lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Mikhail Maksimov <mcwillin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, all.

I've resurrected an ancient PC to try Lubuntu. Celeron 400 MHz, 256 Mb
RAM and a 20 Gb PATA HDD. Here's my impression of running different
browsers on the specified hardware.

Testing method:
1. Install Lubuntu from Lucid alpha2 preview2 iso.
2. Install additional browsers (Chromium, Midori, Arora) from default
Lucid repos.
3. For each of the four available browsers, measure startup time and
memory usage on a freshly-booted machine (no executables cached), with
homepage set to about:blank (no downloading/rendering on startup).
4. For each of the four available browsers, try to load three tabs:
- open google.com, search for "Lubuntu";
- open my gmail account, navigate to a 47-letters thread in
lubuntu-desktop list ("default browser" discussion), hit "expand all"
and wait for all to expand;
- open http://www.rbc.ru, a news site in Russian with several Flash
banners on the start page.
5. Examine memory usage afterwards.

All memory usage numbers are listed as reported by Xfce4 Taskmanager
with default settings (ie, with "Show memory used by cache as free"
option active). These values are total numbers, including any memory
used by system. A freshly-booted system with just taskmanager running
reports 50..58 Mb RAM used.

Startup times and memory usage after loading (homepage is about:blank,
if applicable):
Firefox: 13 seconds, 85 Mb.
Chromium: 8..10 s, 81 Mb.
Arora: 12 s, 78 Mb.
Midori: 17 s, 108 Mb.

Common problems noticed:
1. Standard Gmail interface is slow. After initializing, it occupies
about half CPU capacity constantly. Occasionally, several  seconds'
delays happen just as I type this text.
2. Flash literally kills everything.  Several gtk-gnash processes take
up all CPU power the machine has. Several times, I had to wait for
more than 10 minutes (!) until taskmanager window gets redrawn and I'm
able to see memory usage.

Arora problem: never finished expanding the 47 messages thread. "Still
Working" message remains shown for more than 10 minutes, and there are
about 15 messages not expanded.

Firefox problem: while expanding 47 messages, gmail shows
"unresponsive script" warning at least once. Apparently, the script is
suspended until the user makes a choice, so the loading process needs
close user attention.

Midori: initially, gmail did not identify it as a fully compatible
browser and loaded a reduced "compatible" interface. However, after
changing the reported browser type to Firefox in preferences, no
problems encountered with the full version of gmail interface.

Memory usage with three tabs loaded:
Firefox: 150..160 Mb.
Arora: 175..185 Mb.
Midori: 175..185 Mb.
Chromium: 135..145 Mb.

Conclusion: on low-grade hardware, flash and script-rich pages are
painfully slow regardless of the browser. On less than 192 Mb RAM, you
are likely to experience swapping with several pages opened in any
browser.

Given the available options, my vote is for Chromium *and* disabling
flash by default. Best is to start playing flash only after the user
clicks on it, however I'm not sure if it's possible without hacking
the browser code.

Regards,
Mikhail