xfce not recommended for z530 fit-pc2

Players, codecs, and video acceleration
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vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

xfce not recommended for z530 fit-pc2

Post by vtailor »

The xfce 'terminal' program causes the cpu meter to show continuous usage that doesn't settle down. You can see this effect in full slackware running xfce applications. If you substitute a custom-compiled version of lxterminal, which has the same capabilities as terminal, the continuous usage spikes of the cpu meter disappear.

Something like this happens under Windows 7 (waiting for delivery of Windows 8 at the moment), with the Windows 7 cpu meter running at 99% for lengthy periods of Time. You can temporarily stop this from happening by running the Windows disk defragmenter. The problem seems to result from some mismatch between the file systems in use and the hardware.

Under Linux, the very latest kernels are supposed to have a bug in them that leads to instabilities on Linux ext4 file systems on a general range of computers, such that a seemingly stable installation using the ext4 file system crashes after several uses. Something similar may be happening in Windows as well.

Above not a complete description.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: xfce not recommended for z530 fit-pc2

Post by vtailor »

Well, how about that? Xfce under Linux Mint works fine and dandy. It's the slackware that is the problem.

Guess what I found out: The accelerated flash from Intel has the same bugs under a Cedarview PowerVR desktop as it does under a gma500 emgd desktop. In other words, streaming octoshape flash from amazon.com doesn't work on both systems that use the acceleratef flash. If you switch back and forth between Mint flash and accelrated Intel flash, you immediately see how it works the same.

Free nugget of information. No extra charge.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: xfce not recommended for z530 fit-pc2

Post by vtailor »

Umm, Slackware 14, with the 3.7.1-smp kernel, and xfce4 is reasonably sparing of RAM, at least initially. I added the "cheese" program from slacky.eu, together with a minimal subset of support libraries, and this raised memory usage above 300 megabytes.

Notice the "slackware-current" kernel is not recommended because of omissions and incompatibilities, so you get the 3.7.1-smp from the AbsoluteLinux repository. You're welcome to install AbsoluteLinux in place of Slacware 14, but you need to hand compile the fbdev_drv.so driver and acquire the source code yourself through desktop.org. (An OEM source code file at your web site would be most welcomed.) Another of those do-it-yourself implementations, but some really cool programs.

vtailor
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:54 pm

Re: xfce not recommended for z530 fit-pc2

Post by vtailor »

Ah, gee, the built-in xfce "mem" meter on top of the screen shows 268 mb ram usage at the same Time as the 'free' program shows 795 mb ram usage. I tend to believe the built-in xfce meter because it gives the same value (roughly) as I get under Riplinux. Also, acpitool -e does not work, while acpitool -d gives:

bash-4.2# acpitool -c
CPU type : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU Z550 @ 2.00GHz
Min/Max frequency : 800/2000 MHz
Current frequency : 2000 MHz
Frequency governor : ondemand
Freq. scaling driver : acpi-cpufreq
Cache size : 2000.000 KB
Bogomips : 3989.98
Bogomips : 3989.98
Function Show_CPU_Info : could not read directory /proc/acpi/processor/
Make sure your kernel has ACPI processor support enabled.

What I am saying is that the kernel I use works, but the measurement programs are unreliable.

If you want to look at a pretty picture, enclosed is a screen capture.

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