today morning - the kind one
usually associates only with MS Windows and not Linux - quite unexpectedly.
I was running Opera Browser-7.23 version and wget-1.8.2-15.3 at the time.I
have used Opera earlier and not seen this kind of problem.This problem
repeated when wget was running alone too.
Only change in my system since installation was new modemboard based on
smartlink chipset and driver slmdm-version 2.7.14.
I could not change over to either commandline-mode (ctrl+alt+F1) or invoke
sysguard program to kill anyof these applications.Keyboard and mouse were
dead too. I didnot anything else to do.What else is there to do in such a
situation? Has anybody had this kind of problem in Fedora or Linux in
general ?
Parameshwara Bhat
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
20 years
Core 2 test 3 display problem
by mace
Hi,
I have just installed core2 test 3. The system defaults to 640x480 for
the screen resolution. I have tried changing it, reboot, and it stays
at 640. When I go back into display, it shows the changed in
resolution. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong. Under
preferences for display it only shows 640x480.
I am running a tyan s2466 motherboard with dual mp2200+ 512 meg ram
60gig hd, Ati 8500, 19" monitor.
This makes the system almost unusable.
Thanks
20 years
