[gentoo-user] KDE-4.1 apps render slowly

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

This post might be a bit vague, sorry about that, I'm not sure where to start 
or how to explain it.

New laptop with nVidia GeForce 8600. Arch ~amd64, emerged kde-meta-4.1, but it 
renders exceptionally slowly on the screen when scrolling. The effect is as if 
something is keeping the system very busy while input actions occur:

It can take 30 secs to scroll slashdot's front page from top to bottom.
Any web page displayed in akregator inside kontact is even slower.
When kwallet pops up asking for the master password, it misses keystrokes when 
typing at normal speed.
Scrolling through a long mail in kmail is slightly slower than normal, but 
scrolling the same mail in a reply window is full speed.
Konqueror in split-window mode takes a few seconds to react when navigating 
through directories.

Firefox works normally. I use e17 as the window manager, so I'm seeing this 
just using KDE apps, not the whole DE. top, krells and other regular tools 
show the system running normally, no apparent spikes or busyness.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a nice howto or the correct tools to 
figure out what's going on here?

emerge --info:
Portage 2.2_rc6 (default/linux/amd64/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.1, 
glibc-2.8_p20080602-r0, 2.6.25-gentoo-r7 x86_64)                                                                                                        
=================================================================                                           
System uname: Linux-2.6.25-gentoo-r7-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-
TM-2_Duo_CPU_T9300_@_2.50GHz-with-glibc2.2.5      
Timestamp of tree: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:33:01 +0000                                                          
app-shells/bash:     3.2_p39                                                                                
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.6-r1                                                                       
dev-lang/python:     2.5.2-r7
sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.0
sys-apps/openrc:     0.2.5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1-r3
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.62-r1
sys-devel/automake:  1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.18-r3
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4
sys-devel/libtool:   2.2.4
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.25-r4
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/4.1/env /usr/kde/4.1/share/config 
/usr/kde/4.1/shutdown /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ 
/etc/eselect/postgresql /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release 
/etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active//etc/php/cli-
php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/var/distfiles"
FEATURES="distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch preserve-libs sandbox 
sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="/mnt/distfiles/ ftp://ftp.is.co.za/mirror/gentoo.org/ 
http://distfiles.gentoo.org 
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
LINGUAS="en_US"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/var/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --
compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --
exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/var/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/var/portage/local/layman/enlightenment 
/var/portage/local/layman/ecomp /var/portage/local/layman/sunrise 
/var/portage/local/layman/mozilla /var/portage/local/layman/desktop-effects 
/var/portage/local/layman/kdesvn-portage /var/portage/local/alan"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X a52 aac aalib acl acpi adns aiglx alsa amd64 ao apache2 audiofile bash-
completion berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdaudio cdr cli cracklib 
crypt cups curl curlwrappers cvs dbus dbx dga dri dts dv dvb dvd dvdr dvdread 
encode etk evo ewl exif expat fam ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb freetds ftp 
gd gdbm gif gimpglitz gnutls gpm gtk hal iconv id3tag imagemagick imap imlib 
ipod irda irmc jabber javascript jbig jce jpegjpeg2k kde keyring lcms ldap 
lesstif libc_glibc libcaca libg++ libnotify libsamplerate libsndfile libwww 
lm_sensors mad maildir matroska mbox mcal midi mikmod milter mime mmx mng mp3 
mp3tunes mp4 mpeg mplayer mtp mudflap multilib mysql mysqli ncurses netboot 
nfs nptl nsplugin ntp odbc offensive ogg openal opengl openmp pam pango pcre 
pdf perl php plotutils pmu png posix postgres ppds pppd profile python qt-
static qt3support qt4quicktime readline realmedia reflection samba sasl 
scanner sdl session slp sms spell spl sqlite sqlite3 ssesse2 ssl ssse3 
startup-notification subversion svg sysfs sysvipc tcl tcltk tcpd tetex theora 
threads tidy tiff tk truetype udev unicode usb utempter vcd vim-syntax vorbis 
wavpack wifi wmf wxwindows x264 xattr xcomposite xine xinetd xml xorg xosd xpm 
xulrunner xv xvid xvmc zeroconf zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp 
atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 
hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem 
ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty 
extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw 
multi null plug rateroute share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias 
auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file 
authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user 
autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires 
ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap include info log_config 
logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer 
proxy_connect proxy_http rewrite setenvif so speling status unique_id userdir 
usertrack vhost_alias " ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" 
KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 
mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en_US" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nv nvidia 
vesa vga"
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, 
PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com