← Back to team overview

lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

Re: Browsers comparison on slow machine

 

This all just shows how garbage firefox is

BOOYA!!

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 7:40 AM, Mikhail Maksimov <mcwillin@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Steve,
>
> I simply cannot deduce the difference.
>
> Fully updated my installation at about 7 AM GMT 2010-02-11. Used only
> the default repos set by installer. Yet again freshly booted system
> running just taskmanager and Midori reports 108 Mb RAM used.
>
> Midori's help->about reports: "Midori 0.2.2, GTK+ 2.19.1, WebKitGTK+
> 1.1.17"
>
> Why is it eating 30 Mb of RAM more than on your system?
>
> BTW, the 75 Mb usage with three pages seem unbelievably low. I'm going
> to retry the tests having only 128 Mb RAM left in the system.
>
> Regards,
> Mikhail
>
> On 2/11/10, Steve <yorvik.ubunto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:59:11 -0000, Mikhail Maksimov <mcwillin@xxxxxxxxx
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Tried this on my machine 266MHz PII, 128MB 66MHz ECC RAM, 6.4GB UDM2 HDD
> > Only tested Midori so far, will try others tomorrow.
> >
> > Testing method:
> > 1. Install Lubuntu from Lucid alpha2 preview2 iso.
> > As above fully updated as of 10:20 UTC 2010/2/10
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Midori: 23 s, 75MB
> >
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Same problem and solution
> >
> > Memory usage with three tabs loaded:
> > Firefox: 150..160 Mb.
> > Arora: 175..185 Mb.
> > Midori: 175..185 Mb.
> > Chromium: 135..145 Mb.
> >
> > Midori: 74MB
> >
> > 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop
> > Post to     : lubuntu-desktop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop
> > More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> >
> >
> > --
> > Steve
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop
> > Post to     : lubuntu-desktop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop
> > More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop
> Post to     : lubuntu-desktop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>

References