[gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   I'm noticing that what I think is a flash presentation in
firefox-bin on my 3GHz Gentoo AMD64 machine is *significantly* slower,
like 10x slower, than the same page coming up on my 1.6Ghz Athlon XP
machine running Win XP.

   If I go to the following page

http://www.investools.com/

then what I see is a green arrow filling up for about 10 seconds while
this presentation loading. On the XP box it's essentially
instantaneous. I cleared cache and restarted the browser on both
machines to make the comparison.

   Granted, I don't care about this stuff on the front page but there
is stuff inside the website that I need which is also 5-10x slower on
my Gentoo machine than on Win XP which makes using Gentoo pretty much
out of the question. I'm not sure the stuff inside is actually flash -
it's static charts, etc., some of which are done with Java I think.

   Do any others see this same slow response on the front page?

   I'm using a newish flash although I haven't sync'ed in a day or two
so maybe something else is out there.

mark@lightning ~ $ eix -I flash
[I] net-www/netscape-flash
     Available versions:  7.0.63 7.0.68 {M}(~)9.0.21.55 {M}(~)9.0.21.78
     Installed versions:  9.0.21.78(04:34:22 PM 12/02/2006)
     Homepage:            http://www.adobe.com/
     Description:         Adobe Flash Player

mark@lightning ~ $

   Is this a firefox-bin thing? Maybe I should build firefox from source?

Thanks in advance,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

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On Thursday 28 December 2006 10:01, "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com> 
wrote about '[gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash 
related':
>    Is this a firefox-bin thing? Maybe I should build firefox from
> source?

Good luck getting flash to work if you do that. :P

-- 
"If there's one thing we've established over the years,
it's that the vast majority of our users don't have the slightest
clue what's best for them in terms of package stability."
-- Gentoo Developer Ciaran McCreesh

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[gentoo-amd64] Re: Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Duncan]

"Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <bss03@volumehost.net> posted
200612281559.21743.bss03@volumehost.net, excerpted below, on  Thu, 28 Dec
2006 15:59:15 -0600:

> On Thursday 28 December 2006 10:01, "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com>
> wrote about '[gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash
> related':
>>    Is this a firefox-bin thing? Maybe I should build firefox from
>> source?
> 
> Good luck getting flash to work if you do that. :P

Oh, it should be no problem, as long as one is building a 32-bit firefox,
presumably in one's 32-bit chroot, following the Gentoo/amd64 32-bit
chroot guide.

Of course, if one is building a standard 64-bit firefox and expecting the
32-bit flash shared object plugin to work in the 64-bit firefox process
address space, then one is in for a bit of disappointment, but that's only
common sense so should be expected and go without saying. =8^P

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Wil Reichert]

On 12/29/06, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> "Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <bss03@volumehost.net> posted
> 200612281559.21743.bss03@volumehost.net, excerpted below, on  Thu, 28 Dec
> 2006 15:59:15 -0600:
>
> > On Thursday 28 December 2006 10:01, "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com>
> > wrote about '[gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash
> > related':
> >>    Is this a firefox-bin thing? Maybe I should build firefox from
> >> source?
> >
> > Good luck getting flash to work if you do that. :P
>
> Oh, it should be no problem, as long as one is building a 32-bit firefox,
> presumably in one's 32-bit chroot, following the Gentoo/amd64 32-bit
> chroot guide.
>
> Of course, if one is building a standard 64-bit firefox and expecting the
> 32-bit flash shared object plugin to work in the 64-bit firefox process
> address space, then one is in for a bit of disappointment, but that's only
> common sense so should be expected and go without saying. =8^P

64 bit firefox & 32 bit plugins, heard of nspluginwrapper? =)  WIP &
I've seen varying reports of success from different people, but it
works well for me.

As for the web page in question, I see the exact same behaviour Mark
describes on my system.  Sounds more like a windows / linux thing than
a 32 / 64 bit thing.  Just guessing tho.

Wil
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Mark Knecht]

On 12/29/06, Wil Reichert <wil.reichert@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/06, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> > "Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <bss03@volumehost.net> posted
> > 200612281559.21743.bss03@volumehost.net, excerpted below, on  Thu, 28 Dec
> > 2006 15:59:15 -0600:
> >
> > > On Thursday 28 December 2006 10:01, "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com>
> > > wrote about '[gentoo-amd64] Browsing speed problems - possibly flash
> > > related':
> > >>    Is this a firefox-bin thing? Maybe I should build firefox from
> > >> source?
> > >
> > > Good luck getting flash to work if you do that. :P
> >
> > Oh, it should be no problem, as long as one is building a 32-bit firefox,
> > presumably in one's 32-bit chroot, following the Gentoo/amd64 32-bit
> > chroot guide.
> >
> > Of course, if one is building a standard 64-bit firefox and expecting the
> > 32-bit flash shared object plugin to work in the 64-bit firefox process
> > address space, then one is in for a bit of disappointment, but that's only
> > common sense so should be expected and go without saying. =8^P
>
> 64 bit firefox & 32 bit plugins, heard of nspluginwrapper? =)  WIP &
> I've seen varying reports of success from different people, but it
> works well for me.
>
> As for the web page in question, I see the exact same behaviour Mark
> describes on my system.  Sounds more like a windows / linux thing than
> a 32 / 64 bit thing.  Just guessing tho.
>
> Wil

Hi Wil,
   I was just sort of finishing up on this topic from my end. On the
front page I see the same sort of slow loading behaviour on my wife's
32-bit Gentoo box so I tend to agree with you. Whatever it is that's
going on there, and I pretty sure it's a Flash process, it's just far
slower on Linux than Windows for me.

   Note that if this was just Flash on the front page it would be no
big deal. However I think there may be additional issues around the
speed of Java once you log in and get inside the web site. That is
what really matters and it's very slow on this machine.

   My 64-bit machine was turned off over Christmas while I traveled.
It's back up and the problem remains but it's not a network problem.
I've transferred about 27GB of data in the last three days - mostly
web browsing and MythTV streaming - with no dropped packets:

lightning ~ # ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:13:D4:3E:14:6A
          inet addr:192.168.1.56  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::213:d4ff:fe3e:146a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:19784419 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:10307909 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:26968563236 (25719.2 Mb)  TX bytes:721444417 (688.0 Mb)
          Interrupt:23 Base address:0x2000

   All of this leads me to once again consider either downgrading to
32-bit or trying to run a 32-bit chroot again. The chroot, while a lot
of work, does allow me to keep the work I do on this web site sort of
self contained which wouldn't be bad. The problem is that I see
'leakage' between the two environments while running Firefox which
worries me. Which ever environment I start Firefox in first is the
environment that provides bookmarks for both sides. That leads me to
not trust the chroot thing completely, but maybe with some study I
could get that fixed.

   Anyway, thanks much for reporting back. At least it's good to know
it's not just my machine.

Cheers,
Mark
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[gentoo-amd64] Re: Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Duncan]

"Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com> posted
5bdc1c8b0612291445h1c927ecag3cfdf19f134a6e28@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
below, on  Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:45:37 -0800:

>    Note that if this was just Flash on the front page it would be no
> big deal. However I think there may be additional issues around the speed
> of Java once you log in and get inside the web site. That is what really
> matters and it's very slow on this machine.

What Java are you using?  When I switched to Gentoo I decided I didn't
need Java enough to override its being proprietary, so I don't have it
installed here and haven't had it installed on Gentoo at all.  However,
back on Mandrake, I noticed Java was /dreadfully/ slow at times on Linux. 
IIRC, I was using kaffe JVM at that time and attributed it to that, but I
was trying to run broadbandreports.com's Java based speedtest applet, and
it was simply too slow executing to produce anything even /close/ to
reliable results.

So it may be the JVM or something Java related, rather than flash or
whatever.

Happily, now that Sun is GPLing Java, I should be able to merge a decent
and freedom software based Java one of these days. I'm looking forward
to it!  =8^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Harry Holt]

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It's probably not java (as in the java VM on the machine), but javascript in
the browser.  I have noticed that firefox's javascript is noticably slower
on linux than on windows (both 64-bit and 32).  Check out for example
digg.com (a site that makes extensive use of javascript).  There is a
noticeable performance difference.

... HH

On 12/29/06, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
>
> "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com> posted
> 5bdc1c8b0612291445h1c927ecag3cfdf19f134a6e28@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
> below, on  Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:45:37 -0800:
>
> >    Note that if this was just Flash on the front page it would be no
> > big deal. However I think there may be additional issues around the
> speed
> > of Java once you log in and get inside the web site. That is what really
> > matters and it's very slow on this machine.
>
> What Java are you using?  When I switched to Gentoo I decided I didn't
> need Java enough to override its being proprietary, so I don't have it
> installed here and haven't had it installed on Gentoo at all.  However,
> back on Mandrake, I noticed Java was /dreadfully/ slow at times on Linux.
> IIRC, I was using kaffe JVM at that time and attributed it to that, but I
> was trying to run broadbandreports.com's Java based speedtest applet, and
> it was simply too slow executing to produce anything even /close/ to
> reliable results.
>
> So it may be the JVM or something Java related, rather than flash or
> whatever.
>
> Happily, now that Sun is GPLing Java, I should be able to merge a decent
> and freedom software based Java one of these days. I'm looking forward
> to it!  =8^)
>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman
>
> --
> gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


-- 
Harry Holt, PMP

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Browsing speed problems - possibly flash related

[Drake Donahue]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com>
<snip>
Konqueror browser 64 bit and 32bit browsers load http://www.investools.com 
quite briskly. Konqueror 64 bit also runs 32 bit flash 7.0 after making and 
using a custom ebuild for nsplugins32 discussed on the gentoo forums. 

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