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From: ktl@wag240.wag.caltech.edu (Kian-Tat Lim)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: speed of newer versions of OpenWindows on low-end Suns
Message-ID: <1990Oct14.101954.11387@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 14 Oct 90 10:19:54 GMT
References: <42929@andante.UUCP> <1990Oct13.140154@wind.Eng.Sun.COM>
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Reply-To: ktl@wag240.wag.caltech.edu (Kian-Tat Lim)
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	With regard to this discussion of the speed of OW2.0, we have
found that it feels slow on our 4/20s (SLCs) with 8 MB.  Two are
configured with /, /var, and swap on a local disk, with the rest
NFS-mounted; the third has everything including /usr/openwin on its
380 MB disk.

	Slowness involves a number of components.  Startup time is
about 90 seconds (compared with 30 for the NeWS server on our SGI
4D/25s).  Input-focus changes (I use "Move Pointer" focus policy) can
take multiple seconds.  Bringing up menus can also take seconds.  This
is with a modest set of clients: 3 cmdtool, cm, clock, mailtool,
perfmeter, emacs (18.52 under X).

	The culprit seems to be lack of real memory; vmstat gives a
"fre" number less than 512K all the time, and much paging and swapping
seems to be occurring.  The kernel has been trimmed down, but is still
1076624 bytes (text+data+bss).

	Installing the PMEG patch did little for performance, though
no stolen PMEGs are now reported during normal operations.

	Does anyone have suggestions for speeding OW2.0 up, besides
buying more RAM (a path we are already looking at)?  Only DECwindows
on an overloaded VS3100 approaches the slowness of common OW tasks,
making systems like NeXT look attractive as low-end workstations.
-- 
Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wag240.wag.caltech.edu, KTL @ CITCHEM.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1)